SuperSirLink wrote on 2020-05-27, 20:55:

Installed on my PIII 550, running on an ASUS P3B-F motherboard, Audigy 1 sound card, 512MB RAM, ASUS TNT2 Ultra, running Win98SE. The game locks up on the intro movie with the paramount logo. I have tried several different versions of detonator drivers, but all seem to have the same effect.

Have you installed the 1.1 official patch ?

See http://gaming.trekcore.com/bridgecommander/support.html
for other suggestions .

EDIT: Directx 8 or higher is installed, I imagine (it is required).

Are you running from an actual CD-ROM or a disk image ?

yeah, just put the patch on in an attempt to resolve. I installed the version of directx on the CD just to be sure, specs say it needs 8.0a, dxdiag reports just 8.0 (4.08.00.0400)

I am running from a retail cd. Tried different color depth settings, display resolutions, quit Fraps...

What is interesting is it varies on how long the video plays before freezing. Interestingly running 800x600 allowed it to play the furthest but actually rebooted the pc that time instead of just freezing.

Edit: 640x480 got even further, but ultimately still froze.
Based on that, I discovered spamming the esc key and bypassing the video lets me into the game. So this must be an issue playing those BINK videos.

That is strange . AFAICR, that game runs well even on modern versions of Windows .

A spontaneous reboot under load could point to a PSU issue . Do other games run without issue ?

darry wrote on 2020-05-27, 22:51:

That is strange . AFAICR, that game runs well even on modern versions of Windows .

A spontaneous reboot under load could point to a PSU issue . Do other games run without issue ?

Still loading up games on this box, was trying the what I think the most graphical ones I have that are appropriate for this era.

Well that didn't get very far... Fatal exception at 0028:00000017

I think changing the drivers around messed up Windows. I can play Motocross Madness II, but tried several other games and they just freeze with a black screen. Tomb Raider III for instance, I can go into the setup and tell it to use software renderer and it will play for a while before freezing, but if I choose D3D, it will immediately go to black and freeze.

SuperSirLink wrote on 2020-05-28, 01:51:

I think changing the drivers around messed up Windows. I can play Motocross Madness II, but tried several other games and they just freeze with a black screen. Tomb Raider III for instance, I can go into the setup and tell it to use software renderer and it will play for a while before freezing, but if I choose D3D, it will immediately go to black and freeze.

You could always try re-installing Windows, but my feelings are towards a hardware issue . First suspects would be power supply and video card, IMHO .

Trying another video card or PSU would help to confirm or infirm that hypothesis .

AFAIK, Asus P3B-F boards usually came with decent capacitors, I've owned two over the years, but that's no guarantee. I would suggest a visual inspection of at least the P3B-F and the TNT2 and, if possible (if you know how to do it safely), the PSU's capacitors .

Prime95 and Memtest can help test motherboard/CPU/RAM and RAM, respectively .

yeah, I am leaning towards doing a reinstall... PSU is a brand new modern PSU that was bought for this build. I had this board in storage for years, so when I went to setup this build I checked it over for bad caps, nothing was bulging, but then a bad cap doesn't have to, so wouldn't rule that out. An putting in another video card is what started this. Was trying to improve performance in Motocross Madness 2, so I put in my Geforce 3. But it would just lock up on load.

Motocross Madness 2 plays fine. Stable to as I spent at least 15 min in Motocross Madness 2 and about an hour in Motocross Madness last weekend (before playing with drivers), now it just goes to a black screen. While not 100%, thinking hardware is fine.

I remember always getting into trouble when trying different drivers in 98 back when it was current, forgot how temperamental it can be.

I think I am going to try and install directx 8.1 just to try and ensure it is a heathy install.

Did a clean install this morning, formatted the C drive, reinstalled Win98SE, installed chipset drivers, Nvidia drivers, Audigy drivers, then Bridge Commander. Applied the patch then rebooted for good measure. I also enabled DMA mode on the hard drive.

On first launch of Bridge Commander, the machine rebooted, second launch it froze like it was doing before.

