[Omegainf]

Hello guys!

I've been experiencing a nasty problem with ePSXe and a few pc games (i.e. The Sims). I have a k6-2 550 80sdram and a s3 savage 4 16mb agp, my os is win98SE with DX8.1 (latest build).
The problem is: ePSXe (or The Sims) "crashes" during gameplay and returns to desktop. I've written "crashes" because no error message nor blue screen is shown... It just exists to desktop as if I've pressed F4 This is really sad 'cos it happens randomly and sometimes it doesn't even happen...

Anyone can help me solving this problem?

 

[kairi00]

What motherboard do you have? If it's a VIA-based chipset, you'll need to download the 4-in-1 driver.

 

[Omegainf]

Yes, it's a VIA chipset but I've already installed the latest 4in1 drivers and the "crashes" stil happens

During the 4in1 install there's an option of turbo or normal agp... could that create some kind of problem? I always pick "turbo"

 

[AdmiralKirk]

yes, if your video card doesnt support that transfer rate, also check your bios for both agp 1x, 2x, 4x and AGP apature size and make shure there set right, the AGP (well call it X factor for sake of argument) should be set to whatever your video card supports, and the AGP apature should be set to half of what your system memory is. Hope this helps, if not let us know, well keep trying.

 

[AdmiralKirk]

Taking another look at your specks, im (fairly) certain that AGP Turbo is beyond the relm of your Vid card, also make shure that your not overclocking anything (vid or cpu, OC'ing tends to cause probs in ePSXe, and mabye other 3d apps). Your BIOS should use AGP 1x, i think thats what that model of vid card uses, and your AGP apature should be 32Megs, thats the closest to what half your system memory is (it goes in 16 Meg intervals usualy, 16,32,64,128,256 etc etc). Thats all i can come up with right now, give it a try and let us know.

 

[Omegainf]

1st of all, thanx for all the help

Well, I don't overclock my vid nor cpu so this isn't the problem... I use s3tweak in order to set up and tweak my video card and it automatically detects the system specs and it was giving me the option of agp 1x or 2x. I was using agp 2x and apperture size 32; I've installed 4in1 in normal mode which made s3tweak to detect only agp 1x which is what I'm going to use now in order to test if the "crashes" still happens

I just hope that downgrading agp speed won't make frame rates drop dramatically

 

[AdmiralKirk]

Im shure this geuss is way of base, but i belive that AGP 1x gives something like 700mb/s transfers. Im shure that wrong, but i know its a realy high number, and most lickly more than your current video card will need. unless its using ddr vram or something, witch im pretty shure its not. The only other thing that comes to mind is heat. You sound like a power user so you probably got fans up the wazoo, but if you dont, and you think theres any possibility of to much heat in your chasy, try takeing off the cover and putting a small desk fan somewhere around it to try and circulate the air. I know, realy off the wall, but heat could definatly cause this problem. Also, i know that ePSXe doesnt do this, but some games (like Diablo and a few others) leave behind an error log, usualy ending in .err or something, in the directory of the executable. you said youve crashed on Sims a few times, look in the executable directory for that game and see if you find any files with a recent date that you can read with a plain text editor, if you do and it looks like an error log, post it. If not then sorry, ill keep thinking, if i come up with anything ill post.

Good luck!

 

[Omegainf]

Overheating is not the problem for sure...

I've done with the test and the crashes still happens even @ agp 1x

 

[AdmiralKirk]

If youve got a VIA chipset make shure you have the latest 4-in-1 driver set. Same goes for you vid card too. Also make shure that all programs are closed when your playing, also make shure that your screan saver is turned off, since it doesnt recognize that the computer is in use while your in ePSXe and it might try to come one and that would crash it. (had that happens to me, took me forever to figure it out). You said that you were doing tweaks, check to see if your tweaker has a reset to factory defaults, if it does try that, also try reinstalling DirectX, if you dont have the latest (8a) just install that, if you do then the above is easyer said than done, cause you gotta uninstall it first, but thats kind of an extreme option.... hmm, what else..... Make shure your running in 16bit not 32 bit, im not shure if that graphics card supports 32 bit or not, but i know that most 3d apps dont like to run 32bit with only 16mb of vram. If your Vid card has ever been OC'ed or overheated in the past, you might wanna try and underclock it, this will somethimes improve stability on flaky cards. Also make shure you vid card has an IRQ to itself, windows likes to do IRQ sharing witch, for the most part, just doesnt work. Same goes for your sound card. Hmm, well theres smoke comming out of my ears at this point, so ill let this stand and see what happens, BTW, did you check for those error files, they would REALY come in handy (could prob tell you exactly what was wrong with one, if not than oh well, we'lll keep pecking at it.)