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Blogs -
GTA IV Blog
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Written by MooseQuest
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Friday, 25 April 2008 00:00 |
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Here is my FAQ for the PS3 GTA Freeze. I've put both community information, and my own knowledge and experience into this. I'm also asking community members to fill out this form so that a data gathering/statistical analysis can be performed.
Community Affected:
PS3 and Xbox 360 owners are amongst those who are affected. Primarily "Launch 60 GB" PlayStation 3 are apparently the most common affected. Personally I have a "Launch 20GB" with a HDD upgrade to 120GB.
Take-Two has stated that only a small amount of people are affected.
Techinical Overview/Problem
Basically, during gameplay, or cut scenes, the game will freeze, or halt and become not playable. Residual affects from this include, not being able to bring up the PlayStation Menu and continuation of music tracks or dialogue. Grand Theft Auto IV is installed onto your Hard Drive and then all audio tracks are played off the disks. This method is often used with PC games to increase performance and decrease load times. From this we can derive that either a memory error is occuring, or bad file on the install is causing the game to halt. The disc or quality of the disc is not solely responsible.
Looking further into this, you can just address this to a memory issue, either in the VRAM or RAM. Coding for a game like this, more than likely involves the use of memory registration in your code. If there is a fault, which hardware related, this will cause the rendering or runtime to freeze. Different from a core dump, which simply means a crash of the system kernel and normally the console restarts, this simply means that the game has entered a lock state.
Of course, I did not write the code, so the above is merely a educated guess as to what is going on. But just from the symptoms of what is occuring to me and others, I feel this is the best guess. Problem Summary
- Game freezes randomly (cut scene or not).
- Audio continues to play after freeze.
- PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 affected (PlayStation more evident).
- Ejecting the disc restarts console.
- Soft-reset is needed.
- PlayStation Menu is unaccessible.
Troubleshooting
Simple troubleshooting methods were explored initially when this problem occurred. Simply deleting game data and game save data was the initial troubleshooting step. Of course, this seemed like a reasonable troubleshooting effort, and more then likely occurred because of a bad install. When that didn't work, I thought deeper about the issue. Some PC games have had the same issue in the past merely for the location they had on their Hard Drives. Well, some people have installed new HDD and also reformatted and that did not solve the issue.
If you take a different approach, you can try to "normalize" your console by editing display settings. One suggests setting console to 720p resolution, since PS3 upscales for those of use who support high resolutions. This of course would put less strain on the VRAM. Others suggested turning off the Vibration feature on your Dual Shock 3 controller, disabling network connectivity and also not using the auto-save feature in the game.
To me, all of these indicate a feature issue, possibly due to compatibility with newer features of the PlayStation. This would indicate older systems would have the issue. Unfortunately, you can't apply that because people with newer systems have said they have had the same issue.
Take-Two released a twelve-step setup that may resolve the issue. Users are still reporting issues.
Troubleshooting Summary
- Disabling Internet [Failed]
- Disabling Vibration on DualShock 3 [Failed]
- "Twelve-Step" [Failed]
- Reinstalling game data [Failed]
Of course there are more details to the following, but I am more concerned about listed techinical information so below is the information I'm providing about my configuration. I suggest this be a template for filling out your setup information if you are having issues.
Date of Purchase: Launch
Type: 20GB
FirmWare Version: 2.30
PSN Name: MooseQuest
HDD Size: 120GB
Free Space: ~20GB
Folding@Home?: Yes
Position: Horizontal
Audio: Digital Optical
Video: HDMI
Resolution: 1080p
Network: Ethernet
Speed: 1Gbps |
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Last Updated ( Monday, 09 June 2008 17:02 )
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Written by MooseQuest
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Friday, 26 June 2009 12:16 |
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 With all the social networks paying tribute via people's personal memories of the late Michael Jackson (1958-2009), I figured it is only appropriate that I pay mine here.
My first exposure to MJ was when I was very young, around the age of 6. I heard his music through the radio, and liked the catchy tunes. "ABC" from the Jackson 5 was one of the more rememberable songs from then. But before the age of 12 I came across my Mom's VHS collection from the 80's and there I found Michael Jackson's Thriller. Which not only included the whole video, but also the making of the video with Jon Landis. That possibly began the magic for me,
Billie Jean was next and I was so amazed at the moonwalk, the way he made it look so easy, yet it was so difficult to replicate. The technique was locked in and it just looked way-2-cool.
