Driver Question. Is this advice right?

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.games.doom (More info?)

I was late to join the Doom 3 bandwagon and just recently picked up the
game. It's been fun until today. I got to the end of Alpha Lab 4 (?),
killed the big spider thing and exited the level. After the little
screen shot comes up describing the next level, where the little bar of
the top would show the progress in loading the next level, the screen
goes back to the main menu.

I installed the latest patch with no luck, so I called tech support.
Below is the e-mail of what the tech suggested I should do;



Recently you requested personal assistance from our on-line support
center. Below is a summary of your request and our response.

We will assume your issue has been resolved if we do not hear from you
within 96 hours.

Thank you for allowing us to be of service to you.

PLEASE DO NOT REPLY TO THIS EMAIL!




Subject
---------------------------------------------------------------
It reverts me back to the main menu after loading a level


Discussion Thread
---------------------------------------------------------------
Response (xxx xxxxx) - 06/27/2005 05:00 PM
Hi,

Thanks for contacting customer support. Download and install the latest
driver for your video card, which is the 5.6 Catalyst here:

http://www.ati.com


If that does not help, uninstall the game (use the game installer, not
Add/Remove Programs) then reinstall the game and follow these steps to
copy over your pak files:

Copy the pak files from the cd and overwriting the ones on the hard drive.
1. Put the first disc in the drive
2. Go into my computer and right click on the disc and select "explore"
or "browse"
3. Browse into the setup folder, then the data folder
4. Right click on the base folder and select copy
5. Close this window
6. Now browse to the game directory (default is c:\program files\Doom 3)
7. Go to the edit menu and select paste (if it asks you if you wish to
overwrite select yes)

Once the file copy is done repeat the above steps for discs 2 and 3.

Customer (Entered by xxxxxxxx) - 06/27/2005 05:00 PM
It reverts me back to the main menu after loading a level


Question Reference xxxxxxxxxx
---------------------------------------------------------------
Product Level 1: PC
Product Level 2: DOOM 3
Date Created: 06/27/2005 05:00 PM
Last Updated: 06/27/2005 05:00 PM
Status: Waiting

Explanation
---------------------------------------------------------------


Ok, here's my Question. They are telling me to download the 5.6
Catalyst, but my driver version is 6.14. Is the castalyst version
supposed to be different from the driver version? Or do I have the
latest drivers already?

here's my rig

Radeon 9600 pro (256 MB)
P4 3.06ghz (2 CPU's)
512MB RAM
298MB used, 949 available (page file)

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.games.doom (More info?)

N wasted my time on 6/27/2005 8:42 PM with the following:
>
> Ok, here's my Question. They are telling me to download the 5.6
> Catalyst, but my driver version is 6.14. Is the castalyst version
> supposed to be different from the driver version? Or do I have the
> latest drivers already?
>
> here's my rig
>
> Radeon 9600 pro (256 MB)
> P4 3.06ghz (2 CPU's)
> 512MB RAM
> 298MB used, 949 available (page file)

I recommend heading to www.omegadrivers.net and getting those instead.
They just plain work better.

--
-SnoopJeDi

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.games.doom (More info?)

> Ok, here's my Question. They are telling me to download the 5.6 Catalyst,
> but my driver version is 6.14. Is the castalyst version supposed to be
> different from the driver version? Or do I have the latest drivers
> already?
>
> here's my rig
>
> Radeon 9600 pro (256 MB)
> P4 3.06ghz (2 CPU's)
> 512MB RAM
> 298MB used, 949 available (page file)

Yes, update your drivers. That version number (6.4) is not related in a way
that you could simply compare the two.

Take the others guys advice and use the latest Omega Drivers. It sounds like
you probably haven't updated your drivers in a while, so it may not only fix
your level problem, but also give you a nice performance increase.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.games.doom (More info?)

On 6/28/2005 5:35 AM The Berzerker brightened our day with:

>>Ok, here's my Question. They are telling me to download the 5.6 Catalyst,
>>but my driver version is 6.14. Is the castalyst version supposed to be
>>different from the driver version? Or do I have the latest drivers
>>already?
>>
>>here's my rig
>>
>>Radeon 9600 pro (256 MB)
>>P4 3.06ghz (2 CPU's)
>>512MB RAM
>>298MB used, 949 available (page file)
>>
>>
>
>Yes, update your drivers. That version number (6.4) is not related in a way
>that you could simply compare the two.
>
>Take the others guys advice and use the latest Omega Drivers. It sounds like
>you probably haven't updated your drivers in a while, so it may not only fix
>your level problem, but also give you a nice performance increase.
>
>
>
>
The latest Catalysts 5.x are video driver version 8.x, version 6.14 (the
numbers after 6.14 are important) go all the way back to the 3.x
catalysts. So the drivers could be two years old.
If he looks through his Video control panel a bit he can find his actual
catalyst version. I think on those old drivers, pre CCC, it's just
listed under the options tab.

