Getting back my $45

[TekDragon]

This will be the last SOE purchase i make. Period. I came home and installed the game, got into it, and said "wow, this looks really sweet". Five minutes later my PC resets.

After dozens of PC resets and crashes to desktop (with no error or warning messages) im ready to quit. Ive taken the game down to lowest graphical settings on 800x600 resolution in windowed mode. My P4, 2.8ghz, Radeon 9700, SB Audigy, 120 gig HD, Alienware PC cant handle this peice of shit.

Ive posted on the official board, got no help. Ive posted on this boards tech page, no one knows the fix. Im taking this POS back to the store and getting BF1942

[Demdadar]

... No comments .

Sounds really stupid :sick:

[ObnoxiousFrog]

Ummm...it's not SOE's fault that your PC craps out on PS. Don't be such a stink over it.

[SpaceDrake]

Read my reply in the Tech Forum and stop bitching already. It isn't necessarily a problem on SOE's end, you know.

[xXxHitmanxXx]

i dont mean to flame, but (Hehe) my Dell 4550 2.0ghz handles it smoothly. the only problem i get is that my comp gets major randomy popup ads during the game, so then the game minimizes. but i just alt+tab again and i go back to playing.

if the PC crashes after it boots up, its the pc hardware not the game.

[Hamma]

Easy guys :lol:

Have you actually attempted to call SOE support instead of just posting on their forums?

[TekDragon]

*opens up CD binder*

Lets see here...

Unreal 2, Ultima Online, Asherons Call 1 & 2, Dark Age of Camelot, Anarchy Online, Warcraft 3, CnC Red Alert 2, MechWarrior 4, Black & White, Baldurs Gate 2, Wizardry 8, and Heroes of Might and Magic 3 & 4. All those games have run perfectly for the 8 months ive had this PC.

CnC Generals crashed on me twice while i was alt-tabbing back and forth between AIM, ICQ, and the game while playing multiplayer matches.

Yeah. Im sure its my PC.

:rolleyes:

[Hamma]

I havent heard of these issues from anyone else..

hehe

[mistled]

Actually, since, as Hamma said, I haven't heard of this problem with anyone except you, it probably is your computer. Or a corrupt installation (or worse, defective cds). I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that you uninstalled and reinstalled the game??

[KaRtToOn]

It could be a ton of things...

#1) Did you attempt to install it over the beta files? If so this causes it to crash and/or not even let you in.

#2) Are you OC'ing? Maybe you've pushed something to far and it is no longer stable. It might just take PS's intense cpu/gpu/mem useage that it shows its ugly head.

#3) They reported a lot of cd's were defective from shipment. Maybe you got some of those?

Dunno, just some food for thought..

[TekDragon]

I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that you uninstalled and reinstalled the game??

*gets quesy feeling*

Ugg.. i really dont want to re-install. I have a 56k modem and it took me 6 hours to patch. Do you REALLY think that will help?

Also, is SOE's number toll free? Ive never bothered doing official support after a bad experience I had with Microsoft. Spent 20 minutes on the phone working through machines just to get some moron who codnt help me. That costed a pretty friggin penny.

[TekDragon]

#1) Did you attempt to install it over the beta files? If so this causes it to crash and/or not even let you in.

#2) Are you OC'ing? Maybe you've pushed something to far and it is no longer stable. It might just take PS's intense cpu/gpu/mem useage that it shows its ugly head.

#3) They reported a lot of cd's were defective from shipment. Maybe you got some of those?

1. No
2. No
3. God i hope not.

[Hamma]

Dio posted in another thread, CD3 was b0rked/scratched in some shipments :(

[TekDragon]

Yeah i read that thread. First thing i did was check my 3rd CD. Looks pefect, no scratches.

Oh, and about the drivers. I have the latest Radeon drivers. The display driver and the other one.

[Hamma]

Re-Install/Install the latest DirectX

[Vash]

Tek, check your other thread in the tech forum.

