WCP Freeze

J

junior

Spaceman
Reinstalled Prophecy last night after wandering through here and feeling nostalgic. Ran the Joystick Calibration through the WCP autorun panel (click the Joystick Calibration button, and the regular windows Game Controller panel opens). When I was finished, I closed the Game Controller panel (which promptly disappeared), and my computer froze.
Ctrl+Alt+Del got me a message about the computer being unstable.
Random fluke. This is Windows we're dealing with. Reboot.
Ran the game, went through the opening videos with no problems. Played a few simulator missions without any trouble. Watch Casey embaress himself in front of Blair. Flew the first mission. Second time playing the mission (there's no WAY I was that close to that asteroid!), I blow up an enemy fighter, and the computer freezes. Ctrl+Esc does nothing. Ctrl+Alt+Del does nothing. Finally pushed the reset button to reboot.
I finished the first mission the next time through, and then promptly had a system freeze again during the second mission. Once or twice would be a fluke. Three times means its probably Prophecy (particularly since nothing else I did last night got interrupted), although why it would crash where it did the first time I don't know.

System Specs
Pentium 2 350mhz
128 MB Ram
Windows 98
Voodoo 3 16 MB
Soundblaster Live Value
MS Sidewinder 3d Pro Joystick
Direct X 8.0a

Anyone got any ideas where the problem might be?
 
first, check the CD for any scratches or any pieces of fluff or dust (these always crash my machine when it reads from the CD-ROM drive)
if the disk is OK, try completely removing (use uninstall) and then reinstalling prophecy.
If that doesn't work it could be the Direct X 8.0, (I'm using 7.0 and everthing works fine
 
I'm fairly certain its not the CD. When my system has a problem reading a CD, the system itself may freeze up, but the CD-Rom drive keeps spinning until the drive finally gets a good read of the disc.
As for the others...

Barring any good ideas from others, a reinstall may be in order.
Bleh...
 
sorry mano, thats the best I can do for ya, hopefully someone else might be of more help (but I still don't trust DirectX 8.0)
 
Seems like the SBLive line has trouble with just about everything.
*grumble*

On another note, I had earlier hit Origin's website, and the only entry in the tech database that looked even remotely similar to my problem (black screen and freeze during play - I froze, but no black screen) had a broken link (I liked Ultima and UO, but seriously... Origin needs to pay at least a little attention to the rest of their line-up. UO WILL die one of these days.).
I just had the bright idea to poke through the download sections on the CIC website, and found a 'Voodoo patch' that was labelled 'for Voodoo 2 and higher'. Since I'm using a Voodoo 3, its possible that this is might have something to do with my problems (my copy of WCP was purchased right when the game was released, so I can guarantee its not patched - and the last time I had it installed I think I was using another video card). Anyone happen to know exactly what this patch fixes? There's not a whole lot of info in the files section.
 
Its definitely the video card.
I changed the video settings from 3dfx to directdraw and promptly ran through half a dozen missions without a hitch (this is after freezing twice on the second mission).
Of course, when I exited the game, the system became unstable.
grr...

So apparently I've got two things to contend with. The first is the 3dfx issue. The second is system instability which has occurred twice (right after install, and then during a game exit).
 
Install the Voodoo 2 patch. It fixes the random crashes that occur when using Glide and a Voodoo chip other than the original. Prophecy was coded with a bug that was part of the original Voodoo card in mind. With the Voodoo 2, this was changed, crippling WCP's Glide option. Install the patch and everything should be fine.

It's available here: https://www.wcnews.com/files.shtml

TC
 
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