VOGONS


GeForce warning?

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First post, by TRGrrrl

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Just a simple nongeeky TR fan trying to get Glidos working with TombRaider, and in the instructions it says to see the warning on the home page about GeForce cards, but I've read the home page and don't see any warning. Anyone know about this?

Reply 1 of 13, by Glidos

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This was a problem just with one driver version. Its okay now. I obviously need to update the web pages.

Reply 2 of 13, by TRGrrrl

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Thanks much. Still trying to get Glidos working, and if I can will gladly pay the 10 bucks for your terrific work on this program. Can't imagine that you're making a lot of money on this - must be a labor of love. You're a prince.

Reply 3 of 13, by TRGrrrl

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Used the Install Wizard and TombRaider is working. Except for some occasional minor hesitations during game play it seems to be runninng just fine. If I can't figure out what is causing this and correct it, I can live with it. Looks terrific! Thanks, GliDOS, 10 bucks coming to you! By the way, if I can get this running, then probably just about anybody ought to be able to do it. You've made it really easy.

Reply 4 of 13, by James Nix

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Yes there really is a blues song of that name.

Glidos and VDMSound work fine with my Nvidia GeForce2 MX/MX400 on an XP Home installation (Sony VAIO). I too was concerned about the warning but ignored it with no problem.

If by hesitation you mean a lag time between sound and video, I have the same symptom and adjustments in VDMSound haven't helped so far.

I also have a 'hesitation' in my controls which I think may be caused by a slow sample rate setting in VDMSound but I'm really unsure as of yet.

So if you hit on something, please post it and I'll do the same.

But like you I'm VERY happy with the overall results. Thanks to all at Glidos and VDMSsound for allowing TR1 to be played on the new machines.

😎

Muad Dib

Reply 5 of 13, by Glidos

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I've heard that delay in the audio can sometimes be lessened by setting up TR to think it has one of the simpler sound blasters, rather than the SondBlaster16.

Reply 6 of 13, by TRGrrrl

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By hesitation, I mean everything freezes for just a second or two, movement and sound, but then starts up again.

Reply 7 of 13, by James Nix

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Definitely different than my symptoms. Everything, audio and video, pauses then starts again ........

With no other info, I can freely make suggestions which you have probably already checked.

1) Look for an application /system routine running periodically/scheduled. (Antivirus software likes to do this).

Win XP - disable the indexing service.
Win 98 - Uninstall FastFind if it's there.

2) Exit all applications. Ensure no resident network packages are "waking" up in the background to try to get to the network (Spyware/Adware likes to do this).

If that doesn't help.

3) Create a stripped down "clean" startup configuration. Use MSCONFIG (Start>Run>MSCONFIG) to disable all startup application except those necessary (be careful). Problem go away? Add each startup application back one at a time and re-test to identify the culprit.

4) Are you page faulting? Windows LUUUUUUUVS memory and hates owners that don't feed it enough.

Good luck!

Muad Dib

Reply 8 of 13, by gidierre

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TRGrrrl :

but what nVidia drivers version do you have installed ?
Personally I've seen dramatic variations occur with graphic driver changes.

At any rate, lately it's Detonator 44.xx for WinXP with a nVidiaGeForce 2 card. No "hesitation" whatsoever that I can see as I play TR1 and TR UB.

Last edited by gidierre on 2003-11-04, 17:09. Edited 1 time in total.

Reply 9 of 13, by James Nix

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I got mine "straight from the factory" at:

http://www.nvidia.com

Follow the "Download Drivers" link from there.

My version/filename was:

45.23_win2kxp_english_whql.exe

But the current one on the download site is:

52.16_win2kxp_english_whql.exe

Hmm...... maybe I need to download again...

It is an 8.7 Mbyte file that is supposedly a "universal" driver download for Nvidia GeForce cards on Win XP systems and includes the nView component as well.