I made an (overly lengthy) reply that I hope will solve the problem :)


<hope hope hope>

[TekDragon]

Thanks for the tips. Im gonna check out Vash's reply. Gonna see what he suggests.

Ill try reinstalling DX9.
Last resort ill reinstall PS.
Last-Last resort ill return the friggin game.

[Vash]

You might want to try a Full Scan from the launcher before reinstalling. I think it's supposed to pick up corrupted files and reinstall them. It might be faster if it turns out you just need to repatch a few files.

(assuming you havent already done this, that is)

[1024]

Originally posted by TekDragon
*opens up CD binder*

Lets see here...

Unreal 2, Ultima Online, Asherons Call 1 & 2, Dark Age of Camelot, Anarchy Online, Warcraft 3, CnC Red Alert 2, MechWarrior 4, Black & White, Baldurs Gate 2, Wizardry 8, and Heroes of Might and Magic 3 & 4. All those games have run perfectly for the 8 months ive had this PC.

CnC Generals crashed on me twice while i was alt-tabbing back and forth between AIM, ICQ, and the game while playing multiplayer matches.

Yeah. Im sure its my PC.

:rolleyes:


Well it must be your PC because no one else is complaining about what you've been complaining about.

[Doppler]

Used to have a similar problem in war 3 check for driver/firmware updates for your video cards.

[simba]

that sounds bad tek, very bad. yeah PS is prolly my last buy from SOE also.

[Destroyeron]

You guys all act as if SOE is only putting out crap games, lol. We'll I'll be laughing if the next SOE game is absolutely superb and you guys buy it.

[Peacemaker]

Best suggestion would be to find someone who has a similar setup as you in the forums and find out if they have any probs. U got a good shot at it being a corupted file or a setting on windows being wrong. I once had this problem in Microsoft Combat Flight Simulator 2 were when u joined the game it would lock up at loading because my PC wasnt in a network, needless to say i made a fake one and it ran fine. (Its the small things that screw you)

[Seer]

Tek, it sounds like your problem is fairly system specific. It doesn't seem to be widespread.

You shouldn't have to reinstall the game if you run a full scan. To my knowledge that feature detects missing or corrupted planetside files and replaces them. I'd do that first.

[Jaged]

I had almost EXACTLY the same problem with a few other games before planetside (BF1942, E&B...). I finaly found out that one bit in my system config was messed up causing the graphics to load incorrectly. There is a download to fix this. I will have to look for it again. This might be your problem. Ill post a link when i find it. Hope it helps. :)

[wasupx]

Originally posted by xXxHitmanxXx
the only problem i get is that my comp gets major randomy popup ads during the game, so then the game minimizes. but i just alt+tab again and i go back to playing.


fix:
this is win messaging thing, its lame as hell and u just need to turn it off.
settings>control panel>administrative tools>services>messenger

turn startup to disabled, click on stop, turn it off on all the tabs basically.

[slytiger]

Originally posted by TekDragon
*gets quesy feeling*

Ugg.. i really dont want to re-install. I have a 56k modem and it took me 6 hours to patch. Do you REALLY think that will help?



I think we found ur problem. U shouldnt neccisarily be useing a 56K modem with this game or any other new multiplayer game.

[TekDragon]

I think we found ur problem. U shouldnt neccisarily be useing a 56K modem with this game or any other new multiplayer game.

:rolleyes:

Ok, yeah.

Anyway, im back with some more information to see if it will help. Also i got a few questions. Ill start with the info. Another game has started crashing recently. ZSNES (an emulator for SNES games). Its having alot of the same type of problems as PS. Freezing the PC, reseting the PC, and freezing the game so i have to cntrl-alt-del it.

Now for the questions.

