DOOM 3 Issue: Random temporary freezing

[oden nauticus]

I cannot for the life of me (and for the searches in several of the web's biggest and most comprehensive tech forums) find anyone else with this issue. It seems very dire to me...
My DOOM 3 performance seems to go quite well, when it is not frozen. Here are some of the things I've ascertained:
1. Its not a sound issue. I thought it was at first because the game would make a horrible sustained stutter noise, like 2ms of the current soundscape repeating very fast. Switching sound devices ( onboard sounds, SBLive!, and a USB sound device ) don't affect this issue. Disabling sound completely does not resolve the issue.
2. It is not a driver issue. I have thoroughly cleaned and updated all my drivers, including video (and various clean installs of betas and NVidas 61.77's), motherboard, DirectX 9.0c, sound, and network. This iteration of my XP Pro installation is not all that old. Only a couple months.
3. Since my other games (including Far Cry 1.2, Deus Ex 2 and UT2004) don't give me any fuss at all, it must have something to do with the video card, since DOOM 3 is the only one of these to make heavy use of all the piplelines and shader gizmos... my knowledge kinda tapers off there, even after reading some of the more involved threads on technical specs of these cards and the various issues of other users.
4. Tried a couple of the AGP - related tweaks, such as disabling Fast Writes and Sideband Addressing, setting my AGP Aperture to 256, and so forth... all to no apparent effect.

Lastly, here are my machine specs:

Athlon 64 3200+
Chaintech VNF3-250 (NForce 3 chipset)
1 gig Mushkin Black 2-3-2 PC3200, clocked DOWN to 333MHz for stability, otherwise random CTD's
eVGA GeForce 6800 GT 256MB
Primary drive: Western Digital Raptor 74gig SATA (includes my OS and DOOM 3)
Secondary: Western Digital 100gig ATA100 8mb SE... kinda old.. mostly for media and older games
OS: Windows XP Professional, SP1 with all latest additional updates barring SP2 itself. That SP2 just kills my OS completely. BSOD upon boot... weird.
Drivers: ForceWare 66.72, nForce 5.10

Tell me what you know, guys! I am at my wits end. Well, really I just wanna play some DOOM 3. Thanks in advance.

-Oden

 

[mauiblue]

I'll take a shot:

1) Maybe the CD is dirty/scratched?
2) The CD drive needs to be cleaned?

Good luck and hope you find a solution. I just started playing D3 again and it ROCKS!!!

 

[CaiNaM]

it's your 6800GT.

mine did the same thing when it got too hot, but others have had the issue with varying degrees in multipe apps.. some solved by bios update, some solved by drivers.

use the search feature here on AT forums. it will bring up multiple relevant threads. also take a look at this thread over at nv news for additional info.

since you have an a64, also make sure you have no background tasks running whatsoever.

 

[oden nauticus]

Thanks for the advice you guys. I gave your suggestions a try (well, not the CD drive ones.. this issue is not related to my CD/DVD drives, thanks though) but to no avail.

Trust me, the search feature was well used. As I said, no threads are directly relevant. I've combed through plenty that are tangentially related, still to no avail.

One interesting thing about these freezes that I forgot to mention is this: It will freeze any and everywhere once the game is launched: During CG cutscenes, menus, even while loading (!!!). I think this is just a case of bad mobo/video voodoo. No fixes without complete hardware replacement.

Thanks again you guys, for at least giving me your best shot.

-Oden

 

[jiffylube1024]

It could be the heat issue, though. Try putting a big case fan (or a room fan ) next to your case and leave the side door off just to test if the card is overheating.

Remember, Doom3 taxes 3d hardware more than any other game ever. My 9800 Pro actually artifacted in D3 after about an hour and a half, so I had to buy a VGA silencer for it!

 

[BFG10K]

A firmware flash cured my 6800U pausing.

 

[oconnect]

I don't have a 6800 but rather a 9800pro. I've experienced brief pausing not just Doom3 but other games like Call of Duty. After a while I just kind of got used to it. Until I was talking with a friend on the internet about my problem. He told me to give my Hard drive & video card a direct line of power so nothing else in the computer is connected to those lines (fans, cd-roms, ect) Once I did this it's solved the brief pausing in games & I could not be happier with my 9800pro.

 

[oden nauticus]

Hmm.. I haven't tried the firmware/bios upgrade yet.. I can't seem to find an updated version of the BIOS for the eVGA 6800 GT, just the standard version from the factory is all I can find.

Here are a couple more things:

* The problem does not seem to be driver related at all. I've tried several different versions now (using Driver Cleaner between each... I won't have you all thinking I'm some blind n00b), even the vaunted Omega drivers (which are cool) but it does not solve this freezing problem. I've even gone as far as disabling OpenGL features one by one, even "emulating" the chip all the way down to an NV20. This has no effect toward solving the problem at all.

* This problem only ever crops up in OpenGL games. All Direct3D games work just fine. I mean... WTF?

* I wanted to try to flash my motherboard's BIOS... but this Chaintech VNF-250 won't have it. Its "built-in" CMOS flash utility just freezes, and running AWDFLASH.EXE from a clean boot just yields a rejection notice for improper BIOS .bin file, even though it IS the right BIOS! This last one is just me venting, really. Feel free to ignore it

-Oden

 

[BFG10K]

I can't seem to find an updated version of the BIOS for the eVGA 6800 GT,

nVidia's reference version will work fine.

 

[Bucksnort]

Does the hard drive light come on during these pauses? I would look into the nforce3 chipset.

 

[Marsumane]

-These are some of the things that i could think of that may help:

1) Install updated chipset drivers
2) Patch doom 3
3) Underclock your card by 20/20mhz and see if it still persists
4) How is the airflow in your case? Does this happen upon initially loading the game, or after it runs for awhile? maybe u could shut down and then restart after 15 mins and immediately run doom 3 and see if it takes more time for the freezes to occur then if u were playing it/using your comp for a few hrs. Use in combination with #3.

 

[ponyo]

You're not using dual monitor by chance are you?

 

[Boogak]

This is probably a dumb question, but you're not trying to run at Ultra quality mode with AA/AF on, are you? It sounds like hard drive swapping to me due to the uncompressed textures.