ExcaliburDragon Posted March 29, 2002 Share Posted March 29, 2002 I posted this in a couple of related newsgroups today, but thought this might be a little more targeted to who might be able to help. This posting is long (and somewhat tweaked from the newsgroup version), but only because I'm trying to troubleshoot thoroughly. Please bear with me. -- I just got the game today. Wasn't expecting it until tomorrow(ebworld.com). My specs: - ASUS P4T-E w/P4 1.5Ghz, no over-clocking. - 512MB RAM - Win98SE - ATI Radeon 8500 (using the x.9009 driver set; listed as tested/recommended in the JK2 troublshooting guide, no over-clocking/tweaking) - SBLive! Platinum - Installed on a 7GB, defragged partition w/4GB free (IBM ATA100 HD) - For what it's worth, my machine is VERY cool - specialized case. - At least 600MB free for temp directory use. Similar amount for swap file. First thing I noticed is that the intro/developer movies having crackling in their sound, and slight pauses in them. Not very impressive. Would love to know why that happens, because it feels sloppy, but it's just the intro movies (so far), so I can live with it. On loading the game the first time, I chose the "High Quality" set of parameters, except I upped the resolution to 1024x768. When the game loaded (which, by the way, takes upwards of 2.5-3 minutes!), it would immediately crash, resulting in a garbled screen with some kind of Windows error box in evidence. Because of the garbling, I couldn't read it, but I could press the 'space' bar to clear the error, at which point it dropped to desktop. Hmm. Not a good sign. I reloaded the game a number of times (one time my machine actually locked up), and eventually found a combination of game settings that let the game load completely (but the load time is still 2.5-3 minutes - why so long? That's insane!), but I don't think it was really any different than the default "High Quality" settings, with maybe one change that I've since toggled to no ill effect. Weird. Anyhow, once in the game (which looks great, by the way), I changed the resolution back up to 1024x768 and that worked fine, and I started playing. All was reasonably okay until I reached the end of the level. I walked through the door at the end of the first level, and the game locked up (prior to the "status" screen). After five minutes, I restarted the machine. Tried again. Reloaded the game (which was saved a few feet from the doorway). After a ponderously long load time (see above), the status bar reached about 90%, then crashed back to desktop with the JK2 console open, with the following error: "Unsupported marker type 0x2c" Scrolling back a bit, I see this: "----- finished R_Init ----- UI menu load time = 77 milli seconds Couldn't find image for shader [nomaterial] Parsing menu file:ui/hud.menu UI menu load time = 2 milli seconds AS_ParseFile: Loaded 13 of 194 ambient set(s) Corrupt JPEG data: bad Huffman code ...loaded 14235 faces, 1036 meshes, 9 trisurfs, 0 flares Couldn't find image for shader gfx/2d/crosshairj Corrupt JPEG data: premature end of data segment" That doesn't look good. I guessed maybe my game is now somehow corrupted? Why would that be? Fresh install. Defragged disc. Hmm. I tried reloading several times, tweaked the game settings (in case that was the problem), all with the same result. I tried an earlier save; same result. Sheesh! I did some web searches regarding that error and Quake, since I know it's the same engine as Q3. I found some references to similar errors, similar symptoms, and the feeling seems to be a corrupted .pk3 file, I think (?). Since there is no option to repair/re-install JK2, I just copied the files over from the CD to the game directory again. This did nothing. I uninstalled the game. I reinstalled the game. Reloaded the save. The game loaded! Walked forward to go to the next level, and I saw a status screen (how many kills, secret areas, etc.) which I hadn't seen before, and the loading bar. It hit about 60% or so, then died to the JK2 console on the desktop with a similar, but not identical error. I cannot get past this. I've tried several times, with the same effect. With nearly 3-minute loading times, this is a real pain it the neck to troubleshoot efficiently, and I don't feel like I'm getting anywhere. Does anyone have a guess/thought/feeling as to what's causing this? Insofar as Quake3 engine games go, I have no experience. As far as OpenGL games, I've run a few in the past couple of weeks (Anachronox, Half-Life, etc.) with no issues. Barring this, I have no idea what's causing this problem. ADDENDUM: After a whole afternoon of digging, I've come across a couple thoughts: - CD Copy Protection is boofing the files. What could I even BEGIN to do about this if true? I have two drives, an ASUS DVD/CD IDE drive and a Plextor CDRW IDE drive. I've installed the game and run the game from both, and I get these errors regardless of drive I use. If I need yet another drive, I think it's probably easier to throw the game in the trash. - You need lots of system RAM and video RAM for all the graphics details to be in use. This would address the load time complaint I have. At close to 3 minutes for a new load (reloading a level once I've been playing takes about 10 seconds), something is clearly wrong. But with 512MB of RAM and 64MB of RAM on the video board? Come on. That has to be plenty... - AGP Aperature size might affect this problem. Maybe, but not on my machine. I've tried all kinds of sizes, from 32MB up to 256MB. No change. - One change In-Game seemed to make a difference. For a short while. In one of my fits of "trying to toggle EVERYTHING" to get it to work, I toggled off the crosshairs. And ONLY that. All other settings were at high graphical goodness. And you know what? The game loaded. Wow! The crosshairs?? Well, okay, so it didn't last. I played through a few minutes of the next (Mine) level, and all the walls disappeared (I was suddenly looking at parts of my HUD, my gun and the horizon). The sounds were still going, but I couldn't affect any changes in the game, even to exit. So I restarted my machine. Tried to run the game? Back at square one. Won't load (as per above). Toggling the crosshair doesn't do the trick this time. - Reduce my graphics settings - they're probably too much for my PC to handle. I have a reasonably powerful and cool-running machine. It should (and can, darn it), handle all this game can give at 1024x768x32. I've SEEN it. But hey - I tried just that. I disabled everything. Man is this game ugly with everything turned off, at 640x480. It's almost like What If Jedi Knight Outcast Were a Sega 32X Game. But you know what? That didn't change anything. The 'unsupported marker type' error remained. *sigh* I see others have mentioned the problems I have, but I haven't seen any solutions yet. But clearly something goofy is going on. Any help would be appreciated. I'm dying to really play this game! And I'm not willing to continue on in the role of professional trouble-shooter indefinitely in order to get it to work. Hopefully some of you can work with me on this and see if we can't get any progress made to fix it. Or at least, identify the problem. ~ Excalibur (Thanks for reading.) