Bluescreen when ofp crashes, no text?

[Landorin 0]

Hi all,

I took a longer break in OFP and now that I am back it crashes very often when playing online. The only hardware thing that was changed was the graphics card (first: Nvidia Geforce 4, now: ATI Radeon 9600), XP hasnt been reinstalled since then.

Before making suggestions of what could be causing the problems, I would like to point out what my real problem is:

I discovered that you can find out what is causing the problem a lot easier with the help of the bluescreen. So I turned on the bluescreen (so the PC doesnt reboot right away) but all that comes up is a blue screen without any text.

Is there a way how to save the bluescreen text into a file before reboot or any other way to get to see it?

If not, what are my alternatives? I heard there is some kind of memory dump possibility, similar to OFP, too?

Without the bluescreen I have no idea what could be causing the problem, especially when the game worked all fine last time I played it (yeah I would guess on the new graphics card bu you cant tell really, can you?).

[Placebo 31]

What drivers you using?

What AGP Aperture size?

What version of Opf?

Blue Screen doesn't necessarily help you solve the problem

[Landorin 0]

But it might tell me where to start. ;)

But ok, let's continue in two ways... I keep up my first question about rescuing the BSOD text (or alternative ways of limiting the possible causes) and the normal way of solving a problem as you just asked for it. ;)

1) I used the search function, no result regarding the BSOD text issue

2) I read the troubleshooting FAQ

3) result: yes I do have an AMD and a VIA chipset but that is probably not causing the problem because the game ran fine last time I played it

4) now the computer stuff, your questions first:

Driver: Via4in1 4.43 (recommended for the KT133 chipset from what I read) I think, not sure if it is 4.43 (where do I see that) but if I remember right that was it

AGP Aperture Size: 64 (never changed that)

Issue occurs both on 1.91 and 1.96 Beta

AMD 1.4 GHz Athlon

512 MB SDRAM

enough hardisk space

1 or 2 GB virtual memory

VIA Chipset (AK-74 EC mainboard from DFI)

ATI Radeon 9600 Pro 128 MB (official ATI driver, version??? no clue but I think it said Catalyst 3.7? the file is called "wxp-w2k-7-93-030812a1-010736c.exe") before the break I took from OFP I had an Nvidia Geforce 4.

I fear the crashlogs of OFP wont help either since I believe the game cant write down the error since the BSOD comes up real quick. :/

The game ran real fine, as i said before, even with AGP set to 4x. The only thing that changed is the graphics card and the few changed display settings within the game; I had to set a different resolution (1280x1024, 16 bit, high detail). Also I disabled sound hardware acceleration (but it crashed before that too) to avoid static noise bug.

If you need any additional information let me know.

edit: odd Windows claims I use cataliyst 3.1! That sounds VERY old if I am not mistaken?

[Placebo 31]

edit: odd Windows claims I use cataliyst 3.1! That sounds VERY old if I am not mistaken?

Very, very old Links to Cat 4.3, try them and see if you still get blue screen

[Landorin 0]

All right, I did that, I played a game (went a bit too quick, was a real stupid map, real CS like  ). I got a BSOD, however, I didnt get it in game but when I was about to exit the game completely. This time the BSOD showed text (BAD_POOL_CALLER)

This is what the internet has to say about this error:

"A kernel-mode process or driver incorrectly attempted to perform memory operations. Typically, a faulty driver or buggy software causes this"

Well, I did not uninstall the driver before I reinstalled the new Cat 4.3 driver (a friend of mine said it doesnt matter), any suggestions?  

By the way, the new driver shows a lot of new menus and functions, really interesting. ;) I didn't touch anything though (most of the new stuff doesnt tell me much).

Update: ok I played a bit more and it crashed again while playing, seems the game crashes always about the same time when playing (havent counted, my guess is like 10 min after mission starts it crashes). Got the BSOD again without text.

Again I still believe it got something to do with the graphics card or with its drivers (as said, that was the only big change lately).

[Placebo 31]

Did you uninstall your old card completely? Remove every trace of the old drivers? If you're not sure download drivercleaner and use that

[turms 0]

Could this be from a broken memory? Do you have crashes with other games also? You should try a program called memtest, or similar, to test your ram.

[Landorin 0]

I dont have any problems with any other game (especially more resource demanding games work fine) and OFP used to work properly.  

I did remove the old driver first by using its uninstall program. I also got the idea that maybe something was left and causes the problem, what is that drivercleaner?

[turms 0]

I dont have any problems with any other game (especially more resource demanding games work fine) and OFP used to work properly.  

I did remove the old driver first by using its uninstall program. I also got the idea that maybe something was left and causes the problem, what is that drivercleaner?

Quote[/b] ]what is that drivercleaner

Search with google...

What are your computers temperatures? (you can find out from BIOS)

[Placebo 31]

Yeah sorry I assumed you'd do a google search with you sounding savvy

You can get it here

[Landorin 0]

Yeah I normally would, guess I was too tired to pay attention really.    I just hope that program won't mess up the entire system. If that doesnt work I guess I might try a reinstallation of Windows.  

I will come back and report about my progress. So far, thank you very much for your help.

[Landorin 0]

Ok did that, there were indeed nvidia files left. I deleted all of them (also did cab cleaner) as well as the ATI stuff... installed catalyst 4.3 but problem remains. I run out of ideas.

I heard there is a way that windows can log every crash and its causes somehow (event logs or so)? Would that help? If yes, how do I get that working?

[Placebo 31]

It's somewhere in system properties, go to control panel, double click the system icon, it's in there somewhere, I don't use XP myself, more trouble than it's worth, went over to 2k, haven't looked back since

[Landorin 0]

Well I do know where it is but not how to use it.

Anyways, I did get a last idea... I still have Windows 98 installed (used to play OFP on that since it seemed more stable than in XP). So I used driver cleaner on 98, installed the latest ATI driver and the game works all fine, at least I played a few online rounds for a longer time without crashing. So far the problem does not occur... VERY odd. :P Anything specific I should compare between 98 and XP settings or OFP settings? So far the OFP out of game settings seem to be identical... wasnt XP supposed to be the more stable system in regard to Win9x?