The Big Tech Support Thread
Wither
A Bugged Life Join Date: 2002-12-24 Member: 11513Members, NS1 Playtester, Contributor, Constellation
A Bugged Life Join Date: 2002-12-24 Member: 11513Members, NS1 Playtester, Contributor, Constellation
<div class="IPBDescription">You should read this.</div> So one day I opened the tech support forum and realized there were so many stickies that there was only room for 5 topics on a page at a time, and had an idea about putting those threads together, so I'm going to squash all those known and common errors into this thread, and hope it'll replace some of the other stickies so that the tech support forum can have room once again.
Let us start with the <i>first</i> things you need to do:
-<b>Use the search button.</b>
If you get an error, chances are someone's had the exact problem before, so hit the search button at the bottom of the page (the one at the top sometimes errors)and search for some of the keywords in your problems.
-<b>Reinstall.</b>
Is this issue only happening in NS? Not in any other HL mod? Uninstall and reinstall NS before you even touch the "New topic" button.
Is it happening in every HL mod? Mmkay..reinstall half-life and fully patch it.
-<b>Update your video/sound/whatever drivers</b>
Most video errors and sound errors are due to people not updating their drivers, so right click your desktop,
click properties, it'll probably display your vid card there, if not go to settings and tap advanced, it'll probably state it there.
Now if you have an ATI card, go to <a href='http://www.ati.com' target='_blank'>ati.com</a>, and if it's an nvidia card, hop over to <a href='http://www.nvidia.com' target='_blank'>nvidia.com</a> and update your drivers.
If you have a different card, do a google for the brand and you should get some hits.
<i>Still</i> having issues? Read the known errors/bugs and their fixes, if those didn't help, blast away and hit the new topic button, but..first..stick to these guidelines:
-Don't hijack posts.
If you have an issue, MAKE A NEW THREAD. Don't go into somebody else's thread and post your issue there, make one of your ownnnnn.
-Provide full system specs.
Whatever problem/issue you're having, whatever's causing it might be system related, thus include your system specs, being:
-CPU speed and make
-Operating System
-Graphic mode and resolution you're running in (Either OpenGL or D3D)
-Sound and graphic card makers and memory
-Whether or not you're running EAX.
Also, you need to specify what valve retail client you're using (half-life, counter-strike or day of defeat)
and describe <b>exactly</b> what you were doing when the problem occured.
Remember, this is not off-topic, this is a tech support forum, meaning this isn't made for chatting and the people helping here are not gaining anything here.
If and when a solution helped/fixed your problem, at least reply back that it did.
Now we'll start with the known/reported issues and their fixes.
-<b>Crashing to desktop when clicking console in the main menu.</b>
Fix: Create a blank text file called 'valve.rc' in the /halflife/ns folder
-<b>My screen looks "messed up".</b>
-Crosshairs have black squares; Pop-up Menu mashed up in one corner of screen.
You're running HL in software video mode. Switch it over to OpenGL through the ingame video config menu,
you can also use direct3d but it's not going to run very well or look as good.
-Green Text in OpenGL.
You're using 2 monitors, this isn't fully supported by the openGL API and will cause weird issues in NS and in any other game, disable 1 monitor to fix this.
-Lockups/freezes/blue screen of death's/exiting games.
I specifically said to update your drivers at the guidelines, didn't I? Shame on you. Go. Now.
-Gamma/Contrast/'Wash-out'/'White-out' issues when joining NS games.
You have turned up the contrast and/or brightness on your monitor way too high (often using a 3rd-party utility to help an aging monitor). Ignoring the fact that you are taking years off the life of your equipment due to mishandling, you will have a washing-out effect as NS boosts the gamma for a more interesting visual experience. Use the 'tune gamma' program installed with NS (in Start | Programs | Natural Selection | 'Tune gamma...') to correctly set your gamma for NS (and all other games').
-<b>I crash when I quit the game.</b>
If you crash whenever you type quit in console, bind a key to "stopsound;quit".
If you don't know how to bind, just type this in console: bind "f12" "stopsound;quit"
-<b>I can't download Natural Selection 2.0, it keeps giving errors.</b>
Use a download application like <a href='http://www.amazesoft.com/' target='_blank'>flashget</a> or <a href='http://www.getright.com/' target='_blank'>getright</a>, this will fix it in most cases.
-<b>I can't use voicecomm or any other keyboard function in commandermode.</b>
The commander mode uses a special set of hotkeys and other keyboard code in order to function properly, and since basically the HL engine has it's limitations which I shall not bother you with, this fixes it:
1- Do not bind your voicecomm to a mousebutton - HL only supports this in certain configurations, none of which NS will support. Use the default of 'CAPSLOCK' for best results (so bind "capslock" "+voicerecord").
2- Do not custom bind your voicecomm or jump buttons to one of the commander mode hotkeys - these are by default:
qwer
asdf
zxcv
If you insist on changing those keys to jump, voicecomm or anything else, you should re-do the hotkeys through your NS config on the advanced page 2, or editing it otherwise, IE using a script, alias or remapping the custom keys.
If, after all these steps, you're still having issues, please make a new thread using the guidelines stated earlier, and most of all, stay patient & polite at all times.
Disclaimer: The fixes, guidelines and others are all already posted, so I didn't add anything, I'm just trying to put them together so that there's no more sticky spam, the people that reported these things are Moleculor, JoAlien, Beast, and the man that's helping more people with NS problems than anyone, MonsieurEvil.
