Another (but different) Zero Hour Lockup Problem

[Guest Delme]

When playing the General Campaigns (I'm playing as Gen Axelander) and you have to fight General Townes. About two thirds of the way through the level, (so you are basically in his base wiping out what you want) the game totally freezes. Usually there is a lot of fighting going on. The music and sound of the rain continue but with possibly with a slight glich at the end of the tune and the screen just sits, frozen. The only thing that moves is the cursor that doesn't change icon as you whiz it round the screen. Eventually after about 5 minutes or so of intermittent hard drive action, the game continues for roughly 2 or 3 seconds, then freezes again. If you press "Esc" whilst it's frozen, the next time the game comes to life it brings up the menu. The menu operates as normal. Clicking "Quit Mission" brings up the "are you sure prompt", saying "yes" starts the music & rain sound playing again and the computer pauses for another long length of time before returning me back to the main menu.

 

I've read in the official C&C forum of people experiencing exactly the same problem at two thirds into the level. They were playing as Granger against Townes and have ATI Radeon gfx card, where as I used to have a Geforce2 MX but have (yesterday) because of THIS problem purchased a Geforce4 5200FX 128Mb and still the same problem. Before people start suggesting things to try I'll tell you what I system I'm running and what I've tried.

 

CPU AMD 1600+

RAM 640MB

GFX GEFORCE 5200FX 128MB

5.31 GB FREE HARDDRIVE

AC97 Soundcard onboard

WINDOWS XP

Norton Antivirus and Firewall (disabled)

DIRECT X 9.0

BOTH SOUND AND VIDEO LATEST DRIVERS

 

Right to what I've tried..Bare with me, it'll bore you

 

1. Lowered the hardware acceleration

2. Upgraded graphic card to 128MB

3. Uninstalled ZH and reinstalled

4. Restarted the mission and it froze at virtually exactly the same point

5. Disabled all cursor and advanced drawing simulations

6. Waited a hell of a long time for the game to continue

7. Applied official ZH 1.02 patch

8. Joined this forum (which I'm glad I've found)

9. Turned all Details levels off

10. Running the game in low resolution

 

11. One last point considering is that neither armies are very large.

 

Personally I don't think I've played a mission before where rain was on the screen, maybe it's something to do with that?

 

I've run out of ideas and things to try, so I'm either going to have to quit or go completely mad. Unless someone knows the answer?

 

I will try anything, apart from playing naked with a big fat hairy man sitting on my lap

[Guest Delme]

:lol:

 

 

In answer to myself and anyone else who is stuck around this point, I've been Victorous!! Hurrah !

 

All I needed was a good defence and three particle cannons.

 

This saves the game/pc doing all the hard work with the ground attack, just cannon him off the face of the earth with 3 cannons.

 

It worked for me 8)

[Sonic 295]

I wish I had an answer for you but sadly I don't. We have been dicussing similar things about Zero Hour slow down/lock up problems in this thread http://forums.cncnz.com/viewtopic.php?t=650 in our Tech Support forum. No one has come up with anything, and the general idea is that its some nasty programing bug in the game or some strange combination of hardware that Zero Hour doesn't like.

 

For your system personally, it could be something to do with your AC97 onboard soundcard. My system has one of these and it gave me some problems with some games so I disabled it and purchased a better sound card. Onboard soundcard are ok but when comes to 3D gaming they simply don't have the grunt. Same goes for onboard video.

 

Once more thing to try. If you have a VIA chip set on your motherboard get the latest VIA Hyperion 4in1 Drivers from http://www.cncnz.com/files/support/drivers.shtml#via

[chickendippers 1]

I have onboard sound on my new comp but it's kick-ass

[Guest Delme]

Thanks for the guidance Sonic. As I said, I finished that level now by using as little as possible to wipe General Townes out, so I can celebrate. I can carry on my missions (for now)

 

I totally agree with your comments about onboard gfx and sound cards.

 

Lets be honest, they haven't exactly spent out on a top of the range card when it's attached to the motherboard. I don't think I've experienced any other problems with games that come to mind, but both of your points are worth considering upgrading to standalone boards.

 

Unfortunately, my motherboard has pretty much the fastest processor available for it, so in a few months I'll be buying a new motherboard, so I'll get a new sound card then too.

 

I will check out the link for the VIA motherboard drivers (guess who has a Via chipset!) thanks for that.

 

note to chickendippers (hmmm Dominos pizza's!) I haven't had problems that I'm aware of with the onboard sound card, generally on most games they do seem to cope well with the demand, the only thing is, is that they are probably cheap cards, that do just enough to get away with it. But unless you have problems you'll probably be ok for years with it, it wasn't that long ago, when most people in this forum were praising their 16k Soundblasters.

[Sonic 295]

I have onboard sound on my new comp but it's kick-ass

Oh there is no doubt that you can get some great onboard sound options on a few motherboards these days. Many of them now offer 5.1 audio for lowcost prices.

[Guest Proof]

ON Topik: Had the same problem. Saved and loaded ...

 

OFF Topik: --- There is no Gf4 FX5200

--- The sount on nForce based (with MCP-T) boards is great (reverb ,3D ... u name it)