freezing (various types) or just quitting bzf without notice

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red_Marvin
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freezing (various types) or just quitting bzf without notice

Post by red_Marvin »

When I play bzf I can expect either of the following happening:

> Soon, after joining a server (especially silvercat) the computer stops sending
data to the monitor and I have to do a cold reboot.

> Computer Just freezing after joining a server but still showing the screen
(often with mouse still respoding)

> Bzf quitting *poof*. If I run it from console it sometimes gives some irq error -16
(or irq -16 error or...) and I think it said something about ati or agp
-anyway graphics card related.
If I start bzf again it hangs directly.

I have an ati radeon 9200 graphics card. Could this be some driver issue?
Some searching on the forum seem to suggest that. If so how would I upgrade
the driver (Ubuntu linux noobmaster here)
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A Meteorite
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Post by A Meteorite »

First off: What version of BZFlag are you using and what version of Ubuntu?
Image
Owner @ BZFX
Core Admin @ CAN

Email me: bzmet…@gmail.com
red_Marvin
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Post by red_Marvin »

bzf: BZFlag client 2.0.2.20050519-STABLE-linux-gnu-SDL (protocol 0026)
Ubuntu: Ubuntu Linux 5.04: The Hoary Hedgehog Release.

Sorry, there's always something to forget :oops:
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nemesis
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Re: freezing (various types) or just quitting bzf without no

Post by nemesis »

red_Marvin wrote:When I play bzf I can expect either of the following happening:

> Computer Just freezing after joining a server but still showing the screen
(often with mouse still respoding)
i get this occasionally on fedora. i think it's a server issue, because if you wait a couple minutes (1-3 min), you enter the game. I don't know enough about the server end of bz to speculate on why this occurs, though.
--nemesis
aka badboi

[root@localhost ~]# rm -r -f /
met
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Post by met »

i'm having such problems too. i usually play only on bzflag0.GU and in the last days (since 25 Aug) i have suddenly a complete lockup, freeze, hangup or simple crash for some unknown reason. i noticed it isn't time related nor how long i'm playing. i haven't changed anything on my system or on the bzflag setup, so i have no clue what it could be.

slackware 10.1, geforce2 and actual nvidia drivers, bzflag 2.0.2 (compiled from source)
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Post by met »

it seems it has nothing to do with the players own client. today at ~16:05 (4:05pm) my client suddenly crashed again while playing on bzflag0.gamesunited .. i relogged in here and asked who has joined in the last minute. i got 2 responses and one of that was a bit "funny". The player "Ohh I DoD it again" (one of that both) said he could crash the server too. About one minute later all tanks was showing up as Not Responding and than the server kicked everyone.

At least i don't think no more that strange client crashing is a problem on the players side itself. it seems the problem is caused by other one or more player(s).
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Mangix
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Post by Mangix »

i get this issue...sort of

what happens for me is

i join silvercat, it freezes for ~10 seconds and then i can join along with the server saying i have ~1k ms(in reality i dont)

however i joined diffrent servers and i dont seem to be getting this issue
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Post by red_Marvin »

Here's one error message I got with the symptoms that bzf just quitted:
r200WaitIrq: drmRadeonIrqWait: -16
sinanju
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Same issue here

Post by sinanju »

I just started playing BZFLAG when I upgraded to SuSE Linux 9.3 (the game came on the install disks). Occasionally the game will simply stop, locking up my keyboard, though the mouse will still move around just fine.

The only way to escape I've found is to power off my system, then reboot--nothing short of that will have any effect.
kit
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And same issue here

Post by kit »

I'm new to these multi-user and 3D games. When I first found BZFlag, I thought, WOW! Great game! I had some problems with getting it started and I think it hung my computer. However, I chalked it up to not understanding what "server" meant. A "game" server is a different concept to me. Then, I discovered the server could be started from within the game instead of creating a separate instance of it. (obviously, I still don't understand it!)

Anyway, once I got it going, I started up another computer connected by a network card. It was running Windows XP and I had no problems with starting a server instance and then connecting from my first computer. Everything worked great. Except, I wanted to make it better and found the display options and map making software. I started getting hangs or complete lock-ups. I found it usually happened when I got near a teleporter. It appeared that it had something to do with updating the screen. I did find it eventually came around if giving it several minutes. I uninstalled the game and re-installed it.

I saw the new version 2.0.4 was released so I updated. It had problems even at the menu screen. It would have "vertical" scan lines on my monitor and lock up completely requiring a hard boot or come back after several minutes. Sometimes, all the text would be quadrupuled looking or otherwise scrambled and hard to read. The few times I was able to exit BZFlag, all the icons would still be messed up.

Then, I read where maybe the directx drivers need to be updated and my graphics card drivers needed updating. I updated to DirectX 9.0c which probably had nothing to do with it. No change in the game. I updated to the latest NVidia drivers 77.72. It seemed to be worse. I uninstalled and installed version 66.94. It worked better, but still had problems. I tried 71.84, and again, different but still problems. I could try the original (12.something), but since it had problems too, why.

I uninstalled BZFlag 2.0.4 and put back 2.0.2, no difference. I erased the my documents\my bzflag files directory. No difference. However, it appeared that if I could load the menu and nothing messed up, then exit so that it writes the config file, then go back in, it would actually let me start the server internally and then start the game. I would go just a little distance and then it would lock up, scramble the screen, or turn the monitor off, and sometimes allow a soft boot, but usually require a hard boot.

I was ready to say BZFlag is not a working game and not worth downloading. Except for, it HAD worked and ran well with no problems. Then I saw mention of OpenGL. I had a CAD type program that used OpenGL. It worked for awhile, but would hang for a few minutes and then continue. Sometimes, it would also hang completely when first starting the program, and once in awhile, turn the monitor off. I realize it's probably not BZFlag and something to do with the OpenGL operation. Some have asked about 100% CPU use. I wonder if it's some problem with updating the screen?

At that point, I searched some more about OpenGL hanging computers and decided to disable Hardware Acceleration. My CAD program worked fine and BZFlag worked ok - except for being verrry slow - the screen would be delayed in updating to the postion the tank was pointing.

I hope some of that helps others out. I hope someone can help me out. I've uninstalled, re-installed, and tried everything I can think of with the NVidia drivers. I've looked for an updated version of OpenGL32.dll, but no new version seems to be released from Microsoft (4.00). NVidia says to ask someone else because they don't make video cards. My card has some small chips that say "Korea" and then, I guess, Korea words on the card itself. I thought I had a NVidia card when I bought my custom computer. I don't know if it's my card, software, or what. I saw some mention of motherboard chipset driver updating. But, if that won't help, I don't want to fix something that isn't broken - most likely other problems will come up.


I have a Pentium 4, 256 MB, Win 98SE, NVidia GeForce 2 MX 200 with 64MB. I downloaded the Windows binaries of BZFlag 2.0.4.
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Post by kit »

Well, I've uninstalled and reinstalled the orginal NVidia drivers (12.xx) and DirectX 8.0a that came with my system. It still had problems with vertical lines and the characters all messed up. I've reinstalled DirectX 9.0c and the latest video drivers, but I can't see any change.

DirectX DXDiag utility will fail on the 3D part. Everything I know and have that's 3D, which isn't much, fails whether OpenGL or DirectX. I don't know if it's related, but Windows Media Player now fails sometimes with an error about not being able to start.

I really don't want to reformat and reinstall everything when I bet it's some file that's messed up somewhere. And, if I don't know what's wrong, I could spend a week getting everything back like it was only to duplicate the problem. Any suggestions would be appreciated.
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