N3 Problem Screen Freezes

Has anyone else had this problem! While racing in Nascar 3, I am in a race, any race, any track and at no particular time my screen will freeze, I can hear my engine, then screaching tires a crash and more tire screahing, but a frozen screen that the only way out was to CTRL+ ALT+ DELETE. Not fun.. My system is as follows: PII 450mhz Intel 128MB 100mhz DIMM 16MB STB Velocity 4400 Primary 12MB Monster 3D II VooDoo 3Dfx 13GB HD Dx7.0 I also have all of the other racing sims Papy has put out and they all worked fine. Mind you I am not complaining otherwise about the game, because IMHO this is there best effort yet and this is what I have been waiying for. Frank Jr

two options: 1) reinstall DX6.1 - why do you wanna be a beta-tester for 7.0? there is no increase in performance nor features for current games yet, but some problems with the current version 2) underclock your V2. I know that your V2 _should_ work at 90 or 92MHz or whatever frequency, but some just don't do this under certain conditions. 85MHz might help and is no big perfomance hit - at least playing on a slow 'puter is better that playing on a constantly crashing one ;-) Lio

I got the same problem you have, and I though it was the directx 7 doing it so I uninstalled dx7 and it happened to me again. I also would like to know what is going on. I am not the only one with this problem, which is good to hear. Dave

If your using Win98 you might try looking at the file checker in systems tools. I ran it and found some D3d files corrupt and the process will ask you to reload the files from the Win98 CD. Also run the DX Diag program to check DXn file corruption. It may suggest to reload your DX files. When ever N3 starts acting up these are the first things that I check. Nine times out of ten something is corrupt somewhere and the problem goes away for a while. Rick Sweeney

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> Has anyone else had this problem! While racing in Nascar 3, I am in a race, > any race, any track and at no particular time my screen will freeze, I can > hear my engine, then screaching tires a crash and more tire screahing, but a > frozen screen that the only way out was to CTRL+ ALT+ DELETE. Not fun.. > My system is as follows: > PII 450mhz Intel > 128MB 100mhz DIMM > 16MB STB Velocity 4400 Primary > 12MB Monster 3D II VooDoo 3Dfx > 13GB HD > Dx7.0 > I also have all of the other racing sims Papy has put out and they all worked > fine. Mind you I am not complaining otherwise about the game, because IMHO > this is there best effort yet and this is what I have been waiying for. > Frank Jr

The problem seems to be the Diamond Monster 3d II card, I have exactly the same and have experienced a lot of screen freezes. I swapped the card for a Creative Labs Voodoo Banshee and no lockups, the guy who I loaned my monster 3d card to - had the lockups. The way that I managed to stop it happening was to disable anti-aliasing. Ever since I did that everything has been fine. Hope this helps, Ian

I had the same problem with the Moster 3d VooDoo2 on an AMD k6-2 450 with 64mb of RAM. After I took out the board every ran fine but I sure do miss those graphics!

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> The problem seems to be the Diamond Monster 3d II card, I have exactly the > same and have experienced a lot of screen freezes. I swapped the card for a > Creative Labs Voodoo Banshee and no lockups, the guy who I loaned my monster > 3d card to - had the lockups. > The way that I managed to stop it happening was to disable anti-aliasing. > Ever since I did that everything has been fine. > Hope this helps, > Ian > > Has anyone else had this problem! While racing in Nascar 3, I am in a > race, > > any race, any track and at no particular time my screen will freeze, I can > > hear my engine, then screaching tires a crash and more tire screahing, but > a > > frozen screen that the only way out was to CTRL+ ALT+ DELETE. Not fun.. > > My system is as follows: > > PII 450mhz Intel > > 128MB 100mhz DIMM > > 16MB STB Velocity 4400 Primary > > 12MB Monster 3D II VooDoo 3Dfx > > 13GB HD > > Dx7.0 > > I also have all of the other racing sims Papy has put out and they all > worked > > fine. Mind you I am not complaining otherwise about the game, because IMHO > > this is there best effort yet and this is what I have been waiying for. > > Frank Jr

Happens to me constantly, too. I attributed it to my Celeron 300/450 being overclocked without raising the voltage. Hmmmm.... I have a P2-350 I'm going to swap in soon to see if that's it. I can't give up that speed, tho. 1024x768 with ALL graphics on, full draw ahead, 3 cars behind and Force Feedback and it's still pretty fluid on my V3 3000... can't give it up... Gunner

>Has anyone else had this problem! While racing in Nascar 3, I am in a race, >any race, any track and at no particular time my screen will freeze, I can >hear my engine, then screaching tires a crash and more tire screahing, but a >frozen screen that the only way out was to CTRL+ ALT+ DELETE. Not fun.. >My system is as follows: For all Voodoo II based and even some Voodoo3 based cards, say no more The current drivers push the clock rate of the card right to the limit. You need to turn down the clock rate of the card a little. Try it in small increments until the game stops crashing. To do this get one of the clock utils. A good site for links to all the good utils is www.voodooextreme.com What Frank is describing here is typical in a standard machine, or even one with an extra cooling fan in the front of the box. The only other way is to get a cooler that'll blow directly on the card- www.3dfxcool.com carries many neat things to cool voodoo cards. Good luck out there. -Mark

I'm running the Celery 300a at 450, and do not have that problem. Are you monitoring your temp to make sure it is not overheating? -- Don Burnette

I have v2 in SLI with Stealth Coolers on each and run them at default clock speeds and still get intermittent lockups online. I think their is more to it than heat.

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> >Has anyone else had this problem! While racing in Nascar 3, I am in a race, > >any race, any track and at no particular time my screen will freeze, I can > >hear my engine, then screaching tires a crash and more tire screahing, but > a > >frozen screen that the only way out was to CTRL+ ALT+ DELETE. Not fun.. > >My system is as follows: > For all Voodoo II based and even some Voodoo3 based cards, say no more > The current drivers push the clock rate of the card right to the limit. You > need > to turn down the clock rate of the card a little. Try it in small increments > until the game stops crashing. To do this get one of the clock utils. A good > site for links to all the good utils is www.voodooextreme.com What Frank > is describing here is typical in a standard machine, or even one with an > extra cooling fan in the front of the box. The only other way is to get a > cooler > that'll blow directly on the card- www.3dfxcool.com carries many neat things > to cool voodoo cards. Good luck out there. -Mark

I have the same problem with GPL but never had it happen in N2. I installed cooling fans and it helped but eventually it froze. I tried opening the side panel on my Dell to let more air in and it stopped the freeze. I have had it happen in N3, although nt as frequently at GPL, and opening the side panel works. BTW, I have almost exactly the same system as you describe below. Is it a Dell? My fix was not nearly as complicated as those above...but then again I don't understand 90% of what you guys are talking about. :) Dave

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> Has anyone else had this problem! While racing in Nascar 3, I am in a race, > any race, any track and at no particular time my screen will freeze, I can > hear my engine, then screaching tires a crash and more tire screahing, but a > frozen screen that the only way out was to CTRL+ ALT+ DELETE. Not fun.. > My system is as follows: > PII 450mhz Intel > 128MB 100mhz DIMM > 16MB STB Velocity 4400 Primary > 12MB Monster 3D II VooDoo 3Dfx > 13GB HD > Dx7.0 > I also have all of the other racing sims Papy has put out and they all worked > fine. Mind you I am not complaining otherwise about the game, because IMHO > this is there best effort yet and this is what I have been waiying for. > Frank Jr