Enemy Territory: Quake Wars Tweak Guide

[Page 3] Troubleshooting Tips



This section contains specific troubleshooting tips which address many of the common problems experienced by Enemy Territory: Quake Wars players. It's important to take the time to go through the checklist of advice below if you're having a problem with the game.


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Official Support: The first place to look for official support details is in the Readme.txt file in your \Program Files\id Software\Enemy Territory - QUAKE Wars\Docs directory. Importantly, check out the minimum system requirements in that file, as well as the supported hardware list, since if any of your hardware is not supported or doesn't meet the requirements then you may experience problems with the game or quite simply won't be able to run it. Read through the list of compatibility issues and suggested fixes as well. If you want to read the game manual which has details of both gameplay and technical help, run the index.html file in the same directory as above. If you're still having problems you should visit the Official ET:QW Forums to look for solutions or post a question.


In particular make sure to check out this list of Common Problems and Solutions, and if your issue is related to an apparent 30FPS framerate cap, see the last page of this guide for a detailed explanation of how to resolve this.


Windows Vista Users: If you're having problems running this game under Windows Vista, first make sure that you're using the absolute latest Vista graphics and audio drivers for your hardware, and the latest version of this game (see page 4 for patch details). Next, make sure you don't change your UAC settings after the game has been installed, as due to Virtualization this can change the location of the game files and settings. I strongly recommend that you refer to the TweakGuides Tweaking Companion for Windows Vista for more information about how things work under Vista.


The Latest Graphic Drivers: Make absolutely certain you have updated to the latest graphics card drivers; in particular ATI users must use the 7.10 Catalysts or newer for the game to work properly, but Nvidia users will also benefit from the latest Beta or Official Forceware drivers which are specifically optimized for ET:QW. See my ATI Catalyst Tweak Guide or Nvidia Forceware Tweak Guide for details on where to download the latest drivers and how to install them and configure them properly.


Background Programs: The game's developers recommend that you disable all background applications - especially virus, trojan and spyware scanners and messaging utilities. These applications can and do use up valuable CPU resources, take up precious RAM, cause memory conflicts and crashes to desktop, but most importantly they interfere with read/writes to your hard drive effectively slowing it down and causing even more in-game freezes and stuttering. Full instructions on how to identify your startup programs and services and how to correctly disable unnecessary ones are in my TweakGuides Tweaking Companion. This is an important step you should not miss.


Overclocking: While ET:QW is not overly sensitive to overclocking, if you are experiencing graphical glitches or crashing in the game, set everything back to its default speeds and see if this impacts on the problem. If you don't experience the same problems at default speed, or they're reduced in severity, then your overclock is the primary culprit. Either permanently reduce your overclock and/or increase cooling to regain stability. Don't just assume that because other games run with stability at a particular speed that ET:QW will do the same.


If you follow the advice in this guide, and indeed also take the time to troubleshoot and optimize your system properly using the TweakGuides Tweaking Companion, you should be able to play the game without any issues, as the Quake 4/Doom 3 engine on which ET:QW is based is extremely solid.



Read the remainder of this guide for specific settings and tweaks which can help improve your performance and resolve any problems. The next section looks at patches, maps and mods.