OpenGL Keeps Freezing

P

prime

Walking No-Fun Ball
Hello,

OpenGL on my little iMac is horribly unstable. Every OpenGL-based game (UT Preview, RtCW, 3DOSX, etc.) freezes after a few minutes or maybe even seconds after launch. One time, UT froze during the CityIntro. Another time, it ran perfectly. 3DOSX totally crashes the computer every time I use it. By totally crashing, I mean totally crashing OS X. The interface freezes, the clock stops, and nothing responds to mouse clicks or keystrokes.

RtCW might freeze at the main menu, but if I manage to get past it, it freezes 4/5 through the level loading process. Giants I ran once - the intro/main menu appeared and froze instantly (I don't know what was happening or what it was as it froze so quickly).

I'm running 10.1.4, on my 400 MHz iMac w/ 512 MB RAM. I re-installed OS X a few months ago, and I was having the same problem before the re-install.

How can I make OpenGL stable? It is horrible not being able to play most 3D games in OS X. The lack of games in OS X is bad enough without not being able to use most that we do have.

Chris
 
I think just about every one of those Apps you mentioned are still in *beta* so they're probably very buggy. You may want to contact the author of the apps you're having trouble with. Do you have any final retail OpenGL-based OS X games like Alice, 4x4 Evolution 2, etc? If so, you may want to try those and see if it is infact a problem with the OpenGL system or just the beta software.
 
I don't own either game. I'm below the system requirements for EVO 2, and I think I need the retain version of Alice to play it in OS X.

Giants Demo is not a beta. It freezes at the first rendered scene.
 
Hmm.. Well that has me stumped. I don't know what it could be, other than some type of software conflict with the OpenGL files. Sadly, I don't think there is any way to replace them without reinstalling OS X.

Do you have any problems with other apps or only OpenGL ones?
 
The only apps that I have problems with are OpenGL-based. Yet another problem I have is the CD drive not spinning up when a game needs it to, resulting in a frozen computer, sitting there waiting for the CD to spin up. This happens in StarCraft and Heroes III.

I've found a fix for the problem, though: just make a disk image of the CD I wish to use. But it really is strange that this happens. I'm in the middle of a game in SC, and the computer freezes, playing the same 5-second loop of music over and over. It used to eventually come out of it after 30 seconds to a minute, but it stopped doing that, and now it just hard freezes the computer after a few minutes of use.
 
I've had the same problem with Star Craft. It froze repeating the same 2-sec loop of music over and over again.

The only other time I've ever seen anything like this is with an Mpeg movie I was trying to play. I wonder if in that case the Open GL had crashed as well.

Is this Open GL or something else?

-Dixon
 
I'm pretty sure that OpenGL is just a 3D engine. It wouldn't affect an MPEG move, as far as I know.
 
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