T2 Freezes

[[AK]Bribo]

I find my T2 game occasioanlly freezes up when in game. When this happens it lasts anywhere from 30 seconds to a minute and sometimes occurs in spurts of three or four freezes. Sometimes it clears by itslef. SOmetimes a reboot fixes it.

I notice that the time still ticks off and that my ping/frame rate monitor still works when this happens.

I thought it might be the GeForce 2 drivers so I just upgraded to the latest but I still am occasionally seeing this.

Any ideas?

Thanks!

[Zorro]

I get this semi-frequently myself. I think it relates to a desyncing of the network traffic between the server and the the client, but I have no proof of that. Tribes2 (as with most other online games) uses UDP for client server communication. UDP is connectionless, meaning that there's no built-in flow control or error correction, so if a one of the sides happens to drop a packet or two, the other side would never find out about it. The most annoying manifestation of that issue is when you cut around a corner or something in a base and suddenly find yourself back on the other side of that wall...grr... TCP is another option for network communication, as it would eliminate some of the problems that I've described, but it adds all new problems in that it has significantly higher overhead than UDP. Sucks, but I think that's just a fact of life... :/

[[AK]Bribo]

Makes sense. The game itself isn't locked up. I can 'escape' to the game menu and as I posted previously I can see the time and framerate update.

Just frustrating as hell when you're locked and an enemy is right in front of you. You know when you come back you'll prolly be dead!

[Solarwolf]

I get it too Bribo, but not as frequently as you have been of late.

[[AK]Leonidas]

I've been getting that kind of problem since the latest patch came out. Sometime it throws me back a few steps. Sometimes it freezes for twenty seconds at a time. I can tell it's a connection issue because I can still ESC out to the score screen.

On my new machine I also have hard catastrophic freezes that take down Win 2k completely and have to be hard-rebooted. I have no idea what causes those.

[JB_Tech]

Oh, I hate those freezes that completely take out your entire pc. Since I have a Dell, even when I hit the power button it still won't shut down. Dell's have that backup thingey so when you accedentaly shut down it saves all info. The only thing to do at that point is pull the power plug out of the back off the tower. The only other freezes I get are when it actually takes me about 5 or so steps back. I wonder what it looks like to the other guy when that happens. It seems like when that happens is when I actually have great ping and that game is running faster than my connection.

[R23]

my machine did the same, i recently put the new det drivers in, havnt seen the lock up in two days now, i think mine is in relation to my isp.

R23

oh the ak? tag is that oficial can we (I) use this to?

[Zorro]

R23, the [AK?] tag is not for recruits. You should be hearing something soon regarding usage of the tag from Squidly, who, I'm sure, will be happy to update you on our new recruiting procedures.

[[AK]Leonidas]

I recently started fiddling with my T2 sound settings, and it seems to help with lockups. I remember reading that the dev team recommended EAX, so I did that instead of the Miles driver. It lagged hard with the environmental audio on - way too much going on in a T2 firefight for the sound card to figure out all the sound directions. But with the environmental audio off on EAX, it hasn't locked up on me yet.

[[AK]Bribo]

Thanks for the tip, Leo. I'll give it a try.

[Pixelsponge]

Oh my am I am used to that. I am almost 100% sure that its a network issue, because my isp is such shit and this happens even when I am not playing T2. My isp switch to speakeasy is still pending, just waiting for my current one to send me my release form that I requested two weeks ago. Hopefully it gets her soon, because on the 26th, I won't be able to use earthlink anymore.

I know this does't really help any, there is nothing I can really do to stop the freezes and once I get them I just have to let them pass on their own time.

[[AK]Leonidas]

I agree that the temporary freezes are a network issue, and probably unsolveable. The sound driver suggestion is for the hard freezes.

[[AK]Bribo]

OK, my "freeze" problems are pretty much confirmed as a network problem. Last night I experienced them like no other night. So bad, in fact, that I was booted off the AK servers with TIMEOUT errors. I couldn't even ping the servers. This is probably due to my own ISP connection. Usually, Roadrunner is pretty reliable but lately.... ARGH!!!

Praying for a good connection Wednesday night,

[[AK]Bribo]

I've heard that a few nasty new viruses have recently been seen in the wild causing very heavy network traffic in areas. I'm wondering if that's what I experienced last night.

It's either that or bin Laden supporters. Either way - I'm pissed. >

[Zorro]

Quick, semi-unrelated note, JB. If you press and hold your power button for five or more seconds, it should do a hard power off. That's the ATX standard spec, anyway...