The guy at alienware tech support told me i need to uninstall and reinstall my Radeon 9700 drivers and my SB drivers. Previously i had re-installed the drivers but i did NOT uninstall the drivers first. I tried uninstalling the Radeon 9700 display drivers. It reset my PC, then gave me a message that said it was looking for something. My screen went through a few resolution changes then it went OK. I went to add/remove programs and the friggin drivers were BACK! So, my questios are:

1. What drivers do i need to remove? Does Radeon have 2 drivers? The display driver and the control panel driver?
2. I cant find the soundblaster driver in add/remove programs how do i remove them?
3. Would removing directX 9 and reinstalling it be a good idea? If so how do i go about removing direct X from my PC? Also, how do i download and install DirectX 9? All I can find on the internet is programs that you put on your PC that download/install it, i cant find the actual file. I need the file because the alienware is having a modem problem (completely unrelated, im just getting a USB modem). Anyone know where i can find it, if i need it?

[Dovieye]

When in this situation which happens overtime and with so many files trying to run all the time soon or a later theres going to be a conflict.


SO what I do is have and awesome selection of all my essentials on one drive from the latest drivers to that favourite mp3 you like to play.

Do a quick reinstall (35 mins) then put all your essentials back on (40mins) and the computer is basically in the same condition without or that redundant crap you had before which was most likely causing the errors.

This is almost a full prove plan if done right.

Maybe im just lazy and hate troubleshooting. :)

Rod

[kerosene31]

Originally posted by TekDragon
1. What drivers do i need to remove? Does Radeon have 2 drivers? The display driver and the control panel driver?


What is happening is that when Windows reboots, it automatically goes out and looks for the best drivers. The uninstall routine will remove the program, but not the actual driver files.

I would not try uninstalling dx9. What you should do is:

Reinstall the latest version of directx9
Reinstall the latest official ATI drivers (3.4)
Reinstall the latest sound card drivers

If that doesn't work, a reformat would clean everything out. The problem could also be hardware related. I had constant lockups with my old geforce 4 video card and it turned out to be a defective card.

[Nitsch]

Have you tried customer service? A guy in my outfit (also on teamspeak with) was having some framerate lag issues. They really worked with him to try to resolve his issue (he had some really old drivers). They didn't just give him some form letter crap... he actually talked to a person and they actually gave a damn.

[Happy lil Elf]

It's not PS. It may be a bad 3rd CD but PS itself, assuming you have a non-corrupted install/CD, is fine. I'm running it perfectly fine on an AMD 950 with a GeForce 4 with WinXP Pro.

You didn't even try reinstalling and you're blaming the game. Nice. A 56k modem and having to wait a long time for a patch isn't much of an excuse, and definately isn't a reason to not reinstall and immediately blame the game.

[PR24]

lol

[TekDragon]

I'm running it perfectly fine on an AMD 950 with a GeForce 4 with WinXP Pro.

Want a cookie?

You didn't even try reinstalling and you're blaming the game. Nice. A 56k modem and having to wait a long time for a patch isn't much of an excuse

Your right, it isnt an excuse. The fact that the full scan built into the game nullifies the need to re-install IS an excuse. If you dont have anything intellegent to say why bother posting?


Anyway, i tried tech support. They suggested I reinstall drivers. Thats the only thing they know how to suggest. Ive reinstalled the drivers. Ive reinstalled the drivers 20 times. Doesnt fix the problem.
Im going to try reinstalling directX. If that doesnt work ill send the PC back to Alienware and tell them to fix it. Ill tell them they can have full run with it, and can even reformat the HD, i dont care.

Im still frustrated with PS and SOE. I dont understand why this damn game wont work, even on lowest graphical settings and 600x800 resolution when i got a PC that runs games like WC3, Generals, AC2, and others at maximum settings.

[Ommer]

well that might be your problem, i was in beta and they reported having a small problem with radeon drivers, and i never saw the patch msg that said they resolved that, so id check that out with the official support ppl, and btw, dont blam the sony ppl, they didnt a helluva job keeping beta moving and i will annihilate you (in game of course =) if you blam them

[vawlk]

Originally posted by TekDragon
*opens up CD binder*

Yeah. Im sure its my PC.

:rolleyes:

It only takes 1 bad function not used before in OLDER games to cause a machine to reset.

