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Greg

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Posts posted by Greg

  1. Posted

    Hi, Sorry to disappoint you on your first post to this forum.  You have just experienced the joy of owning OFP and a Creative SoundBlaster Live.  The problem you experience is related to the SoundBlaster drivers and the sound played by the 'shilka' anti-aircraft gun that shot at your chopper.  It is 100% reproducable and BIS are not interested in fixing it.  Neither are CreativeLabs.  Both can share the blame since it occurs in no other game and on no other hardware/software combination.  Do a search on blue screen crashes, shilka, sound blaster and you will see many similar posts.  Unfortunately the search engine of this forum is pathetic.  I couldn't even find some of my own posts when searching with exact words and phrases that I have a copy of.  I had hoped to send you a link with possible solutions.  You can pretty much do these things:

    o Use a really old SBLive driver (and enjoy those bugs).

    o Turn on Hardware Acceleration from within the OFP game. (and enjoy the distortion).

    o Don't use the SoundBlaster, use onboard Audio or other.

    o Don't play OFP.

    Pretty sad options really.

  2. Posted

    Tried to turn off hardware acceleration under configuration panel/sounds/advanced ?

    I just tried this... LOL,  I suppose this does *fix* the problem.  If I move the slider down one notch, the EAX option in OFP is permanently disabled, if I move the slider down completely, the HW Acceleration option in OFP is permanently disabled as well.

    Oh yeah, Mister Frag, I'm using OFP:R v1.91.

  3. Posted

    I recently started enabling Hardware sound and EAX in all my games because I switched from SBLive which uses 10% or more CPU time for sound processing to nForce2 motherboard with sound storm that does hardware 3d sound almost for free. I'm happily using EAX in other games including Unreal Tournament 2003 but when I turn it on in OFP:R...

    It starts with loud sounds like trees being crushed and tanks driving, then accumulates more and more sounds, so after a few seconds there is just a huge roar of deafening noise.

    Yes, I've checked the FAQ and searched this forum to no avail. I notice at least one other post reporting the same problem on a similar board.

    System:

    Epox 8RDA+ (nForce2)

    WindowsXP

    Athlon XP2100

    512mb

    Geforce3ti200

  5. Posted

    Turning off HW accel in Windows can help the sblive driver, but it then uses up to 10x more CPU time. Just what we need.. slow the game down some more.

    What makes OFP special regarding the SBLive drivers is that the 'shilka' firing sound effect causes a blue screen crash in WinXP. The problem is a combination of OFP and SBLive. OFP does something that driver can't handle. No other sound cards suffer the same problem, and no other games are as unstable as OFP. If we could get rid of, or change the shilka firing sound, we'd eliminate the single biggest SBLive problem. The rest are minor issues, like crackling sounds, incorrect 3D effect on distant sounds etc.

    Are you listening BIS? Fix that Shilka sound and make a bunch of SBLive owners happy. Please.

  6. Posted

    </span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (Dadster @ 12 May 2003,02:16)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">Maybe I'm missing something here but if you disable your sound device in Device Manager don't you lose sound?   confused.gif

    But as for the Soundblaster Live I had to ditch mine to play certain OFP missions.  I would get to a point where the sound would either turn to slow motion or cut off entirely depending on which drivers I was using.  I tried both the generic XP drivers (slow down) and the latest Soundblaster Live drivers (no sound) and nothing would work.  Eventually I bought a new Hercules sound card and have had no problems with any programs since.   smile.gif

    Dadster<span id='postcolor'>

    Yep, the point of disabling sound is to troubleshoot if that device/driver is causing slowdowns, or other problems.

    Yep, you experienced the same OFP + SBLive "no sound followed by crash" that myself and many others in this forum report.  Since neither BIS, nor Creative Labs are interested in fixing this easily reproducable problem, it's up to you to solve it.  I have discussed this particular problem and the possible solutions in other threads.

  7. Posted

    The other day I posted in this topic: http://www.flashpoint1985.com/cgi-bin....7;st=30

    And noted that OFP was unplayable on a 1.3ghz duron with 256mb RAM. That surprised even myself since that is 2x the spec of the machine I first completed OFP on. So I did some investigation and found the culprit was actually the onboard audio for the Jetway 830CH which uses the SiS chipset and is AC97 compatible.

    I disabled this audio function in the BIOS as I could not find the device in device manager. Immediately the stuttering and extreme slow frame rates went away.

