OFP freezing

[pravit 0]

Hi,

I've been running OFP on this computer for over a year and it's been fine. But lately it's been freezing strangely in both singleplayer and multiplayer - what happens is everything freezes for a couple seconds and the sound goes off(sometimes it doesn't and it just loops whatever was playing last), then I hear some noise like the player breathing, shooting, etc., then the sound goes off and it freezes again. At this point the game either returns to normal(but it then crashes much more often) or it crashes to the desktop. When crashing to the desktop, I usually don't get an error, but it occasionally says things like "CreatIndexBuffer failed" or "CreateVertexBuffer failed." I am very sure this is not due to me running out of memory - I've been playing with the same setup for over a year and have played some missions with huge amounts of people and vehicles without any problem. The same error happens even in small missions where it's just one guy running around. I tried reinstalling OFP and removing all addons, but it doesn't help.

The only major change I have made to my system recently is installing Visual Studio .NET and downloading a bunch of windows updates it said I should get(however, I am not running SP2). At first I thought low HD space might have been the culprit but I cleared out a lot of space and it still happens. I've tried logging processes as well, but the only thing I got out of that is that rundll32.exe is run right before it crashes(of course, I have no idea exactly what dll was loaded, or if that is even what is causing the problem). Lowering gfx settings, removing addons, etc. only seems to delay the inevitable - on a mission where there's only one guy, it will take about half an hour before it starts freezing, on missions with a lot of people and addons it will freeze within five minutes.

I would appreciate any help. Thanks!

Pravit

[pravit 0]

BTW - I am running a 1.4GHz Intel w/ 512MB Ram. It's a laptop with 32MB GeForce Go5200. As of now I have 6GB free on my C drive and my page file is set to 768MB. I also run OFP with the -nomap option.

[Placebo 28]

What settings do you use in Opf? What soundcard do you have? Patched to 1.96?

[pravit 0]

Settings:

1024x768

Direct3D Hardware T&L enabled

Multitexturing enabled

Framerate: 10.20

Visual quality: 7.19

Visibility: 900

Terrain detail:

Normal

Audio hardware acceleration disabled

EAX disabled

Sound: Not sure, I think "SigmaTel Audio"

I'm running 1.96.

[theavonlady 2]

The only major change I have made to my system recently is installing Visual Studio .NET and downloading a bunch of windows updates it said I should get(however, I am not running SP2).

Did you download any hardware drivers from Windows Update? I almost never do. This is especially true if you have a notebook PC. Do you?

[StealthTiger 0]

I would suggest that you've probably got a Creative Soundblaster card?!

There have been several known issues with the chip on the SB's creating loops which either overwhelm it and cause the sound to disappear, or more often than not to cause the game to freeze then crash.

I'm talking from personal experience here of not only myself but most of my clan (ODB - www.TeamODB.com    ). We managed by process of elimination and a little information (there's hardly any..or wasn't at the time!) to track the problem down to this.

I don't know if this problem was fixed by Creative on the new cards or not. Our experience was from a couple of years a go & I no longer run an SB sound card. None of us have had any further difficulties with this problem since.

[majorpwnage 0]

Settings:

Direct3D Hardware T&L enabled

I have had this problem before. Disable the Hardware T&L setting. It worked for me, and there was no noticeable loss of visual quality.

[pravit 0]

Quote[/b] ]Did you download any hardware drivers from Windows Update? I almost never do. This is especially true if you have a notebook PC. Do you?

Yep, I have a notebook. I don't think I downloaded any hardware drivers, just the security fixes they wanted me to get. But it's possible I downloaded some along with it. You think I should delete them?

Quote[/b] ]I would suggest that you've probably got a Creative Soundblaster card?!

It's possible that it is a SB clone, but as far as I can tell, I do not have a Creative Soundblaster on my computer. I've been using the same sound settings for a year with no problem.

Quote[/b] ]I have had this problem before. Disable the Hardware T&L setting. It worked for me, and there was no noticeable loss of visual quality.

I'll try that. But what irks me is that I have been using this exact same setup for the past year and only now it's screwing up. Do you think I should send an email to BIS with all that info?

[theavonlady 2]

If you have a notebook, go to the manufacturers site and download and install the latest BIOS, graphics and audio driver versions for your configuration.

