Can't seem to get SH4 to run.

[peteuplink]

Originally Posted by WEBSTER

what you describe definately sounds like your power supply (psu) is failing and your getting voltage drops which will cause all sorts of weird issues.

insufficient power to your motherboard will cause your video to act up because an AGP system feeds power to the video card through the motherboard power supply so at this point you should look into replacing the psu (they arent very expensive nowadays)

normally i would recommend getting a good quality psu but in your case a psu of average quality is fine since your whole computer is so old it has no resale value so investing money in it isnt smart. an average psu will cost you around $20 so why spend money on a good quality psu and pay $50 or more when the whole computers only worth $100

an old system like yours needs a 300-400watt psu so have a look at these and any one of them should fix your issues

350 watt psu: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...90&name=Single

I think it is the power supply, because after I'd put the computer back together, I was going through installing updates and my nvidia software displayed a "Graphics card reporting low power" message about a half hour ago. That might explain the spontaneous resets, not so sure about the wmv working on windows media player but not in the game or in windows movie maker though.

I'm running the game on some older drivers from 2008 and it seems to run fine if I use the other connector on the graphics card (maybe it uses less power, I dunno). Still refuses to play the intro wmv though.

yea the only thing to watch in buying a psu is wire lengths but unless you have a full tower it shouldnt be an issue.

and as i said i wouldnt put much money in that old of a system so go with the cheapest psu you feel will last.

[peteuplink]

For the moment I've put the video card on a cable of its own direct from the psu and the HD, DVD and floppy drive on a shared cable. I can't remember off the top of my head what this psu is.

I've just noticed that the psu seems to be a little warmer than usual.

Originally Posted by peteuplink

I've just noticed that the psu seems to be a little warmer than usual.

well it could be clogged with dust and it could just be that simple but if its not really really dusty then i doubt thats your only problem because long term overheating takes its toll on things.

its also very possible the psu fan is going bad (which you may never be able to know for sure) or the psu is just bad but like i said, for $20 its easier (and a lot safer) to just replace it then taking it apart to try and make it work

[peteuplink]

I'm going to head over to the computer stall on my local market tomorrow and see if they have any 350watt psu's.

Doing a few more tests, I've noticed that the game resets on the latest 191.07 nvidia drivers (they do say they support my card), but runs okay on the much older 182.06 drivers from 2008.

Still no answer to my wmv problem though. If it's codec related, it seems odd that wmv's will play in WMP but not in WMM or any games.

[Knox]

When I updated the driver's for my old card(GeForce 6200), to 191.07, it made the intro .wmvs green swirling puke. Reverting back to the driver's that came with the card, the wmv played just fine. After I updated the driver to 191.07, I checked the Device Manager for the driver version, and it was not 191.07. So I wasn't even sure if the driver was installing right. It was a PITA.

But I got a new card(ATI), so I dont have it anymore. But it seemed like a driver issue.

On the topic of Power supplys, I should probably upgrade mine from the 250 to something above 300, as my new video card requires 300 or more(as it says on the box).

[peteuplink]

I'm thinking the bad wmv files thing is due to the graphics drivers. But I've tried several older versions including the ones that came with my card (which I know work) and it's not fixing it, I'm just wondering if the newer drivers have changed something somewhere that isn't getting changed back by uninstalling them or replacing them with older drivers.

It seems that SH4 doesn't like the ION releases of the nvidia graphics drivers (anything after 182.50) with my card. Not sure if that's due to the power problem (perhaps newer ones need more juice, I dunno) or not.

I've never had a problem like this with this PC and I've thrown everything at it in the last 2 years, Oblivion, Fallout 3, FSX, COD4... They all run... Slowly, but they do run. Seems odd that it gets tripped up by some wmv's and a 2 year old sub sim.

my old 5600 would only work with an old driver but windows kept telling me i needed a new driver for it but if i changed it it turned into a sunday cartoon looking screen. i had to actually block it from the list to keep microsoft update from trying to install it.

some drivers just wont work with some cards with older chips

Originally Posted by Knox

On the topic of Power supplys, I should probably upgrade mine from the 250 to something above 300, as my new video card requires 300 or more(as it says on the box).

i suspect if you have a 250 watt then its a prebuilt computer

not all but some prebuilt computers (especially dells) have specially wired psu that means you have to replace them with one made for that brand so check this out to be sure your buying the right psu.

if your not sure call the support line for that computer brand and they can tell you if a universal generic psu will work or not

i used to own a few dells and dells have mixed up wires and reverse socket motherboard plugs n things to force you to buy overpriced cheaply made low quality dell replacement stuff

[peteuplink]

I've just been through a process of installing and running all my current games to see if any others show up a problem.

Starting with the older ones first:
Diablo II: Fine (if it fell over with this I would have shot it to put it out of it's misery)
Grand Prix 3: Fine
Grand Prix 4: Fine
MS Flight Sim 2004: Fine
Neverwinter Nights: Fine
C&C Saga: Fine
C&C 3: Fine
BFME 2: Fine
BFME ROTLK: Fine

And now the newer ones:
X Gold: Fine (slow in highly populated systems)
Sins of A Solar Empire: Fine
Sims 3: Fine
Spore: Fine
Spore GA: Fine
Dragon Age: Fine (a little slow but playable)

And SH
SH 3: Fine (except for the UBi-Soft and Intro vids)
SH 4: Fine (but on drivers from 2008 and still with the Intro and Ubi logo problem).

