freezes with sound loop - possible cause/bug!

[Arathrael]

Apologies if what I'm about to post is already known, but I haven't seen it mentioned and others seem unaware of it, so here goes:

 

I've been struggling with the same problem others have - namely, seemingly random freezes, corrupted display, and a sound loop, which requires a hard reset. Tested memory thorougly, checked PSU and cooling, all fine. A lot of tweaking later, and I think I've fixed it.

 

I think I've found two, seperate, causes, and the corresponding solutions. This is in Windows XP, but some of it may apply to other OSes, I don't know. This is in JK2 multiplayer, but it may apply to the single player game too. The first problem/solution I've seen mentioned before, and only applies to AMD CPUs. The second one I haven't seen mentioned, and it points to a bug in the game (so, in theory, may apply to _any_ hardware config). So read on!

 

First cause/solution: I've got an athlon CPU. I found Medal of Honor: Allied Assault was locking up, usually after running for 20 minutes, in exactly the same way as JK2 - corrupted display, sound loop. Adding the AMD AGP registry patch fix (supposedly for Win2K) fixes this. You can get that here This didn't fix my problems with JK2, but the crashes after installing it didn't have the corrupted display any more, just the sound loop, and XP more frequently gave the error after restarting (the log file with the 'display driver in infinite loop' error).

 

Second cause/solution: This is the interesting one! Having run out of other things to try, I started tweaking two settings in the setup menu - GL Extensions on/off, and sound quality high/low. And, once I'd finished, I had no lockups over three hours of solid playing/spectating (before, I started a multiplayer bot-populated server six times in a row and got a crash within a few minutes every time). Here's the really interesting bit though: the settings I finished with are exactly the same as the settings I started with - GL Extensions on, sound quality high. I have changed nothing else during all this. Here's what I did, in the order I did it:

 

Started with GL ext. on, sound high. Crashed within minutes.

 

Switched GL ext. off, sound low. No crashes over half an hour.

 

So, switched sound high. Crashed within minutes.

 

Switched GL ext. on, sound low. Crashed within minutes.

 

Switched GL ext. off, sound low. No crashes over half an hour.

 

(at this point, I figured having GL Ext on, and/or sound quality high, resulted in the crashing. But I thought I'd double-check, just as well, because...)

 

Switched GL ext. on, sound high. This is what I started with. I expected crashes within minutes, but no - no crashes over three hours of playing/spectating. Restarted the same multiplayer bot-populated server six times, ran for 20 minutes every time, no crashes!

 

So, with what should be completely identical settings, I first get regular repeatable crashes, and then hours of rock-solid reliabilty. What does this mean? Well, I think it points to a serious bug with the in-game setup menu. I suspect something's getting misconfigured depending on what you change/the order you change it in, which is what's causing the crashes - hence why different people with completely different hardware get the same crash, and why one person can run fine whereas someone with an identical setup can't.

 

If you've having the sound loop freeze needing reset problem, I can only suggest messing with the settings (as above) and seeing what you end up with. Hopefully, if I'm right and it is a bug, it'll be fixed soon.

 

Of couse, I may be wrong, so if you can think of a different explanation, or if you can repeat what I've done and get the same (or different!) results, please post.

 

Hope that helps someone anyway!

[DOF]

Arathrael, Thanks for the post! Your "second" fix work great for me! solved my MP problem! I followed your steps and MP has not hung/crashed on me yet! thanks again!!!