FW: [Plib-users] Video Lockups

[Richard B. <ric...@bt...>]

> Richard Bytheway wrote:
> >
> > I am having a problem with plib 1.4.2 based applications on Win2000.
> >
> > I appears that the video is locking up, in that the display freezes, the
> > mouse stops moving, even pressing Ctrl-Alt-Del doesn't do anything.
However,
> > if I have WinAMP running as well, playing ogg files, it keeps playing
until
> > I hit the reset button (which is the only way out).
> >
> > This happens when running FlightGear, Map, Atlas and TuxKart, and takes
> > anything from a few seconds to about an hour to trigger.
> >
> > Video card is an AOpen GeForce 2MX, with the latest drivers from the
AOpen
> > web site.
>
> This can't possibly be a PLIB problem - in a properly implemented system,
> it should be impossible for an application program to take down the
machine
> like that.

As I said, this is on Win2K :-)

>
> > Does anyone else see this?
>
>  * Do the programs always lock up immediately?  Do they always lock up
>    at the exact same place?
>
No, and No.

>  * Do non-PLIB applications (that use OpenGL) lock up similarly?
>

Sorry to be a dunce, but could someone suggest something to try? I grabbed
the Mesa source thinking I could try the demos from there (gears or
something). but it isn't building at the moment.

>  * If WinAMP keeps running, so should other applications that don't
>    access the graphics.  You could write a script that sleeps for
>    (say) five minutes and then kills the PLIB application.  You should
>    be able to use the resulting debug stuff (a 'core' file or something?)
>    to see where PLIB is stuck.
>
As far as I know, the only way of killing an app in Win2K is using the task
manager, which is a graphical, non scriptable app.

>  * Rather than use the board vendors drivers, I *strongly* advise you to
>    go to the nVidia web site (www.nvidia.com) and download the 'reference'
>    drivers for the GeForce-2.  Each board vendor hacks those reference
>    drivers - and they are notoriously bad at doing it.  Since device
drivers
>    most certainly *do* have the power to lock up the whole machine, this
is
>    the most likely problem.
>
>
I have downloaded the nVidia driver, but before I install it I would like to
try a non-plib application.

FYI, I tried tux_example, and that breaks things nicely too, so it doesn't
have to be a large app.

I can't remember whether I said this before, this is all using cygwin.

Richard