--
"I don't feel tardy"

Steve ¤»Inglo«¤
www.inglostadt.com

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.games.doom (More info?)

SnoopJeDi wrote:
> N wasted my time on 6/27/2005 8:42 PM with the following:
>
>>
>> Ok, here's my Question. They are telling me to download the 5.6
>> Catalyst, but my driver version is 6.14. Is the castalyst version
>> supposed to be different from the driver version? Or do I have the
>> latest drivers already?
>>
>> here's my rig
>>
>> Radeon 9600 pro (256 MB)
>> P4 3.06ghz (2 CPU's)
>> 512MB RAM
>> 298MB used, 949 available (page file)
>
>
> I recommend heading to www.omegadrivers.net and getting those instead.
> They just plain work better.
>

I'm game to try them; However, How do I make sure I don't ah heck
everything up on my machine now? What's the safest way to do it?

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.games.doom (More info?)

On Thu, 30 Jun 2005 01:00:08 +0000, N wrote:

> I'm game to try them; However, How do I make sure I don't ah heck
> everything up on my machine now? What's the safest way to do it?

The "safest" thing for you to do is to just pull the plug on the computer
now, box it up, and return it to the store. Anything else sounds like it
will be beyond your abilities.

--
If you're not on the edge, you're taking up too much space.
Linux Registered User #327951

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.games.doom (More info?)

N wasted my time on 6/29/2005 9:00 PM with the following:

>
> I'm game to try them; However, How do I make sure I don't ah heck
> everything up on my machine now? What's the safest way to do it?

Make a checkpoint with system restore if you feel it's necessary. The
Omegadrivers are based off of the latest Catalysts, so it shouldn't even
be a risk. It's basically tweaking them (ie. turning FastWrite off, etc.)

If all else fails, I think you could just boot to safe mode and fix it.

--
-SnoopJeDi

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.games.doom (More info?)

The Berzerker wrote:
>>Ok, here's my Question. They are telling me to download the 5.6 Catalyst,
>>but my driver version is 6.14. Is the castalyst version supposed to be
>>different from the driver version? Or do I have the latest drivers
>>already?
>>
>>here's my rig
>>
>>Radeon 9600 pro (256 MB)
>>P4 3.06ghz (2 CPU's)
>>512MB RAM
>>298MB used, 949 available (page file)
>
>
> Yes, update your drivers. That version number (6.4) is not related in a way
> that you could simply compare the two.
>
> Take the others guys advice and use the latest Omega Drivers. It sounds like
> you probably haven't updated your drivers in a while, so it may not only fix
> your level problem, but also give you a nice performance increase.
>
>
No luck in fixing the problem, I guess i'm going to have to uninstall
and reinstall then overwrite the pak files. Damit.

What kind of performance increase can I expect?

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.games.doom (More info?)

SnoopJeDi wrote:
> N wasted my time on 6/29/2005 9:00 PM with the following:
>
>>
>> I'm game to try them; However, How do I make sure I don't ah heck
>> everything up on my machine now? What's the safest way to do it?
>
>
> Make a checkpoint with system restore if you feel it's necessary. The
> Omegadrivers are based off of the latest Catalysts, so it shouldn't even
> be a risk. It's basically tweaking them (ie. turning FastWrite off, etc.)
>
> If all else fails, I think you could just boot to safe mode and fix it.
>

Can do. Thanks.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.games.doom (More info?)

>> Yes, update your drivers. That version number (6.4) is not related in a
>> way that you could simply compare the two.
>>
>> Take the others guys advice and use the latest Omega Drivers. It sounds
>> like you probably haven't updated your drivers in a while, so it may not
>> only fix your level problem, but also give you a nice performance
>> increase.
> No luck in fixing the problem, I guess i'm going to have to uninstall and
> reinstall then overwrite the pak files. Damit.
>
> What kind of performance increase can I expect?

It's hard to know what to tell you. When the 4.9 catalyst drivers came out
they boosted Doom 3 quite considerably. This was probably the biggest
performance step from driver to driver. However, when I installed the Omega
Drivers based around the catalyst's of that time, I received an extra 10fps,
on top of what the ATI's already gave me! This is using a 9800 Pro though.
So, I really can't be sure how it'll help you. Either way, if you're
currently using 3.x Cataylst drivers you'll certainly see a performance
boost when updating. The drivers you're using are incredibly old, and will
show it when trying to run some of the most recent games.

Good Luck....... hope all your problems are solved.