Given the PSU is brand new I am not sure how it would be the issue. It is a 450w, though it doesn't have a -5v rail. But I don't think I have anything that needs it. I do have a SB16 ISA card, CF flash adapter in the system. So I am going to strip it down to the bare min hardware and see what happens...

SuperSirLink wrote on 2020-05-28, 13:51:

Did a clean install this morning, formatted the C drive, reinstalled Win98SE, installed chipset drivers, Nvidia drivers, Audigy drivers, then Bridge Commander. Applied the patch then rebooted for good measure. I also enabled DMA mode on the hard drive.

On first launch of Bridge Commander, the machine rebooted, second launch it froze like it was doing before.

Given the PSU is brand new I am not sure how it would be the issue. It is a 450w, though it doesn't have a -5v rail. But I don't think I have anything that needs it. I do have a SB16 ISA card, CF flash adapter in the system. So I am going to strip it down to the bare min hardware and see what happens...

What are the PSU's model and specs ? The 3.3v and 5v rails on modern PSU are underpowered compared to older ones (modern stuff mainly uses 12v), so you often need to overspec to get something sufficient for older hardware's needs.

I just swapped the PSU for an older 300w I had, this one has a -5v and it locked up still. New PSU is an Apevia Venus, the voltage grid shows it has 16A on both the 5v and 3.3v rails, 32A on the 12v, 0.3A on the -12v, and 2.5A on +5vsb... These are all higher than my old PSU...

The only things powered now is the Mobo, cpu, 1 stick of RAM, video card, 1 hard drive, 1 cd rom...

Will swap out the video card next.

Guess this should be move to the hardware thread at this point...

16 amps on 5v is quite low . If your 300w is even lower on that rail, it certainly could still be a PSU issue .

I was wrong, old PSU has 30A on the 5.5v rail Even still I can't see that being the case, especially given that I only have the Mobo (with only 1 card), HD, and ROM plugged in.

I swapped the DVD-ROM, and CPU with a PII 400, got further before locking up but still did.

Going to swap the memory and test. If that fails, I will swap the hard drive and do another clean install.

Swapped out the memory and got way further than I have before, play through the intro video, got to the main menu, was able to start a new game, and still got a good 60-90 seconds into game play before it ultimately froze. Sadly a second attempt without changing ending else resulted in a freeze in a similar place to what I have seen on previous attempts.

I have now disabled DMA access on the hard drive and I was able to get into game play again. This time instead of just freezing I got an actual error! Program performed an illegal operation and will be shutdown. Details shows an invalid page fault with stub.exe at 0167:007320AF... I only have a single 64MB module, so I am going to add another and repeat the test.

Swapping the hard drive and doing another clean install. The motherboard is now the only original piece of hardware.

SuperSirLink wrote on 2020-05-28, 15:52:

Swapping the hard drive and doing another clean install. The motherboard is now the only original piece of hardware.

Hope it's not the motherboard. If it is, I don't know what would cause instability under load, except maybe for bad caps .

Unless you're really unlucky and both of your PSUs have issues .

Yeah, I know what you mean... what are the chances? 😒 I started a thread in old hardware to see if there are other P3B-F users who might have an idea. I have a desolder station, so changing the caps wouldn't be too hard. Would like to know for sure that is the issue... Wondering if it might be a BIOS setting too...

But will see, thanks for your help. Forgot how much troubleshooting could go into these old systems and it helped me think through the process like it was 20 years ago... 😀

SuperSirLink wrote on 2020-05-28, 17:19:

Yeah, I know what you mean... what are the chances? 😒 I started a thread in old hardware to see if there are other P3B-F users who might have an idea. I have a desolder station, so changing the caps wouldn't be too hard. Would like to know for sure that is the issue... Wondering if it might be a BIOS setting too...

But will see, thanks for your help. Forgot how much troubleshooting could go into these old systems and it helped me think through the process like it was 20 years ago... 😀

When I get a chance, I will try giving my P3B-F setup a workout . I use it mainly as a testbed . It's currently using a patched BIOS based on 1008F.004 . The CPU is Coppermine 1000MHz running at 750MHz (to avoid overclocking AGP) . Video card is currently a Geforce 6200 . I have not tried gaming on this setup, but will give it a shot a will post back .

Thanks appreciate that!