Throughout the years, I owned albums, listened to his music, the most re-mememberable being, "Man In The Mirror". I remember listening so closely to those lyrics and it having a direct effect on me, realizing I need to be the best I can be and change starts with me. The same probably goes for a lot of people for many of the songs he wrote and had produced.
Every time I'm in the club, or at a party (weddings) and Michael Jackson comes on, I'm immediately inspired to start dancing and mimicking the moves and style that Michael Jackson put into the spotlight. Even when I went to the arcade, I always looked for "Moonwalker", that game was awesome. Stun 'em with dance moves just like in his music videos.
Not only the King of Pop, but an icon and someone whose legacy will echo through the ages.
Thanks for all you've done Michael. |
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Last Updated ( Monday, 06 July 2009 00:43 )
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Written by MooseQuest
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Sunday, 16 January 2011 07:18 |
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For the last couple of weeks I've been debating whether to return to Final Fantasy XI. Couple of reasons for my original departure had to do with the fact that I couldn't really see spending $45/month on all my accounts when I rarely had time to play it. And with FFXIV coming out, I wanted to get started in the new universe... Unfortunately FFXIV has its MAJOR issues, so I decided to opt out. This is where DC Universe Online stepped.
I like the controller centric gameplay, the ability to play it on the console, and its character creation thoroughness. I'm also finding that some folks from FFXI realm have adopted this game and like - which is kind of encouraging. |
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Last Updated ( Sunday, 16 January 2011 07:29 )
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Written by MooseQuest
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Thursday, 13 August 2009 11:29 |
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DICE gave the community a first-look at Battlefield: Bad Company 2, DICE's next installment of its FPS with the new FrostBite engine. New vehicles with improved controls, more weapons and an adjustments to the gameplay. Some of the kits have been slightly altered also. I'm really anticipating the release of BF:BC2 and hope that it lives up to the hype and expectations of it's predecessor.
So far DICE has shown and spoken of the following vehicles:
- UH-60 "BlackHawk" Helicopter (+4)
- 2-Man Quad (+1)
- Jet Ski like Watercraft (+1)
- BMD-AA Anti-Air Tank
- Abrams M-1
I'm sure there are more vehicles to. I'd like to see what DICE has in store for us. Their latest blog talks about how BF:BC2 is going to be vehicaltacular in the up and coming sequel.
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Last Updated ( Thursday, 13 August 2009 20:34 )
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Written by MooseQuest
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Friday, 14 October 2011 15:56 |
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 The new iOS 5 released by Apple today brings a lot of new features and one particular features that's getting a lot of buzz is iMessage. There is as much excitement as there is confusion for this feature as people are wondering why iMessage isn't "working" especially between iOS 5 devices. I've put together a Quick Guide for the masses to help them move through this frustration.
- Only devices with iOS 5 and iMessage enabled can use this service. It's a two-way street and message users are required to have it enabled in their settings for it to work.
- Devices that have phone numbers automatically default to iMessage when TXT Messages are exchanged between two people. Make sure your friend messages you back so that iMessage is enabled for your conversations. If you have been SMS (Messaging) your friend and it's not showing up blue, it's probably because they haven't messaged you back.
- For devices without phone numbers a user will need to know their e-mail address associated with their Apple ID.
- Apple talks about being able to talk on one device and then continue the conversation on another. In order to do this, you will need to specify your e-mail addresses in the iMessages settings. For you iPhone users, you will need to use your Apple ID or any additional e-mail addresses you would like to setup. You will find these in Settings > Messages. I devided to put multiple ones in so that anyone can iMessage me without discretion.
Setting up iMessage
To setup iMessage you simply need to go Settings > Messages. In there you will be presented with the following screen:
Toggle each of the options you see here to 'ON' and then at the bottom you'll notice the Receive At. Select this if you have other iOS devices like iPads and iPods so that you can carry the message across all the devices.
- Turning on iMessage sends messages across the Internet instead of through your Carriers SMS service. This is beneficial for many reasons. The first being the expansion of the messaging service to allow real-time text messaging, and read receipts. Also for those who text alot and want to lessen there text message plan on their phone, this certainly gives that ability.
- Read Receipts will give your recipient a notification that you have read their message. There is ALWAYS a delivered message when you send a message to someone and it arrives successfully on their device. However you can now see if they have read it or not if they enabled Send Read Receipts and you specify that option for yourself.
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Last Updated ( Friday, 14 October 2011 16:44 )
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