Quake 3 Arena on SMP system

[slkh 0]

Anyone managed to get Quake 3 Arena to work on SMP system?

 

I seems to get an instant hang on Windows 2000 (2195) when I start Quake 3.

 

System Spec:

Geforce DDR

Nvidia Reference Driver 3.75

256 Mb PC133

Dual Celeron 450 Mhz.

[MarksmanX 0]

Try the Nvidia NT 4.0 drivers at the Nvidia site. They work GREAT in SMP mode Let me know if it works.

[slkh 0]

Markmanx,

 

The detonator 3.68 doesn't work out well, they hang straight away I start Quake.

 

By the way, for those who have Geforce and SMP system, the way to enable SMP capability in Quake 3 is

 

Goto Console, type

\r_smp 1

\vid_restart

[MarksmanX 0]

Try this, go to run and type dxdiag. Then click on the display tab. Then click on Test DirectDraw and Direct3D. If your system locks up. Make sure you get your AGP aperature to the lowest amount and then repeat. If it locks up again start toying with the settings till it works. Also I tried the new 3.76 and I have no problems in Quake III under SMP Toying around is the best way to see what works and what doesn't also makesure you bios is updated. I got my bios updated to Windows 2000 recently. Once I applied it the errors just vanished

[slkh 0]

Marksmanx,

 

I haven't have problem under dxdiag, it won't lock up my system. Under Quake3, when I close Quake3 and restart again, it reached the grey skin and it just hang there. BTW, I have the appeture size set to 4 Mb, but still doesn't work. Reference Driver 3.76 from Reactorcritical.

 

I have the latest BIOS update, that is May 1999. The manufacturer didn't make any BIOS update since then.

 

If you don't mind, could you send me your Quake3 Config file to my email address (slkh@hotmail.com)?

 

Thanks.

[MarksmanX 0]

My Config won't help you at all because it is a driver issue not a config issue. Give me more detail on your system and who is the maker etc etc

[slkh 0]

Epox KP6-BS BIOS 05-20-1999

Dual Celeron 300A@450/464 Mhz @ 2.0v

dual GlobalWin cooling system + 4 PSU fan

HP 8100i

Full tower casing 300w

Quantum Fireball KA 18.1 Gb

Seagate Medalist Pro 6.4 Gb

Asus CDROM 34x

Realtek 10Mbps Network Card

Sonic Vibre sound card

1x128 Mb PC133 Crucial Memory

1x128 Mb PC100 Hyundai Memory

Creative Geforce DDR 32 Mb

Nvidia Reference Driver 3.76/3.75/3.68 for Windows 2000 from http://www.reactorcritical.com

 

System BIOS cacheble

Video BIOS non-cacheble (Tried cacheble)

Video RAM non-cacheble (Tried cacheble)

Apperture size = 256 Mb (Tried 128, 64, 32, 4)

 

Anything else you like to know?

[MarksmanX 0]

Did you try restoring the CPU to their default speed? Is your system operating well at 300 Watts? From what I read you need atleast 350+ Watts for a dual system. First try this. Remove PC 133 DIMM and run with 128 PC 100 and run Q3. If it locks up try the PC 133 without the PC 100 and if it locks up then it's not the memory Set the Apperature Size to 4MB and don't set it to 256 because the bios allocated the 256 to AGP thus having no resources for Windows 2000 to use. I think a BIOS flash will solve most of your problems to be honest. That new bios flash from Tyan just stopped the grey screen in quake III. If this fails, then contact Epox and ask them are they planning in releasing a bios update for Windows 2000. Let me know if this helped

[slkh 0]

I don't think I can find any PSU more than 300w in UK, unless I go and look for those exotic PSU for those servers. I personally think 300w for this system is a bit overkilling.

 

Well, I mess around with quite a lot of thigns today. Resetting the CPU to 300 Mhz (both), Use PC100 Memory for this stuff. Set apperture size from 4 Mb to 64 Mb.

 

Using the latest Nvidia Reference Driver, tweak around with DXDiag. No luck in getting it to run. Reference Drier for NT4.0 3.68 seems to be the most stable that I have found so far.

 

I don't think I want to flash a Tyan BIOS into my Epox BIOS. It will simply roast my BIOS.

 

I think I am going to give up on this. By the way, what system are you having?

[MarksmanX 0]

Quote:

Originally posted by slkh:
I don't think I can find any PSU more than 300w in UK, unless I go and look for those exotic PSU for those servers. I personally think 300w for this system is a bit overkilling.

Well, I mess around with quite a lot of thigns today. Resetting the CPU to 300 Mhz (both), Use PC100 Memory for this stuff. Set apperture size from 4 Mb to 64 Mb.