Let us start with the <i>first</i> things you need to do:
-<b>Use the search button.</b>
If you get an error, chances are someone's had the exact problem before, so hit the search button at the bottom of the page (the one at the top sometimes errors)and search for some of the keywords in your problems.
-<b>Reinstall.</b>
Is this issue only happening in NS? Not in any other HL mod? Uninstall and reinstall NS before you even touch the "New topic" button.
Is it happening in every HL mod? Mmkay..reinstall half-life and fully patch it.
-<b>Update your video/sound/whatever drivers</b>
Most video errors and sound errors are due to people not updating their drivers, so right click your desktop,
click properties, it'll probably display your vid card there, if not go to settings and tap advanced, it'll probably state it there.
Now if you have an ATI card, go to <a href='http://www.ati.com' target='_blank'>ati.com</a>, and if it's an nvidia card, hop over to <a href='http://www.nvidia.com' target='_blank'>nvidia.com</a> and update your drivers.
If you have a different card, do a google for the brand and you should get some hits.
<i>Still</i> having issues? Read the known errors/bugs and their fixes, if those didn't help, blast away and hit the new topic button, but..first..stick to these guidelines:
-Don't hijack posts.
If you have an issue, MAKE A NEW THREAD. Don't go into somebody else's thread and post your issue there, make one of your ownnnnn.
-Provide full system specs.
Whatever problem/issue you're having, whatever's causing it might be system related, thus include your system specs, being:
-CPU speed and make
-Operating System
-Graphic mode and resolution you're running in (Either OpenGL or D3D)
-Sound and graphic card makers and memory
-Whether or not you're running EAX.
Also, you need to specify what valve retail client you're using (half-life, counter-strike or day of defeat)
and describe <b>exactly</b> what you were doing when the problem occured.
Remember, this is not off-topic, this is a tech support forum, meaning this isn't made for chatting and the people helping here are not gaining anything here.
If and when a solution helped/fixed your problem, at least reply back that it did.
Now we'll start with the known/reported issues and their fixes.
-<b>Crashing to desktop when clicking console in the main menu.</b>
Fix: Create a blank text file called 'valve.rc' in the /halflife/ns folder
-<b>My screen looks "messed up".</b>
-Crosshairs have black squares; Pop-up Menu mashed up in one corner of screen.
You're running HL in software video mode. Switch it over to OpenGL through the ingame video config menu,
you can also use direct3d but it's not going to run very well or look as good.
-Green Text in OpenGL.
You're using 2 monitors, this isn't fully supported by the openGL API and will cause weird issues in NS and in any other game, disable 1 monitor to fix this.
-Lockups/freezes/blue screen of death's/exiting games.
I specifically said to update your drivers at the guidelines, didn't I? Shame on you. Go. Now.
-Gamma/Contrast/'Wash-out'/'White-out' issues when joining NS games.
You have turned up the contrast and/or brightness on your monitor way too high (often using a 3rd-party utility to help an aging monitor). Ignoring the fact that you are taking years off the life of your equipment due to mishandling, you will have a washing-out effect as NS boosts the gamma for a more interesting visual experience. Use the 'tune gamma' program installed with NS (in Start | Programs | Natural Selection | 'Tune gamma...') to correctly set your gamma for NS (and all other games').
-<b>I crash when I quit the game.</b>
If you crash whenever you type quit in console, bind a key to "stopsound;quit".
If you don't know how to bind, just type this in console: bind "f12" "stopsound;quit"
-<b>I can't download Natural Selection 2.0, it keeps giving errors.</b>
Use a download application like <a href='http://www.amazesoft.com/' target='_blank'>flashget</a> or <a href='http://www.getright.com/' target='_blank'>getright</a>, this will fix it in most cases.
-<b>I can't use voicecomm or any other keyboard function in commandermode.</b>
The commander mode uses a special set of hotkeys and other keyboard code in order to function properly, and since basically the HL engine has it's limitations which I shall not bother you with, this fixes it:
1- Do not bind your voicecomm to a mousebutton - HL only supports this in certain configurations, none of which NS will support. Use the default of 'CAPSLOCK' for best results (so bind "capslock" "+voicerecord").
2- Do not custom bind your voicecomm or jump buttons to one of the commander mode hotkeys - these are by default:
qwer
asdf
zxcv
If you insist on changing those keys to jump, voicecomm or anything else, you should re-do the hotkeys through your NS config on the advanced page 2, or editing it otherwise, IE using a script, alias or remapping the custom keys.
If, after all these steps, you're still having issues, please make a new thread using the guidelines stated earlier, and most of all, stay patient & polite at all times.
Disclaimer: The fixes, guidelines and others are all already posted, so I didn't add anything, I'm just trying to put them together so that there's no more sticky spam, the people that reported these things are Moleculor, JoAlien, Beast, and the man that's helping more people with NS problems than anyone, MonsieurEvil.
Comments
PM me once you have all info of stickies in here, I'll then send 'em floating <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo-->
If you get an error, chances are someone's had the exact problem before, so hit the search button at the top and search for some of the keywords in your problems.
<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Maybe you should recommend the search at the bottom of the page. That other search is bugged and gives "page cannot be displayed" errors (at least if you are using Internet Explorer).