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Re: Hardlock on Start

EElantis!!
in Support
Earlier this fine evening I'd decided that I wanted to try Tribes II and attempt to get into it, I personally love Tribes: Ascend and thought I should at least give Tribes II a whirl before the thought floated to the back of my mind forgotten for a couple years.

All was well with the world until I launched and found that after a period of anywhere from 3-15 seconds the TribesNext menu locks up along with the entire desktop, much like (if not EXACTLY like) the fine gent over here in this post from back in the day: http://www.tribesnext.com/forum/index.php?topic=2815.0

For awhile the only real thing I could do was either preform a hard shut-down, Log off of this computer's profile, effectively resetting the desktop to try again, or restart the computer entirely from the CTRL-ALT-DEL menu.

I've tried multiple potential fixes that I've seen around multiple posts on the Support page such as but not limited to, verifying that Tribes2gsi as well as TribesNext_rc2a are not corrupted through the use of md5summer, deleting all .DSO files, re-installing both Tribes II and TribesNext_rc2a, running in windowed mode in attempt to bypass the lockdown (Whilst I was of the assumption that it was just the game and not the entire desktop that is.) and last but not least, running in administrator (...Phew...)

I should also mention that I'm not installing off of the original disk and am in fact using the torrent link on your guys' homepage, Running windows 7, and am to SOME extent experienced with problem comprehension.

Unfortunately I can't obtain any kind of error message since the desktop goes black and doesn't interact with the cursor once the lock takes place...

I hope I'm not coming off brash or livid, I've been at this with no success from solutions in previous posts for roughly five hours and finally decided I needed to try and look for some interactive sources of information before my hair started to fall out.

Thanks for your time if you read this far without your eyeballs melting out.

Sincerely, Elantis

Comments

  • BBlakhart
    Do you have a video card driver installed?
  • EElantis!!
    Blakhart
    Do you have a video card driver installed?

    Well It'd stand to reason that if I didn't I wouldn't be able to play other games on my computer at present.

    I should clarify that I use a Toshiba Satellite purchased in 2011
    Windows 7 Home Premium
    Intel(R) Celeron(R) CPU 2.20GHz
    Mobile Intel(R) 4 Series Express Chipset Family
    (This is clearly not a dream-machine)

    I also did some more investigation last night and found that when the Tribes II window is active or something else isn't being used by the cursor the CPU usage on it's process skyrockets to anywhere from 80-99, I've never seen that happen to anything else while troubleshooting games in the past.

    Any thoughts on why the window would immediately require the attention of so much memory?
    I just don't see why it would, I can play games like Team-Fortress 2 at anywhere from 20-40 fps on average...
  • Dark Dragon DXDark Dragon DX
    Elantis!!
    I also did some more investigation last night and found that when the Tribes II window is active or something else isn't being used by the cursor the CPU usage on it's process skyrockets to anywhere from 80-99, I've never seen that happen to anything else while troubleshooting games in the past.

    Tribes 2 was designed to played on a Pentium II with 64MB RAM. You'd really have to be running something ancient for the game to not be compatible in any manner related to the CPU like that. Hence, everyone that runs the game gets that 100% CPU usage but I suspect its because Tribes 2 isn't pausing its thread of execution and thusly eating up any "unused" CPU cycles.
    Elantis!!
    Any thoughts on why the window would immediately require the attention of so much memory?
    I just don't see why it would, I can play games like Team-Fortress 2 at anywhere from 20-40 fps on average...

    It's odd that it should lock up like that, considering I have played the game on WinXP, Win7 and on Linux via WINE and had never such an issue before. The only other suggestions I'd add is to make sure you're running the latest drivers (if it plays other games, this probably isn't it), running it in compatibility mode for XP or Win98/95 and you could try turning off the intro video as I have heard that can sometimes cause problems:

    1. Navigate to your GameData folder of your install (if you used the default installation dir, this should be C:\Dynamix\Tribes2\GameData)
    2. Open the folder of the mod you're trying to run. "base" if you're not running a mod.
    3. Open the file prefs/ClientPrefs.cs
    4. Search for: $pref::SkipIntro = "0";
    5. Change it to: $pref::SkipIntro = "1";
  • EElantis!!
    Thanks for the feedback, I'm on the run at the moment but I'll try this later and see if it yields any results.

    I've also tried running it with XP service pack 2 since Windows notifier suggested it.
  • KrashKrash
    When you say after 3-15 seconds it "locks up", do you first see anything in the game, or is the game window just black? If it's always black, it's most likely either a driver issue or applying a resolution that your screen doesn't support. While there can very rarely be other errors, you aren't likely to encounter any with the system you describe unless you have made considerable changes.

    If it were an issue with the resolution however, running the game in a window should have allowed the game to run. Which method did you use to run the game in a window?

    It should be noted that Tribes 2 is an older OpenGL game, and if you're running drivers provided by Windows Update they won't necessarily provide full OpenGL support. You'll want to make sure you install the graphics drivers for your chipset directly from Intel.
  • BBlakhart
    Try to set the resolution in client prefs to the resolution of the monitor.

    So if your mon is at 1400x900 the string would be;


    $pref::Video::resolution = "1400 900 32";
  • EElantis!!
    Krash
    When you say after 3-15 seconds it "locks up", do you first see anything in the game, or is the game window just black?

    Well, I can view all of the opening videos before anything happens, trouble begins once the TribesNext Login/Account creation page loads, the only real data I can supply is in my first and second post on this topic though I did forget to mention that I'd set Tribes 2's process on low priority to see if it'd assist me in avoiding the lock, although with no success...

    I just got back to the computer so I'll try all of the suggestions above and report what results they might yield.
    I really appreciate everyone's time and input thus far, thanks alot. :)
  • EElantis!!
    Blakhart
    Try to set the resolution in client prefs to the resolution of the monitor.

    So if your mon is at 1400x900 the string would be;


    $pref::Video::resolution = "1400 900 32";

    Thanks a bunch!
    I'm still in the middle of trying this out as I type but the CPU usage has rounded out to a solid value and I'm generating a key right now.

    I'll post back if anything else on this subject comes up and once again, THANK you everyone who helped me out here.
    I really appreciate it.
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