DVD Drive stops responding, disappearing NPCs, Frustrated and Lonely

[teddy_ted]

DVD Drive stops responding, disappearing NPCs, Frustrated and Lonely

So I'm frustrated and lonely not being able to play Witcher. There's a flower girl longing for my loins...sigh....Ok, here are the facts: Fresh install Windows XP Pro 32 bit SP3, 2 Gig ram on 3.0ghz P4, Nvidia 6800 GS AGP vid card, and EMPREX DVD R/W drive.I am playing the UK Uncensored version of the game updated to patch 1.3.The overview is I think TAGES is not playing nice with my DVD drive and causes it to stop responding every 45minutes or so. This will happen on anything that brings up the load screen with the red bar on the bottom that fills up. The dvd drive will make an odd spin/chirping noise and then stop spinning and just sit there. I figured out I can open/close the DVD drive quick and then the loading screen will continue and then I can keep playing.HOWEVER, when I figured this out early in ACT I, later the Reverend despawned. So, I think that triggerd the TAGES copy protection to removeNPCs. So after this I updated firmware on DVD drive, loaded the TAGES drivers, uninstalled, re-installed game. I started a brand new game, and the drive still hangs every 45minutes or so. I haven't reached the point yet where the Reverend disappeared last time, but even if he doesn't this hanging on the dvd drive is unacceptable. I have emailed ATARI support 3 days ago but no response.Can anyone elaborate on how the NPC de-spawn works? What sets the flag to do it? Can I check the flag w/o having to play the game over and over again to a certain point to see if the problem is fixed? Any help on the DVD drive hanging issue? Are these related? I am frustrated by what appears to be a great game that is hampered by something that hurts the very people who are doing the right thing (i.e. paying customers vs. pirates arrr!). My research has shown me that what will work is 1) buy a new DVD r/w drive (unacceptable unless RED Team wants to send me one 2) get a no cd solution (which I am loath to do).Thanks for your consideration,Frustrated and Lonely.

 

[bad213boy]

First things first, that 6800 AGP card is really bad. I have an Athlon 64 mobo with an AGP card on my other computer. I could barely run games using the 7800GS, let alone trying to play using the 6800. Remember this, this game is designed to run at PCIE speeds, not AGP. PCIE will have alot more bandwidth of information than an AGP card. There's only one card left that's equivalent to the PCIE cards, its the ATI Radeon 3850. It sells for 229.99 on Newegg.com and has a $40 rebate. The price for this card just went down about $70.http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814161226You'll want to open up the case and make sure all the connections are tight. Most likely something came loose. Another possibility is the drive might be overheating. Depending on how you have your drive bays set up, the hard drive might be over heating the DVD player. Remember, heat rises. What speed is your DvD players? Also, what size Wattage is your power supply? Depending on your wattage, you may not have enough power to run everything and your dvd player is crappin out. How many hard drives or dvd players are you using?You really have two options, save your money and buy a new mobo, ram, processor, and pcie graphics card, or buy the very last AGP card they will ever make. Either way you're computer is running into a dead end. I know, I had the same problem until I just decided to buy new stuff. TIgerDirect.com has a great value for the new XFX 790i Ultra SLI mobo, with 2 gig of DDR3 OCZ RAM, and a Q6700 quad (overclocks better than any AMD Black Series quad processor) processor for $784.99. There's also a $35 rebate for the mobo and a $30 rebate for the RAM. Thats super cheap. A decent Nvidia graphics card will cost you around $200-250. A brand new state of the art technology and sick overclocking rig for only $1,000 is pretty cheap. Hell I just used the same hard drive and DvD players I had from an old Gateway.

