sending bug reports to Malfador?

Randallw · #1 November 18th, 2006, 10:12 AM

Wow it's actually been almost a year since the last drivers. I'll give it a go tomorrow.

edit: you know it's actually possible that might be the problem. I tried large battles before with 30 fighters a side and full tech but gave up because every time the game froze as soon as they all started shooting

edit2: you know and another thing I didn't think it was a hardware problem because of the low end, but I guess the purpose of the latest drivers is to get the best performance from hardware, so I might not need a supercomputer, but I might need the latest drivers to let mine work.

2ghz xp pro
512mb RAM
Radeon 9600

and before the inevitable xp critique, I am considering a new system so I can learn Vista. anyone know if it's worth it? I thought if my work is in IT maybe I should have the latest windows. As for MAC, well I use that at work.

Will · #2 November 18th, 2006, 05:29 PM

Application-level software usually will not cause reboots of a computer as the result of a bug, simply because the code is too high level. Issues with drivers are far more likely as a software cause to unwanted reboots, and most likely is hardware heat issues. Yet it is strange that it would only occur for SEV.

AT may be on to something with the DirectX version. I remember there were some issues with the demo if the DirectX installation was not the absolute latest available. So that may be the root cause. I don't know if having DX9 will cause windows update to try to install DX9.0c (latest, last I heard), but give that a try. It should also have updated drivers if hardware manufacturers submit them to Microsoft.

As for Vista, I wouldn't bother getting it at launch. The major features that would have made it worth getting aren't really there anymore, and those features were mainly directed at businesses, not consumers. The only thing Vista really offers to a home user is a new graphics-intensive UI. Everything else you basically already get in Media Center Edition XP. For businesses, they don't get the new file system, they have anti-virus vendors locked out. So the new machines won't be protected under the AV solution already implemented within a company's Windows machines, meaning upgrading to Vista will probably entail: new OS, new hardware, new Office suite, redeploy anti-virus/maintain two seperate AV suites.

Anyway, I see no need to upgrade to Vista for either home or for business users. The sales of Vista for the first few months will most likely be dominated by OEM computer makers selling copies with new computers, and very few individuals personally "upgrading".

Atrocities · #3 November 18th, 2006, 07:39 PM

Many of the people who are in the know about VISTA say don't bother with it. That says volumes about it IMHO. I am happy with XP Pro and Win2k Pro.

Randallw · #4 November 19th, 2006, 08:51 AM

Upgrading directx had one benefit. I was able to run a simulation with 6 battleships a side and 30 fighters with full tech and it didn't freeze. Don't know exactly if directx or the latest patch is responsible for that one, but anyway just as I was starting to believe the problem had been solved, alas, yep the whole thing rebooted

. If I have the time tomorrow perhaps I'll try removing dust.

Phoenix-D · #5 November 20th, 2006, 11:13 PM

Do you have BSOD reboots turned off? By default Windows XP just reboots instead of showing you the error message..

Randallw · #6 November 21st, 2006, 12:04 AM

yes I think so. I turned off automatic reboots due to system failure but it didn't happen. I think it's working because yesterday my system failed when I tried to run a corrupt video and there was an error screen i'd never seen before.

AgentZero · #7 November 21st, 2006, 02:33 AM

For the rebooting issue, if you right click My Computer, click Properties, then the Advanced tab & click Settings in the Startup and Recovery box, then unticked the checkmark on Automatically Restart in the System failure box, you should get a Blue Screen Of Death instead of the computer just restarting. If, after doing that your machine still reboots itself, something wonky is going on.

As for Vista, consider the following. Vista will ship in 3 different flavours: Home Basic, Home Premium & Home Basic. Their minimum requirements?
Home Basic 800MHz Processor, 512MB RAM & DX9 complient video card.
Home Premium 1GHz Processor, 1GB RAM, DX9 complient video card with at least 128MB RAM, and 40GB HD capacity.
Ultimate Same as Premium

Keeping in mind that it's usually a safe bet you'll need 50-100% higher specs than the minimum to get optimal performance from any piece of software, and you're looking at an OS with similar system requirements to a next-gen FPS.
As far as I can tell, the reason Basic's requirements are so much lower is because it lacks the fancy Aero Glass functionality, but it's also missing a fair chunk of other options as well, so you'd have to take that into account when choosing which flavour to go with.

Personally, I'd be inclined to go with Ultimate for the same reason I'd rather run XP Pro: I'd rather have the extra features & not use them, rather than need the extra features & not have them. That being said, I'm going to hold off upgrading until someone comes out with a DX10-only game that I just have to play. But that probably won't be for at least another year or so, if not longer, at which point upgrading won't put such a dent in the ole pocket book either.