Forum posts

try the Omega drivers and check for BIOS updates

My BIOS is updated to the latest already. I'll try the Omega driver when I get my computer back next week. Thanks guys.

I thought the Omega drivers are for NVidia cards only. I have a Radeon 9800 Pro.

Prob from leaked info from Valve. Or could it be from the book? I don't have the book, so I wouldn't know.

I looked very carefully, and I don't think the Crab Synth or the Mortar Synth were there. I did encounter plenty of cool views of the striders and the gunships.

or "RISE UP"

Sounds like a commercial for Cialis or Viagra.

I tried the latest driver (Catalyst 5.3). I have the newest driver for the NVidia nForce2 chipset driver for my motherboard as well (the GART and the rest). No luck.

I might suffer withdrawal seizures soon. TWHL can only do so much as a substitute.

...or "Earth Rebellion".

I'd name it "Foreign Oppression" (for HL2).

I've reset all the BIOS settings to default, and the problem only occurs during 3D applications now. The HDD and CPU work fine, because I never encounter problem with anything besides 3D apps.

The CPU temperature (reported by SpeedFan) is between 45 to 48 Celsius--not too hot at all. I don't know how to measure the temperature of the GPU, but I know the on-board fan works fine. I've seen it spinning while the computer is running.

I wouldn't be too surprised if it's a heating issue with the Radeon card, but that means I'll have to buy a separate fan for it. However, I have to say that even after turning the computer on for a few minutes, the 3D program still causes the computer to reboot. It seems like the computer really hasn't had a lot of time to overheat. I am talking about just a few minutes running Far Cry. I don't think I was able to run Far Cry for more than five minutes.

I was able to change the behavior of the problem (instead of rebooting, it just freezes) just by changing the version of the Radeon Catalyst driver. That makes me believe it could be just a software issue.

I don't really have much on-board devices besides the 5-1 audio and the Ethernet card.

I'm sure m0p or someone or I could lend a hand.

Thanks. I am having one of my friends taking the computer home for the weekend so he can troubleshoot it for me. I really suspect it's a software problem (probably the drivers), but I simply cannot solve the issue. I tried all different combinations of driver versions (between the motherboard drivers and the Radeon Catalyst drivers), but the problem just changes a bit.

My friend has seven computers and eight LCD monitors (he's a doctor also, and his wife is a surgeon), and he loves fixing other people's computers. So I am hoping he might find a solution for my problem.

But first, let me list my computer's complete spec and symptom of the problem.

---

I just built my new PC two weeks ago, and everything seems to be running smoothly...until I loaded the first game: Far Cry.

The game installed without a glitch, but soon after I start playing it, the screen would black out for fraction of a second, then turn blue for about 250 ms, and then the system reboots. This happens everytime I play Far Cry, but the rebooting occurs at different parts of the game (but I never get too far). It usually happens about 1 to 5 minutes into the game.

The rebooting also occurs with my 3D OpenGL screensaver (Helios), but never with any other program. The browser (FireFox) never triggers the reboot, and neither do Paint Shop Pro or any other 2D graphics program.

From what I've read so far, some people who had the problem found a resolution by updating the motherboard driver and the graphics card driver (which I have done already). Some people suspect it's a power issue, but I have plenty of juice from my PSU.

Here is a complete spec list:

ASUS nForce2 A7N8X-E Deluxe motherboard
Athlon XP 3200+ Barton
ATI Radeon 9800 Pro 128 MB 8X AGP
Antec PSU with 430 W
Kingston PC3200 DDR (512 MB)x2
Seagate SATA HDD 200 GB
Windows XP Professional Edition (with SP1)

I've already tried all the potential solutions this morning, and the game still isn't running. But instead of having the blank blue screen (with no message) and rebooting, the game just freezes. I guess that's somewhat more graceful, but then I was forced to do a hard reboot everytime. Ctrl-Alt-Del doesn't do it, and I couldn't get to the Windows Task Manager.

I tried setting the AGP voltage to 1.6 V, and then to 1.7 V, but the game still freezes. I tried rolling back the Catalyst driver to version 3.4 (from year 2003), but same thing happens. I doubled checked any IRQ conflicts, but there isn't any conflict with the Radeon card.

The next thing I can try is disabling some of the on-board devices, but I need the audio because I don't have a separate sound card.

---

If anyone is interested, here is the link (http://www.techspot.com/vb/topic22675.html) to the original techspot post.

...and the SnarkPit is still down. I am not keeping my hopes up that it'll come back before the weekend.

I've already offered donations to find a new host.

But Valve may have the idea already when they were making HL1.

My new PC:

Athlon XP 3200+ Barton
ATI Radeon 9800 Pro
1 GB PC3200 DDR Dual-channel
200 GB Seagate SATA HDD

But it doesn't even run the original HL. I gave up on fixing it.

I believe it also hints at the fact that the "Combines" are half-living and half-machine/alien. Just look at the gunship and and strider, they're a fusion of machine parts and organic tissues, hence "half-life".

Cuz Oktagone is cheap.

But he noticed that suddenly the moist air becomes saturated with the nauseating smell of old blood. The sky turns red and the ground below his feet boils like festering wounds. He opens his mouth in horror but discovered

<a href="image.jpg"><img src="image.jpg" width="150" height="150" border="0"></a>

What horrifying thing I am seeing. Don't teach bad habits. It's like telling a newbie mapper to use the carving tool at all times.

