Many solutions found...please read!

[weborific 0]

Hi.  My friend recently lent me his Flashpoint and Resistance CD's so I could play with him and his buddies.  What an experience I had tracking the bugs!!  I've read SOOOOO much (including MANY posts on this board) and tried SOOOO many things but never read any definitive answers.  I finally weeded-out all my bugs and decided to share them with you.  PLEASE POST IF ANY OF THESE HAS WORKED FOR YOU!!  And don't blame Codemasters...I'm sure they're trying their best, but as you'll soon find out, my biggest problems had nothing to do with the game itself.....Read-on.

1) GAME STOPS LOADING AND ALL YOU SEE IS A BLACK (OR ORANGE) SCREEN: This is most likely caused by addons requiring a later version of resistance than you have currently installed.  If you don't want to update, place your addons (except O.PBO and O_WP.PBO) in a seperate folder and re-start the game.  If the game loads fine, exit the game and put several addons at a time back in the RES\ADDONS folder and see if the game loads.  Keep doing this unitil you weed-out which addons stall the game at startup.

2) CANNOT MAP MEMORY error: Install and use resistance beta patch 1.92.  It solves this problem.  Note that installing the 1.92 patch will create a NEW executable file called FLASHPOINT192BETA.EXE which must be run to start the game.  So loading any shortcuts you may have already made will only load an older version of resistance.  If you plan on playing multiplayer, all players must upgrade to 1.92.  Make sure you fully read the 1.92 documentation.

3) 2 MOUSE CURSORS:  This problem came out of nowhere, until I found that it had to do with me changeing the REFRESH RATE in the VIDEO OPTIONS within Resistance (NOT Windows refresh rate settings).  If I lower the REFRESH RATE to 70, I get 2 cursors, but not at 72.  Increase the refresh rate 1 step at a time until the secondary cursor is gone.

4) SCRATCHY OR STATIC SOUND:  Try enabling EAX (if your soundcard supports it) in the AUDIO OPTIONS within Resistance.  That worked for me, but may not work for you.  Try it and see.

5) IRQL NOT LESS OR EQUAL BLUE SCREEN OF DEATH: I actually got this several times in XP and much more often while playing Flashpoint.  The errors pointed to 1 of the 3 following files: CTAUDIO.SYS, SYSAUDIO.SYS, or NTXPGP.SYS.  Since the first 2 files listed here are audio related, I was suspecting my soundcard (ESPECIALLY SINCE I HAVE SB LIVE! AND VIA 686 CHIPSET).  The third file I listed (NTXPGP.SYS) was found in my GRAVIS folder.  After doing many searches for XP Gravis problems, I came across only 1 result (in German, no less!) where someone had the same problem.  He uninstalled Gravis Experience and the problem went away.  I left the software installed but stopped Gravis from loading GRXP4EXE.EXE at startup (hit CTRL-ALT-DEL and check your processes to see if it's running).  I tested it that way for a week and NEVER got another IRQL NOT LESS OR EQUAL error again.  Note that other software/hardware can cause this error (EX: Roxio CD CREATOR 4 is not compatible with XP, un-install or upgrade if you've got it).  

6) GAME CRASHES TO DESKTOP (ESPECIALLY IN MULTIPLAYER): This ended-up being an older NVIDIA driver that I had installed.  NVIDIA released new drivers (for GEFORCE and others) August 17.  They work great for me and I can finally play multiplayer!!  Try them if you've got an NVIDIA card or a GEFORCE card.  If not, find the latest drivers for your specific display adapter.  If you still crash, you may want to:

- update your motherboard bios (newer releases handle GEFORCE cards much better)

