EQII unplayable under Windows 7 (Freezing on sounds loading) [Archive]

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Fei

10-08-2009, 08:15 PM

Hey all!I'm having some really weird issues with EQII after attempting to run it under Windows 7 64-bit.Basically, I formatted my machine from Vista (which ran EQII fine), to Windows 7, today. I downloaded the Station Launcher, got it all installed - seemed to work, until... I tried to zone. Froze for a good 20 or so seconds on the loading screen, then the zoning music started playing and normal operations resumed. I decided to zone back to our guild hall - and on a hunch, clicked one of our music boxes. The game froze for another 15 - 20 seconds, before playing the music box song. Tried another, same thing - tried the piano, same thing.After all this, when the guild hall music finished and went to start a new loop, it happened again.This has also completely hung my machine - twice.I'm using genuine Windows 7 Professional 64-bit, updated - with the latest graphics drivers for my cards.Hardware:Two 9800GX2 cards in SLi (DX11)Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 @ 2.4GHz4GB OCZ Reaper 1066MHz DDR2 RAMEVGA 780i MoboWD Raptor HDDI'm using two monitors, if that helps.I've tried a full file scan, which didn't make any difference. I also tried running my old EQII install (which was backed up to an external drive) - with the same issues.Extra notes: If I make it freeze up in windowed mode, everything in Windows *seems* to work fine, except for explorer itself. I can interact with open programs okay, but if I try to bring up the start menu, then navigate to "all programs" - explorer locks up (start menu, taskbar, etc). During this time, I can still interact with open programs normally.As soon as EQII finishes being frozen (and, as a result, plays the music it was loading) - everything works perfectly again. It's like when EQ2 is frozen, so is explorer, then kicks back in all at once.The game runs fine if left alone. Problems only occur when loading, seemingly only loading music.Other games are loading and running fine.I'd appreciate any help / suggestions you guys can give me.Thanks! <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" />EDIT: Been running torture tests in Prime 95, everything seems stable.Installed EQ2 on my wife's new rig with Windows 7 64-bit. Completely different hardware (so completely different drivers.. ATI card instead, for example) - works fine. Just seems to be my rig, which played it fine before I installed Win 7 <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/9d71f0541cff0a302a0309c5079e8dee.gif" border="0" />.EDIT2: Out of pure curiosity, I'm now running Prime 95, watching a video in Winamp and playing L4D all at the same time. Just wanted to rule out general system instability. Maybe something specific EQ2 uses, does or attempts to do that these other apps don't, that's causing the temporary freeze?Thanks in advance again!

TSR-DanielH

10-08-2009, 09:40 PM

Greetings,I see you mentioned updating the graphics card drivers but I don't see any mention of your sound drivers. Do you have a sound card on that computer or is it an integrated sound chip. Have you updated the drivers and are those drivers compatible with Windows 7?

Fei

10-09-2009, 12:41 AM

Hey there!It's integrated sound - and I installed the latest drivers from EVGA, which are compatible with Win 7.I uninstalled the game, deleted any files left over - redownloaded and the problem seems to have disappeared.However, I'm still getting random permanent hangs while playing EQ2. As I mentioned earlier, I've ran it through Prime 95 (whilst doing other things, like running L4D) - and it was solid.EDIT: Game just stopped on "Loading Resources". It didn't freeze, my PC didn't hang, just stopped right in the middle of loading. I could click the exit button on the bottom left, game closed without any trouble. It just... Stopped loading.EDIT2: It seems that the game hangs my PC during, or shortly after loading.

Ldarax

10-09-2009, 06:43 AM

Nevermind!

Fei

10-09-2009, 10:14 AM

Quick update:I was still worried about the stability of my machine - so I ran it through Prime 95 all night, last night. It was still chugging away in the morning.EDIT: Tried disabling SLi. Same as before. It just stopped loading during "Loading entity resources", the music stopped, yet it didn't crash - I could still click the exit button and everything closed just fine.For the hell of it, I'm going to try older graphics drivers.

