Ultra Mode - Game Locks Up

I run CoX on 2 different computers. Surprisingly my older computer could run Ultra Mode... I set it to the lower of two settings and it worked fine, just a bit more lag than before.

My newer computer also said it could run Ultra Mode. I also picked the lower of 2 ultra mode settings. When I get to the server selection screen and pick a server, the game appears to lock up. Music still plays, mouse moves, but nothing happens, and I'm unable to shut the game down without rebooting the computer completely.

I ran MSI Live Updater 4 and all of my drivers appear to be up to date, but the game still locks up in the same fashion every time. Is there a way to disable Ultra Mode from outside of the game? I'd switch back to normal mode but I can't get into the game so I can't change the settings.

I have an NVIDIA GeForce 8400 GS video card, MS-7250 mainboard. 2 gigs ram, Win XP, AMD Athlon X2 Dual Core processor BE-2300...

Enter the game in Safe Mode (a little check box on the updater) so you can undo the Ultra Settings.

Well, that sounded like the right suggestion. Unfortunately, the game does exactly the same thing in safe mode -- locks up before i see the character select screen. Music plays, mouse does not freeze, but nothing happens and I'm unable to close the game. Can't window-tab out to the task bar, can't call up the task manager. Forced to reboot.

Any other way to disable or reset the settings from outside the game?

Installed lastest Nvidia driver anyway. Same problem.

Tried running verify files... and it locked up halfway through that.

This is not a driver or maybe not even an Ultramode problem, it appears to be an I17 problem. Not sure what to do. Do I have to reinstall at this point?

I had a similar problem. The game would either not launch at all after agreeing to the terms or lock up immediatly after starting to load, leaving me staring at a faint loading bar. I downloaded the 197.45 driver from Nvidia's site and updated to it, haven't had a problem since. Check in your device manager to be sure you're using the current driver, should show up there as version 6.14.11.9745. Just in case MSI missed it.

There is a way to undo the Ultra Mode settings, but it involves editing the registry. I'm extremely hesitant to ask people to go mucking about in there since you can cause some serious problems if you make mistakes.

Had the Closed Beta forums still been up I'd have copied a post I made there that included screenshots of what to change.

I've had enough people bad mouth me when I'm trying to offer help for solutions that I won't recreate the post. I had stopped posting for a bit due to the rudeness of people I was trying to help with various problems, but I'm in a generous mood tonight. But not generous enough to re-create my post about what to edit in the registry and how.

It seems someone who may perhaps knows Todd can convince him to update TweakCoH or allow someone who knows coding to get the source from him to update it.

Or get the Devs to make clicking 'safe mode' reset all the registry settings to minimum.

A. Tried running with no other program open on my toolbar. Same result.

B. Turned off my virus protection. I have Avast! on this computer, which is different from the other computer which is running AVG. But still, same result.

At the moment it just looks like the I-17 patch will lock up on this computer regardless of what I do.

Not sure if I have any such programs running, but I'll check again tonight. I don't generally use voice chat and I don't like having a lot of programs running, aside from Avast! security and Spybot Search & Destroy. I do have that silly Last.FM music scrobber thingy, can't remember if I shut that off last night before my final attempt.

Hey I had some issues with Ultra Mode and Nivida myself. Me and my wife both have the same card (she just has a better over all system) the 7800 which is totally not UM worthy. Anyways I got my system to basiclly like it did before Ultra mode. But my wife with the same settings had all sorts of weirdness lockups shadows locking in place, so when you move the shadows stay in the same place on your screen while the world moves. And issues with whole zones becoming fog.... It was fixed when we noticed the Nivida control panel app on my it set to allow program to handle 3d settings and on her it was set to make Nivida control the 3d settings. Setting it to allow the program to handle it fixed all her issues.

Just something you might try out.

oh and a side to people trying to get back to pre-UM looks on older systems. The Key is set FSAA to x2 (or higher if you can) then set shadows in UM to stencil set both world and water reflections to low (none does weird stuff on my system but low works fine).

Thanks for the suggestion, but it appears to be set to allow the program to control settings, so I don't think that's my problem...

Organica, are you using a USB keyboard or a PS/2 keyboard? I've seen some odd reports of problems with USB keyboards and one person's solution was to use an old PS/2 keyboard (the little round connector) using a PS/2 to USB converter.

I keep one around as a spare so that if I have a server acting up and not responding through the KVM switch to either the mouse or keyboard I can plug this in and get control enough to do what I need to do and schedule a restart for after people leave for the day. I keep an old keyboard and mouse plugged into the adapter so that all I have to do is plug it into the USB port on the server and wait for it to be recognized, then all works well.

Just a thought.