Freezing

[lokispants]

I have been unable to find anything regarding my problem on these forums. I don't know if there is anything similar, but i've just been a little frustrated at this problem.
After a long period away from homeworld, i saw it in my local EB for $20 (Australian) I thought, yeah! so i bought it, brought it home and installed it. Before i did anything else, i got the latest patch and patched the game. Then i sat back to enjoy the game.
It all started up nicely and ran through the little intros and then... the game stopped. I thought it a bit odd, so i restarted my computer. To no avail, the game stopped again. I couldn't even do anything. I was stuck in the main menu. The mouse wouldn't move, yet the music didn't even skip a beat. I thought the game may just be warming up. Eventually the mouse unfroze and i was able to access the options menu. But it froze up again when i tried to select anything. Even when i did finally get into the game, it would stop. It is like horrendous lag. I've gone through my display settings repeatedly, tweaking and adjusting, but it still doesn't want to run. I've even gone through my other system settings and altered things there. Running in compatability mode doesn't seem to work, as running it under comp. mode for win 9x, it doesn't even register the CD, and yes it is legal. Any help would be most appreciated, as this problem has me at my wits end.
My specs are :
WinXP Professional, AMD 2000XP, 768MB Ram, DX 9, 120GB HDD. Geforce 4 Ti 4200 64MB. Thanks.

[ÜberJumper]

Right click on the shortcut to Homeworld, go to properties, then to the compatibility tab. Select Windows NT 4.0 SP5.

That *should* let you start the game.

Additionally, you may have to add the /dsoundcoop command line switch (or others) to get it started.

You've got a fairly standard configuration though, and it should work.

[lokispants]

Thanks for the tip Uber, but it still didn't work. I can start the game. But i can't get any further than any of the menus. i tried what you suggested. I even tried all the other compatibility modes. But nothing seems to work.

[Pakman]

I have the exact same problem

WinXP Home, intel pentium4 2.53, 512MB Ram, DX 9, 40GB HDD. Geforce 4 mx420 64MB.

[ÜberJumper]

Strange, I've got almost identical systems to you guys and mine runs just fine.

Try these switches (copy and paste of my command line).

C:\games\Sierra\Homeworld\homeworld.exe /nofastfe /disableavi /dsoundcoop /enablesse /pilotview /nodebugint

[reki]

I also have this problem after installing HW for the first time in six months or so.

P4 2.8, SBLive Value, GF4ti4400, XP Pro SP1

Only think I can think that has changed since I last had it installed (& working fine) is perhaps a new detonator version and an SATA Raid.

[ÜberJumper]

Reki:

Are you using Windows nt 4.0 compatibility mode on your shortcut?

Try the command line switches I am using?

What detonator drivers (I've not tried HW in a couple months now, I should check it out see if it works).

[reki]

yes
yes
53.03 detonators

update - i managed to start a skirmish after a lot of waiting for my mouse to move, and the whole game is a massive slideshow (like .1 fps)

[ÜberJumper]

oh oh oh oh oh oh oh I know this... I think.

Try the /triple command line switch.

[reki]

Ok that completely fixed the slideshow problem, but it hasnt stopped the freezing. About every 10-20 secs, the whole screen freezes, including the mouse.

[TechnoTorgo]

lol check the disc itself and make sure it's clean. Thats the best idea I can think of.

[reki]

It doesnt use the disk during gameplay, only when you start up the game. You can take your cd out once the game has started.

[ÜberJumper]

Reki, try /nosound if you would.

[Singularity]

Hi

If you tried everything and you still have freezes I may have a sollution for you. I remembered there was similar issue with System Shock 2 working on new PCs. I gave it a shot and yay it works.

Run Homeworld. In menu press ALT+CTRL+DEL to go to Task Manager. In Aplications select Homeworld, right click it and select Goto Process. Right click on selected process and click on Set Affinity (option at the bottom). Here you should change checkboxes so that only one CPU is checked (doesn't matter which one). And that's it. Unfortunately you have to do it every time you run the game but it takes only few seconds. There was a way to do it permanently but I don't have that page anymore in my bookmarks so I can just mention it.

I'm pretty sure this will also work with H:Cataclysm and Homeworld 2 freezing issue. Oh and not only people with Core Duo, Xenon, AMD multi core procesors, should try it. If you have Pentium D (like me) you should also try it because it has some kind of dual CPU structure or whatever.