    It took me 4 hours to correctly install a SoundBlaster Live in that machine due to Creative Labs disasterous drivers. If I had a dollar for every crash... Eventually I go the thing working and OFP runs quite well (in my brief test). Please don't think that using a Sound Blaster will solve your problems. The reason I had the card spare was because it was removed from my main system to make it stable.

    So folks who are suffering severe slow downs and stuttering, try disabling your sound device in 'Device Manager', and/or in your BIOS and see how you go. It it is the problem, and the only solution is to buy another sound card, please don't buy a Creative Labs product, just take my word (or do a net search) and save yourself much pain and suffering.

    Also during my tests I found that the original OFP at reasonable settings is WAY faster than OFP:R even when OFP:R has detail reduced significantly eg. very low terrain, 256x256 textures, 800m view, min visual quality etc. That was a bit sad.

  9. Posted

    Suma, could you possibly clarify your response.  Are you referring to the 'stuttering', or the significant 'slow downs' with later versions of OFP at equivalent detail settings?

    My experiences with stuttering in OFP were always caused by two related issues:

    1) Not enough memory ( < 384mb ).

    2) DMA not enabled on Hard disk.

    The relation is that #1 exagerates #2.  Also #2 freezes the whole system during disk access.

    EDIT:

    I just remembered, I have a Duron 1.2ghz, 256mb, Geforce2mx, Win98, sitting right here and OFP is totally unplayable due to stuttering and pausing, even at the lowest detail settings where the game looks like a blury blob. Completely forgot that I'd tried it on that system.

  11. Posted

    </span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (marcusm @ 04 May 2003,13:19)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">Resistance stutters, especially when i'm near

    a forest.<span id='postcolor'>

    I've heard that problem mentioned in this forum MANY times, but I've never experienced it on any of my hardware configs.

  12. Posted

    I have almost exactly the same system as toadlife:

    Athlon xp2100 (1.7)

    Geforce3ti 200 (OC'ed)

    512mb DDR PC2100

    WinXP

    I consider OFP:R to be quite playable as is, but I use these settings:

    1024x768x32

    No shadows

    900m view distance

    sliders set to max frame rate and max detail

    My system has been considerably less than this during my OFP playing. With Geforce2mx, you should be using 800x600x16 + w-buffer. With < 384mb RAM, you will get very regular and annoying pauses throughtout play. With < 700mhz CPU, you will get really slow frame rates and frustrating play.

    What concerns the people here is that the original OFP (and earlier OFP:R) runs way faster, thus providing a (often) more enjoyable experience, but we can't go back to that due to compatability issues, features and bugs.

    I think the critical HW issue with OFP is memory. You really need 512mb to play without pauses. I think the biggest compatability problem is sound, with Sound Blaster Live series cards. I thing the biggest problem with gameplay is just a multitude of tiny bugs due to the massive scope of gameplay provided from infantry to flight sim.

  13. Posted

    About the only thing Win9x used to have over Win2k/XP is that Applications could run at protection levels that allowed some things to bypass the OS rather than always go through it (or be judged by it) But... With WinXP driver model, memory management, thread management, networking, CPU code optimisation, pretty much any speed you might have had with Win9x is not appreciated due to these newer and better systems that 2k/XP present. That's just talking about straight speed, not to mention things like driver quality and support, stability, security etc. So in conclusion, you'd only ever prefer gaming on Win9x for speed, but you'd be challenged to find a majority of apps that actually run faster under it.

    Mindless Rant: That Win9x code is approaching 10 years of age and the sooner we see the back of it the better. Now, if we could only afford to upgrade windows.... Retail price of WinXp Pro where I live: $650, that's more than a brand new (budget) computer!

  14. Posted

    The 'aggressive' option shouldn't cause that kind of effect. It may cause visual problems like bits of stuff missing, or not looking as intended though.

    I believe the primary purpose of that option (at least on Geforce 3/4) is to allow the video driver to override the application (game) settings in an attempt to boost performance. That's why you're not guaranteed exactly the image the game developer intented, as the driver may 'disobey' the settings the game makes.

  15. Posted

    Are you overclocking your video memory? 1-4 pixel wide black and white dots are a distinctive sign of memory errors when the memory is clocked beyond its ability. Even if you're not OCing, try underclocking to see if it goes away, could be a faulty video card then.

