Help! (halo pc/ce xp issue)

[visH]

Okay guys, I’ve noticed that whenever I play halo pc for WINDOWS XP, the game itself (everything else works like ventrillo and xfire) freezes. Before I get into details, this issue does not occur in WINDOWS VISTA.

Ok so as I play halo for about good 10-15 minutes, all the sudden my screen freezes and sometimes the sound repeats until it unfreezes. It freezes for 7-12 seconds and when it does unfreezes, either two things happens: I resume the game with a high ping for a few seconds and then it freezes again later on or I lose connection to server , but I don’t lose connection on anything else that’s running.

I’ve had this problem ever since I am on xp and playing HALO PC/CE ONLY. This doesn’t happen to WoW, Warhammer, counterstrike source or any other games.

I’ve tried almost everything possible to fix this problem. Called my isp, disabling firewall/anti viruses, opening ports, reinstalling the game/drivers 10x. Even messed with my nvidia control panel.

Once I tried to see if the game works fine with vsync forced on under the nvidia control panel and the game worked fine for a week till I got tired of the frames that are locked up. Under no-vsync my frames go anywhere from 100-300 on the lowest settings and I need it to record my game matches for superior performance and I can’t do that with vsync turned on. So that’s not an option. On vista both of the settings work fine but I’m not switching back to vista. So that’s not an option.

It either has to do with my Network settings or my video card settings
My pc spec:
Manufacturer: Sony Corporation
Processor: Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 3.00GHz (2 CPUs), ~3.0GHz
Memory: 2GB RAM
Hard Drive: 200 GB Total
Video Card: NVIDIA GeForce 7600 GT
Monitor: SONY SDM-HS75
Sound Card: Realtek Digital Output (2- Realtek High Definition Audio)
Speakers/Headphones: Logitech Headphones
Keyboard: USB Root Hub
Mouse: USB Root Hub
Mouse Surface: Yo Face

[mech]

Heat the game up before you play it, that should prevent it from freezing.

[Rook]

Since your system is good enough I'd just install vista, its better anyway imo. I'm aware that was not one of your options but it is the best choice!

[stankpot]

Heat the game up before you play it, that should prevent it from freezing.
LOL

[visH]

Since your system is good enough I'd just install vista, its better anyway imo. I'm aware that was not one of your options but it is the best choice!

that means i cant play games like warhammer without getting atleast 20 fps. :(

[Cortexian]

that means i cant play games like warhammer without getting atleast 20 fps. :(
Why is that? Most of the time Vista rarely effects frame rates in games, it's not really a resource hog at all (even though it might seem like it). Vista is pretty much superior to Windows XP in every way at this point imo, I get better gaming performance on Vista now than I ever did on XP.

[Jelly]

Why is that? Most of the time Vista rarely effects frame rates in games, it's not really a resource hog at all (even though it might seem like it). Vista is pretty much superior to Windows XP in every way at this point imo, I get better gaming performance on Vista now than I ever did on XP.
I think your position is a rare one, games often perform worse on Vista, and visH is one of those "both record" players, so a second performance hit by FRAPS probably wouldn't be appreciated.

Vish, have you tried downloading the latest DirectX runtimes? (http://www.softwarepatch.com/windows/directx.html)

Did you uninstall your old drivers before reinstalling them?

Try running a cleanup program like CCleaner (http://www.ccleaner.com/) to make sure there's no errant registry entries causing problems.

If you try those and get no luck, I'd try either a fresh install of XP or a move to Vista, whichever you feel would benefit you more.

[visH]

hmmm i though windows automatically installed direct x 9... I’ll download and install them. and yes, tried ccleaner, reinstalled xp fresh 3 times, and obviously I uninstalled drivers before reinstalling it.

[InnerGoat]

I've ran into weird issues like that on older systems. Took a few different driver sets until I found one that worked right with the old geforce 6200...

Trying those dx hotfixes Jelly mentioned may help.

[visH]

yea i tried it and still froze.

ok, i'm pretty sure that my onboard sound drivers are fucked up. i think thats what is causing the issue.

i have realtek high def audio drivers 5.10.0.5713. date is 10/2/08 - so it's not old.
maybe there are better drivers? if you guys can find one for me to try let me know.

my pc is Sony VAIO VGC-RB40. hope that helps you if you guys needed extra info.

[InnerGoat]

Get a proper video card... Also you can use the original drivers on the disk(s) that came with the pc.

[visH]

i might have fixed it. today i went all day without freezing but i might have just been luck. but i talked to nvidia retards and they finaly sent me a email saying,


Hi Vishal,

Thank you for contacting us here at NVIDIA Customer Care.

In order to troubleshoot the issue I would request you to install the display driver version 174.74 using the driver cleaner software by following instructions described below.

Please visit the link below to download the display driver:

http://www.nvidia.com/object/winxp_174.74.html

* Once you download the file, Please perform the below mentioned steps to uninstall the drivers currently installed on your PC,

1. Right click on the My Computer icon on the desktop or on the start menu.
2. Select properties.
3. In the next window select Hardware and then select Device Manager.
4. On the Device Manager Window click on the (+) sign next to Display Adapters.
5. Double click on the Graphics Card Option.
6. On the Graphics Properties Page, select driver and click on Uninstall to uninstall the Graphics Drivers.

After uninstalling the older drivers, please visit the link given below to download and run the driver cleaner utility on your Computer.

http://downloads.guru3d.com/download.php?det=1655 (Remove only NVIDIA display driver using this utility)

After downloading and running the driver cleaner utility, please double click on the driver file to install the drivers for your graphics card.

In case if the issue persists then please try the driver version 169.09.

Please visit the link below to download the display driver:

http://www.nvidia.com/object/winxp_169.09.html

I would request you to try hardware stability test for the graphics card. There could be hardware issue with the graphics card. Please check the web link below which helps in detecting hardware failure of a graphics card.

http://www.sharewareconnection.com/video-card-stability-test.htm

Please note that if your system crashes and freezes while running this software, then the graphics card has some problems

Please let me know if your issue has been resolved.

Best regards,
Matiuj
NVIDIA Customer Care