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Nov 10, 2004, 11:38pm

Hi all. No I am not 'Just In' LOL I get that alot. Anyway, a buddy of
mine just got a new PC. It's a P4 3.2 GHz, Asus motherboard, PCI Express,
Radeon x600, DDR2, SATA, XP Pro. Pretty stout box. However he can't stay in
world for more than 5 minutes without locking up solid. He is on a dial up
(yeah I know, kinda a waste). However he can play Combat Flight Sim, use
Photoshop, download large files with no issues.
Someone at the helpdesk or whatever told him he should look in the
system event logs and that was all they could do to help. LOL useless.
Someone didn't want to work that day I think. The issue should have been
escalated to a higher level support staff or developer if there is no other
support.
Now I know at one time, way back, I was told to drop a switch on the
command line for AW or do something with the INI that would result in a log
(aworlds.log) logging a lot more info than it would normally which helped me
debug an issue once with my video card. Is there still such a switch or a
debugger or might anyone have any ideas that might help?


Regards,

Justen

Nov 11, 2004, 12:07am

http://www.activeworlds.com/help/aw34/debug_log.html is what you're looking for.

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Nov 11, 2004, 2:51am

I'll second the tech support. Look at the system event log. It may show
what is responsible for hanging the system, by pointing to a service,
hardware, or some dll which can be looked up. Though it may not show it at
all...if not I would start out by reinstalling/updating display drivers, and
get DX9 if its not already on there.

control panel -> admin tools -> event viewer.

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Nov 11, 2004, 2:55am

http://activeworlds.com/help/aw36/debug_log.html

:-)


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Nov 11, 2004, 12:16pm

Do you know what his settings are for video?

If he is running in software mode and has his visibility cranked up he will
most likely lock up in heavily built worlds.


E


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Nov 11, 2004, 2:01pm

[View Quote] How about other 3D programs, like 3D screensavers?
Has he installed the latest video drivers from the card manufacturer?
And latest DirectX? Run dxdiag.exe, is everything Enabled in Display tab?
No "yellow" devices in Device Manager?
Are there enough coolers; of how many watts is the power supply unit;
how much RAM and are they good chips; latest motherboard BIOS...

I used to have a freezing system, finally I just replaced the display card.

--
Mauz
http://mauz.info

Nov 11, 2004, 2:43pm

Well, he said he can play other games just fine - else my first guess
would have been a northbridge (or general: case) cooling problem. :-)


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Nov 18, 2004, 8:55pm

Yeah latest Direct X, SP2, and ATI drivers. Microsoft Flight Sim runs fine.
He says in many worlds he can run fine. He says CNW almost awlays locks him
up and certain worlds in AW he thinks off certain servers. Is it possible to
narrow it down, if I can get the list of bad vs good?

Does AW have any issues with PCI Express?



Thanks much for the link to the debug log by the way!

Justen





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Nov 19, 2004, 3:08am

I think the problem is rather the ATI driver here - opposite to common
believe, it is not always the latest driver that will bring the best
results (same with NVidia, but more prominent with ATI), so it will be
worth to try some other, previous, versions. Maybe you can find others
with the same card and can ask them which drivers they use in AW.



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Nov 19, 2004, 7:47am

Now that you mention it, I had problems with the Catalyst 4.10 drivers and
AW.
4.11 have been fine though.


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Nov 20, 2004, 10:18pm

Thanks for your experience.
We have gone from 4.09 -.10-.11. Think I should have him go back? I wonder
how far back they go supporting PCI Express.
The weird part, he thinks it does not occur on AW servers but on non AW
servers
Quote from him
"The worlds in AW are "Victoria" and "Aureus" They are Gorean worlds, but
I am not. I just like to chat with the people there, and the objects and
building are wonderful. The worlds in Cnw are Lydius, (which is a closed
world which won't help you much) and not sure of the other,, think it was
Picky O's or somet hing like that. I have not been in there since the
frist few lockups."

Is there something they may be doing that kicks up an error?




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Nov 21, 2004, 11:21am

Well, if he only intends to chat, he might also consider to use directx7
video mode (without T&L), or OpenGL video mode - both have some
disadvantages, but for talking only and a bit of walking around (or even
more when using low to medium maximum visibility), they would work well.


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Nov 22, 2004, 6:00pm

If it's a world to world difference, it might be features within the
world...
Coronas can cause some weirdness.
Terrain uses LOD.
Other than that it could just be chance.

To follow up, 4.11 has been rock solid. Not one crash since I got it. 4.10
on the other hand crashed me at least once a day. Versions before 4.10 were
fine too though.


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