New pc problems...I need help.

/usr

Alright, I just bought a new pc. Built it myself. I'm trying to run UT 2004 and Doom 3 and having problems with both. When I play UT 2004, gameplay sometimes gets choppy. It seems to do this after I've played a while, and it seems as thought I can actually hear the hard drive being accessed when it does so.

Doom 3 I simply can't run for more than 15 minutes, because my monitor will click, making the noise it makes when you change resolutions in windows, and then Doom 3 will just quit and I'll be kicked to a Windows desktop.

I've thought and thought, I have no idea what this problem could be. My hardware is more than enough to run both of these. The dissimilar problems make me think it isn't the video card.

My hard drive is old...like, a six year old 13 gig hd. Could this cause the jerky gameplay in UT?

If you have any clue at all, or know of any other support forums that may be able to help me, please let me know. Thanks in advance.

gojericho0

how much RAM do you have installed? probably need a gig to make doom 3 run well without having to constantly access the swap file on the hard drive. also what kind of video card do you have?

fletch2791

I have an Athlon XP 1800+ w/ 512 mb of Ram and a GeForce TI4200 128 mb Video card. I have no problems with both UT2004 and Doom 3. On doom 3, I keep the graphic quality at medium with a high res and there is no choppiness. I would stop a lot of the uncessary services in the back round that you wont use while playing Doom 3 (ie. Windows Messegner) I noticed after I closed that program, it worked alot better. Hope that helps.

/usr

I have 512mb of Corsair XMS.

128 mb Saphire Radeon 9800 Pro


My system was built with playing Doom 2 in mind and it should. I got a 160 gig WD hard drive over the weekend, but haven't had a chance to install and play UT and Doom to see if they work. I'm almost positive the problem with UT 2004 was the hard drive, as I could actually it hear when the game would become choppy. As for Doom 3, I was also seeing somewhat of a split in the screen, as though someone chopped the screen and it would be misaligned for a split second. This was only when I was turning or moving fast.

If the HD doesn't work, my next step is returning the video card. Though I don't think that's the problem, because UT doesn't show signs of video card related problems and I ran 3dMark (correct name?) to benchmark my system, and it ran flawlessly.

viper75

Ok, I play Doom 3 and UT2004...I play UT2004 like there's no tomorrow. I own!!!

Anyway...I would change the HD. I would replace it with a SeaGate Barracuda. You may also want to check to see how hot your processor is running. I know one of my friend's had an Athlon too and was having the same problem that you are having. His problem was the CPU was over heating. Also check your videocard core and memory settings. Make sure it's not overclocked too high. Also try to update your video drivers.
You can also run memory test to make sure your memory is not faulty.

My System Specs are:
Asus P4C800 Deluxe
P4 2.8GHz 800FSB
1GB PC3200 RAM
200GB SeaGate Barracuda HD
160GB(4x) SeaGate Barracuda HD
Albatron TI4400 128DDR
3Com 1Gb NIC.
Creative Audigy2
Plextor SCSI CDRW
Plestor SCSI CD-Player
XP Pro.

/usr

I've already gotten a Western Digital 160 gig, 7200 rpm, 8mb cache. It's a pretty decent drive.

I've downloaded the newest audio drivers, video drivers, XP SP1, a couple RAM cleaning programs, and I'll get memtest, or something else if you recommend it.

As for overclocking and overheating, I've yet to OC anything. I bought this mobo new, so it had factory settings. The processor isn't overheating either, it's staying steady around 30 degrees celsius.

I really hope the memory isn't actually fault, but I suppose I can return it if it is. Newegg is great about that.

I'm at work now, I'll install these patches, run memtest, then install and play UT 2004 and Doom3. Then I'll post how it goes tomorrow. Thanks for all your help.

viper75

Ok...hope all goes well. Doom 3 is a great game...it scares the lights out of you.

UT2004 is an awsome game...been playing UT ever since the 1st one came out in '99. I only play the game online.