"Bandwidth Limit Exceeded"!

I say dump Oktagone.

Athlon XP 3200+
1 GB PC3200 DDR
ATI Radeon 9800 Pro
200 MB Seagate SATA HDD
17" LCD

But no one should envy me. I can't run any 3D game or even an OpenGL screensaver. The computer crashes within minutes of running these apps. Heck, I can't even run the original HL on this machine.

However, it cured my gaming addiction. There goes my two days worth of salary. Oh well.

http://www.steampowered.com/Steam/Marketing/Mar18.2005/

Apparently, dm_resistance got a runner up (but it's not from Kasperg).

"Dr. freeman, IM COMING!"

Was that Alyx screaming in bed?

Like I said, think Robocop.

...unless you guys are too young to have seen the movie.

The gunships and striders are types of cyborgs, a combination of machine and organic material (or Robocop, if you're into 80's stuff).

And along Highway 17 in Half-Life 2, a gunships crashes right towards the player after it's shot down. That gave me a great chance at examining it up close and personal.

An interesting thing I noticed in my own sp map (which has a gunship) is that even though I didn't check "fade corpse", the remains of the gunship after it's shot down disappeared whenever I'm not looking at it. If the remain is within my VIS section, then it'll stay there forever. But the second I look away, the "corpse" disappears when I turn back.

I wonder whether it's possible to get killed by a gunship that fell out of the sky.

Official Contest Rules with announcement dates:

http://www.steampowered.com/?area=map_contest_rules

...and also because I've just wrote a walkthrough for the map this morning.

Because I've made some major modification to the gameplay, recently (about a week ago). Some playtesters have complained that the new version is unfairly challenging, and I want to seek some additional opinion.

I believe the winner will be revealed today. Has anyone heard any news about this? The SnarkPit is down, so I can't eavesdrop there.

I am itching to play the winning map, but I am even more curious to find out about the winner himself/herself. This is better than the Oscars last night.

Thanks, Seventh. It'll take about thirty minutes to an hour to beat the map.

Wow, Rabid. Sounds very impressive. You're really the master of ambiance.

Why not both? (girlfriend and a boyfriend) Let's be versatile and not judgemental.

I challenge anyone who can go through the entire map without dying once. I tried, and I couldn't do it this morning. But I am sure it's possible.

http://twhl.co.za/mapvault_map.php?id=2719

I plan to write a walkthrough for the map next week.

Celeron 1.1 GHz (now, stop laughing)
512 MB PC330 (I thought I said stop laughing)
ATI Radeon 9200 (do I have to repeat myself?)
20 GB HDD (are you choking?)
15" LCD (Samsung)
And it's a pre-built Compaq!

But hold on! I am building a new computer next month. Here are the specs for the new one:

Pentium 4 at 3.0 GHz
1 GB PC3200
ATI Radeon 9800
200 GB HDD
Prob same monitor

Why is Dell so bad? Don't spam me, but I was planning to buy a Dell.

After this thread, I am going to build my next computer from scratch. I did that a long time ago, back in the days of 286's. If I remember correctly, I had a huge 8 MB of hard drive space!

The SDK update and the HL2DM update are out!

Sorry, I didn't mean to forget the Aussies.

But I am betting that the winner will be European, because Half-Life 2 isn't as bit here as in Europe. American kids tend to play with console games more, and that explains the popularity of Halo 2 in the States.

I am apparently mistaken. The result will not be out until Feb. 28th. The judges at Valve will be picking the finalists starting today.

If I am not mistaken, the result should be released today to the public. I can't wait to see (and play) the winning entry. I wonder whether the winner is going to be European or American.

What's your speculation? And try not to let your bias affect your prediction.

SnarkPit's availability is still only sporadic. I could log on some of the times, but most other times, it's "website not found".

As of this moment, it's not available. I sure hope Lep is in the process of moving the site to a new host already.

I agree with Rabid. No lighting until the very end is a very bad idea. That way, if you want to modify the architecture for better lighting, you gotta start over.

The Pit is down again. It's 21:04 on West Coast in U.S. I was browsing in the forum and all of a sudden it just went offline.

US$200-$300

/me curls up into a fetal position and sucks his thumb.

True, color depth is better with CRT's, but LCD's are much better for the eyes (and desk space). LCD also saves energy costs.

I want to stick with ATI (instead of GeoForce) when I upgrade my graphics card. What do you guys think I should get (best bang for the buck)? I don't want to spend an exorbitant amount just to get the latest and the fastest.

Currently, I have a Radeon 9200 with 128 MB.

Cuz I just don't know what to do with myself anymore without a mapping forum.

I actually had two convulsions the week SnarkPit shut down. I had to log back onto TWHL to alleviate my withdraw symptoms.

You guys make me feel so old.

What about the flat panel 19" monitor and the DVD drive? And for the 1 GB of PC3200?

But I agree, I might be able to do it for less than $1,500.

Yeah, all the Pit members now come to TWHL to hang out. This is what I am doing at 3 am in the morning.

Do you have env_cubemap placed in your map? Place one or two near the model and make sure you run buildcubemaps from the console once you have the map loaded in the game.

If this doesn't solve the problem, then it might be an issue with the driver of your graphics card. Updating the driver might solve the problem.

Perhaps it's a conspiracy. Blame Bin Laden for it.