GHackmann

*Sigh* Game programmers are not lazy. Anyone who could make that claim has obviously never actually tried to sit down and program a 3D game. I dare you to read through the DOOM source code, the Quake source code, the Descent source code, or any other publicly available source code out there and still call the programmers lazy. The problem is your video card. Serious Sam has large textures (which many games, like Half-Life did not support!), and your TNT2 M64 is throttling the performance. M64s have only a 64-bit memory path (as opposed to most video cards' 256-bit bus, including the "standard" TNT2), which makes it choke on large textures. Games like Half-Life and V-Rally 2 run well because either they are built on technology designed to work on Voodoo 2s, which had a limit on texture size (like Half-Life) or they were ports from consoles like the PSX that had similar limitations on texture size (like V-Rally 2). It is not fair to call programmers lazy for not supporting a 3D card based on 2-year-old technology that was targeted for people who don't people who don't do much 3D gaming. (Why do you think the M64 is so much cheaper than a standard TNT2?) Serious Sam is not a game targeted towards people who play 3D games occasionally -- it's targeted towards hard-code FPS players.

PCI devices are supposed to be able to share IRQs, but Windows 2000 is the first OS that's enforced that rule. The problem is, Sound Blaster Live! cards don't obey that rule very well, and it causes tons of freezes. The SPDIF out is also currently broken in the SB Live! drivers. Your only real option is to get a different sound card. I have a Santa Cruz, and it works great. I don't have digital speakers, but I'm told SPDIF does work.

Decibels are log-based, which means that for every increase of 10 dB the loudness is multiplied by 10. The math behind this is nasty, but 40 dB + 30 dB + 30 dB = about 41 dB, which isn't much of a difference to the human ear above 40 dB. If you're really concerned, PC Power & Cooling sells some really quiet fans. When they say they're silent, they mean it. I can't tell they're on unless I press my ear to the case.

I had no problem just swapping out my SB Live! card with a Santa Cruz. The only thing I had to do was go to Add/Remove Hardware and remove the hidden devices related to it.

DosFreak: I'm using a USB Intellimouse here and it works just fine. Some games support 4th and 5th buttons natively (like Half-Life, yay). Other than that, you do have to do the remap trick. I could have sworn UT worked with it natively though . . . did you try flipping the DirectInput setting?

I don't know how the A7V handles AGP settings, but if you can set AGP driving values, try DA or EA. I set my KT7-RAID to EA and it fixed crashes with my Hercules GF2MX card. Also try disabling AGP 4x in BIOS, or enabling it and setting AGP to 2x or even 1x in Windows. The last thing you should check is your I/O voltage. IIRC A7Vs ship with the I/O voltage high, and you might have to crank it down a notch from 3.4V to 3.3V.

Have you tried looking for DRWTSN32 in the task list and killing that first?

Unfortunately, that isn't what happened. I got out of the Linux installation before it started copying anything, and before it was supposed to cut any partitions up. It's definitely not the MBR, because GRUB (which Mandrake uses in place of LILO) never got installed, and FDISK /MBR under Win98 (which I tried to no avail) fixes that anyway. Actually, I had been taking different distros of Linux on and off of my PC for a while now without problems, and it's just recently that installing Mandrake gave me the problem. I think its partitioning tool did *something* even though I didn't tell it to, because that's the only thing that I can think of. I'm 99% sure that it moved the D: partition boundary around to somewhere illegal, judging by the errors it's giving me, but it's been a while since I've had to rebuild a partition table, and I don't see where the problem is. Like I said, I can still access all my data (even on the D: drive) as normal so long as I'm in Windows, so I think I'm just going to keep diligent backups until I can bring the hard drive home over spring break and do a proper backup/repartition/restore.