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HarryBoheamoth Posted March 29, 2002 Share Posted March 29, 2002 Not sure if this will help you but it did wonders for my even slower setup now I play with max graphics everything but simple shadows and it works pretty smooth. Big battles it still tends to drop to the mid to high teens at times but it's playable non of the less. Most of time it's 25fps and higher. The fix was loading via's new 4in1 drivers that came out just a week ago march 21 was release date for these drivers. It must of changed something to the agp to make it a lot faster cause the game really took off after I installed this update. Before I could'nt even get high fps than 45 just sitting still looking around with nothing around me. Now I'm getting 60 to 100 fps not doing anything so I know it fixed the problem. Plus in big battles it would not even get close to 30fps at all would stay in teens almost entire time. Heres the link for the drivers hope it fixes your problem http://www.viaarena.com/?PageID=2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ExcaliburDragon Posted March 29, 2002 Author Share Posted March 29, 2002 Harry Boheamoth - Thanks for the advice. Unfortunately, I don't think the VIA drivers will do anything for me, with the motherboard I'm using (Intel P4T-E). No VIA chipsets involved on my rig. ~ Excal Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ExcaliburDragon Posted March 29, 2002 Author Share Posted March 29, 2002 bump Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
I_Am_RogueOne Posted March 30, 2002 Share Posted March 30, 2002 I made it thru the mine level, and thru the cinematics leading up to loading the 3rd mission. About 40% into the load, bam, same type of crash Dragon mentions, but with error 0x8a (think that's it) haven't figured out anything that works yet. System specs Athlon 1.4 266 512mbRam (agp size 256) GF4 4400 with 27.42 WHQL and 28.32 ECS k7s5a mobo haven't tried the reinstall path yet, as I was hopeful someone here would know the fix. please someone help us! hehe Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ExcaliburDragon Posted March 30, 2002 Author Share Posted March 30, 2002 I_Am_RogueOne - that error you list is the exactly (well, I'm pretty sure) what the second error is that I talk about, and the one I'm currently getting when trying to run the game. FWIW. ~ Excalibur Dragon Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ExcaliburDragon Posted March 30, 2002 Author Share Posted March 30, 2002 bump... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HRH Posted March 30, 2002 Share Posted March 30, 2002 Oh, where to start. My symptoms are quite similar to yours, but not quite the same. I've never been lucky enough to get dumped back to the desktop or recieve any kind of error message, my machine just locks solid. This occurs when: 1. Loading a save game in single player. Not every time, but 95%. Locks when the progress bar is nearly full. 2. Passing from level 1 to level 2. This happens everytime. I've yet to see what level 2 even looks like. It just locks when loading on the stats screen reaches about 90%. 3. Loading a new map in multi-player. Once again it will go through the motions of loading a map and then lock solid. Sometimes it will just got to a black screen. This doesn't happen as often as the other two errors. Also, when I do manage to play some single player, there is quite often some static noise in the background. My specs: Athlon 1.2 Ghz 512 MB 133mhz SDRAM 64MB Geforce 2 ultra Soundblaster 128 What I've tried: Scaling down/up every setting I could. Tried it at all resolutions, with GL Extensions on and off. Tried different colour and texture depths. Tried different filtering. Downloaded the lastest detonator drivers from NVIDIA. Tried crying, screaming and begging. If anyone has any ideas, I'm at stage where I'm open to suggestions. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HRH Posted March 31, 2002 Share Posted March 31, 2002 **Bump** I think there is some useful tech info in this thread, should be kept alive. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HRH Posted March 31, 2002 Share Posted March 31, 2002 OK, I seem to be playing OK now. Heres what I think made the differnce: Closing down the Intelipoint software before playing. Completely bizzare I know, but there you go. Make sure GL Extentions are on as well....it locks up every time on mine if they are off. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ExcaliburDragon Posted April 1, 2002 Author Share Posted April 1, 2002 HRH - Interesting RE: the Intellipoint software. I, too, have the little Intellipoint icon in the system tray. However, I have done many tests with that closed down (along with everything else except for systray and explorer), to no avail. It would be interesting, indeed, if that made a difference in some way anyhow. Thanks for posting that info - and keep us/me posted on if you ever have more/any problems with the game after this change. Still no change here - still can't get into the game because of this "unsupported marker type" error! ~ Excal Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
willeekinz Posted April 7, 2002 Share Posted April 7, 2002 Outcast needs a defragged drive when installing... Have you had slow probs on installing, where it seems to hang @ a certain percentage for awhile before continuing?? uninstall the game (save your saves folder somewhere and reinsert it after reinstalling later) wise to check your registry for any remnants of the game... (@ this point I also uninstalled and reinstalled my driver, but you may want to skip it, not sure if it helped or not, but I did it, and it worked...) run disk defragmenter run disk cleanup install the game It worked like a charm for me...I even exchanged the disk for a different one @ walmart and still had the same marker jpeg probs...after the defrag and cleanup, no hangs on installing, and the game has worked fine now... GOOD LUCK, and make sure to post if you are successful or not... Tony Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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