NHL 2004 Problems

Hi all, this is my first post here so be Gentle

I picked up Madden '04 and NHL '04 when they first cam out last year and had them both on my computer, they both ran fine with no problems. I had Graphic levels Cranked all the way up and the most up to date drivers, direct X etc...

Then around christmas they started acting/being choppy. The Games would be fine for a few minutes then they would start to slow down become choppy. So I cleaned up the computer by defragging...no change. I Ran Spyware programs.....no change. I called EaTech support....they were stumped, when it came to NHL 2004. On Madden they said it was most likely my graphics card.

So I bought a new Nvidia Graphics card. When I put it on my system it caused too many system errors with windows when I tried to start up the computer or Restart. But when I did get the computer going...it made no difference, the game would be fine then choppy. So I put my old Graphics card in and returned the new one.

I decided to give up on Madden since Football season was about up. And Since I felt I had a better chance of making NHL 2004 work. It was far less worse than Madden.

And I did get it to work Finally for the first time in almost 3 months last week...for four days. Then it went back to being choppy.

I have done everything I can think of, asked everyone I know. but no one seems to know. EaTechSupport reccomended I return the game. But I'm not convinced it's the Discs since they worked for so long...then finally worked again.

Here are my System specs...
Sony RX280DS
Windows ME
Intel Pentium III, ~1.0GHz
256MB RAM
10686MB available memory
DirectX 9.0b
Nvidia Geforce2 Mx/Mx400 32MB with the 53.04 drivers

So can anyone help........

Thanks

 

For todays modern gaming i would say your system is probably going to struggle
I would suggest for that video card dumping the 52.xx drivers as they are a lot more optimized for the newer FX series of cards,Ive found the best set of drivers for these cards to be the 44.03s available here
http://download.guru3d.com/detonator/
Make sure you remove all traces of the old drivers first using a driver cleaner like Nasty File Remover before installing the new ones
So uninstall Nvidia display drivers from add/remove programs,dont reboot when prompted instead run the NFR (just follow the prompts) reboot and when windows finds new hardware and tries to install drivers just press cancel
Then re-run the NFR to make sure, then double click the set-up for the new drivers to install------------NFR found here
http://www.majorgeeks.com/download3233.html

Once you've done this,grab this handy program here
http://downloads.guru3d.com/download.php?det=362
This is a tweaking tool for Nvidia cards i use myself, if your not comfortable doing this there is an auto-optimize option i highly recommend you utilize this
You can also use this utility to overclock your video card, if you want to try this please feel free to ask and ill gladly help you through it

If you haven't done the ME swapfile tweak i would suggest doing this as well for improved system performance
Start button--run--type Msconfig--enter--look for the system ini tab and select it--look for this [386Enh] and add the following line
ConservativeSwapfileUsage=1
Apply and ok you will need to reboot for this to take affect, worth it though especially on systems using only 256ram

Next before starting a game press CTRL-ALT-DELETE to bring up running tasks, end all tasks except SYSTRAY and EXPLORER to free up as much ram as is possible

Try all that and let us know how you get on

 

Thanks for the quick response. I'll try some of that stuff and let y'all know how it went.

Except the Control-alt-delete......I've tried doing that it doesn't help

 

Ok maybe I'm just blind but I can't find the Auto-optimize option on the tweaking tool.


And waht exactly will the Swapfile tweak do?


Thanks

 

Hi Paul the setting you want in NV Hardpage is at the bottom look for Performance Wizard

As for the tweak its easier to point you to a link than type it out myself so have a look here theres some other useful ME stuff there as well
forget it

 

Um....I Coulden't Find anything on that link...it's some kind of online store or something....

But Anyway.....

The GAME WORKS.

I did the First two steps. and Tried the Game and it works just like it should no Choppyness or slowing down.

Hopefully it will stay that way for MUCH longer than 4 days this time.

So BIG thank you General_Lee_Stoned, for all the Help.

If it starts actign up again I know where to come for help.

Thanks Again.

 

Hi Paul sorry about that link F$%K knows what happened there guess it went wrong
try this one
http://www.techspot.com/tweaks/memory/print.shtml

Anyway glad you got it working m8, Happy Gaming

 

Well it was.....For 2 days.

I've been working on tweaking it since Monday. The Preformance Wizard on nvHardpage is only available if you have XP...sadly I have ME.

The Game Will start fine and Run Fine. Then it will start being choppy. Then it will switch from being choppy and slow to running smooth and normal.

I dunno what I'm doing....or doing wrong.

 

Which Nvidia tool were you talking about General Lee? The link has several downloads. Was it Riva tuner?