Seeing that you bought a PC rather than built it, you don't know much about computers, or you wouldn't have even said that.

Just call tech support or return the game. Either way, complaining about it here won't help much.

[Happy lil Elf]

Want a cookie?

No but what I'd really like is for you to not be able to get the game to work, never be able to play, and when you try to take the game back to get laughed at by the store you bought it from :)

Ok maybe a little extreme but your post irked me a bit.

My point was that it's not Planetside. When thousands and thousands of people can play the game just fine on the probably near same number of different machines, it's probably not the software. Now something in your machine might not like the software, but that's not necessarily a fault in PS.

As far as what it is after seeing what you've tried I haven't got any additional advice for you. Helping you really wasn't on the top of my agenda though, especailly after you didn't even bother trying to reinstall. All I was stating is that it isn't the software. Yes complete file scan is neat, however I've seen cases personally where a complete filescan for EQ did nothing and after reinstalling everything worked fine. So "If you dont have anything intellegent to say why bother posting?". Oh and incidentally, it's spelled "Intelligent".

I understand your frustration, hell I even sympathize as I've been dealing with SOE/Verant for 3 years now. That doesn't, however, change my opinion that blaming the game, especially when it appears to work for everyone else, isn't a very good position to take.

[kelisis]

Um, install any new drivers on that 9700? Because it could because you installed them wrong. Any overclockering? What type of mobo you have? And make sure you 9700 is firmly set in the AGP slot.

[Doppler]

TekDragon, pwning bizitches from the days of old school UO and Tribes

Clarity comes to me like an iron bell upon a shifty summer morning, when people say stuff like this.

Your right, it isnt an excuse. The fact that the full scan built into the game nullifies the need to re-install IS an excuse. If you dont have anything intellegent to say why bother posting?

Sigh, listen young grasshopper, let me illucidate your confusion. Let your hard disk be like a calm water and your drives be perfect and the paper ships of your applications be perfect and serene. But what's this, when waves exist on the pond of your hard drive they can cause the ships to upset and be damage thereby damaging their ability to sail right even when watters return to normal. The full scan function you speak of is like the intrepid mailman painstakingly checking ever package for imperfections or bad product or anthrax, but he does not check the post office he lives in, which actualy rests on the little boat.

The point of this is either, call tech support, reinstall (their going to ask you to do this anyway) defrag your harddrive, download and install your latest videocard drivers including any firmware updates that might be available. Chances are the store you will try and return it to you will possibly substitue the game but I doubt they will give you your full purchase price back being as it's an online game. Trouble shooting is a process, even in the business world we can have difrent databases the simple database will always error out where as the monstorously huge one will work fine, pure size or looks have little bearing on the way the bits bounce down the traces of your motherboard. I'm not saying the problem is entirely your hardware but perhaps a minor flaw in planetside (i'm not saying it's necissarily this either) that causes your computer in particular to have serious repercussions.

Happy bug hunting

[TekDragon]

Clarity comes to me like an iron bell upon a shifty summer morning, when people say stuff like this.

This confused me a bit. What you trying to say? Come meet me on any Tribes server, mod or base, ill woop your ass. Got a charachter on Atlantic? Ill reactivate my account just to make you go OOoooOooOO :)

Anyway....

Guess what guys? Its PlanetSide. I reformated my HD, wiped the partition, and downloaded & installed all the latest drivers. PS still crashed. After going through tech support and talking to Chad Towe it turns out its a problem with PlanetSide's coding related to the Radeon9700. He acknowelged the problem to me and told me many people are having the same types of problem.

Im currently in the process of getting my free gaming month suspended until the game is playable. Hopefully it wont be too long. Id like to get some play time in before i head off to boot camp. Meh, id be happy to play once i get out.

Just want to give a thanks to the people who gave me suggestions on how to optimize my PC. At the very least itll run better for all my other games.

As for Happy lil' Elf and the other SOE fanboys who want to run around saying PS is perfect and it must be your PC.... :wave: suck it.