Using the latest Nvidia Reference Driver, tweak around with DXDiag. No luck in getting it to run. Reference Drier for NT4.0 3.68 seems to be the most stable that I have found so far.

I don't think I want to flash a Tyan BIOS into my Epox BIOS. It will simply roast my BIOS.

I think I am going to give up on this. By the way, what system are you having?

PLEASE DO NOT use other manufactures bios for updates I have a Tyan S1832DL Tiger 100 motherboard. I recently ordered two Pentium III 700 E processors I don’t believe RAMBUS is going to be embraced at all by the motherboard manufactures at all. Plus memory companies are considering canceling because of the Royalties involved. Lets see here for 256 MEGS of RAMBUS RAM I can get a total system upgrade! Not worth it and I do need to upgrade. Plus Intel with their buggy I820 and I840 chipsets are not worth the gamble at this point. BX is fine for me and I will continue to use this motherboard till Intel has a really STABLE chipset.

You can order a good power supply at http://www.pcpowerandcooling.com/home.htm I ordered my 400WATTs from them. 3 Year warrantee From what I have read and seen people always say use 350+ Watts for a dual system. You might burn out your power supply. So just letting you know now

Remember not all systems are alike some people have SMP working and some do not It’s just little things like bios settings that affect the total outcome in SMP mode in Quake III. Just wait one more week and you will see manufacturers releasing updated bios and patches so they can run in Windows 2000 I know it’s frustrating, I must have switched cards around and moved DIMMS around and eventually it WORKED! NT is a VEEEERRRY pick OS and if you have something it doesn’t like. It won’t run properly




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Dual Intel Pentium II 450
384 MEGS of PC-100 RAM
Sound Blaster Live!
Promise DMA/66 Controller
GeForce 256 DDR
IBM Deskstar 34GXP 27.3GB DMA 66
Western Digital 20.5GB DMA 66
Intellimouse Explorer (USB)
Roland Sound Canvis SC-55
3COM 3CR990-TX-97 with 3XP Processor 10/100 PCI Network Interface Card

[slkh 0]

Thanks for your tips.

 

But I think I will probably stick to Windows 98 for the time being as gamers platform. I use Windows 2000 for normal work will do.

Probably I have already tried almost every tweaking method available. I think it has nothing to do with my hardware. It can either be the driver not too optimized enough or my BIOS isn't compatible enough. I guess even by a week time, I will still have similar problem, they couldn't possibly fix it that soon coz SMP users are almost considered as minority. Uniprocessor mode still work fine though.

 

--

Simon

[Enmity 0]

Hi,

 

Maybe this is a little after the fact, but I had the same problem with Q3. Would lock up as soon as I started it.

 

After a lot of futzing around I narrowed it down to my RC5 client. Turned it off and the game runs fine. I also linked some problems to setting ignorehwgamma to 1 .

 

But I am running win2k 2195 (i noticed you where running 98??? and smp??), and my RC5 client is version 2.7106.436 (a little old).

 

GL,

 

Enmity

 

------------------

---------------------

Theres a big difference between knealing down and bending over- FZ

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dual cel 366@550

BP6

256mb Ram

Viper 770U

SB PCI128

3Com 10/100

10gb IBM ATA66

40X cd

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[slkh 0]

After some try by turning off the RC5Client, I seems to be able to work around with Q3 now.

 

It is quite a bit more stable. Although occasionally it hangs particularly when changing resolutions.

 

I do not see any benefit of using SMP system here, it seems to me as though there is only about 0.3 fps benefit when I run in 1024x768 32 bit colour, High Detail, Trilinear mode. The fps score is still 17 fps lower than Windows 98.

 

I hope Nvidia will at least come out with something very much better than what they have now by tomorrow.

 

Thanks for your tips anyway.

 

--

Simon

BTW, I am using Windows 2000 (2195)/Windows 98. Dual Boot.

 

 

>Hi,

>Maybe this is a little after the fact, but >I had the same problem with Q3. Would lock >up as soon as I started it.

 

>After a lot of futzing around I narrowed it >down to my RC5 client. Turned it off and >the game runs fine. I also linked some >problems to setting ignorehwgamma to 1 .

 

>But I am running win2k 2195 (i noticed you >where running 98??? and smp??), and my RC5 >client is version 2.7106.436 (a little old).

 

>GL,

 

>Enmity

[SlaveDog 0]

Guy's,

 

Check out this cool article on Win2K SMP and Q3A at Thresh's firing squad.

http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/q3adrivers/default.asp

 

They point out what slkh has seen. That at high res SMP doesn't help as much due to the fill rate of the card being so maxed out. It will be cool to see how Q3A does with a V56000 and SMP though.