    Although this problem should be apparent in other 3D programs, they occur most when the video card is under stress. I recommend the 'wolf man' demo from nVidia as the best program to stress a Geforce3/4 and test stability. That is way better than 3dmark2001 and Splinter Cell which are not bad tests.

  16. Posted

    On the bright side, careful level design appears to get around this problem, and apart from a couple of 'intense' official levels, it's mainly user missions that suffer from severe slow downs.

    Since I don't do any level editing in OFP, I am working on assumptions here (yes, those dangerous things). It appears that enemy units can be effectively idle until certain evens happen to start them up, so a mission may involve lots of enemy units, but the AI won't grind the computer if they are placed and scripted properly as only a smaller number are relevant at different times during the gameplay.

    Beyond this illumination, I still hope BIS might optimise code, fix a few more bugs and make another version before we see a sequel.

    One final suggestion to improve the game. Shadows do slow the game down a lot, but they are useful for judging things like the height of your chopper from the ground. It's a pity we can't have shadows ONLY on the players character/vehicle, and even a 'blob' shadow as a low performance option.

  17. Posted

    Assuming your system is configured optimally and you get 3DMark 2001 scores between 6500-8000, the next thing you should upgrade on that system is the video card.

    Unfortunately your choice at the moment is hard... Get a cheap Geforce4 ti4200 and Overclock it, or wait for a GeforceFX 5600pro, but that is currently slower than a Radeon 9500pro. Those are the choices for a serious gamer on a budget. Anything less won't give you the speed boost, any more is very expensive at present.

    Beyond that, you need to improve your CPU and Memory speed. So next step is NForce2/Latest Intel motherboard with faster CPU. Don't underestimate how memory speed can improve performance (particularly in games that run virtual machines or scripts like UnrealTournament).

  18. Posted

    The problem described in that article appears to occur only if the power policy changes. Perhaps that occurs during power saving activities (screen saver, hard disk power down, sleep etc.) or when the user initiates such an action. The likelyhood of this occuring during the average game of OFP would be low, and it would effect all games if it did. So I think this information won't help OFP players. But by all means, install the patch and run some synthetic and game benchmarks before and after (patching), and tell us what the effects is.

  20. Posted

    For me "unplayable" just means "unenjoyable to play". For example, I used to play a user mission The Beach Landings on my Athlon 1.2ghz with Geforce2mx. It ran fine and the only annoyance was the smoke from crashed choppers which slowed the poor Geforce2mx down every time I looked in that direction. My current system is a Athlon xp2100+ with Geforce3, but with latest OFP, that mission is literally like a slide show. The mission itself was to control a mass of US troops and prevent a huge beach invasion force arriving by air and sea. Obviosly the mission hasn't changed, only the OFP version.

  21. Posted

    I think I know what you mean. I used to play a few missions that are unplayable now, 'Beach Landings' comes to mind. The slowdown appeas to be related to A.I. maybe the new enemies are smarter, yet slower at the same time sad.gif

    Another thing to note, when you press ESC and bring up the menu. The game is now drawing more graphics than before, the original scene, plus the menu, yet it runs 3x faster, so that means updating the game itself is real slow. It is a memory and CPU hog.

    Sorry I don't have any suggestions, but I believe your stats, infact I had a few of my own a while back while trying to optimize performance.

  22. Posted

    The problem is your SBLive, not helped at all by OFP which is the only game this problem occurs in.

    Not sure if you've read my many posts on this problem. Options are something like:

    o Enable HW accel in OFP.

    o Use old SBLive driver 1 or 2 versions earlier.

    o Find other solution than SBLive eg. on board audio/upgrade etc.

    Not real nice choices, but niether Creative Labs nor BIS are interested in fixing the problem. My own solution was option 3, though 1 and 2 do work. I spent many hours trying to find a solution to this problem and can reproduce it 100%.

  23. Posted

    Yeah, I figured I'd probably screwed up some 'trigger' in the script and the mission wasn't going to progress. Pretty shoddy though. Most never ending missions are solved by accelerating time and running around the map like a headless chook until you get shot at by some injured/retreating soldier hiding within an invisible circle that marks some objective or other.

  25. Posted

    Is that enough justification to alert an enemy >30m away with a long grenade lob?

    Even if it is, should it be simulated in the interest of gameplay? I like the idea of sneaking up on a group of enemies and blowing up the lot. Otherwise I might as well just open fire with my rifle. Remember the situation I described was an enemy far away, looking the wrong way.

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