it's perfect, then its frozen

[HellspawnZ]

Hi, Sorry to say, but yes, I am new to this message board.
I am hopeing that if this question has been asked before, someone out there who knows could merely point me in the right direction, it would be most appreciated.

My problem is simple. So far, for Zelda64 (1st one) and Goldeneye, the game turns on, plays its opening scene for no longer then a minute / minute in a half, it looks great, runs fine. Then freezes. The sound at that point usually is at a repeating standstill, like a skipping record, and the screen is completely frozen, allowing only the mouse to move. Even ctrl+alt+del does not work.
It also appears that Starfox 64 has close to the same error as well. Rarely it does not freeze, and if it doesn't, another error occurs. If the ship gets hit, the entire screen will flash a solid green for a second, and then flash back to the game, rendering the game unplayable.
In all truth the only game that has successfully run is mario64, although the game itself does have some werid issues, its still playable. (text is next to white, barely readable, / opening mario head is a shinny black, no other color.) If it plays, I am not picky, I'm happy. I just figured those little bits of information might clue someone in on what the problem may be.

My Specs i beleive are good enough to run it

700 athlon
128 MB RAM
Diamond Stealth 3 with 16MB
DirectX 8.1 (newest one out)


If anyone is willing to help, I would greatly appreciate it. I am sure it is just some simple error i just have to go and fix... Or its my graphics card, in which that case, well, I think I will be out of luck then.

Thank you in advance for any help you are able to provide.

 

[gokuss4]

hmm maybe the diamond stealth 3 is the problem. im just guessing but what plug-in are you using and what are the settings for the plug-in?

 

[Ogy]

all roms = verified with GoodN64?

and give OS too

 

[EdgeBlade]

I'm not fimiliar with that card but I'm sure that is the promlem, that or the drivers for it. Unless you tweaked with PJ64's default settings. Mario 64 should run near perfect. I have no problems you describe with it. As for your other probs, no idea, I don't play those games much.

 

[Doomulation]

Hmmm...
I don't really know what the problem is. I guess it's because of bad roms. Use goodn64 to check the roms. Found at http://smiff.clara.net/
Also, that video card of yours is pretty crappy. 16 mb is poor. 32 mb is somewhat OK, but not really good. 64 mb is recommended.

 

[Slougi]

Does that diamond stealth use a savage chipset? Like savage4 or savage2000 or something?
If yes, then that's the problem. ???

 

[B*A*G*G]

i think the diamond stealth is a tnt chipset

 

[HellspawnZ]

I have been doing some research into the problem while reading your replies, and i was clued in on the chipset identification.

Diamond stealth 3 uses the Savage 4 chipset, i just checked... according to the website problem solving section, thats most likely where the problem lies.

There is a program to help tweak the system. Its called,
S3Tweak, recommended by the FAQ of website. Problem is, i don't know what i should change and leave alone. The last thing i need ot to mess with it, and then nothing else works.

If there is someone who is experienced useing it.. or knows specific names of things they had to change up with there graphics card, setting and what have you, it would be most helpful if I knew what would work good with the p64.

To help answer some other questions that have been asked, I am useing windows 98 second edition, and the plugins in p64 are the ones that come with the latest version when downloaded.

Anyone with sugestions, i would be most appericative.

Thanks in advance

 

[HellspawnZ]

btw-

I have not used the rom checking program yet, but there is enough diversity with all the roms i have tried, and diversity in the websites i have gotten them from, to make it far from a coincidence that the exact same thing happens to every game i try excpet mario64.

But, thats the next thing i am planing on doing popssibly tonight, is to download and start figuring out how to use the rom checker. Thanks for the websites in where to get it from.

 

[Zero]

As Slougi said : If you have a card which uses a savage4 or savage2000 it won't work.

Though luck dude ???