- update your motherboard drivers

- set your AGP DRIVE STRENGTH to EF in your bios

7) SYSTEM BECOMES EXTREMELY SLOW WHEN PLAYING OR CLOSING GAME: I had no idea what was going on.  I exited and Windows came to a crawl.  There weren't any unusual processes running in the background and my CPU usage was hitting almost 90% while doing NOTHING!  I was plaing multiplayer when it occured again.  My video and sound were both extremely choppy.  I decided to hit ALT-ESCAPE (brings you back to Windows) and disable my Soundblaster soundcard in the DEVICE MANAGER to see if it was causing the problems.  But when I clicked the PLUS next to SOUND, VIDEO AND GAME CONTROLLERS, I saw that Gravis Gameport was listed (twice, actually) and decided to disable those first.  I disabled 1 and my system was still slow.  When I disable the other of the 2 Gravis entries, my system was back to normal.  That's the problem (AGAIN).Remove your Gravis gamepad and un-install Gravis experience and see if your problems stop.  I'm shocked that Gravis has nothing on the problems that their Experience software is having in XP.

PS: Hey, Francois.....I'm not crashing anymore!!  Sorry for putting-up with that!

[Placebo 28]

Now that is a splendid first post

[weborific 0]

Thanks, Placebo!  I only hope someone out there will find this info useful.  I registered on this site just so i could post these tips.  What really ticked me off was that even after registering and logging in, I kept getting messages telling me that I didn't have permission to create a new thread or even to post a reply.  It took a few days before I was able to post

Since the only problem my system had was with Flashpoint, I partially blamed Codemasters for buggy software (at first).  Then I looked at Microsoft...then SoundBlaster...then VIA....but I never would have suspected my Gravis gamepad!  And I'm sure the guys at Codemasters have been scratching their heads trying to figure-out why people are having so many problems, but it is completely IMPOSSIBLE for them to know all the hardware and software and patches (ETC, ETC) that people have installed on their systems so they can narrow the problems.  Besides, even when people post their system specs, how many people include their gamepad??  

Since I'm new to this whole Flashpoint thing, can someone tell me if this an official Codemasters (or Bohemia??) forum?  Do the creators read these posts?  I want these findings posted on every damn Flashpoint board, website and FAQ cause I don't want anybody to go through all the hours I've spent searching for answers.....  Trust me, I don't care about the credit (nobody even knows my real name) and I'm sure I'm not the only person on the planet to find these solutions, but I was truly disgusted at how many countless posts listed the SAME PROBLEMS and NEVER and solutions!  It made me more and more angry at Codemasters (to be honest).  I owe them an apology.  Sorry, Codemasters!  I'm actually PLAYING the game instead of troubleshooting it and I'm so HAPPY!   Let's not stop here, though.  These were solutions that worked for ME and MY system.  I want people to post here what worked (and DIDN'T work) for them.  We need to end the constant bombardment of posts asap.  Happy gaming!!

[Placebo 28]

This is the official Bis forums, it has no affiliation with Codemasters, and yes a number of Bis staff read the forum

[Outrider 0]

1) GAME STOPS LOADING AND ALL YOU SEE IS A BLACK (OR ORANGE) SCREEN: This is most likely caused by addons requiring a later version of resistance than you have currently installed.  If you don't want to update, place your addons (except O.PBO and O_WP.PBO) in a seperate folder and re-start the game.  If the game loads fine, exit the game and put several addons at a time back in the RES\ADDONS folder and see if the game loads.  Keep doing this unitil you weed-out which addons stall the game at startup.

I had problem number one but I have the latest version of the game yet it still gives me the black to muddy green screens. I figured it was down to the amount of addons I had but I had masses more (over 1.5Gb) in the past.

[Outrider 0]

I do however have a fix for the people that get errors saying that the graphics card can't be initialised (or something similar).

The problem I found on my system is direct X hating any drivers that do not have WHQL on them. I have Direct X 9.0b and I have to use my oldest drivers because they are the only ones I can get for windows 98 or ME with WHQL on them. I have a GeForce 4 Ti 4200 made by Gainward and I have downloaded drivers from Gainward and Nvidia when people suggest getting the latest drivers. But these only make Direct X go kaput and say you don't have a compatible graphics card. Even when I tell it to not search for WHQL it still doesn't like the non-WHQL drivers.

