OK CrYpT...I need suggestions/ideas about what to try next...

As many of you know, my computer doesn't seem to like ETQW and randomly locks up (crashes) after about 10-30mins of gameplay. I checked all the heatsinks and thermal paste for the CPU, Northbridge and Southbridge. My video cards are running fine. I reinstalled the game already. I uninstalled my sound drivers and am about to install a brand new sound card and drivers. I turned off my SLi but the problem still persists. This is my favorite game and it runs fine on my old (backup) computer but I would rather play it on my main computer.

Please help!!
Thanks!!

specs: Intel C2Q 9450, Nvidia 285GTX x2 (in SLi), Nvidia 790i FTW mobo, 8gb RAM, Windows Vista 64bit (the game started having issues in Win7 so I completely reinstalled my OS and started over)

- unplug EVERYTHING that is not needed and play, then start adding things if it is stable. one video card, one hdd and the motherboard is all you should start off with.

- run some 4+ hour benchmarking on the rig and see what that says

- What version of win 7? did you try XP?

Those are some of my suggestions. you could always sell the thing and get a new one!

What kind of power supply do you have?

can you post this in CEROLAG, we have experts in the theme.

http://foros.cerolag.com/f-enemy-territory-quake-wars-273/

Sorry, I forgot some info. This system USED to work just fine but now for some reason it crashes randomly. I'm starting to think it might be the video drivers, but who knows.
I forget the brand of power supply but it's 1000watts bronze/copper 80.
The other day after I reinstalled the game I played for an hour with no problems. Then I put in my autoexec/CVAR file and crashes started again. Possibly CVAR are unstable?? but that doesn't make any sense.
I just bought a SSD drive so Monday I will be trying that as my solo drive with the mobo and RAM and 1 video card and see if that alleviates the issue. I have to work all weekend so I don't want to tackle that this weekend.
further, every other game I play works for HOURS and no crashing (BF2, TF2, even the old Generals games)
Bender: if my attempt Monday doesn't fix the problem then I will post there.
Thanks guys!!

do the other games use multithreading?

I don't have a clue if BF2 or TF2 use multithreading.

EZErich wrote:

The other day after I reinstalled the game I played for an hour with no problems. Then I put in my autoexec/CVAR file and crashes started again. Possibly CVAR are unstable?? but that doesn't make any sense.
...
further, every other game I play works for HOURS and no crashing (BF2, TF2, even the old Generals games)

These two facts seem to narrow it down pretty dramatically. In short, the game runs as well as any other without your custom CVARS. The intro of your custom CVARS equals crashes. Other games don't crash, and coincidentally enough don't run your ETQW CVARS.

So I'd say the general location of the prime suspect is pretty clear. And it could make sense, ie. you could have an old setting referencing a hardware device that has since been updated, or a new video driver is choking on the unlocked maxFPS or useFastVidRestart, or your etqwconfig is referencing a library that is no longer present, or you're binding a key that is also a key combo in Windows, but you only hit it when your hitting your bound key while you happen to be holding shift to run, or...

Or something completely different. What I would do is back up and erase my etqwconfig.cfg and auotexec.cfg files, and then reintroduce sections of your custom autoexec in chunks, maybe a quarter at a time, and see if you can narrow down which, if any of your settings are maybe causing the crash.

And if it turns out to be something else entirely, sorry for the wild goose chase.

I've had to do something like this when I got a little ambitious with my settings and discovered that if you lower a specific graphic quality setting to Low, the sound quality of bullet strikes also lowers to where every round sounds like a static pop in your ear. (Which really really sucks, btw) It doesn't make sense to me, but I've done it and fixed in on two separate occasions, so its definitely there.

Computer Science types have a technical term for stuff like this: Effin Magic.

I hate Effin Magic.

lol i have been kind of doing this exact thing, but in reverse, which won't work...
i have been slowly deleting 1 item at a time from my autoexec.cfg file.
as i said, that doesn't work because the game already unlocked the stuff.
i need to do it your way and see what happens.
yay, reinstalling the game is soooooooo much fun...

yay!! a step in the right direction!!
i FINALLY got an error message when my game crashed.
this time (and hopefully every other time...) the openGL crashed.
so i will track down a solution to this problem and hope that is the solution

well reinstalling video drivers didn't work.

Welp, I am heavily sympathizing here. I have found that I have several corrupted etqw files that makes PB goes nuts all over me, so an uninstall is in my future. The weather messed up automotive suppliers all over the midwest so I am working many weekends as well.

with a pure vanilla install i played for 1hr20mins with no crashes...now to start adding my CVARS in 1 line at a time until i find the problem lol
fun fun fun...

If the time it takes to crash isn't too long and the crashes are reliably produced, you could save yourself some time by instead introducing chunks of your autoexe like I said. When the chunk is identified, cut it in half and test the two halves. Rinse and repeat until you narrow it down.

That has to be quicker than one line at a time.

alpha-1 wrote:

Rinse and repeat until you narrow it down.

LOL

quicker isn't always better
the crashes usually happen between 10mins and 25mins into playing (consistently)
i don't mind being meticulous and going 1 line at a time...gives me more excuses to play the game hahaha