 

 

 

------------------

SlaveDog

freeman@primenet.com

[Enmity 0]

thats if 3dfx can manage to support smp, i couldnt get my v3 to work...

 

------------------

Theres a big difference between knealing down and bending over- FZ

---------------------

dual cel 366@550

BP6

256mb Ram

Viper 770U

SB PCI128

3Com 10/100

10gb IBM ATA66

40X cd

---------------------

[Darth Bobo 0]

Hey slkh:

 

I've got the same mobo as you. I mailed Epox in December and asked if they would be releasing a BIOS update for the 1Mb chip. They said they'd support the 2Mb bios, but "probably not" the 1Mb.

 

Ba$tard$ - I bought the board in August and it already been obsoleted. Also there's no way to tell what type of bios is in the box.

 

Maybe if we just keep requesting they'll do something.

[SlaveDog 0]

3DFX is not supporting SMP right now. They said on 3dfx.products.voodoo3 that they are evaluating SMP for possible future support. That right now they are concentrating on single processor.

 

bummer

 

------------------

SlaveDog

freeman@primenet.com

[YuppieScum 0]

What a bunch of arse.

 

The Driver Development kit (which, along with the SDK, has accompanied every milestone rev of W2K) inherently supports SMP. In fact, this is the main reason that MS refused to ship 3DFX drivers on the W2K CD - because they didn't support SMP and could therefore break the OS.

 

Ultimatly, this just goes to show how crap some companies are at understanding what supporting their products is all about...after all, the NT4 drivers run under SMP...

 

 

 

------------------

SuperMicro P6DBS (dual UW-SCSI) BIOS 2.2, 2*Celery 300a @ 450Mhz, 384MB PC100 RAM

SCSI-A=4.3Gb+9Gb, SCSI-B=Tosh32x CD-ROM, Yamaha4416 CD-RW, Iomega ZIP100, IDE1=4.3Gb

IBM EtherJet 10/100 NIC PCI + Nortel ADSL "modem"

Matrox G400 DH 32Mb AGP + Quantum3D Voodoo2 SLI PCI (CL TNT1 AGP on a shelf)

SoundBlaster Live PCI (not Value)

Win2K build 2195 Retail (not 120-day eval)

[slkh 0]

No doubt. The uniprocessor users far much more than the multiprocessor users. But this shouldn't make it a good reason for not supporting SMP platform.

 

For me, I am terribly upset by Epox mainboard manufacturer. I think Epox would be my first and my last mainboard from them.

[EddiE314 0]

to tell you the truth, i haven't seen any better framerates for Quake 3 on an SMP system, i got dual cel400's@500, 384MB ram, and a voodoo banshee(well the Banshee died)but i got about 42fps without smp and with smp i got like 45-47fps, you be the judge

[Galilee 0]

No 3dfx drivers support smp, how you were able to enable it, and get better framerates is strange.

[slkh 0]

Hello Darth Bobo

 

I emailed to Epox and request they update the BIOS for 1Mb Chip. Haven't got any reply from them so far. I think they won't reply me at all.

 

My question, what if I buy from them the 2 Mb EEPROM BIOS Chip and fit it into my mobo, so that I can flash to the newest BIOS. Does it work?

 

I could hardly find anyone with the same mobo as well. Let me ask you, do you get occasional junkies+Flashing+multicolour ASCII character flashing all over the screen when you do a hardware RESET?

 

I do, and I got a feeling it is the BIOS problem.

[HarU 0]

Hey eddie, just out of curiosity, how did you get your celery's to run 500 mhz????

 

i have the same system as you. (motherboard and procs) I have mine at 450. What kind of cooling do you use?

[rickj 0]

i have the epox kp6-bs mainboard also. untill win 2000 i have been extremely pleased with it. i have also e-mail epox with no reply about win 2000 bios updates (yes i have the 1mb chip also). i also asked them if i could upgrade to the 2 mb chip, but since they have not responded i have no way to answer that question......any one have a blown epox kp6-bs with a 2 meg bios chip they want to send my way? also, anyone out there have the 2 mb version board and not having any problems? i also get the garbled screen and ascii characters after reboots sometimes.........

 

rick johnston

cedar ridge, ca

 

epox kps-bs

(2) celeron 400 (@600)

diamond voodoo 2 8mb

3com 10/100 nic

ati rage pro turbo agp 2x

fastrack33 w/ 2 wd ac34300 hd's

vortex 2

zip

36x acer cdrom

microtek c3 usb scanner