/usr

I went home last night and sat down to try out the new setup. I formatted the second (larger) partition of my driver, installed SP1, the newest video drivers, UT 2004, then Doom 3. I then promptly jumped into UT to see if the driver was in fact the problem. As soon as I started, it was just as choppy as it had been before. After trying UT for a bit, I decided to try Doom. I started it, just running through, shooting, not actually trying to play. It didn't boot me out like it had been doing before, but the lines across the screen were still very apparent. My brother informed me that it looked like the problem he had with another game, when he installed Direct X 9.90b. I'm hesitant to believe that's the problem, because everyone else is running 9.0b w/ Doom 3 and UT just fine, as both games require it.

I went into my BIOS and changed two settings, allowing for 128 megs of ram on the card (the default was 64), and changing the PCI graphics to AGP graphics (default was PCI). Neither of these made a bit of difference. I then went into my actual card settings and started turning off AA and AF. Neither of these helped either. Just to make sure I didn't have the card pushing too hard, I bumped EVERY setting down to the lowest possible, making UT look like the original Wolfenstein. Still had choppy gameplay. I started to check how much RAM and processor time was being used when UT was running. It uses ALL of my ram, I literally have anywhere from 6-20 mb left when UT is running. It also keeps my processor maxed at 99-100%, constantly.

As another test, I tried different maps and gametypes in UT. I can play small DM maps perfectly. I can play any small map perfectly, as a matter of fact. It seems that only when I load a larger map, that this problem becomes obvious.

I then took an old 64mb Nvidia card and threw it in my new machine, after uninstalled the ATI drivers. I ran UT with this card and the game wasn't choppy. I even turned all settings to high and ran at 1064x768. It just slowed down, like the card was simply unable to handle it. It still wasn't the choppy gameplay I had been receiving before. I couldn't get Doom 3 to even load with this card so I could test it. I put my card back in...same problem as before. One other thing I noticed is that my desktop will do weird things with this card installed. When I exit a game, the game will still be visible where the taskbar is. There will be black lines on random parts of the screen when something is loading or when Windows boots. This shouldn't be a regular thing. I doubt it's caused by the drivers, as I have installed two different sets to no avail. This is why I'm leaning more towards the video card than another part of the machine. I'm not overclocking anything. the machine is running the defaults.

I ran Memtest for about 3 hours as well, it found no errors. As far as I know, my ram looks perfect, I just replaced the hard drive and the problem still exists. These games should not be eating away all of my resources. My brother runs this game with a 128 mb GeForce Ti4200, and 512 megs of Kingston. I'm trying to run it with a Radeon 9800Pro and 512 megs of Corsair XMS. My machine should NOT be choppy during gameplay. I have no clue what could cause this problem, as it acts like it could be more than one thing. I'm basically down to sending parts back to Newegg and replacing them on a one-at-a-time basis. To beat it all, Newegg is showing that I've never ordered from them, and lists no invoices under the RMA section....wonderful.


Sorry about the long post...any suggestions?

garv221

I had this problem awhile back with a Radeon & Quake3. It would work fine with 98, but XP it wouldn't work. It was a card that was a 3rd party vendor, I actually took it back and got a different one. It sounds like you just have issues with a card and drivers. I would take it back and save the hassle. I tried everything & it wouldn't work.

Ricka182

I had am issue like this with the game Kingpin. I tried all the same, being confident it wasn't my system. Oddly enough, I returned the game, and bought a new disc a week later. It worked fine. Don't know if one bad disc got out, or what. It worked though.

/usr

Doubt it's the game itself, as two games are giving me trouble. My boss here at work has an ATI Radeon 9800 pro. So both our cards use the same chipset and drivers. I brought my card in and he's going to take it home and see how it performs in his before and after he puts my card in. Although he's currently running Windows 2000, we have the same HD, same processor, and same chipset on our cards.

So you think it sounds like the card? The reason I thought it may not be is that I can play smaller maps just fine and that UT 2004 is eating up ALL my resources, when I don't think it should be.

Thanks for all your help, don't give up on me yet.

/usr

If the card works on his machine, I suppose I'll try a Windows 2000 install and see how the game performs, before returning the card.

If I return the card to get a different brand, newegg is going to hit me with a %15 restock fee. If you look at the reviews for the card, everyone gives is 5 stars...so maybe I got a bad one.