Awaiting Snapshot....

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Teaser

Guest
Loo,

Anyone know what 'Awaiting Snaphot' in Q3 means? Anytime I attempt to join a server that messsage comes up. The puter sits and looks at me, but doesnt appear to be doing very much. It will sit there forever without joining.

I thought it might be timing out when waiting for the puter to load the textures etc because my HD is slow (only 3mb/s despite being UDMA/33 - pishy windoze).

My connection is fast so theres no problem with that. Although, I am behind a gateway if that would effect it in anyway. I dont know much about the gateway apart from being on a BSD machine.

Anyone got any ideas?
 
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old.VendAr

Guest
Hi

Yes I have this problem too. It gets past the:

Awaiting Challenge...
Awaiting Connection...
Awaiting Game State...

Then on the Awaiting Snapshot page after loading all the map info, player models, weapon models, icons, sounds etc it just sits there. Sometimes it connects within a minute or so and sometimes it can take upto 5 mins! But more often than not it will take so long I will give up trying. :/

Please does anyone know why I have this problem????

Oh yes and by the way... it also sits on the snapshot screen for the map that just finished between maps... ie it doesnt start the new map and just sits on the previous Awaiting Snapshot screen. Weird huh? I have to reconnect to the server to get started on the new map... But then of course it may not even let me rejoin and sit on the Awaiting Snapshot screen again!!!

Aaaaaaaargh :eek:
 
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old.Necro

Guest
Awaiting snapshot is Q3 receving a snapshot of the game state, which it then receives updates to ingame. Try whacking the texture detail level to minimum.

My guess is that the amount of data that needs to be loaded is causing your connection to timeout if the level happens to change while you are connecting.
 
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old.VendAr

Guest
Guess again - my texture detail is already at minumum because I only have a Voodoo 2 :eek:P
 
T

Teaser

Guest
Well I am blaming it on my cack hard drive. Although i have an Athlon 600, TNT2, 128RAM, I have to turn the detail down (keeping the res to 1024 * 768) so that it will load up in the same week.

I think me and ven should get SCSI disks, and with a good SCSI card it will sort it out im sure. And possibly an upgrade in system RAM.

:]

T
 
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old.frankie

Guest
err

tnt2 is fine for q3, and the texture detail should be set to the highest caus it really doesnt make any difference to speed

loading up times is caus of crap HDD

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DR_FRANKENSTIEN
 
T

Teaser

Guest
Frankie - yes its coz of the HDD. But more detail there is the larger the texture files are so the longer it takes.

**Teaser wants a SCSI

T

[This message has been edited by Teaser (edited 27 July 2000).]
 
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old.TUG

Guest
/me enjoys my S3TC enabled nvidia video card drivers that fit mucho textures into the measly on board 32meg vid ram.

U guys set a fixed swap file? 250meg works well. More sys ram = better performance too... but thats obvious.
 
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old.VendAr

Guest
Heh. OK heres my system spec (no laughing please) :-

Pentium III 450
128MB RAM
SiS 6326 AGP 2x Graphics Card
PCI Voodoo 2 (Creative) ** I use my v2 for ALL gaming
PCI SB Live!
Adaptec AIC-7850 PCI SCSI Controller - for my scanner
PCI Asuscom ISDN TA - used for ALL gaming
ISA Pace 56k modem - used for recieving FAXes only

[ WCPUID Ver.2.7e-B4 (c) 1996-2000 By H.Oda! ]

Processor 1 : Intel Pentium III / 9BBF3A9E
Platform : Slot 1 (SC242 Connector)
Vendor ID : GenuineIntel
Type ID : 0 (0)
Family ID : 6 (0)
Model ID : 7 (0)
Stepping ID : 3 (0)
Brand ID : 0 (0)

Clock Frequency
Internal : 449.94 MHz
External : 99.99 MHz
Multiplier : 4.5

L1 I-Cache : 16K Byte
L1 D-Cache : 16K Byte
L2 Cache : 512K Byte
L2 Latency : 8

MMX : Supported
SIMD : Supported
3DNow! : Not Supported

Machine : IBM PC/AT
Version : Windows 98 Version 4.10.2222 A

----------- : --------
F.Flags : 0383F9FF 00000002
I@PCP : 03020101 00000000 00000000 0C040843
: 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000
I@0017/002A : 11010000 00000000 00000000 C5880000
I@0119/011E : 00000000 00000000 00000000 01344531

OK? :p

Oh yeh and I have a 12GB Quantum HDD - it's not fast, but every other game I have ever played (quite a few) has never experienced problems even remotely related to this Q3A nonsense.
 
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old.frankie

Guest
3DFX, nuff said innit

Q3 aint exactly good with any 3DFX card, even the new fangled V5's which take up a whole case plus some more is slower than the geforce.

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DR_FRANKENSTIEN
 
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old.Necro

Guest
Ven: hmm.. My system (until recently) wasn't that much diff:

P450 (was state-of-the-art when i got it)
256mb RAM
Matrox Millenium G200 (irrelevent)
2x Creative VooDoo2 (12mb Pci)
Pace Int 56k
Adaptec AIC-7xxx (irrelevent)
3xWD EIDE harddrives (8gb, 10gb, 30gb)
SB-Live

I don't think the V2 card itself is the problem. Does your hard-drive grind away like mad whenever you change levels? (Q3 is a LOT more greedy than any other game)
 
T

Teaser

Guest
Loo,

But I would like to know is what the hell is it doing? Its got the map geometry, textures, models and weapons to load up. It does the models and weapons fine. But at the point of Awaiting Snapshot it will carry on for another 30-50secs/s loading stuff up. At 2.5mb/s does this mean it loads 60-100Mb? What takes up that amount of space? Textures?

