Graphical Errors, Linkdeaths and Increasing system resources in game

[Demrog]

Ok first my system spec, then the problems and then what I have already tried.



SPEC:

Athlon 4200+ X2 Dual Core socket 939 CPU
2Gb Corsair XMS DDR 400 matched pair RAM
DFI Lanparty UT nF4 Ultra-D motherboard
512mb ATI Radeon X1900XTX Graphics
250Gb Maxtor SATA II HDD (OS installed to this drive)
250Gb MAxtor IDE 16mb Buffer (storage)
580W Hiper Type R modular PSU
Coolermaster Praetorian 730 Aluminium Case
OS: WinXP Home SP2
I connect to the internet via an onboard Gb LAN port, to a D-Link router and then to the cable modem (10mb connection)




PROBLEMS:

1) Graphical Errors - I get flickering graphics on screen - mainly the grass on the floor. The character looks fine as do the buildings etc - it's almost always the grass that flickers (in fact I haven't noticed anything else flickering as yet).

2) I use mousetoggle bound to the right mouse button (as well as the letter M as already set by the default keyboard layout in game) to move around and turn etc. When the above occurs, my mouse cursor also flickers (when it works correctly the cursor should disappear altogether

3) When I See the above errors it invariably leads to my going linkdead. My perf meter stays green across the board and I get no lag or any indication that I will lose connection, but I almost always do within a minute or so of getting the above 2 errors.

4) Last night as a test I decided to see how much memory the game takes up. From about half an hour into game, task manager showed game.dll as using between 500 and 550mb of my available RAM. An hour later it was showing 950+ mb of available RAM (note that I did not have any linkdeaths while doing this test last night).

Errors 1 and 2 always happen together. Error 3 is the next problem in 99% of cases (it is very rare i get to carry on playing when the first 2 errors materialise).




WHAT I HAVE TRIED SO FAR in no particular order (without any success):

Full reinstall of XP Home
Full reinstall of DAoC to SATA drive
Updated DirectX to latest available from microsoft website
Tried the following catalyst drivers: 6.5 and 6.6 (please note that I tried installing 5.2 as recommended by the support page but they are too old to support my graphics card)
Reinstall of DAoC to IDE drive.
Updated both network ports to latest drivers I can find
tried 2 different ethernet cables on both onboad gigabit LAN ports to all ports on router and also direct to cable modem
Yes Hardware checksum is disabled on both LAN ports
Tried disabling and uninstalling all firewall and AV software as well as purchasing new software just in case which also didnt work.



WHAT I NEED FROM YOU:

Help!!!
I am at a loss as to what to try next so I could really do with some ideas.

If you need any other info just shout

Demrog

 

[old.Whoodoo]

Athlon 4200+ X2 Dual Core socket 939 CPU - Check BIOS settings are set for this chip right, including clock speeds
2Gb Corsair XMS DDR 400 matched pair RAM - Take one out, always worth a try
DFI Lanparty UT nF4 Ultra-D motherboard - Update the BIOS (should be in your manual) - also check forums for your manufacturer, you may find its a known fault.
512mb ATI Radeon X1900XTX Graphics - Turn off all the bling filtering one by one, see if antistropic or something is causing it.
250Gb Maxtor SATA II HDD (OS installed to this drive) - Yuk, wouldnt touch another maxtor if they paid me, but shouldnt be a problem
250Gb MAxtor IDE 16mb Buffer (storage)
580W Hiper Type R modular PSU - check the outputs of the PSU are enough to run the GFX card, some have their own 12v supply thats higher that average!
Coolermaster Praetorian 730 Aluminium Case - is it shiney?
OS: WinXP Home SP2 - fully updated? worth checking, and avoid MS drivers for as much as possible.
I connect to the internet via an onboard Gb LAN port, to a D-Link router and then to the cable modem (10mb connection) - I dont think this is a problem, are there diagnostics on your router or error logs?

Worth a shot anyway, good luck m8.

 

[Ging]

Dude, you have a memory leak.

My PC is pretty much same spec as youve listed above (i have the DF-Expert MB, 64x2 3800 Athlon, same ram, 2 x nvidia 6800xt Sli gfx), all your symptoms start occuring after a few hours game play? The syptoms get worse and worse and worse and basically u lag out of the game.

This is a know issue with Mythic, i dont know if they will ever attempt to find out what it is and fix it but trust me when i tell u, YOUR NOT ALONE.

I have to re-boot my PC every 5 hours or so - tbh only really ruins my stats but i can live with that.

To prove this run Task Manager and let it "record" system resources. PLay game for a few hours. Now game.dll should take up at most about 600-700mb MAX. Im assuming your not dual logging. Now when testing this on my PC i found that for the first few hours the game was fine but then i started to get the "grass flicker", alt tapped and check resources and noted figure had increased by 50mb, carried on playing and was able to "live" with the grass flicking, every now and again alt tabbing to notice more memory resorces being taken by game.dll. As this gets worse over time i then noticed my bound keys for /stick /face and mostly my autorun (numlock) dont work properly.

Just relogging the game does not release the leak, only a full reboot will do this.

My record is 1.9Gb allocated to game.dll

All my bios settings are as per manufacturers reccommendation, all drivers are up to date and XP is fully patched. Ive done plently of research on this and found that quite alot of people have experienced and suffer from this.

Good luck

 

[Demrog]

Update:

All seems well after 3.5 hours of testing (ok i was playing but you can call it testing if my wife asks).

I updated the BIOS to the latest one shown on the DFI website and also installed the AMD Cool&Quiet drivers from the same site (as I was recommended to do by Nahas from GOA) and everything seems fine now. Even the memory leak seems fixed - after 3.5 hours game.dll was showing between 580k and 620k depending on where I was.

The AMD drivers are required for Dual Core AMD CPU's so if you are running one and having the same errors as I described above - then download those drivers!

 

[Soha]

I have same problem here got
x2 4200+
2gb crusial ram
gf XFX 7900GTX 512mb
MSI K8N SLI-FI

i installed the cpu thingy from AMD http://www.amd.com/us-en/Processors/TechnicalResources/0,,30_182_871_13118,00.html

direct link to the DL
http://www.amd.com/us-en/assets/content_type/utilities/amdcpusetup.exe

I have installed it gonna see how it goes...

 

[Ging]

Yea i installed the updated amd drivers and played all last night for about 6 hours w/o fault.

Well happy :england:

now to find out why my ADSL repeatedly drops after 10pm every night......

 

[Luinmir]

I think its like mine, The problem Lies in the Dual CORE.
When you start the game Do a " ALT+TAB" to Windows, then "CTRL+ALT+DEL" to get Activity panel.

In the Process TAB, you shall find "game.dll", Right click and and chose " ( Not sure what it called)" Last in the Menu, Take of 1 of the CPUs Dual core.

Jump back to the game and Have fun.

Or if you dont wana do that every time you have to Play the game, Check this out: http://www.robpol86.com/Pages/imagecfg.php

 

[Infanity]

How do you turn off hardware checksum ? Im having ld problems atm

 

[Soha]

Worked great for me ppl with that problem install that patch
=)

 

[Theo]

To disable Checksum:

1. Right click My Computer
2. Properties
3. Hardware
4. Device Manager
5. Look in Network adapters
6. Right click the device and go to properties
7. Click Advanced
8. Select Checksum offload and set it to disable

 

[Soha]

I have been running this patch http://www.amd.com/us-en/assets/content_type/utilities/amdcpusetup.exe and it work like a dream.
I dont have to reboot when i want to play or after 4h gameplay.

all flickering gone all ld gone =)

ps its for amd64 x2