Category: games

Borderlands 2 timeout

I could not host or join most friends’ games in Borderlands 2. It probably tries to use uPNP, which I don’t enable on my router.

Searched for clues on forums (incoming ports to forward) and finally got it working:

  7777 (TCP/UDP)
  9989 (UDP)
 27900 (UDP)
 28900 (TCP)
 28910 (TCP)
  6500 (UDP)

I know for sure 6500 is necessary, but maybe some of the others are not.

Computer games bugs and conflicts

Conflicts

  • Terraria and Mumble (creative sound card bug?)
  • Grand Theft Auto IV and Mumble (same as Terraria?)
  • Grand Theft Auto IV and Process Explorer (securom restriction)
  • Battlefield 3 and Process Explorer (punkbuster bug)

Bugs

  • Singularity has no sound on my Audigy 1. Tried installing OpenAL but didn’t help. Works with another sound card.
  • Screen in BattleField Bad Company 2 sometimes flashes black frames. Sometimes screen becomes black for several seconds. This is on my GTX 275. Tried several different NVidia drivers versions (even betas) with no success. Very annoying bug.
  • I couldn’t play Battlefield 3 CO-OP mode unless I forward port 3659 from the router to my computer. I can then host the game and invite another player. I didn’t have to make a rule in Windows Firewall. It probably already works if UPnP-style NAT traversal is enabled on your router, but I highly discourage its use due to potential security problems.

Terraria vs Mumble Conflict

There is currently a problem starting Terraria when you also have Mumble running.

Apparently that a lot of people have problems starting the game, but no one seems to be sure of the issue. Some say it’s because of the .NET or XNA framework and others say it could be a conflict with creative sound cards.

Of course, you should check if you have the latest .NET and XNA framework installed. Be sure to have the latest Creative drivers for your card (mine installed automagically with Windows Update optional updates). You could try verifying Terraria game cache integrity under Steam.

I was getting a “Terraria stopped working” window with the following details:

Problem signature:
   Problem Event Name:    APPCRASH
   Application Name:    Terraria.exe
   Application Version:    1.0.4.0
   Application Timestamp:    4eea0a07
   Fault Module Name:    RTSSHooks.dll
   Fault Module Version:    0.0.0.0
   Fault Module Timestamp:    4d4fb7eb
   Exception Code:    c0000005
   Exception Offset:    0000a5f2
   OS Version:    6.1.7601.2.1.0.256.48
   Locale ID:    3084
   Additional Information 1:    0a9e
   Additional Information 2:    0a9e372d3b4ad19135b953a78882e789
   Additional Information 3:    0a9e
   Additional Information 4:    0a9e372d3b4ad19135b953a78882e789

A workaround is to stop Mumble, start Terraria, then restart Mumble. This conflict could very well happen with something else than Mumble. I have a Creative sound card (good old Audigy 1), but I don’t know how to fix this issue so I am unsure if it’s related.

What kind of sound card do you have? Did you have the same issue using another sound-related software?

EDIT: Not just Terraria! Grand Theft Auto 4 also crashes on start if Mumble is open.

steam is single-user

It is not possible to have multiple users running steam (Windows 7). Worse than that, because any user can run steam, passwords are remembered between sessions. AKA my girlfriend receives my steam chat when she’s using my box.

The Steam client is not a system-wide service. It’s a game manager, chat client and browser (!?). Each user has its own steam account — it makes no sense to have these settings system-wide. What kind of design is this? Please fix it! (I’m aware this isn’t an open source project and I don’t really have anything to say about it, but it’s not a feature request. This is a flaw that needs to be fixed).

physx hud

or physx visual indicator…

For some reason, by default, we see big green and grey letters in the upper left corner of the screen when playing a physx-enabled game. The idiots who put together the nvidia control panel did not put the option to disable this at the right place. Instead of being under the physx pane on the left, it’s under the “3D settings” menu, just beside file, edit, view, etc.

Apparently it is only enabled by default on win7, not on xp.