Today I tried installing the test version of Mandrake Linux. Stupid me, I decided to try using the partitioning tool without backing up the partition table first, and it kind of screwed up my partition table. What's happening now is that I can access only my D: drive in Windows 2000 and 98 SE. The Windows 98 DOS mode says it's not there, and FDISK claims it doesn't exist either. SystemSuite 2000 can't read the disk in Windows 2000 and locks up in Windows 98. So I pulled out my handy copy of Partition Manager, and I killed the Linux partitions (didn't really need them at this point anyway, since the install didn't work), converting them to free space. No dice; the same problems. I heard about several tools, such as TESTDISK (http://www.esiea.fr/public_html/Christophe.GRENIER/) and RESQDISK, but they couldn't help me. RESQDISK rebuilt the partition table the *exact* same way it was before I ran it (thanks a lot, like I can't do that). TESTDISK threw out an error message on analyzing the disk, which looks useful, but I can't figure out the problem is, and it wasn't too keen on helping me fix it. (The log is below.) The partitions don't look like they're overlapping, so it can't be that. Anyway, it's been so long since I've dealt with partition tables that I've forgotten the most of little "rules" Microsoft imposes on where partitions can live, and I can't for the life of me see what's wrong. So could somebody who has some expertise with this sort of thing help me with this? (Fortunately, since Windows can still access the D: drive, I still have access to the data, so if I really need to I can always copy the data onto a spare drive when I come home for spring break and reformat the drive. I'd just rather not do this, heh.) TestDisk log: TestDisk command line : /log Mon Feb 19 16:12:27 2001 TestDisk 3.0, Data Recovery Utility by Christophe GRENIER, January 23 2001 grenier@nef.esiea.fr http://www.esiea.fr/public_html/Christophe.GRENIER/ Drive 80 - CHS 16383 16 63 - 8063 MB Analyse Drive 80 - CHS 16383 16 63 - 8063 MB get_MBR_data return 1; 1 * FAT32 LBA 0 1 1 19874 0 63 20032992 20032992 Bad ending cylinder 2 E extended 19874 1 1 55717 7 63 36130185 3613018 Bad starting cylinder Partition Manager log: Ranish Partition Manager Version 2.40.00 February 08, 2001 HD 1 (128) 29,311M [ 3,736 cyls x 255 heads x 63 sects = 60,030,431 sects ] File Starting Ending Partition # Type Row System Type Cyl Head Sect Cyl Head Sect Size [KB] 0 MBR Master Boot Record 0 0 1 0 0 1 0 1 Pri Unused 0 0 2 0 0 63 31 2 >Pri 1 Windows FAT-32 LBA 0 1 1 1,246 254 63 10,016,496 3 Pri 2 Extended 1,247 0 1 3,495 254 63 18,065,092 4 Ã Log Windows FAT-32 1,247 1 1 3,495 254 63 18,065,061 5 Pri Unused 3,496 0 1 3,736 183 62 1,933,595 Partition table details: Starting Ending Starting Number of Ending # Type R FS Cyl Head Sct Cyl Head Sct sector sectors sector 0 MBR FF 0 0 1 0 0 1 0 1 0 1 Pri 00 0 0 2 0 0 63 1 62 62 2 >Pri 1 0C 0 1 1 1,246 254 63 63 20,032,992 20,033,054 3 Pri 2 05 1,247 0 1 3,495 254 63 20,033,055 36,130,185 56,163,239 4 Ã Log 0B 1,247 1 1 3,495 254 63 20,033,118 36,130,122 56,163,239 5 Pri 00 3,496 0 1 3,736 183 62 56,163,240 3,867,191 60,030,430 Partition records exactly as they appear in MBR (EMBR): Starting Ending Starting Number of # HD FS Cyl Head Sect Cyl Head Sect sector sectors (0,0,1): 1 80 0C 0 1 1 1,023 254 63 63 20,032,992 2 00 05 1,023 254 63 1,023 254 63 20,033,055 36,130,185 3 00 00 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 4 00 00 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 (1247,0,1): 1 00 0B 1,023 254 63 1,023 254 63 63 36,130,122 2 00 00 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 3 00 00 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 4 00 00 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 Detailed information about each partition: --- Partition 2 --- Type: Windows FAT-32 LBA CHS=(0,1,1) 10,016,496 k 20,032,992 sectors Volume Label: NO NAME System id: MSWIN4.1 File system: FAT32 Cluster size: 8k (16s) FAT size: 4,886k Drive number: 128 Exp: 128 Starting sector: 63 Expected value: 63 Number of sectors: 20,032,992 Expected value: 20,032,992 --- Partition 4 --- Type: Windows FAT-32 CHS=(1247,1,1) 18,065,061 k 36,130,122 sectors Volume Label: NO NAME System id: MSWIN4.1 File system: FAT32 Cluster size: 16k (32s) FAT size: 4,879k Drive number: 128 Exp: 128 Starting sector: 20,033,118 Expected value: 20,033,118 Number of sectors: 36,130,122 Expected value: 36,130,122 [This message has been edited by GHackmann (edited 19 February 2001).]

Here's the best resource for region-free firmwares: http://perso.club-internet.fr/farzeno/firmware/

I second EddiE314's recommendation. You should be able to get an OEM Hercules GeForce 2 MX for around $100. As far as TV in goes, I don't know. A VIVO Radeon would be good too, but it's probably a little costlier, and I don't know how well it works with K6 chips. You should keep in mind that the GeForce 2 MX chip supports either DDR memory *or* a larger memory bus, so cards come with either one or the other, which can effect performance. (Hercules goes with the wider bus, which gives better performance than using DDR memory.) So not all GeForce 2 MXs are created equal.

Did you try another manufacturer? I once had a similar problem (either nothing or skipping audio) that I traced back to the cheap DVD drive (BTC 8x). Replacement BTC drives didn't do me any good, but as soon as I swapped the drive out with a Pioneer one, DVD playback worked beautifully.

3D Sound Surge has a nice review of the Philips Acoustic Edge up at http://www.3dss.com/reviews/AcousticEdge/AcousticEdge.html which compares the Acoustic Edge with the SB Live! and Santa Cruz. They test both the Win98 and Win2K drivers. Hope this helps.

The Santa Cruz works great for me. The 3D/EAX effects are a little more quiet and subdued than I like (which does not happen under Win9x), but I can always crank up the volume and reverb effects in the mixer; plus, the drivers are still a work-in-progress, so I'm assuming this will get fixed. Still, the drivers are stable enough to use as-is today, and if the 3D effects get fixed in the future, then that's just a bonus. And, more importantly, it doesn't give me the BSOD and performance problems that my SB Live! did.

Quote: <font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by Mike Zamarocy: But I seriously do really want to find a way to at least just put the SB Live! on IRQ5. Cause when Win2K starts up, the thnderclap sound that is played occasionaly stutters. This leads me to think that though ACPI is doing its thing, too many on one IRG is too much.</font> Under Windows 2000, as long as ACPI's enabled, you can't mess with IRQs. Your only option besides waiting for CL to fix the drivers (if this ever happens) is to disable ACPI (as Wolf87 described) or to go with a more ACPI-friendly sound card.