WTF - Simple Little Game Brings New P4 to its Knees?!?!

  • Thread starter Thread starter LiveWire
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LiveWire

Just built a new P4 system approximately a month ago w/the following specs:

P4 - 2.6CGhz / 800FSB
Gigabyte GA-8IPE1000 (865PE)
2x256MB Corsair XMS PC3200 DDR
Chaintech GF4 TI4200 8X 64MB
WD Raptor SATA HD
Win XP Home

Everything has been working primo with this computer since day one. The
only strange thing I have encountered so far happened when I installed and
tried to use one of those low end "freeware" games that I downloaded from
someplace like TUCOWS or ZDNet a year or two ago (I tried looking for it to
provide a link, but can't seem to locate the same version I have
anymore......hmm).

The game (try not to laugh) is a version of the old classic "Asteroids".
The file is a whopping 1.5MB download. I have installed this same game from
the very same downloaded file on about 20-30 computers of various
configurations (440BX, 815, 845, 845PE, KT266A, KT400, nforce2, etc.) and
versions of Windows (98SE/2K/XP) and have NEVER had a problem with it until
now. It also plays fine on the A7N8X-D/Win2K machine sitting right next to
it.

The problem is that after playing this game for about 5-10 minutes things
start to get funky. Game action slows down to an unplayable speed and the
sound (RealTek onboard audio) starts to stutter and/or get caught in a loop.

I have tried everything from running Memtest86 on the Corsair to installing
a SoundBlaster Live 5.1 card, but the problem persists. It should also be
noted that games like Unreal Tournament 2003 and the latest Rainbow Six game
(demo) play smooth and without incident on this computer.

After building approximately 25 computers over the past couple years (all
still running well AFAIK), I like to think I have a pretty good idea of what
I'm doing by now. However, I certainly don't claim to be an expert, so maybe
I'm overlooking something. Since it's the *ONLY* weird thing that has
happened with this computer thus far, I REALLY, REALLY want to dismiss this
issue as flaky software, but considering it's worked fine on many other Win
2K/XP machines of various configurations, I have a hard time doing that.

Anybody have any thoughts on this one?

TIA
 
LiveWire said:
Just built a new P4 system approximately a month ago w/the following specs:

P4 - 2.6CGhz / 800FSB
Gigabyte GA-8IPE1000 (865PE)
2x256MB Corsair XMS PC3200 DDR
Chaintech GF4 TI4200 8X 64MB
WD Raptor SATA HD
Win XP Home

Everything has been working primo with this computer since day one. The
only strange thing I have encountered so far happened when I installed and
tried to use one of those low end "freeware" games that I downloaded from
someplace like TUCOWS or ZDNet a year or two ago (I tried looking for it to
provide a link, but can't seem to locate the same version I have
anymore......hmm).

The game (try not to laugh) is a version of the old classic "Asteroids".
The file is a whopping 1.5MB download. I have installed this same game from
the very same downloaded file on about 20-30 computers of various
configurations (440BX, 815, 845, 845PE, KT266A, KT400, nforce2, etc.) and
versions of Windows (98SE/2K/XP) and have NEVER had a problem with it until
now. It also plays fine on the A7N8X-D/Win2K machine sitting right next to
it.

The problem is that after playing this game for about 5-10 minutes things
start to get funky. Game action slows down to an unplayable speed and the
sound (RealTek onboard audio) starts to stutter and/or get caught in a loop.

I have tried everything from running Memtest86 on the Corsair to installing
a SoundBlaster Live 5.1 card, but the problem persists. It should also be
noted that games like Unreal Tournament 2003 and the latest Rainbow Six game
(demo) play smooth and without incident on this computer.

After building approximately 25 computers over the past couple years (all
still running well AFAIK), I like to think I have a pretty good idea of what
I'm doing by now. However, I certainly don't claim to be an expert, so maybe
I'm overlooking something. Since it's the *ONLY* weird thing that has
happened with this computer thus far, I REALLY, REALLY want to dismiss this
issue as flaky software, but considering it's worked fine on many other Win
2K/XP machines of various configurations, I have a hard time doing that.

Anybody have any thoughts on this one?
Click to expand...
your new machine probably has a faster cpu than your other ones

many old apps will not work on extremely fast cpu's
 
Anybody have any thoughts on this one?
your new machine probably has a faster cpu than your other ones

many old apps will not work on extremely fast cpu's
Click to expand...

WHAT!?! That's a new one on me... I've heard of older games running too fast
on older games but none that just refuse to work because the CPU is too fast
(mostly they don't work because of software incompatibilities).
LiveWire, check to see if you have any scheduled tasks going on in the
background. Also disable any power mgmt. features and/or screen savers and
turn off any Anti-virus software.
Also try R-clicking on the executable for the game and running it in DOS or
Win95 compatibility mode.
Hope this helps!!!
--


"I don't cheat to survive. I cheat to LIVE!!"
- Alceryes

(check out my modded/OC'd system at http://mywebpages.comcast.net/alceryes)
 
WHAT!?! That's a new one on me... I've heard of older games running too fast
on older games but none that just refuse to work because the CPU is too fast
(mostly they don't work because of software incompatibilities).
LiveWire, check to see if you have any scheduled tasks going on in the
background. Also disable any power mgmt. features and/or screen savers and
turn off any Anti-virus software.
Also try R-clicking on the executable for the game and running it in DOS or
Win95 compatibility mode.
Hope this helps!!!
Click to expand...

Actually it is true. I ran a DOS based Fidonet BBS for about 15 years
and when I upgraded to a CPU that passed 800MHz a few years back some of
my BBS programs would not run, most would exit with 'Runtime Error 200'.
I was able to get some of the programs running by patching the programs
..exe file with 'TpPatch'
http://www.brain.uni-freiburg.de/~klaus/pascal/runerr200/download.html

but others such as FrontDoor (my front end mailer) had to be fixed by
the author of the program.

There are other programs such as MoSlo http://www.hpaa.com/moslo/
designed to work around such problems, but I never had much luck with
them.

Also several old DOS based games suffered from the same problems with
fast CPU's.

Doug
 
Alceryes said:
WHAT!?! That's a new one on me...
Click to expand...

I've heard of issue from this before
LiveWire, check to see if you have any scheduled tasks going on in the
background. Also disable any power mgmt. features and/or screen savers and
turn off any Anti-virus software.
Click to expand...

I'd think if there were "background tasks" causing this that the newer games
would be the ones that would suffer performance losses.
 
DOS type games and VB games (if you dont have the correct runtime file) will
run funky in the XP/NT enviroment
 
If it is a processor speed thing you could try disabling your L2 cache in
your BIOS (or L1 I forget which), although it'll run real slow (apparently -
that's what my BIOS says, haven't tried running my machine with it off yet)
 
I'd think if there were "background tasks" causing this that the newer
games
would be the ones that would suffer performance losses.
Click to expand...

Just the opposite. These newer games know how to properly disable or (in the
case of an AV software) work around these 'background tasks'.
--


"I don't cheat to survive. I cheat to LIVE!!"
- Alceryes

(check out my modded/OC'd system at http://mywebpages.comcast.net/alceryes)
 
Alceryes said:
Just the opposite. These newer games know how to properly disable or (in
the case of an AV software) work around these 'background tasks'.
Click to expand...


So you think a 1.5meg game would stop a machine with 512 megs of ram without
disabling any background tasks or AV software? If this was the case you
damn sure couldn't open a single instance of MS word or IE 5 on this
machine either.
 
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