Jeeshman

10-09-2009, 10:43 AM

From your description, this doesn't seem related to your graphics card or SLI; it seems like a sound card problem (sound chiop in your case since you're using the onboard sound on your motherboard). My guess is the driver isn't as well optimized for Windows 7 as its programmers thought. My suggestion: disable the onboard sound in your motherboard's BIOS, run the game and see if the problem persists. If that makes the problem go away, you'll know it's related to the motherboard's onboard sound. Once you have the issue narrowed to one piece of hardware you can try things (different sound settings, trying a different driver, or worst-case scenario trying another sound card) to get the problem to stop.

Fei

10-09-2009, 10:59 AM

Tried older graphics drivers - with the same issue.Thanks for the suggestion Jeeshman, I'll try that now. I do have a spare external sound card I could use in a worst case scenario.Give me a few minutes and I'll get back to you <img src="/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />.

Fei

10-09-2009, 11:30 AM

Everything seemed better...Until it hung my PC again. This time it was seemingly at random, while running around Darklight.

TSR-DanielH

10-09-2009, 03:44 PM

Greetings,The issue you're describing almost sounds like a heat-related freeze. Do you have any kind of heat monitoring software for your graphics card/CPU? If so, check the temperatures when idle and under heavy load. It would be worthwhile to check all of your fans as well to make sure they are spinning as well.

Fei

10-09-2009, 04:53 PM

<cite>TSR-DanielH wrote:</cite><blockquote>Greetings,The issue you're describing almost sounds like a heat-related freeze. Do you have any kind of heat monitoring software for your graphics card/CPU? If so, check the temperatures when idle and under heavy load. It would be worthwhile to check all of your fans as well to make sure they are spinning as well.</blockquote>Hey there!Heat was a particular problem I had to tackle when I first built my PC - especially with two 9800GX2's, it can get a little warm.I clean my rig of dust etc when it needs it - and I'm fairly sure this isn't a heat related issue. Being a fresh install of Windows 7 - I didn't have the Nvidia monitoring software installed. However, EQ2 (amongst other things) weren't running it even close to too hot before I changed OS.As I mentioned before, I ran Prime 95 all night, last night. Before that, I had Prime 95, Left 4 Dead *and* a video playing in Winamp, all at once, for a good few hours. My rig is pretty stable at the moment. The only thing that causes it to crash is EQ2.

TSR-DanielH

10-09-2009, 05:15 PM

What kind of RAM configuration do you have? I assume you have multiple sticks? If so, you might want to try removing one stick to see if that corrects the issue. If not, then try swapping so you are only using the other stick next. It doesn't seem all that likely considering how well it handled Prime95 but it would be worth trying in this case.

Fei

10-09-2009, 07:33 PM

<cite>TSR-DanielH wrote:</cite><blockquote>What kind of RAM configuration do you have? I assume you have multiple sticks? If so, you might want to try removing one stick to see if that corrects the issue. If not, then try swapping so you are only using the other stick next. It doesn't seem all that likely considering how well it handled Prime95 but it would be worth trying in this case.</blockquote>For testing purposes, I have switched back to Vista.EQII seems to be running perfectly again. I'll update as soon as I'm sure.

Fei

10-09-2009, 11:03 PM

<cite>0naoko0 wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>TSR-DanielH wrote:</cite><blockquote>What kind of RAM configuration do you have? I assume you have multiple sticks? If so, you might want to try removing one stick to see if that corrects the issue. If not, then try swapping so you are only using the other stick next. It doesn't seem all that likely considering how well it handled Prime95 but it would be worth trying in this case.</blockquote>For testing purposes, I have switched back to Vista.EQII seems to be running perfectly again. I'll update as soon as I'm sure.</blockquote>Confirmed. Works fine under Vista.

Fei

10-10-2009, 02:02 PM

So as a result of this testing - would it be safe to say that EQ2 has some serious compatability issues with Windows 7 when running under my hardware?As I mentioned, other games ran absolutely fine. I know it's a big assumption to make, but that makes me think my sound / graphics drivers were stable enough to not completely hang my PC whenever I tried to play a game. Except for EQ2, of course.I don't really mind - I'll stick with Vista for now, I just hope these issues don't turn out to be widespread (depending on hardware) when Win 7 goes mainstream. I'd love to switch, but not if that means giving up EQ2.

