System Shock 2 Random Freezes

[67f0b821c6f25Meusli]

Hello and thanks for letting me join the forum.

I am running an original retail copy of SS2 on a copy of Windows 98se, Pentium 3, Sound blaster audigy rocking a Voodoo 5 GPU, the game launches fine and I can get a little way into the first mission before a hard freeze occurs. I then have to power cycle the PC to get out. So far I have just installed the official patch and it does the same thing, so sfter a quick google search I found this forum and thought somebody may be able to help. Does anyone know of a possible fix to my issue?

Many thanks for reading.

ps I have hardware sound enabled is this correct?

[67f0b821c710fvoodoo47]

heh.

ok, try to get the sound card out of the equation and see whether that makes it stable (NOT using hw sound, or even disable the sound card completely). if not, try the single chip mode on the voodoo5.

if that won't help, try switching pc components around until you can pinpoint what is causing the freezes - if you are running this setup, you should have some spare parts lying around.

other games working fine with no lockups? using the last official drivers from 3dfx or the Evolution driver?

[67f0b821c72d1Kolya]

Originally SS2 didn't work well with multicore processing. Since you're running the original game this applies to you.

http://www.thief-thecircle.com/guides/hyperthreading/

[67f0b821c73bbvoodoo47]

pentium3 does not have hyperthreading. and win98 only supports one core.

[67f0b821c7727Meusli]

voodoo47
Cheers for the reply. I will try the sound card later today as that is what is causing it I suspect. But it may be the GPU so will give that a try also. For divers on thew GPU I use the voodoolizer driver for direct x 8.1 support. I will also try the amigamerlin drivers too and see how that works too, or do you recommend the evolution drivers for better stability?

Again thanks for the help.

[67f0b821c7961voodoo47]

sure - on a retro computer, I would actually recommend the last official 3dfx driver (1.04.01b), unless you need to run one of those few games that need dx8.1+ support under win9x (like Age of Mythology). in that case, Evolution 1.01.16 (actual dx8.1+ support, meaning the author had the source and the core has been rebuilt) + restoring vanilla glide/opengl (extract to windows\system).

anyway, the chances the lockups are being caused by the 3dfx driver are pretty low, I'd say - while the voodoolizer driver falls to the "improves almost nothing" category (note it's not even listed among the 3dfx archive downloads), it probably isn't the reason why the game is unstable.

[67f0b821c7a85Meusli]

Well I disabled all sound and got the crash again, trying one core now to see if that works. If that fails I will start a fresh install and use the drivers you provided. Runs pretty well on one GPU it seems, but only in the training area atm.

[67f0b821c7bb9Meusli]

Looks like the issue is GPU/Driver related as I can run this game on one GPU without it crashing (at least for an hour or so). Will now look into a fresh install with different drivers. Most things run very well on this PC but P.O.D. won't start on these drivers and someone else mentioned trying different ones so it was always on the cards.

Thanks for the help, I will start enjoying SS2 now.   

[67f0b821c7cdcvoodoo47]

no problem. having to use single chip mode may indicate the v5 card could have hardware issues, which would be unfortunate. lets hope fresh windows install/proper drivers will resolve this.

either way, this was a nice trip down memory lane.

[67f0b821c8071sarge945]

Wow, I'm genuinely surprised (in a pleasant way) that people still have computers like this.

Awesome.

[67f0b821c82baJDoran]

VOGONS (Very Old Games on New Systems, at https://www.vogons.org/index.php?) is a great forum where, despite it's name, people who love and use older PC hardware like to frequent. They often use period correct hardware to play a PC game on the type of hardware it was originally intended on, such as Half-Life on a Windows 98 Pentium with a 1.2GB hard drive, System Shock on a 486DX etc. Some of those people are really passionate about it, and have all sorts of discussions about what hardware to use, where to buy it, how to use it to the best of it's ability, what software is the fastest or most memory efficient, etc.

The forum also helps with running old games on modern harwdare, of course, and is the offical forum of DOSBox, plus other programs to help get games running.

[67f0b821c85e5Kolya]

Some of those people are really passionate about it, and have all sorts of discussions

Haha, what a bunch of nerds!