I'm still testing with settings but it definitely has something to do with the VDMSound setup system setup if VDMSound is capturing the gameport. For instance at times Lara will perform 2-3 rolls on a "single" button press.

Now the dilemma, if I decrease the polling (sampling) period will the software interpret an extended button press as even more multiple button presses (Bad news if she's trying to roll out of the way or roll and shoot!). On the other hand if I increase the polling rate, she might not see the button press at all! It is just not interrupt driven is the problem. According to VDMSound's own description, the software "samples the port", I think.

I'm still testing.

Does anyone know how to set an executable to run at an elevated priority always? I'd like to try raising VDMSounds' priority to test with. I know you can raise it in task manager AFTER the EXE is runnning. but can it be raised as a default setting when the EXE is intitiated? There's gotta be a way.

At any rate performance is acceptable, and I'm glad I can play it at all.

😎

Muad Dib

Reply 10 of 13, by TRGrrrl

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James - At Microsoft Script Center you can get a script that should allow you to do what you want to VDMSound. This is the link, tho I guess I can't put an actual link here so you'll have to cut and paste.

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/treeview/def … ess/default.asp

Should have said earlier, but I'm running Win2000 with service pack 4, Athlon 1GHz processor, 320 MB RAM, and nVidia GeForce 2 card. Have the latest drivers, have turned off antivirus, etc, tried all suggestions you mentioned. Lara still hesitates sometimes. Not a big problem, minor annoyance. Haven't had time to work on this for a few days, as I have much bigger problems trying to make a Thief fan mission work - not working at all after two days of struggle, but that's another story.

Too bad we don't get paid for gaming, huh? (At least I don't, maybe you do...) Sometimes trying to make games work properly seems to be a full-time job!

Reply 11 of 13, by TRGrrrl

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Oh, hey, that did show up as a link...

Reply 12 of 13, by Rild

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HI, this has little to do with a Geforce warning but I have been able to reproduce the hesitation thing on machines , I think it has to do with bottlenecks in IO transtransferes.

If you have tried all the vid stuff to no avail the problem might lie with the HD
It could be that the HD is getting old and worn out or is really full or very fragmented . Try defragging or freeing up some drive space .

A couple of other thoughts,
check mobo drivers
winodws loading incorrect mobo drivers :
Not very common anymore but windows use to ( not sure about 2000/nt , W98 definitely does ) not load some manufacturers drivers correctly (especially in cases of nonintel stuff like the AMD 751chipset) . Normally, using the 'wrong'drivers, everything will work O.K. except the system IO stuff can get laggy (hesitates or jerks occasionally).

BAd ram :
could have a fault in the ram causing swapfile/cd access more often than is otherwise neccesary.

Winodws might be memory horking , you can get a memory utility to free up windows memory from :

www.majorgeeks.com

you can also get a cd/hd speed tester, and ram checker there

the last thing I can think of that would hiccup the system is a joystick polling from the pci bus ( all the old joysticks that connect to the sound card ) if you are using one of the "old" joysticks try removing it and running TrGlidos.

But to be honest I think that the problem may have something to do with the way glidos handles texture managment as I have seen it on machines using a 100FSB but not on faster FSB (133 or over) machines, though faster machines seem to have a lag in the usb controller response time so again I suspect some io polling issue)

(ps. a good virtual cd dvd utility can be found here : http://www.gotogs.com/products/CGV50.htm
free for thirty days 😉 , it lets you set the drive letter to whatever you want)

hope that helps

Reply 13 of 13, by Glidos

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Sorry, for some reason the forum hasn't emailed me until now to tell me there were more posts on this subject.

Anyway, if this is about a momentary freeze that happens about every 2 minutes, then its to do with the way Glidos fixes the CD audio problem under 2000 and XP. The freeze happens every time TR tells Glidos to restart the background audio track. It should be no more than about 1/4 of a second. If its around 2 seconds, then that sounds like a problem with the CD drive.

One day I'll get around to putting the audio handling on a separate thread, and then it wont cause the glitch.