FEAR = WTF??

[49erinnc]

Nothing but problems with this game thus far. Currently, when I try to load a saved SINGLE PLAYER game, it stops loading and says "Disconnected From Server" and kicks me back to the main menu. Why would I get that message when just trying to load a single player game? This just started this morning. Never got that problem before.

Also, after about 10-15 minutes of gameplay, I'm often getting a game crash that results in just a solid blue screen requiring a cold boot. Granted, I know my rig specs aren't great (2.4GHz Athlon, 1GB PC2700, 9800XT) but I'm playing on minimum-medium settings and 10x7 resolution. Find it hard to believe the game on those settings would cause my whole system to crash like that.

Any thoughts on either/both issues? Thanks.

Edited to note: Have latest Catalyst drivers and also installed most current FEAR patch prior to these problems.

 

[0roo0roo]

fear never crashed for me hmm. sounds like your system is a bit unstable. old install of windows?

 

[49erinnc]

Running XP Pro and never had any issues with any other games (DoomIII, HL2, BF2, etc).

Right now, the biggest issue for me is not even being able to load a single player game without getthing the "Disconnected From Server" message. That makes absolutely no sense considering I'm not even playing the multiplayer.

 

[Davegod]

fear is crashing pretty frequently for me, disabling volumetric lighting seems to have sorted the nv_disp.dll bluescreens (forceware 81.95, i thought that was supposed to be fixed in 81.85 or something) but im still locking up & bluescreening, i think due to sound card / bugs. I tried disabling hardware mixing etc but performance went really bad.

 

[49erinnc]

I give up. No game should be this much of a pain in the ass to play. $35 down the tubes because I'm sick of screwing with it. I can overcome the server disconnection by loading an earlier checkpoint (which is crap though) but then I'm still getting a locked up blue screen virtually every time I play it. I even dropped all my settings down to what I know should run with ease and still having issues. I had read that the 1.02 patch is buggy but that you can't roll back without wiping everything out, including all the registry files associated with FEAR. Is it too much to ask these days to be able to buy a game, play it without patches/bugs and not having your computer crash every 5 minutes?? Guess so.

 

[computerABUSER]

I had issues with that game also and that was with a freash install of Windoze. See my sig for my system!

Regards,
CA

 

[BFG10K]

Have you patched the game to 1.2? Also check the readme file as I believe it has something about save games not working.

 

[Schadenfreude]

Can I have it then?

 

[49erinnc]

Originally posted by: BFG10K
Have you patched the game to 1.2? Also check the readme file as I believe it has something about save games not working.

I patched to 1.02 immediately after installing. And from what I've read on various forums, 1.02 causes more problems than it helps. So I bit the bullet last night and wiped my HDD/registry clear of FEAR/Sierra files. Did a fresh install and only patched with 1.01. Played for about 20 minutes and as soon as I quit the game, I got the frozen blue screen. This game is garbage. I know some people have made it through without problems but you're in a minority. This is without a doubt the buggiest game on the market. And I know it's not my rig when I'm reading about similiar problems on high-end systems.

Back to BF2 which I lost interest in but can at least play without any problems.

 

[Fenixgoon]

hmmm its not because your rig is having a heart attack - i played it with a lower rig. try running the game with bare minimum hardware - just your video card in, nothing else. if that works, start adding things in until it crashes. believe it or not, my sound card was causing me to crash over the summer and it needed to be replaced (problem solved).

 

[49erinnc]

Originally posted by: Fenixgoon
hmmm its not because your rig is having a heart attack - i played it with a lower rig. try running the game with bare minimum hardware - just your video card in, nothing else. if that works, start adding things in until it crashes. believe it or not, my sound card was causing me to crash over the summer and it needed to be replaced (problem solved).

No clue if my problems are related to my audio but I do know the game sounds like crap on my system. I have onboard 5.1 audio (C-Media AC97) but when I'm playing FEAR, I get some serious static/crackling. That alone makes the game hard to tolerate. I've never had any audio issues with other games though.

I could stand to get away from onboard audio anyway so even if that doesn't make FEAR playable, at least I'll have better audio for other applications/games.

 

[DefRef]

This game is garbage. I know some people have made it through without problems but you're in a minority. This is without a doubt the buggiest game on the market. And I know it's not my rig when I'm reading about similiar problems on high-end systems.

Sorry that you're having troubles, but I've played it on two rigs without incident, patched to 1.02.

 

[slag]

Originally posted by: 49erinnc

Originally posted by: BFG10K
Have you patched the game to 1.2? Also check the readme file as I believe it has something about save games not working.

I patched to 1.02 immediately after installing. And from what I've read on various forums, 1.02 causes more problems than it helps. So I bit the bullet last night and wiped my HDD/registry clear of FEAR/Sierra files. Did a fresh install and only patched with 1.01. Played for about 20 minutes and as soon as I quit the game, I got the frozen blue screen. This game is garbage. I know some people have made it through without problems but you're in a minority. This is without a doubt the buggiest game on the market. And I know it's not my rig when I'm reading about similiar problems on high-end systems.

Back to BF2 which I lost interest in but can at least play without any problems.

The game is not garbage. I've had exactly ZERO problems with this game and I'm on a heavily overclocked system and am almost to the end of the game. Something is amiss in your setup. Im using a 3000+ amd64, 1 gb ram, 6800 nu, msi board, etc.

 

[CTho9305]

FWIW, blue screens indicate garbage hardware or garbage drivers. Software shouldn't be able to cause blue screens.

 

[49erinnc]

Originally posted by: Fenixgoon
hmmm its not because your rig is having a heart attack - i played it with a lower rig. try running the game with bare minimum hardware - just your video card in, nothing else. if that works, start adding things in until it crashes. believe it or not, my sound card was causing me to crash over the summer and it needed to be replaced (problem solved).

We have a winner! Just for kicks, I went out and purchased a new sound card and disabled the onboard audio. Game runs great now with no crashes and no crackling in the sound. Haven't really played the game much since installing but I just made it through several stages that I couldn't get through prior to installing the new card.

Guess that for the time being, I'll retract my "garbage" comments and hope that the sound card was the fix.