generals: zero hour problems

[Guest]

No!That trick is not good 4 me... :?

[Guest]

Found the same problems .. never thought that patching generals would affect zero hour. I'm uninstalling and reinstalling now .. hopefully it will fix the problem.

 

I'm running a XP2800+

1gig GIEL 433 ram

Albatron GeForce FX5900 Ultra

SB Audigy 2

Windows XP

[Guest]

Just Finished the reinstall. No Luck. It doesnt start chunking nearly as quickly. But all the same. for a game I paid for. I expect better then to have the game lag. I'm guessing it's ai because it only happens when I have computer players.

 

I am only a gamer not a programer. But how hard is it to make a game run smooth on top of the line systems? Fresh install of windows generals and zero hour. all the latest drivers? .. how much more can a programer ask for? .. why release a game if it's buggy. and more to the point why release a game patch if it makes the game buggy?

[chickendippers 1]

I've never had any problems with the game - it runs perfec' on my old P3 700Mhz with generic 64Mb ATi GFX card and 256 SD RAM. It runs brillaintly on my Athlon 2.8Ghz with GF4 Ti4400 with 512Mb DDR RAM too.

[Guest Hanshan]

Just read all of the previous posts and I've got a similar problem.

 

Radeon 9600XT

P4 2.6C

1 gig dual DDR 333

80 gig raid 0 array system drive, defragged

Newest Radeon drivers, zero hour 1.02 patch

All non-essential apps turned off, including norton.

 

Just upgraded to the 9600XT from a 9100 to improve Zero Hour game play and it hasn't helped. Starting frame rates are better but game still slows down after 10-15 minutes. Lots of lag, choppy game play, and the game crashes after playing for longer.

 

Oddly, running original Generals (1.07) has no problems. I can play against 4 computer opponents and there is no lag the entire game. Check out this forum:

 

http://forums.extremeoverclocking.com/show...ad/t-78114.html

 

It may have something to do with the 1.02 patch. I tried uninstalling and playing with the 1.00 version and there's no lag but the game still crashes, and does so much sooner.

 

 

Does anyone know if switching to an Nvidia Fx5700 would be any better? Is there anything I can do at all?

[Guest Hanshan]

Forgot to mention I'm running Direct X 9.0b as well. Changing game video settings makes no difference. I get the same lag if I'm running at 1280x1024 with high settings or at 800x600 with everything turned off.

[Guest]

One thing I noticed on my system, the cpu usage oscilates between 0% and 100% while in game when it gets laggy.

Any ideas?

 

All my friends have lower speced boxes and the game runs fine for them with the 1.02 patch.

 

Current config:

Asus A7N8X Dlx Mobo

Athlon XP 2800+

ATI Radeon 9600

2x512 mb DDR 400 cas 2 ram using dual channel

Antec 430W Truepower PS

WD 120gig & 40 gig

 

A7n8x Deluxe mobo

 

ran fine with:

 

Athlon XP 2400+

2x 256mb ddr 266

running at 266 FSB

Radeon All-in-Wonder graphics card

onboard audio

 

ran well at full game speed minimal graphics settings

 

upgraded to:

Radeon 9600 graphics card

 

Ran great at maximum graphics settings, low game speed (unplayable due to speed at max game speed, was needed due to old graphics card)

 

upgraded to:

Athlon XP 2800+

1x 512 mb cas 2 kingston ddr 400 ram

running at 333 FSB

started lagging intermittently, then constantly after the first comp is killed off

lowered graphics settings, no improvement

 

bought 2nd kingston cas 2 ddr 400 512 mb stick for dual channel

no improvement

 

 

Do not appear to be any memory leaks as some forums indicate

Win 2k pro SP4 plus all critical updates (same problem when just running SP4 and blaster patch)

persisted between reformats and multiple reinstalls

Problem persists between maps

cracked or not did not make a difference

installed with and without Norton AV, no difference

turned off all unneeded background processes

persisted over multiple different graphics drivers

Newest patches and drivers

[SilentAssasin 0]

it must be software, maybe VIA 4-in-1 drivers or directx. post what directx and chipset drivers you have installed? my stuttering problem started when i reformatted my computer (no hardware change), so its something that i installed or did before that didn't now