[pravit 0]

No luck, just downloaded the latest BIOS, graphics, and audio drivers, and it's still freezing up on me. I have not tried disabling Hardware T&L yet, though, but something is telling me that Flashpoint here is not at fault. I was looking through the .rpt file and it seems User32.dll is the source of the error fairly often(this would coincide with my observation that rundll32.exe gets run right before the error, most of the time). Any help, BIS?

[turms 0]

Whats your pc´s heats?

[pravit 0]

Erm, I don't know. How do I find the internal temperature of my PC? I assume it isn't overheating, because it's been working fine for quite a while and I don't think some windows updates would push it over the edge.

[USSRsniper 0]

UI have same problem, OFp freezes like for 10 seconds, music keeps repeating and sound too, sometimes It freezes but i have to reboot PC.

Compuetr not overheating.

All new drivers for hardware.

Sound card Creative Audigy 2

never had problem like this.

is this going to help? reinstalling OFP, last time i did it it was January 2004. Or defragment Hard Drive? did it last time in March 2004

[Placebo 28]

pravit what graphics card does your computer have? To monitor your system temperatures try something like motherboard monitor

USSRsniper Jan2004 was quite some time ago, run the defragmenter analysis, it'll tell you if you need to defrag. How much ram do you have? Are you using any anti-virus/anti-spyware apps that you leave running whilst playing?

[StealthTiger 0]

Reinstalling will not make any difference it will just keep happening.. I've been there!

Defragging etc will help your computer run more smoothly and should be done regularly especially if you're downloading and deleting large files. But again it won't get rid of the problem.

The problem is it's one of those intermittent things - sometimes it does it sometimes it doesn't.

Neither myself or the members of my team have had the problem since we swapped our Sound Cards out..

[pravit 0]

I'm using a GeForce FX Go5200. And thanks for the link the program.

[USSRsniper 0]

Fixed my problem.. reinstalled OFP

[pravit 0]

Lucky you. Mine is still broken.

[Placebo 28]

Just read your first post again and a couple of suggestions came to mind (nothing earth shattering sadly), do you use anti-spyware/anti-virus? Updated those and scanned your system lately? How old is your ram? Might be an idea to give that a check see if it's ok, there are a couple of different ram testers to try......

http://www.memtest86.com/

http://downloads-zdnet.com.com/3001-2094-1534814.html

http://oca.microsoft.com/en/windiag.asp

[USSRsniper 0]

Pravit

hmmm, what motherboard you have?

OFp can freez like this with certain motherboards ;)

[pravit 0]

About anti-spyware, I give the system the old Ad-Aware scan every now and then and HJT scans too when I feel suspicious but I haven't found anything lately. Anti-virus is just a fairly outdated Symantec Antivirus, though when my computer is doing suspicious things I use one of the online scans. I'll do another virus scan.

I just scanned my memory and everything seems to be in order. Also sent an e-mail to BIS but they haven't replied yet.

[Placebo 28]

Do you leave it running all the time? Try stopping it then play Flashpoint, see if there's any difference.

[pravit 0]

Disabled anti-virus, no difference. It seems almost as if I'm running out of memory, but I know that I have enough memory because I've had it set up like this for quite a while. Is BIS going to respond to my e-mail?

[pravit 0]

I've been playing Dynamic Afghanistan(great work, btw) for the last few hours and OFP hasn't frozen up yet. The solution? Revert my graphics card drivers to the original ones. While installing Visual Studio along with the security updates I happened to download a driver update for my graphics card. Apparently OFP didn't like the new drivers, for whatever reason. Now, instead of freezing up entirely, there's just a mometary lag which quickly goes away.

[fighter 0]

@ pravit

Hi friend

Try this:

Click in OFP directory on "FlashpointPreferences" > and try these settings:

> Direct 3D HW T&L

> Your VideoCard

> 1280x1024x32 or 1024x768x32 (according to your Monitor)

Next important step > click on Advanced (settings) :

> Textures > decrease textures size to 2048x2048  (for cocpits, objects and landscape)

There was by my PC the same ("freezing") problem and these settings resolved  it.

Disable hardware acceleration and EAX for SounbdBlaster Live !

fighter