Mechwarrior 4: Vengence

[Guest]

Hi,
I have had a lot of problems with this game being unstable. I can only play it in the lowest graphics mode in the autoconfigure thing. Even then it still hangs and sometimes exits to the desktop.

Has anyone managed to get the game running reliably, and what did you change?

-GeForce2 MX
-DirectX 8.1

I am thinking it may be the Via drivers. When I first installed Win ME, I got a lot of blue screens on every game.

Then I read on the Shogun Total War site that Windows doesn't come with the drivers to support my chipset. So I installed the drivers and that fixed a lot of problems, but apparently if you install the VGA driver on turbo it may cause stability problems.

Thanks.

 

[ejsmith2]

"Mechwarrior 4: Vengence" "GeForce2 MX"


Uh. Well.

That pretty much says everything. There's nothing else to say, really, about that.
Although, it shouldn't be crashing out to the desktop on you.

What's your motherbored, cpu, and snd card?

Don't use the 23.11 drivers. Drop down to the 21.83, or whatever the last WQHL's are. Nvidia and Via (ntel and msft, too) don't play nicely together, nowadays. It's like two sets of toddlers, yelling "MINE! MINE!" I personally like the 2-inch AFFF waterhose solution myself. PKP is a close runner up.

Anyway, turn off sidebanding, but leave the fastwrites and AGP fastwrites on. 4x.

 

[Guest]

I have GeForce2MX, Gigabyte MB with VIA Apoolo Pro GA-6VX7-4X, Sound blaster Live Value sound card, Intel Celeron 700, 384mb RAM.

Ok, I can try what you said. But I have a couple of questions.

How do I drop back to the old drivers? Is there an archive of the NVidia drivers on their website?
If I drop back to the old drivers shouldn't I get them from MSI since they manufactured the video card?

Sidebanding and fastwrites? I don't know what these do but presumably they are advanced options in the display settings right?

Thanks.

 

[HolyGrenade]

I ran that game on pretty much maximum settings on an Athlon650+GeforceDDR. Ran Fine.

<font color=red><i>I refugee from Guatanamo Bay,
dance around the border like I'm Cassius Clay
</i></font color=red>

 

[ejsmith2]

"Ran Fine"

Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh...

Ok.



Sure.

 

[TheAntipop]

We're talking about Mechwarrior 4, not 2. I have friend with a P4 1.7ghz + GF3 Ti 200 who still cant run it with max detail.

Hard work often pays off in time, but laziness always pays off now.

 

[HolyGrenade]

I'm sure I ran that gaem with max settings. What were the settings again?

<font color=red><i>I refugee from Guatanamo Bay,
dance around the border like I'm Cassius Clay
</i></font color=red>

 

[HolyGrenade]

Here's the settings I used. Everything was on the highest settings except antialiasing was off and it was at only 800x600@32bpp. Played perfectly as in Ran just fine.

The damn game only needs a 300mhz pc with an 8mb g/c or so it says on the box.

<font color=red><i>I refugee from Guatanamo Bay,
dance around the border like I'm Cassius Clay
</i></font color=red>

 

[Guest]

Where are the sidebanding and fast write options?

Thanks.

 

[ejsmith2]

Oh, yeah. I'm sorry.

I forgot about 800x600...

 

[HolyGrenade]

Is it one of those games with engine scalability. More CPU horsepower, more game features?

<font color=red><i>I refugee from Guatanamo Bay,
dance around the border like I'm Cassius Clay
</i></font color=red>

 

[HolyGrenade]

Unless you're crazy about the quad gauss combo, there is not much point in running that game in higher resolutions. of course I could be just saying that as in sour grapes...

honestly, its not exactly like you're sniping with a quake 3 rail gun.


<font color=red><i>I refugee from Guatanamo Bay,
dance around the border like I'm Cassius Clay
</i></font color=red>

 

[ejsmith2]

Um, I'm not really sure. I play Mechwarrior 1,3, and Mercenaries. Don't misunderstand me; i don't pay attention to the story in 3, I just load up the trainer and 13 extended range large clan lasers on alpha fire. Can you say 'legless'?

2 and 4 eat a$$ crackers, twice. And the used paper, too.
(at least they are thorough)

 

[Guest]

What the are you guys raving about? I can't even play the f****** game.

 

[ejsmith2]

Heh. Sorry.

Anyway, give this a whirl.

1) Chuck the 4n1 4.37's.
2) Chuck the det. 23.11's.
3) Load up the 4n1 4.32's.
4) Load up the det. 21.83's.
5) Turn on Fastwrites. Leave sidebanding off for now.

 

[Guest]

Hey there. It is a good posibility that your VIA drivers are not playing nicely with the nVidia ones. I play the game on a PIII866 with a 64MB GTS at 800x600x32 with 2x AA enabled. It looks good to me. I would estimate a constant FPS of about 40 with all settings turned on. Granted the GTS is overclocked to be able to handle this, but with your computer, it shouldn't be having any problems with crashes. Have you patched the game itself?

 

[Guest]

Yeah, I have patched the game itself.

When I have a chance I will try the drivers recommended by ejsmith.

Previously I had a lot of problems with Oni. When I installed Windows ME the game suddenly worked, so I guess it was a driver thing. But the support people always recommend things like turn down hardware acceleration and sound acceleration, turn of things in the back ground.

With the exception of virus checkers in the background I haven't come across a case where the official support actually works. I guess driver changes are the best option.

Thanks.

 

[Guest]

Ok ejsmith.

I tryed changing to the drivers you mentioned and I do get further into the trailers on high game graphic settings than I have before but it still hangs. Also, the frames are jerky.

I haven't tryed disabling fast writes and banding because I can't find those setting. Where are those settings?

Thanks.

 

[ejsmith2]

Sidebanding is off by default. Fastwrites is another matter.

You can disable it in the bios, and the os can override it. Used to be you could go to guru3d.com and download the Geforce Tweak Utility (GTU), but that place has shut down. I think I have version 3.12beta, or something. It lets you flip on a whole bunch of options with the detonators.

Gtu.

 

[Guest]

Upgrade to a ATI RADEON 7500/8500 OEM, then overclock to the RETAIL version.
You'll save about 75 bucks!!

ATI is cheaper, but better then NviDia!