Strange Gens issue

[Zpyke]

First off, let me state that the problem is on my girlfriend's computer overseas, and it is in Dutch. That just further creates frustration when trying to help solve the issue at hand.

I'll try to keep it as short as I can. Gens crashes when she loads a rom. Her older computer, outdated in every piece of hardware, as well as my computer and even older computer, can run Gens, but not her main computer. She can run Kega Fusion, ePSXe and other emulators just fine. It's just Gens and Gens-derived (Like Gens32.).

Once in a blue moon the emulator will run for a second, but generally just crashes and produces weird noises. Disabling sound in the emulator actually allows it to work at a 75% rate, but still can crash. Disabling the actual sound hardware still causes crashes, if sound is not disabled IN the emulator. And her sound card is up to date, as is her graphics, directx, etc.

The ROM's are old, but guaranteed to work, as I use them on my computer, and she can run them on Kega. We've tried every other option on the emulator, with no luck. Disabling sound is the only thing that has worked so far. Even deleting the files and trying a fresh download of Gens does not work.

Finding no solution through Google or anywhere else, I came here, one of the longest running sites, in hopes that there's someone with the experience to help me solve this mystery.
Her general specs are
Windows XP
x86 Family 15 Model 95 Stepping 2 AuthenticAMD ~1808 Mhz
1,536MB RAM
NVIDIA GeForce 6150SE nForce 430

And while Kega would generally be fine, me and her want to play games online together through Kaillera, so Gens or one of it's derived forms with Kaillera support is what we want to use. So any help is appreciated, thanks.

[schmocke]

That issues sound really weird. I have no idea, except setting up your girlfriend´s PC from scratch and then try Gens. But I guess, that´s not an option.
Perhaps, you should try to play with the drawing and filtering options - DirectDraw or OpenGL etc. or does Gens crash without loading a rom too?
On the other hand - simply use Kega Fusion. As far as I know, it has it´s own Netplay Support build in. I think, that should be easier to setup, than fixing Gens in this case.
Good luck.

[Zpyke]

Originally Posted by schmocke

That issues sound really weird. I have no idea, except setting up your girlfriend´s PC from scratch and then try Gens. But I guess, that´s not an option.
Perhaps, you should try to play with the drawing and filtering options - DirectDraw or OpenGL etc. or does Gens crash without loading a rom too?
On the other hand - simply use [URL="http://www.eidolons-inn.net/tiki-index.php?page=Kega"]Kega Fusion[/URL]. As far as I know, it has it´s own Netplay Support build in. I think, that should be easier to setup, than fixing Gens in this case.
Good luck.

I didn't think to try the filters. I'll have to try that.

As for Kega, we can't get netplay to work on it. It just never connects for some reason, even though neither of us are behind a firewall and disable anti-virus when we try.

And actually, the computer had been formatted and gotten a fresh install not but a few months ago, to solve another issue. Could be that the computer is just getting old, but that doesn't explain why her even older computer can run Gens (Though quite slow and laggy.).

I'm not sure if it's a sound issue as much as it's probably a conflict somewhere. At least, that's my best guess, but I'm not an expert.


Filters didn't work.
I wanted to try out full-screen, but there's no "go full-screen upon load" feature, so I guess it wouldn't make a difference.

[InVerse]

Have you tried booting her computer into safe mode to see if Gens will run correct in that mode?

[Zpyke]

Originally Posted by InVerse

Have you tried booting her computer into safe mode to see if Gens will run correct in that mode?

Yeah, we have tried that, with no luck. Also tried the emulator after a fresh reboot, and still no banana.

[schmocke]

Sorry man, no further great ideas left here. But make sure you have the latest drivers installed for every device connected to her PC. One more thing: try to disable every entry in her autostart (command prompt > "msconfig") except AntiVir & Firewall. I often noticed, that not tech-affine women sometimes have really useless and weird crap loaded on Windows Logon / start. Perhaps there´s something which collides with Gens!?

[Zpyke]

Originally Posted by schmocke

Sorry man, no further great ideas left here. But make sure you have the latest drivers installed for every device connected to her PC. One more thing: try to disable every entry in her autostart (command prompt > "msconfig") except AntiVir & Firewall. I often noticed, that not tech-affine women sometimes have really useless and weird crap loaded on Windows Logon / start. Perhaps there´s something which collides with Gens!?

Well, I don't remember if I mentioned it, but it's a pretty new install of WinXP, so there's not much on start-up just yet. Either way, I'll look into it in the near future.

And her computer's hardware is completely up to date, according to about 3 driver-search programs. Even if they aren't all up to date, I know that her graphics card, sound card and directx is up to date on her computer. Is there any other important ones I'm forgetting about?