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The

"How I Worked-Around The Quake3 Arena Test Hangs On My Diamond Viper V770 32MB (nVidia TNT2)"

Home Page


What's New

May 8, 2000 - XOOM's server hosting my homepage has been down for at least 2 weeks now. Luckily I created a mirror site on GeoCities last month ..... or maybe it was because I created this mirror site! ;^)
Anyway, to I've re-routed the popular
http://surf.to/ga586hx address to point to this mirror site. Of course you can still use these URLs as well :-
http://go.to/hackedmobo
http://www.oocities.org/hackedmobo/index.html
April 19, 2000 - Over time, I've received a number of e-mails saying that my homepage could not be accessed. This has been due to XOOM's servers being down. To avoid these problems, I've set up a mirror site at Yahoo!'s Geocities. I don't know if Geocities will be any better than XOOM, but hopefully they won't be both down at the same time! ;^)
http://go.to/hackedmobo
http://www.oocities.org/hackedmobo/index.html
April 18, 2000 - E-mail address has been changed to hackedmobo@yahoo.com.
January 18, 2000 - This configuration, with additional 32MB RAM, is now working(playing) great with full retail versions of Quake 3 Arena and Unreal Tournament.
August 24, 1999 - Created The Worked-Around Q3Test & TNT2 Home Page

Contents


What?

The Diamond Viper V770 is one of the latest 2D/3D graphics accelerators made by Diamond Multimedia. It built around the nVidia TNT2 graphics processor chip.

There is only one real reason for buying a relatively expensive and high-performance 3D card like the V770 .... to play games like Quake3 Arena! ;^)

Quake3 Arena is the latest installment of the highly successful Quake "3D first-person shooter" games from ID Software. ID has released a Test version of Quake3 Arena (Q3Test) that gamers can download and try out. Although ID says that "Q3Test is a test of Quake3: Arena's network technology and graphics compatibility", I think it is probably the shrewdest marketing tactic in PC gaming history.

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Why?

After installing my brand new Viper V770, I used Windows 98 and applications with no problems. I used the latest drivers from Diamond's website; version 4.11.01.0402, and it worked fine.

Following that, I played my then favourite game; Half-Life. Most of the time, it worked like a charm. But occasionally it hanged. The entire system would just freeze, with the last played sound repeating non-stop. This happened only sometimes when playing Half-Life, so although it was a nuisance, I didn't take it too seriously.

Then, Q3Test came into my life. I got my first glimpse of Q3Test at one of those LAN gaming shops. 3 guys were having a fragfest in the Q3Test2 map and it was wild! I never knew that only 3 guys could create so much carnage and in the midst of such beauty. Beauty? Yes, the Q3Test maps are beautiful!

The first chance I had, I downloaded and installed Q3Test version 1.08, GLSetup 1.06, nVidia's Detonator drivers version 2.08. ID recommends highly to install GLSetup before trying Q3Test. So I did that too. In total this was almost a 80MB download, but never mind. I just had to play Q3Test.

It didn't work! :^(

I could play for only 10-40 seconds before the entire system froze. The symptoms were similar to the Half-Life problem and it occurred more frequently. The whole system hangs, with no response from the keyboard and mouse, and no response from Q3Test and Windows 98. The last sound would be repeating in a loop. The only way to recover is to do a hard reset. This effectively made the game unplayable.

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Contacts

Email address
hackedmobo@yahoo.com

Web address
http://surf.to/ga586hx
http://go.to/hackedmobo
http://www.oocities.org/hackedmobo/index.html

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Disclaimer

This webpage is meant to describe in some detail the work I did to work-around Q3Test & TNT2 hangs. It is not meant be a user guide or a step-by-step how-to guide. Please use the information on this webpage at your own risk. I will not be held responsible in any way for any damages or costs resulting from its usage.

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Adrian
Last revised: October 29, 2000.
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