Also another fix: for people using high power Athlon XP eg 2000+ but do NOT have any RAM higher than PC133 you will experience a nasty bug in all games where it freezes and the sound goes around in circles. At first I thought it to be a sound problem but that wasn't it. Then I upgraded all my drivers for everything but my graphics card (due to the above problem) to no avail. Only when I upgraded my RAM from PC133 to PC2100 did the problems stop. It has something to do with the nice fast processors going to fast for the older slow access RAM.

[weborific 0]

AWSOME! I'm glad to see people writing what worked for them. Outrider, some people mentionned problems with too many addons and I removed some and also set my swap file to 1 Gig....didn't work for me, but it's something you may want to try. Did you try the suggestion of removing all addons and putting them back a few at a time?? Maybe there's a corrupt addon or maybe one that conflicts with another?? Anyway, good call on the memory and DirectX problems!!

[ruff 102]

i have the same specs as you outrider but i aint that good with graphics settings etc

my little bro knows more than me but he wont freakin help coz of his hsc

my ofp freezes wen im playing the new bas map

i made mod folders, erased addons, to no avail

i have amd anthalon 2100 and 512mb

dunno n e thing about drivers but i know i got direct x 9

the latest ones as my bro tells me

it also used to crash alot b4 but reinstalled resistance and it stopped

but now its freakin back

i even ended up using low everything ,textures, view distance preferences everything low except the total memory

and the biggest bs of all is that it only happens in ofp

all high graphics games are fine neva crashes or freezes

[Outrider 0]

Does your OFP freeze and do a sound loop where you here the same thing over and over again? Does this also happen in other games?

If this is so check your RAM sticks. One of them could be out of place. I had this problem and when I swapped my 2 RAM sticks around, and also gave the sockets a blow to get rid of dust, the problem went away. Unfortunately I had uninstalled everything apart from Windows and a game that it happened very quickly in before I had found a solution.

I don't know whether this will also sort the muddy green screen problem. It might because it might be where OFP thinks you have a certain amount of RAM then trys to use it yet can't. Just an idea.

[ruff 102]

in the preferences i use 1000mb

ofp just freezes, it doesnt make a sound wat so eva

all i can do i reset

it only happens in this great game, all other games are fine and theyre recent games like bhd, sof2 and theres no problems, only this game

my old comp didnt even freeze once

and that was a p450

i especially got this comp last year strictly for this game

thanks for the help

n e more ideas?

oh yeah where do i find my agp settings?

im gonna try everything out

[ruff 102]

tried agp 2

it still froze

dunno y

i dont get lag

it just freezes

randomly

it seemed smoother but it froze

i know some ppl in the forums have crappier comps than me and they can complain only on lag while me it doesnt lag it just freezes

i think if i play for 15minutes it will freeze

[Outrider 0]

I believe your problem is because you have 512Mb RAM yet have set the RAM in the preferences to 1Gb. Bring it down to 512Mb or below. Operation Flashpoint thinks you have more RAM than you really do.

[ruff 102]

yeah

tried it, still crashed

no lag at all but still i crash

i give up

just gotta play ofp like this

random freezes

maybe my bro was right

its the game not the cpu

[Outrider 0]

Could you post your exact system specs please? Motherboard, sound card, graphics card (chipset and maufacturer), processor, RAM (both the amount you have and what speed the RAM is i.e. PC133, PC2100 etc).........

If I had more knowledge of what system you have I might be able to help you. I have had three different types of game crashes/freezes and two of them are to do with RAM!

[ruff 102]

Specs

2100 amd + xp

gforce 4 ti 4200

512 ddr

pc2100

motherboard 8k5a series 2 epox

agp 2 is helping abit though

only forze twice so far

[weborific 0]

Ruff, can you up the voltage to your video card a touch through the bios?? Try if you can.