So my PC is running all but 2 of my current games collection fine. Looking at the boxes SH 4 has very similar system requirements to Sim 3, X3 Gold and Dragon Age. All of which run fine.

[peteuplink]

After a load of checks today, I found every game I own runs fine on this PC with the latest graphics drivers for my card, except SH4. SH3 runs fine except for the .wmv intro, but I bypassed it.

The power problem seems to have gone after I took the PSU out and gave it a damned good cleaning. The fans sound like they running fine again.

The .wmv problem seems to be a problem to do with certain older nVidia cards and the new drivers when used in connection with certain motherboards. I had a friend come by and do some checks on my graphics RAM (some software he used, don't know what) and it says there doesn't appear to be anything physically wrong with my graphics card. He did mention something for checking system RAM, but I can't recall the name. Any ideas?

One final note: I have noticed that my soundcard (SB Audigy) occasionally sets itself to basic acceleration. So it would appear that I have some sort of hardware issue going on somewhere.

I don't think there's much actually physically wrong with my PC. It just doesn't seem to like SH4 on newer drivers for some reason.

[Captainchaos]

What sort of result do you get with this? http://cyri.systemrequirementslab.co...option_id=4368

Not exactly accurate, but might give an idea for a problem area.

[peteuplink]

Ran the test and got these results:

First minimum settings:

CPU: P4 or AMD Athlon Pass (AMD Athlon)

CPU Speed: minimum 2ghz Pass (2.6ghz)

RAM: minimum 1GB Pass (2GB)

OS: minimum XP or Vista Pass (Win XP SP3)

Video Card: minimum 128MB, DX9 compatible, pixel shader 2.0 Pass (256MB, DX9 compatible, pixel shader 3.0)

Now recommended settings:

CPU: P4 or AMD Athlon Pass (AMD Athlon)

CPU Speed: minimum 3ghz recommend upgrade (2.6ghz but this still shouldn't cause the game to crash or reset it should just run slowly in some places)

RAM: minimum 2GB Pass (2GB)

OS: minimum XP or Vista Pass (Win XP SP3)

Video Card: minimum 128MB, DX9 compatible, pixel shader 2.0 Pass (256MB, DX9 compatible, pixel shader 3.0)

Attributes of your Video Card (my results in brackets)

Video Ram: 256mb (256mb)
3D: Yes (Yes)
Hardware T&L: Yes (Yes)
Pixel Shader: 2.0 (3.0)
Vertex Shader: 2.0 (3.0)

The game should run, and reasonably comfortably since I'm only out by a little on the processor and everything else meets recommended spec. When it does run with the older drivers installed it runs very smoothly (so the game obviously will run if I can find out why the reset occurs with the new drivers), but I need the newer drivers to run my newer games. Spore, Sims 3 and Dragon Age won't run properly if I have the older driver installed for SH4. And quite frankly if I'm running games as new as Dragon Age without much problem, SH4 should run.

Originally Posted by peteuplink

The game should run, and reasonably comfortably since I'm only out by a little on the processor and everything else meets recommended spec. When it does run with the older drivers installed it runs very smoothly (so the game obviously will run if I can find out why the reset occurs with the new drivers), but I need the newer drivers to run my newer games. Spore, Sims 3 and Dragon Age won't run properly if I have the older driver installed for SH4. And quite frankly if I'm running games as new as Dragon Age without much problem, SH4 should run.

no it doesnt work that way, sh4 is unique it how demanding it is and it can be stressfull on the best of systems.

the minimum recommended specs are pretty much a lie and you can start the game and it will run with them but to "play" the game you really need a lot better than that or you'll have all sorts of issues. i think you can get it going on your system though and you just have to put up with slow fps rates


your video problems could be connected to your flash media or regular media players (i doubt it but it couldnt hurt) so make sure those are up to date.

if you havent already done so, go to nvidia and get your driver straight from them because they should have a more up to date driver than the one you that came with your card and you will be sure you're using one thats made to work with your card version

one more thing, now that you have fixed your power issues its possible your game install got corrupted because of power fluctuations so try a fresh new install of the game now that you have full power to your system again.

if you still have problems then i recommend you try this website for more experienced troubleshooting help than we can offer for you here so give them a clear detailed explanation of exactly whats going on and what you have done so far and they can help you figure this out. its a good site without spam but you will have to register.

find it here: http://forums.techpowerup.com/index.php

[peteuplink]

Thanks Webster. Not wanting to sound ungrateful here, but you say the game is demanding on even the best system. To me it seems more like the developers did a really poor job of making an efficient engine and then didn't bug test it properly to make sure that it ran on the specs given for the game. As I already said, the game will run 100% on the older drivers, just not on the newer ones. So it's nothing to do with the game being too demanding for my system.

Besides If my PC can run games that on paper are much higher spec than SH4... FSX being an example. Then it should be able to run a 2 year old submarine sim.