[Guest]

DirectX 9.0b

Latest ATI catalyst driver

wxp-w2k-catalyst-7-97-031212a-013118c

 

A7n8x rev 2.0 bios 1005

Nforce 2 drivers that came with Mobo not sure which version

Anything newer (Nforce and bios) and ram does not work, possibility drivers are the problem, spent most of the afternoon/evening getting my FSB above 100 again, anything over and memory test would fail on boot not even allowing bios access

[Guest callum]

Me to.

[SilentAssasin 0]

maybe is directx 9.0b?, maybe its when its installed straight onto XP, cause my last setup i had 8.0 (stock XP directx ) then 8.1, then 9.0 , then 9.0b in that order. There could be a missing file that generals needs or something

[Guest]

Don't think so (at least on my system). I've only run Zero Hour under Directx 9.0b on Windows 2000 professional. Only changes were hardware and reformat. The reformat came after the hardware upgrades (graphics card, then proc and ram). Only thing I can point to is new ram and proc. Maybe it just doesn't like the hardware config.

[Guest]

Ive been having all the same problems as above and cannot seem to fix it. if anyone could email me with a fix or once a fix was found I would be very gratefull [email protected]

[Guest Fluke]

I got same problem, had it since Generals was released. EA clearly ignoring the problem and concentrating on lame balance issues. I will give my system since it's the lowest of the 3 in terms of latest hardware

 

P4-2GHz

1Gig ram @400MHz

ATI 9700 Radeon

Audigy2

DSL 4mb/down 1mb/up

 

3 humans vs 3 hard computers... computer starts off smooth and then lags horribly and then we get synchronization problems.. then we get the the scoreboard.. running ZH before with 1.02(didn't do squat) re-installed everything and left ZH at 1.0 and still same thing. This is really stupid our systems all exceed the requirements big time, just like all of yours. WTF do we have to do to get support or an answer. I wrote EA directly to ask them WTF is going on.. will I get an answer.. probably not, just like their useless EA forums..

 

I'm not playing in GSA.. this is direct connect... I play 2 humans vs 2 hard computers it really lags but we dont get synchronization problems. We use the fastest computer running 3Ghz to be server and he has essentially a T1... (trust me its fast as hell)

 

This is likely the last game I get suckered to buy from EA. Especially the C&C series.. their support is the worst in the industry. IMO

 

My idea is a memory leak as someone mentioned, only thing that makes sense or maps that have too many AI paths.. but we are playing stock maps... go figure..

 

p.s. I'm not a n00b so please don't say check background applications etc.. and ask about firewall.. (i have no firewall when i play c&c). Thanks.

[SilentAssasin 0]

if we could find out what is causing the problem, maybe we could write our own patch to fix the game. i say **** EA, they don't care about the customers, and only the buyers, so screw them. i read some arcticle that says the problem with the game.dat file. i see what i can do

[Guest Fluke]

stupid question, but have you guys edited to options.ini. I thought keeping it at default.. gonna test tonite and post back with my results after playing.

[SilentAssasin 0]

we have to get EA todo something about it. for them it will take no time to fix , its just there to lazy

[Guest Fluke]

ok I'm certain now. It's the AI. Soon as the computer gets big it chugs. This is pathetic I been screaming about this since Generals. EA has the worst damn support I have ever seen. To deny the problem exists or anything, these guys got to be clueless. I put SendDelay to true, turned off AA and even shadows and stuff through the options ini.. nothing and to be honest without a word of a lie, it was worse. How this game can compromise a finely tweaked 2.8GHz machine is beyond me. And the damn machine has a gig of ram. All night tonite we tested with various options and at a few times we had to shut the game down because it was like 1 fp2seconds... it was just simply ridiculous. I even installed 1.02.. Spent a good few hours and got "1" 2 vs 2 hard computer in...

