[Walker]

Hello everyone,

I recently upgraded from a Sonnet 300mh PowerMac 6500 with a Rage Orion card to a B/W G3 400 with the Rage 128 card. I previously had my PowerMac 6500 hooked up on a network with a Voodoo upgraded Rev. A iMac and I played Rainbow 6 on this network between the 2 computers. It worked flawlessly and my son and I really enjoyed playing rainbow six against eachother. Both 6500 and B/W G3 have 128 megs ram.

Now I have replaced the 6500 with the B/W G3. Rainbow Six still plays well in single player mode, but now when I play against the iMac on the network, I have an annoying bug that is starting to drive me crazy. I am experiencing either a skipping of frames, or a mild warp mainly when I run in circles or turn corners. This is only happening on the B/W G3 and not the iMac. This didn't happen before on the PowerMac 6500.

I have attempted to adjust the settings in the options category (turned off fog, made sure I was 640X480, made sure the "lan" button was selected). Virtual Memory is turned off as well, but I'm still experiencing the problems. It happens when I play on gameranger as well (56 k modem). I even switched from the built-in Rage card to the old Rage Orion Card from the PowerMac 6500 but it still is doing the same thing.

I'll go crazy if this behavior is exhibited in Rogue Spear as well!

Please help! Need any ideas or suggestions you have to offer.

Thanks,

Lanny

[reader50]

You did not say what OS version you are using, my reply assumes OS 9.x

Open your Energy Saver control panel, click on the Advanced Settings button. Down the pane there will be a check box marked "Allow processor cycling", make sure it is not checked. This option is for laptop users, and is just plain annoying on a desktop Mac.

[Walker]

Reader50,

I am using MacOS 9.0.4, but I can't find any "advanced" settings button in my energy saver control panel. I can, however, use my energy saver control strip module to choose between "better performance" and "better conservation." The current setting is "better performance."

any other ideas?

Thanks for the suggestions, and feel free to give more if you think of any.

Walker

[reader50]

The "Better Performance" option should turn off Processor Cycling as well.

Other things that could cause frame drops include extensions problems. Try booting with Mac OS 9 Base or Mac OS 9 All. There are other things to try, post back what your results are either way.

[seventray]

Don't feel bad Walker, this is apparently a problem with the network code written for R6. I was a big time R6 online player, but you quickly realize the problems with R6. The only suggestion I can make is to wait for Rogue Spear, which is a much better game with much better online and network code. Middle of Dec is the release date. I'll be there, will you?

[Walker]

Thanks for everyones advice. I emailed Reader50 a snapshot of my energy saver control panel. I don't have the same "advanced" button that he has. Anyone know why? I am using OS 9.0.4.

I'm spending the day pheasant hunting. Tonight I will boot up with minimal extensions and see if that helps. Heck, with memory so cheap I may as well slap another 128 meg chip in this computer too. What I really don't understand is why my old (albiet upgraded) PowerMac 6500 didn't suffer from the same problem?

I will let you know by tomorrow how it worked.

Thanks for everyones help...and YES i'm anxiously awaiting Rogue Spear. Even more importantly, the town I live in is expecting Cable Modem service sometime early next year. Can't wait!

Walker

[reader50]

Walker's Energy Saver CP looks just like mine, except that the Advanced Settings button is not there. With some fooling around, I could not get my Advanced Settings button to vanish. Simple Finder does not do it, but it does nuke your pop-up folders. Several possibilities come to mind:[list=1][*]You have an earlier version of the Energy Saver CP: Mine is v 2.5.5[*]Energy Saver Preferences file is corrupt.[*]Mac OS Preferences file is corrupt.[*]The Advanced Options are not supported on a Yosemite (B/W) G3.[*]The System File has become corrupted.[*]I'm dreaming this and will wake up in the morning.[*]A sinister alien conspiracy is behind it.[/list=a]You can trash the various prefs files if you like, and reset various prefs afterwards. To replace the System file, you need to boot from a different drive/partition and replace it with a copy from another 9.04 install. Your OS 9.x installer CD will have a good copy.
If you suspect the last two possibilities, call Hollywood right away. You could clean up.

[This message has been edited by reader50 (edited 12-02-2000).]

[Walker]

Ok...here's the latest. I have started with minimal extensions and had no improvement. I also completely disabled my intellimouse explorer. I have allocated as much memory to R6 as my 128 megs will allow and have had no improvement. But I have made an important discovery. I had been trying to use the b/w G3 400 as my host computer and the old Rev. A imac joins the game. I switched this around and hosted with the old 233 mh iMac and lo and behold it fixed the problem. No more frame skipping/mild warping on my B/W G3. And the iMac played perfectly also. So evidently it has to do with a problem with hosting on my B/W G3.

Well, I guess my next step is to upgrade the memory. Maybe the 128 megs ram I have in the B/W G3 isn't enough? The iMac has 192 megs. I ordered another 128 megs for the B/W G3 from Crucial.com and it should be here in a couple of days. If I'm lucky it will fix the problem. How much memory does everyone here allocate to Rainbow six?

I've still no idea why my energy saver control panel is different than Reader50's. I do know that the my computer functions rather stably, so I'm guessing there isn't any file corruption going on.

Walker

Blue G3's likely do not support the advanced options. Buttons in control panels will magically appear and dissappear as needed for your configuration If you add a second monitor then more buttons will appear in the monitors control panel to control the extra monitor