Wingrider01

10-10-2009, 02:44 PM

<cite>0naoko0 wrote:</cite><blockquote>So as a result of this testing - would it be safe to say that EQ2 has some serious compatability issues with Windows 7 when running under my hardware?As I mentioned, other games ran absolutely fine. I know it's a big assumption to make, but that makes me think my sound / graphics drivers were stable enough to not completely hang my PC whenever I tried to play a game. Except for EQ2, of course.I don't really mind - I'll stick with Vista for now, I just hope these issues don't turn out to be widespread (depending on hardware) when Win 7 goes mainstream. I'd love to switch, but not if that means giving up EQ2.</blockquote>Something in your hardware is causing a issue, suspect more a driver that is not quite stable. Been running multiple instances under Windows 7 for a long time - only have issues with the memory crash right now, other then that it has been rock solid. Guessing you did the normal debug where you verified that nothing was showing as unresolved in the device manager, etc. Are you running the station launcher icon in any compatibilty mode? What build are you running?

Fei

10-11-2009, 12:52 PM

Hey there.If something related to my hardware was causing an issue, wouldn't other games or software that also use the hardware just as much, or more extensively also hang my PC? It could be bad drivers or whatever - but other games and applications would also be using those drivers in much the same way EQ2 was. Besides, would bad drivers cause the game to randomly stop loading during zoning? As I said, when this happened, it didn't crash - EQ2 just plainly stopped loading resources. I could click the exit button out of the game just fine. I know saying "Well other games run under the same drivers etc and they ran fine" isn't exactly proof that drivers or hardware aren't the problem, but they do suggest so. Even if bad drivers were the case, why does it only happen in EQ2? Are the devs aware of such problems? etc etcThe wife is sat across the room from me using Windows 7 just fine as well, although on completely different hardware. I suspect it's the combination of Win 7, my hardware and EQ2 all not mixing too well. It's probably the result of compatability issues all round.Everything was fine in device manager. I was using drivers from my hardware manufacturers specifically labelled for Windows 7. There's no obscure wireless cards or extra hardware in my rig - it's pretty much just a vanilla PC, with the exception of SLi. Sound and ethernet are all handled on board. Clean install, fresh drivers - and EQ2 was the *only* game that had issues.As I mentioned, I've had to switch back to Vista. I can't spend weeks trying to resolve the issue.I attempted to run the EQ2 exe in compatability for Vista and XP, without any change. I also ran the game from my old installation (on a seperate hard drive), which I had backed up before I formatted. That particular install has never had any interaction from the Station Launcher - but had the same issues.Everything runs fine under Vista, but not under 7. If bad hardware was the case, there's a good chance I'd be having similar, or other issues now, as a result.I agree with you, I think it's probably bad drivers - and I'll just wait it out for a few months and see how EQ2 fares then. However, the fact that other games ran fine (even under the stress of Prime95 running in the background), suggests otherwise.For now, I'm not too bothered. It's annoying that I can't upgrade, but it's not the fault of anyone in particular - and it's kind of half expected of a new OS. I'm just hoping these issues don't linger too long.Thanks for the help <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />.

valkarye00

10-26-2009, 01:57 PM

I am running Windows 7, system listed below. Only hangs comes with Dual boxing, but video card a little weak for that. I run one copy of the game off 2 different HD's. That helps lag a bunch. But while DUAL boxing in extreme quality it will hang, G1 keyboard shows CPU at 40% and RAM around 95% while dual boxing. If I drop to balanced the RAM goes down to 85%. Going to upgrade to 12G, don't think it will help much, just doing it because I can. Will upgrade to the 5770 while drivers seem a bit more stable.i7-9026 Gig of RAMASUS P58 Mother boardATI 4670 1GigG15 KeyboardSeagate Barracuda 1TB OS and gameDual Seagate Barracudas 250G with game loaded on each. Run on account off each drive.