[Guest Fluke]

well we can't play anymore.. its unbelievable.. our systems are tweaked as much as they can and we turns stuff off. Direct connect we can't get a game of 3 humans vs 3 computers on hard... i don't get it.. How is this possible?? we average approximately 24 processes in windows when we start game... and we all got near 1 gig of ram. If this game would play well man it would kick ass but its nothing more than **** code.. the worst i have ever seen in a game.... just simply amazing how bad it is..

[SilentAssasin 0]

could it be the audio drivers? when you guys reformated did you get newer audio drivers. my friend fixed his problem with different audio drivers (older ones). having wrong ones on the system could be causing the problem

[Guest Fluke]

nobody has old audio drivers, everything is updated as it can go.. We don't have problems in FPS games or other ones we play together. The problems are purely with C&C. We also play Age of Mythology/Titans and Rise of Nations.. no problems..I think too that the 1.02 patch made it even worse but it's stop and go really bad now.. I posted again on EA site and see if these guys respond... though I'm not holding my breath..

 

A) we all have 24 or less processes running(mostly native windows stuff)

no antivirus or firewalls, lan adapters disabled if any

c) all have 768 - 1GB of ram

d) turned off 3d and 2d shadows, turned down particles to less than half

e) no extra animations

f) in Taskmgr it doesn't even show generals as a cpu contender

g) my dsl modem lights whenever i play are blink blink.. not like solid like when downloading or something

h) except for one person on 4600, we are running Radeons @ 1280x960

 

Lag starts virtually 5mins after game started, we most definitely cannot play 3 humans vs 3 hard computers. It's just stop and go continuously. It would take hours to finish a round.. When a computer has gotten hammered the game smooths out, so I'm pretty damn sure it's the AI.. Especially more niticable in 2 vs 2 hard computers. I mean, at times we "have" to build WMD because if we don't the computer gets too big and we lag.

 

EA site seems to be down.. god i hope someone stole the source to C&C, i like that idea of patching it ourself...lol

[Guest Fluke]

If you guys want support i posted on EA's forum so post there, we need this thread to be huge obviously to get support. Most I am getting right now on their forums is people telling me off and nobody including EA doing anything. You should really only reply if it's dealing with Direct Connect play.. One thing a friend of mine said is that EA is likely disregarding it because they don't check for authentication through direct play like they do for GSA so they probably don't care to go through the process of seeing if we have legit keys etc... Poor excuse for lack of support, but I can see EA doing something like this. It would only explain their total lack of support for DirectPlay.. I don't play anything thru GSA, sorry don't like it and there is just too many bad things stated about GSA to even fathom the thought of playing. We are all in the same province as well, why would we even think of going through GSA?? Good for some people I guess, not applicable to us. Here's the thread so please respond to it in support if we are going to get a fix.. Thanks..

 

http://boards.ea.com/[email protected]=1&skip=0

[Guest guest]

I've never had any problems with the game - it runs perfec' on my old P3 700Mhz with generic 64Mb ATi GFX card and 256 SD RAM.

 

I call BS. Your old ass computer cant even run Doom.

[chickendippers 1]

Oh yea? I've got hundreds of screenshots from the MPT and loads from the game itself.

[Sonic 295]

Just like chickendippers I've never had problems running Generals or Zero Hour either, no crashes, no serious errors and my system is by no means top of the line.

 

AMD XP 1700 +

512 MB Ram

Geforce 4 Ti4200 128 MB

GameSurround MuseXL Soundcard

16x DVD Drive

24x10x40 CD Writer

Windows XP SP1

 

However I don't play online and I don't really play the game that often.

 

I will say that I'm shocked at the amount of people posting here on our forums about these horrible errors they are having. Sadly, other than the obvious stuff, I have no suggestions for possible fixes.