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Game freezes from the start
08/06/2010, 22:47:51

    Oldtymer writes:

    As soon as I begin a new game, the display freezes up
    It will eventually allow me to turn or move for a second or two, and then it locks up again for 15-30 sec. (The game clock will have advanced several minutes each time it allows me a short burst of movement)
    I've patched the game using v1.2 and v1.3 before I started.
    Graphics card is a Nvidia Geforce MX2 400, on WinXP. (Older system, but has always worked great until now)
    I suspect this has something to do with the 3D graphics, but I cannot find anything which shows how to fix this.

    Does anyone have any ideas?
    Thanks in advance





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more info on freeze-up
08/06/2010, 23:25:42

    Oldtymer writes:

    Some more info -
    I tried the cshell.dll, no change
    I tried changing the graphics options to the most basic ones - again, no change.
    I played with the 3d settings on the nvidia software, but you guessed it, no change.
    I even tried restarting completely, but still no change. It still locks up for 15+ sec before it frees up for a second or two.




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I suspect that your graphics drivers are too recent....
08/07/2010, 10:28:25

    Bones writes:

    The MX2 400 is sufficiently advanced to play MM9, but when you feed it advanced drivers you are making it go though a lot of routines that it can't use. I and others had this same problem also. You can read one of these threads starting with message number 35234.

    You'll want to use drivers from an era which is no more than a year newer than your card. There are two obstacles you'll have. All of the old drivers are available at Nvidia's site, but they are very hard to find. Below is a link to version 41.09. The other issue is that you'll need to remove all traces of your current drivers. Doing a web search on "remove nvidia drivers" gives a lot of good hits.



    Related link: 41.09 drivers

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Unfortunately...
08/07/2010, 18:47:01

    Oldtymer writes:

    It didn't make any difference.
    Any other ideas?




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Rats. Well....
08/07/2010, 23:11:34

    Bones writes:

    ... there are a few more things I can suggest. First, you might need an even earlier set of drivers. I had to use a version around 36 or 39 with my GF2 MX card, but I was using a MB with a VIA chipset (MVP) that has some issues. The drivers probably aren't the problem.

    It might be DirectX. Make sure that you're running version 9.0c. Go to Start -> Run -> 'dxdiag' -> Enter. Go to the Display Tab and toggle the DirectX Features off and back on -- Disable and Enable. Sometimes that jumpstarts the system. It's easy to do this but I don't think that will fix your problem.

    The game install has problems sometimes with NTFS -- the NT File System. Files can get corrupted. The install also has problems with the WindowsXP Firewall. You might need to re-install. If you try that, do so in Safe Mode. Install to a FAT32 partition if possible.

    Check our old posts. Use the find function and see what terms like 'freeze' brings up. Please let us know what you learn along the way.





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I checked the posts
08/07/2010, 23:32:21

    Oldtymer writes:

    but didn't really find anything mentioning "freeze"
    I'll try again

    I already have DirectX 9.0
    I've uninstalled it and reinstalled it.
    When I tried changing the directx controls, the game ran normally - for about 5 seconds. (By far the longest to date)
    Then it went right back to the freezing up. :-(

    I'll mention that there doesn't appear to be any graphical problems - the screens and graphics appear quite normal.
    The screen just suddenly freezes for maybe 10 seconds, and then runs for a second, and freezes up again (though the game clock appears to still be running, since it advances each time it starts running)





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"Freeze" posts
08/07/2010, 23:37:27

    Oldtymer writes:

    They all seem to be about the screen freezing at a specific time - opening inventory, going into an area, etc.
    In my case, it always happens shortly after the game starts, and it isn't confined to some specific repeatable action. It's just that at some point, after a few seconds (or less), it freezes.
    Sometimes it's during the initial dialog, sometimes after, sometimes before.
    It's like the buffer fills and locks up.




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Yeah, I didn't see any older posts that exactly matched your problem....
08/08/2010, 08:02:09

    Bones writes:

    The fact that it doesn't seem to be triggered by a particular event within the game suggests that the problem is either with a program running in the background or a BIOS setting. Have you tried running the game in Safe Mode?




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No dice
08/08/2010, 14:12:54

    Oldtymer writes:

    That didn't make a difference.
    I've gone so far as to reset the BIOS, run chkdsk, and a very thorough anti-virus.
    Everything stays exactly the same.
    It still freezes, then frees up for a sec, then freezes, repeat.




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This is a fairly forlorn hope, judging by what you've been through, but ...
08/08/2010, 15:21:13

    Peter2 writes:

    ... going back to the days before Mok provided his patches, there were all sorts of things tried to persuade MM6-8 to run under WinXP. Most of these are tabulated at the link below. There might just be something in there that's worth trying, or which gives you an idea.


    Related link: http://www.celestialheavens.com/viewpage.php?id=383

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tried compatibility mode
08/08/2010, 15:44:48

    Oldtymer writes:

    For both 95 and 98. Nothing changes.

    What's goofy is this - I've been able to run MM3-8 on this system, with this setup, without the slightest problem.
    It's only been MM9 that has given me issues.
    I'm guessing it has to do with the 3D graphics.

    What's also odd is that it doesn't just freeze and stay frozen.
    Instead, it only freezes for a bit of time, allows a small bit of movement again, freezes again, movement, freeze, repeat.





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The only thing left to do, then...
08/08/2010, 15:25:06

    Bones writes:

    ... would be to drop in another graphics card -- assuming that your computer isn't a laptop. This will give us some idea where the problem is. If you don't have a suitable card lying around then you can probably get one from a friend who tinkers with computers.




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IGP
08/08/2010, 19:25:00

    Oldtymer writes:

    No other compatible cards, but this computer has an IGP.
    So, remove the one card, use the integrated one, and voila, it now works.
    Can't say graphics are quite as good, but hey, it works, so I can't complain, right?
    The rest of the time I just use it for business functions, and email looks like email with any card.
    Thanks for the help.




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Great! Those circuits were probably related to the problem. I hate onboard graphics.
08/08/2010, 23:49:20

    Bones writes:





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