 

[petronius79]

I experienced this problem also.
I have Celeron 1 GHz, 128 MB, 8 MB VIA chip integrated, AC97 sound, Win XP. I noticed that the problem varies from game to game. E.g. Castlevania and Mario almost never freeze, while ISS 98 freezes every minute and Killer Instinct Gold every 3 seconds! The freeze's length is about 8-10 seconds. I'm sure its my graphic's card's fault but I don't intend to buy a new graphic card for just a few N64 roms and even if I do, I dont know if it solves the problem. I just noticed that when you play a game at low windowed resolution (like 320x240, 400x300) the freeze occurs less often. Also try to tick off the sound option Sync Audio since with this on many games freeze from the start and are unplayable (like CBDF and Southpark). Also try in the advanced options to have the emulation method to "None". That is the only thing I can do for my computer. But again, I prefer MAME and NEO GEO emulation because it plays almost perfect.

 

[B*A*G*G]

i agree with your choice of systems. if only Martin would consider opening up a forum for mame (cps2, neogeo, & arcade emulation) discussion here at emutalk.
there seems to be alot more demand for arcade news & info with the resent releases of kof2000, metal slug 3, and marvel vs capcom.

 

[Smiff]

yeah that would be a great idea... if Martin was running an arcade emulation site, with arcade emulation sections and staff interested in arcade emulation. One of things I like (well, the thing i like) about EM64 is that it doesnt try to cover things it doent know about (like the way it dropped PSX a while back).

 

[B*A*G*G]

with the help of a couple more arcade guru's, we could moderate a nice discussion board based on arcade emulation to help poor schmoes with there problems.
that is if Martin will host it here.
what do you say smiff?

 

[RJA]

Petronius79, I bet your video is perhaps a integrated Intel (82815)/i810

Yes, with the Intel, I noticed that for most
games to stop stuttering and jerking, I often
have to have it no higher than 400x300.:!!!:

The Intel is probably worse speedwise for N64 emulation.

But, your pausing problems sound like you need to try the following:

Enable "Larger Compiler Buffer"

 

[cooliscool]

it is his video card, in s3tweak u chang in the agp menu change it to "AUTOAGP" then fire up and whoop some ganon ass :stupid: :stupid: :stupid:

 

[hellknight]

tsktsktsk you should write j/k if you don't mean it really :colgate:

 

[HellspawnZ]

cooliscoo, you hit it right on the money, and the emulator works now, at least there is no more completely frozen computer problems. S3Tweak was all i needed. (along with that setting change) I can't believe i missed that on the website.

I am very much happy that the games i have are finally working and are playable (to the extent of my 16 MB graphics card that is.. yeap, i do notice an extreme slow down)

but.....

Guess what!!!! a new problem has arised!

I beleive someone else has expeirenced this problem, but i cannot find that thread again to rediscover the fix.

-Simply, all 2D graphics are extremely stretched off the screen.
Example, in zelda64, the hearts for your life, buttons for your items, are stretched downward. In Golden Eye, the 2D ammo count and clips are stretched right off the screen.

I know there is a thread somewhere that has intructions to fix it, or if anyone could just post it up, that would be great.

Also, a slightly larger, more important problem has arisen as well.... in starfox64 and zelda 64, when my ship / or bond recieves damage, the screen would normally just flash a bit showing injury has occured... well, when this happens, the entire screen turns solid green, and then turns back, takeing about 1 to 1 and a 1/2 seconds to recover each and every time when hit. This is causeing it to be next to immpossible to play, unless of course i don't get hit. ;-) The solid green is exactly how it sounds by the way.... there is absolutely nothing else on the screen excpet just a green screen for that short peirod of time. I have not tested to many other games, so i do not know if this is a solid trend or just coincidence, but none the less, if anyone knows of a fix, a way to use S3Tweak to change a setting to fix those problems, or some plugin to download, i'd be most appreicated.

Thank you again everyone for the help! Without it, i would have never gotten this close to getting it working before.

 

[HellspawnZ]

ok, so i am a bit blind.

I found the 2D height fix. Thats not a bad idea, posting it at the top, thanks for the help, i have been editing the code now to see what works "good enough" for me.


I still have the problem of.. i get hit, and the green turns a solid green. thats in Golden eye, and Starfox 64.
Suggentions???

Thanks for the help!