 

[Licaon_Kter]

the DVD drive is at fault ;(try to use a tool like NeroSpeed to make the spindown time longer or something

 

[teddy_ted]

Actually I have been relatively pleased with the performance of the 6800 GS AGP especially in Witcher. Where in Mass Effect I have to run with everythingat a graphical minimum and at 800x600 I am able to run Witcher at 1152x854 with medium settings and no noticeable framerate problems.As far as your other suggestions, all good troubleshooting ideas but since other games (Half-Life 2 and Mass Effect) work fine I am able to rule them out.However, I am considering the same thing you did, and this 3850 agp card is $135 before mail-in rebate:http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102730As far as the dvd drive spinning down that seems to make sense and fit what is happening. The hangs seem to occur if I am in one place or a screen for a long time and then do something to access the drive. I will look into NeroSpeed. Does anyone know how the TAGES npc disappearing works? That is the most frustrating part, to play to a certain point only to discover sometime back I tripped the faulty copy protection and lost the NPC. I wish there was a way to tell you have been flagged before actually playing all the way to when the npc despawns.Thanks for the ideas.

 

[username_2067007]

Right up to today's fastest PCIe VGAs, not one has yet reached the maximum bandwidth available for AGP 8X, let alone for AGP Pro, so the interface speeds are not a factor. The reason for PCIe's overnight (practically) replacement of AGP was expense. AGP was a more complicated video bus that cost a lot more to implement both on the VGAs and especially on the mainboards. That being cleared up, the 6800 GS, whether it's AGP or PCIe, is a slow, and quite old, video card. I have owned the AGP version of the BFG 6800 GT OC, and it was not in the same class as the better X800 cards, save for one thing. It did have SM3, which the X800s stopped short of having. Only the 6800 Ultra was somewhat competitive in speed, and couldn't quite catch up with the basic X800 XT. The X850s and XT-PEs ran away and hid from the Ultra, also. Regarding those, however, the reference design heat sink system was not fully adequate until the X850 XTP came along, while I had no heating/ cooling problems at all with my 6800 GT card. Much more of a factor in performance than the upgrade from AGP to PCIe was the change from DDR to DDR2 RAM, which followed within about 10 months to a year for AMD processors, but had already been implemented with the Intel s775 interface before the PCIe arrival. Only Biostar and ECS are still actively producing new mainboards for DDR1 RAM and/or AGP video busses; it is now way past time to abandon those two standards for almost everyone who wants to play any newer games.

 

[teddy_ted]

I was able to overclock my PNY 6800 GS a decent amount. I can't recall off hand but I would guess it was about 10% to the core and memory clocks. Yes AGP is dead, dying, gone, etc... However, if ~$120 gets me a year more life out of my pc vs. spending ~$800+ to build a new system its a tough call. I have already fought with a gecube x1950xt AGP card that got RMA'd back to newegg. The card was only $100 but was as stable as a stack of marbles.

 

[teddy_ted]

I found a friend who had a spare DVD-ROM driver for me to try. And lo and behold, it seems to have eliminated the hanging issue (which I believe led to the disappearing NPCs). I may still try my DVD-R/W drive with Neurotools at some point to see if I can change the spindown time, but for anybody else having similiar problems try and get you hands on a different DVD drive, preferably a DVD-ROM.

 

[bad213boy]

Actually I have been relatively pleased with the performance of the 6800 GS AGP especially in Witcher. Where in Mass Effect I have to run with everythingat a graphical minimum and at 800x600 I am able to run Witcher at 1152x854 with medium settings and no noticeable framerate problems.As far as your other suggestions, all good troubleshooting ideas but since other games (Half-Life 2 and Mass Effect) work fine I am able to rule them out.However, I am considering the same thing you did, and this 3850 agp card is $135 before mail-in rebate:http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102730As far as the dvd drive spinning down that seems to make sense and fit what is happening. The hangs seem to occur if I am in one place or a screen for a long time and then do something to access the drive. I will look into NeroSpeed. Does anyone know how the TAGES npc disappearing works? That is the most frustrating part, to play to a certain point only to discover sometime back I tripped the faulty copy protection and lost the NPC. I wish there was a way to tell you have been flagged before actually playing all the way to when the npc despawns.Thanks for the ideas.

I wouldn't get anything less than the top one. The card you're looking at has many overheating issues and doesn't overclock well. Read the reviews. If you're still going on AGP, you should just go with the very last card of a dieing breed. The Ice Pro added the new cooler on it because the origial was overheating alot. Unless you plan on buying a seperat cooling unit for the card, I would only go with the Ice Pro.