Same old same old: RADEON 9800 + A7N8X E Deluxe = Crash

[Lauchazo!]

Hello everyone, got the Darwinia CD version. Played it perfectly in the past with my old Nvidia GeForce 4 mx 440. Now can´t play more than a few seconds in Contaiment, cause it crashes.
Used to get the ATIOGLXX.dll error, and seems to be fixed using an old dll version together with latest Omega Drivers.
Now, a few seconds after I enter Containment, its crashes with the classic "application has failed...." error, failing module NTDLL.DLL
Following several different threads here, I updated my NFORCE drivers, and changed the sound settings to use the NVASIO module.
Also played around with RenderLandscapeMode = 0/1/2
I got NO problem with the world Map, it shows fine, it sounds fine.

I Tried:
-low detail/high detail
-several screen configs
-several sound configs
-several bootloader options
-several initial level options
-3 different cdrom/dvdrom drives
-installed win2k pro on different partition with latest drivers for everything
-read absolutely EVERY thread related to this and every possible solution mentioned.

of course, no blackbox generated.

I´ve already played & finished Darwinia 3 times, latest one with the new control method included in the patch (great BTW), but this time my plan was to finish it, enable the mods and start playing mods and levels.

Here are my hardware specs and current preferences file, with which I got the best performance inside Containment: 15 seconds before crash.

Asus A7N8X-E Deluxe
AMD Barton 2600+
Kingston 512 Mb DDR-400
Ati Radeon 9800 Pro 128 Mb (Built by ATI)
Windows XP Sp2 fully updated

Preferences.txt
---------------------------------------------------

ServerAddress = 127.0.0.1
BypassNetwork = 1
IAmAServer = 1

TextLanguage = english
TextSpeed = 15
HelpEnabled = 1

SoundLibrary = nvasio
SoundMixFreq = 22050
SoundMasterVolume = 255
SoundChannels = 16
SoundHW3D = 0
SoundSwapStereo = 1
SoundMemoryUsage = 1
SoundBufferSize = 512
SoundDSP = 1

ScreenWidth = 1024
ScreenHeight = 768
ScreenWindowed = 0
ScreenZDepth = 24
ScreenColourDepth = 32
ScreenRefresh = 60

RenderLandspaceMode = 1
RenderLandscapeDetail = 1
RenderWaterDetail = 1
RenderBuildingDetail = 1
RenderEntityDetail = 1
RenderCloudDetail = 1
RenderPixelShader = 1

ControlMouseButtons = 3
ControlMethod = 1
BootLoader = random
UserProfile = NewUser
RenderSpecialLighting = 0
Difficulty = 1

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

Ok guys... I think that´s about it. Seriously, I wouldn´t mind hitting one or two of those PayPal ´Donate´ links to get this running.
Pleeeeeaasseeee... I miss the little green fellas!

[NeoThermic]

Hmm!

What ATi driver version?

I would also set SoundLibrary = nvasio back to SoundLibrary = dsound just in case that is our problem.

Also, is the computer overheating? Are there any problems with any other games?

I would also suggest to totally remove the ATi drivers, and re-install 6.6 from ATi.com

NeoThermic

[Lauchazo!]

Thanks for your reply! You the greatest!

Ok, right now I´m on latest Omega driver (3.8.252 (Catalyst 6.5)) but already tried ati originals:
3.2
3.9
4.12
4.7
5.0
5.2
latest Omega using atioglxx.dll from all of the above
Ati original 5.2 using atioglxx.dll from all of the above

I guess I could try Original 6.6

Using SoundLibrary = dsound gives me a BSOD, blaming kmixer.sys from my nforce sound drivers, which I completely updated, with no luck. So SoundLibrary = nvasio (which I got from another thread) is the only config not giving me a sound specific error.

Got absolutely no overheating problems, lately, I´ve been playing Prince of Persia The 2 Thrones, just fine. TrackMania Sunrise Extreme runs great, and I also truied games like Doom 3, MOH Pacific Assault and Half Life 2 Episode One (and none of these Big projects beat Darwinia).

After all this testing, I´m not very confident about having Darwinia up and running again, at least not with this hardware config, as I´ve gone through every single piece of configuration found on this forum. One more thing I forgot to mention, I also checked for corruption on the profile files and did the texture resize thing, both with no luck.

Final question: Is there a REAL way to totally erase every trace of ATI/OMEGA drivers?, just to make absolutely ure I´m not dealing with old files, you know?

THANKS AGAIN!

[Lauchazo!]

Same thing on Catalyst 6.6
At least 6.6 Atioglxx.dll seemed to work, as my error keeps on showing NTDLL.DLL

[NeoThermic]

Should you wish to go through with totally nuking the ATi drivers to start again, ATi Catalyst Tweak Guide should tell you all you need to do in the first four pages. You can also then follow the latter 10 pages if you feel like making your card efficent.

What is fortunate/unfortunate is that out of all the mentioned games, only Doom 3 working has any relevence to Darwinia (they both use OpenGL, so it rules out the possibility that OpenGL is messing up).

NeoThermic

[Lauchazo!]

Thanks for the link, totally wiped off the old drivers and tried 6.6, still crashing.

But here's something I just thought about: The very 1st time I installed Darwinia, it crashed, and the only way I could make it work, was installing the patch, but I believe it was the 1st patch ever released, not the current 1.42
Is there a link to the previous patches? Maybe it helps....

[Steven]

http://www.introversion.co.uk/darwinia/ ... -vX.XX.zip

Replace X.XX with the version you want. 1.30 works, 1.42 also. I haven't tried others, but I bet they're there. Anyone have a list of previous version numbers?

[Lauchazo!]

Ha! that was a smart idea!

Here´s what I found, missing 1.22 according to the latest ´changes.txt´ from 1.42
I guess I´ll try them one by one to see if any of these work for me.

Patch 1.2
Patch 1.21
Patch 1.3
Patch 1.42

[trickfred]

I believe 1.22 was mac only, and those changes were brought to the PC with the 1.3 patch, if I'm not mistaken.

[xander]

I believe 1.22 was mac only, and those changes were brought to the PC with the 1.3 patch, if I'm not mistaken.

Correct. 1.2.2 was a Mac only patch.

xander

[Lauchazo!]

Ok, tried every single patch... same results... can´t play more than a few seconds on Containment before a I get a crash mentioning NTDLL.DLL

Any more ideas guys?

[NeoThermic]

Right-o, when it crashes next, can we have an exact copy of the message?

NeoThermic

[Lauchazo!]

ok, lets see if the screenshot helps (first time uploading images to free image hosting... sorry if it fails)

[Lauchazo!]

So guys... was I abandoned here??

[NeoThermic]

The problem with NTDLL.dll being the cause means that XP itself is at fault. I'm not sure why that would happen, but I suspect it might be down to bad RAM. I would try memtest86 (first google result) and see if that picks anything up. If it doesn't, then my only other suggestion is a re-install of XP.

Your problem has, however, stumped me at nearly every point

NeoThermic