[ruff 102]

isnt that overclocking my system

dont really wanna ove clock it

well

recently 1.94b solved my freeze crash problems

but now its problems galore, mostly from freeze crash

im lucky to be able to play for half an hour b4 i restart my comp

[weborific 0]

Ruff, setting your voltages higher is not over-clocking your system, but merely ensuring your video card (or cpu, depending which one you up the voltage on) gets the voltage it needs to run. Although right now, i just spent 2 hours troubleshooting my friend's computer (updated bios, motherboard drivers, increased voltages, EVERYTHING) and he still crashes in a particular spot. Turns out he's also using something (i think it's a vehicle) from the BAS addons. It's the only time he crashes. I think there's something wrong with BAS. Can anybody confirm this??

[NZXSHADOWS 0]

I was messing with the video settings and turned everything all the way up and had some other things running in the background and Flashpoint :R crashed so when I started it back up it would just freeze at the "Wait a moment" screen.I did abunch of stuff to get it to work like removing all 3rd party addons and use all the latest beta patchs,But it would still freeze.I even delete the "Flashpoint.cfg. file an made a new one with the preference.exe,Still nogo.So what I then done was delete my user folder and it started right up.I dont know what caused this problem.But Im sure it was on my end.So if you are freezing at startup try deleting you user folder.Worked for me.

[ruff 102]

it still freezes even when not using addons

and which is really bad becoz when i freeze it doesnt record it in the rpt or context bin

ive just reinstalled ofp and deleted the whole folder

then i played it, it froze and wen i restarted there again my folder showed no rpt or context bin which therefore the freeze wasnt recorded which is really bad coz this mean it cant be fixed in 1.94

the freezing even started in 1.91

and i couldnt upthe voltage on the bios

so i guess ill b lucky to play ofp without freezing for half an hour

the weirdest thing also is that my ofp never froze or crashed to desktop when i had 1.85 nor did it freeze or crash on my old comp

[suma 8]

Quote[/b] ]and which is really bad becoz when i freeze it doesnt record it in the rpt or context bin

Some freezes are recorded in the crashfiles - depending on how deep in the system the freeze is. If you are able to Ctrl-Alt-Del, the OFP should be able to record the crashfiles. Try waiting 2 minutes before restarting the computer, and then check if there was anything recorded.

[ruff 102]

cool

ill try next time

and webhorrific

i can up my voltage but dunno which 1 i should

im using a 300watt power but dont know wat to increase

is it the voltage and if s which 1

[ruff 102]

still didnt record it

but ive been doing some research

and i think ofp heats up my card too much compared to other games therefore it freezes, it only happens to ofp

therefore i took off the 2 side panels of my motherboard and put an electric fan at the side

i left it on for an hour and played less demanding games like desert conflict 2 and cs on my pc

then i played ofp 2 or 3 hours later and tested it on bas tonal and with default view distance flying over jungles and airports

so far no crash, i played ofp for an hour no crash!

just wanna help ppl out there with same problems as me

solution:

put more fans or just get your average fan and take off the 2 side panels of ur comp and place the fan right next to it and viola!

specs

2100amd xp

gf4 ti 4200

512ddr

if u got the same specs and havin probs try wat i did

[cornhelium 0]

Hey Ruff,

I have the XP2100+ too and it definitely runs hot. I also have the side off and a couple of special fans. With a prolonged OFP session my motherboard reports around 68C (though the new BIOS is set to add around 10C to the real figure). With both sides on, and the tower closed away in the computer desk, I'd be getting into the high 70's easily.

XP2100+ was the last in the 'Palomino core' series before AMD went to a smaller die size (Thouroughbred core), and I think they were getting near the limits of the chip. In fact, they also do the XP2100+ in the new Thoroughbred core - if you bought yours after say March 2003 it is probably a Thoroughbred, but I'm betting you have the older Palomino core like me and run toasty

Cheers - cornhelium

[ruff 102]

yep

b4 march

got it last year

but it doesnt heat up on other games though

it can handle all games without the extra fan but ofp

i think its just our comp is too fast for the game now

in summer the fan has got to be on or itll freeze on games like cs after a couple of hours