Although, on a couple of maps it gets to the Snapshot and puts me into the map immediately.

If i put the graphics to full detail and 32-bit colors etc, I would be sitting for a week for it to load.

I dont know.

It is a shame really. I play Ra3, which is ace mod but the loading times are getting on my tits.

T
 
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old.Necro

Guest
Q3 uses JPegs for a lot of textures, so some will need to undergo reverse fourier analasis (i think fourier is what jpeg uses..) and then probably be scaled, depending on the texture quality setting. A shedload of other stuff probably has to be calculated, which soon mounts up.

Also, harddrive access is probably not going to be entirly sequencial, so that will bring down the effective reading speed a bit.

Actually, looking at /proc/meminfo on me Linux box, it seems that Q3 is crunching up about ~70mb just for itself. I suspect that Win95 in 128mb machines decides to do a lot of page swapping (virtual memory usage) when such a large chunk of memory is eaten up in a short space of time. Maybe if Ven creates a fixed size swapfile and then defrags his harddrive..?
 
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old.VendAr

Guest
Heh

Well, oddly enough I was playing last night on a nearly empty server - only 2 or 3 of us on it and had absolutley no problems whatsoever??? :eek: It connected in about half the time and changed maps quite happily without a glitch.

Oh yes and what settings did I change? NOT A BLOOMIN' THING! :eek: The server was Jolt RA3 server number 3...

Now I really am confused... :\
 
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old.Necro

Guest
Actually, is there a seperate detail setting for player skins..? (random thought time..)

Also, how quickly does Q3DM14 (supposedly the level with the most textures) load compared to other levels..?
 
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old.Mr Niceguy

Guest
i always play with all the graphics settings at fastest!!

thats cos im a modemer unfortunately!
:(
 
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old.Necro

Guest
Using faster GFX settings may speed you your framerate, but i'd be surprised if it sped up your connection.
 
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old.Kez

Guest
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Mr Niceguy:
i always play with all the graphics settings at fastest!!
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>oooooh, how I don't believe you're a r_picmip 10 person ;)
 
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old.Kez

Guest
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Necro:
Actually, is there a seperate detail setting for player skins..? (random thought time..)
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>Not afaik :( <BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>
Also, how quickly does Q3DM14 (supposedly the level with the most textures) load compared to other levels..?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> remind meh which one dm14 is again? :D
 
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old.Delboy

Guest
Check how badly your HD is defragmented. And I dont mean use scandisk, get a hold of something better like a trial version of norton utilities on their website.
 
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old.Necro

Guest
Q3DM14 is the medieval/gothic level that has the BFG on a ledge over some hellfog.
 
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old.Necro

Guest
I think your nearer the mark. The GeForce FAQ lists 6, 9, 11, and 15 as the levels that make heavy use of textures (i'm surprised DM15 is on that list since its a fairly smallish map)
 
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old.Chink

Guest
"Awaiting snapshot" is related to a network problem. This is borne out both by my experience and by a previous posting of somebody who can connect to another server without problem.

My flat-rate ISP Telewest has consistent problems with Demon. Either DNS goes, or the Demon servers are unpingable by ip address, or both. In these cases, when a bout of dodgy connectivity is going on, I'll get intermittent awaiting snapshot messages either when joining or when maps are changing. Other servers are fine. sometimes, when it stick on "awating snapshot", I can pull the console down and type /reconnect, but not always, give it a go.

It has nothing to do with hard drives or graphics cards. Try a different ISP and see if this cures the problem. At the time of writing this, Telewest is working perfectly, but it's only a matter of time before it starts acting up again. Still, can't really moan - 24/7 for a tenner a month - my phone bill has dropped from £120 to £35/month...
 
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old.VendAr

Guest
Yeh well actually that kinda makes more sense.. I use RHA (www.redhotant.com) and I am on their free 24/7 number all the time... Those particular nights I was having problems, RHA was particularly PLossy.. so I think you may have nailed it on the head.

Thing is though, I did disconnect and try with Jolt - and funnily enough the same thing happened... but I must admit I have had the odd occasion when my TA / drivers /DUN act up in a strange way - can't seem to connect to some sites etc.

Anyway - I don't seem to have the problem anymore... possibly due to better connects. It is still a pain though how I can connect to a q2 server with a shit connect.. well shit for ISDN.. about 100ms, but q3a would more likely refuse me connect - abit shit.

But don't get me started on the large number of pishy things wrong with Q3A :p
 
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old.saltire

Guest
I remember the quake3world boards were awash with this problem, and id couldnt replicate it UNTIL Carmack tested Q3 on a 28k modem (so see if it worked ok! Horse, gate, etc) So it has to be something network related. I found a combination of defragged HDD, low graphics (speeds up load times) and limuiting my modem connection speed to 42k meant I no longer got it again.

Also, Chink, I use Telewest surfunlimited too - great pings to here and Games Inferno (not so stable to WP... how odd :|) Demon always pings higher but is stable. All I did was test out various dial up numbers (you can get the list from their site). In fact their London number was rubbish and my local Southend number was the best. But if I have trouble one evening I use the Telford number. Test them to see, maybe that can help you.

Don't get this flexibility when you're a Cable Modem monkee :) (ok, ok, or the high ping :p)
 
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old.Kez

Guest
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by saltire:
(ok, ok, or the high ping :p)<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>You do if its an NTL one and not a telewest one ;)
 
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Teaser

Guest
Well unfortunetaly for me I am on a permy link so I can't change 'ISP.'

:/

T
 
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