Oh, and heres your cookie Elf. Hope you choke on it :)

[BigDickMccoy]

I thought that was your prob.....RADEONS BLOW ASS

[TekDragon]

Man, ill be honest with you. It ticked me off a bit when he said it was related to the Radeon.

Despite that, i love my Radeon9700. Playing all my favorite games on the highest graphical settings is orgasmicly awesome :)

Just thinking about the beautiful tomohawk strikes in Generals makes my mouth water :)

Im willing to wait for the fix, i got plenty of good games to play in the meantime.

[BladeRunner]

I wish I could think of some witty way to insult you like Elf did, but alas it's still early morning and I cannot..

I should say though that just after reading your first few posts I had a genuine desire to punch you. You're making very block-headed comments...

You start the thread off with "Getting back my $45" and finish it with all the extreme measures you've gone to to try to get planetside to work, or at least hope that it will work for you in the future. So.. I guess when you wrote that you were getting your money back, you were just typing out of pure anger from having your PC crash? Which I guess encouraged you to whip out the ePenis measuring device, trying to impress us or justify yourself with your large collection of games, and use the all-too-often-tried invitation/challenge to your old games?

Hmm.. This is truly an interesting example of human behavior.

I hope you do get it working.. .. I don't know what else to say :p

[TekDragon]

So.. I guess when you wrote that you were getting your money back, you were just typing out of pure anger from having your PC crash?

Correct. But ive still got half a mind to take the game back. I trade it in for BF1942 or another game, then come back to PS when they got it fixed.. or not come back at all.

Which I guess encouraged you to whip out the ePenis measuring device, trying to impress us or justify yourself with your large collection of games

Riiight.. im guessing you just skipped over the post of complete newbs who wanted to flame me with "Haha! Your PC blows!" and "Alienware is t3h sux!!"

Pointing out all the games that WORK on my PC is not whipping out an ePenis (sigh) its simply showing that my PC is not fatally flawed or gimped and is capable of playing many high graphic intensity games. If I wanted to brag about my game collection id have gone all the way back to my X-com UFO Defence and Outpost collection. Doing that, however, would of been offtopic and not helped.

and use the all-too-often-tried invitation/challenge to your old games?

Excuse me? Some jackass wanted to insult me based on my signature. Of course im going to respond to something as stupid and asinine as that.

In fact, the only thing i can think of more ignorant than Elf's PC flame and Doppler's off topic low level flame is your ignorant bashing of me. I hope it made you feel better to come onto a tech support thread and flame me with all the other SOE fanboys.

Again, I thank all the people who did try to help me with the problem.

[Happy lil Elf]

My flame? Excuse me kiddo but that was not a flame. It was an annoyed post. I'd flame you but as far as I can tell this is not in the board rules. Well that and I don't really have a problem with you, just with the stance you took and the way you expressed it.

Had you said "Damnit PS won't run on my computer, anyone got any ideas?" I would have probably tried to help you. You didn't do this however. You went into a bitchy rant about PS and SOE. Next time just ask for help and leave the bitching out, you might find more people willing to try help you.

I must have missed where I said PS is perfect. As an MMO it's far from perfect, then again it's an MMO so I expect that and roll with the punches instead of throwing temper tantrums. An MMO is never, and I mean never flawless on launch and actually will have issues long after launch. That's life, deal with it. If that's not something that appeals to you, by all means take the game back now and save yourself the aggravation.

That said, if it's an issue with your vid card and PS I hope they get it fixed quickly. It's frustrating to own a game and not be able to play it.

[Dantiel]

I agree man, this bulls--t of game lockups is absolutely unreal. There is just no excuse for it. I'd rather play freaking tic tac toe at yahoogames.com than playing this pos game that locks every hour.

[BigDickMccoy]

Hey guys I run a 1.3Ghz atholon, Geforce 4 ti 4200 138, 655 K sdr ram.....PS as never once locked up, I even run the game on default execpt for res whitch i run one step down....I barley even lag. If you don't like the game don't come in here cause I'm tired of listening to how your pussy hurts