QUAKE III does not like Windows XP

[Corduroy]

Windows XP has been working beautifully for me, but I have some issues when I want to play Quake III, so I have a lot of issues. When I want to shutdown after I have played Quake I find that windows pops up three "Closing Program" boxes. The first is always for pdesk.exe and the second and third are both explorer.exe. This never happends when I don't run Quake III.

What can I do to solve this horrible problem? I must be able to play Quake III without suffering negative consequences (outside of the effects on my social life and bad grades in school).

[Darthtanion]

I'm at a loss on this one. I use Quake3 for testing pretty much everything because it does a good job of thrashing the CPU and graphics systems, and fires up the CPU to a high temperature when testing heatsinks. I have never had anything like this happen to me and I use WinXP Pro.

[Beefy]

now, i don't know all that much about Q3 problems... but from a logical position.. Where does the pdesk.exe come from? is it a part of quake, or something else? can u find this on your computer somewhere?

[Bahamut Zer0]

pdesk.exe sounds like something from the 9x powertoys.
I think its the program that lets you have multiple desktops ala Linux. :?:
Dunno why its in XP, perhaps you did a 9x->xp upgrade...

Anyway, try killing that process (pdesk.exe) before starting Q3 and see if that helps. The extra explorer.exe processes I think are called by pdesk and since pdsek dies, it takes down those explorer.exe processes as well.

Of course, im just assuming pdesk is the desktop changing program, I probably am wrong, its been a while since i used 9x with the powertoys.

If you feel you dont need/use pdesk (its not a critical windows component) then you can remove it from your startup items by going to Start->run and type in 'msconfig' (w/o quotes)
click the startup tab and uncheck the entry with pdesk.exe

If you do have problems after disabling pdesk, you can re-add it by repeating the above process.

[Beefy]

that's why I wanted to find out what it was.. There's also a Matrox utility called Powerdesk, which i've had a lot of trouble with in the past.. but i don't think someone would be using a Matrox card to play Q3...

[Bahamut Zer0]

To be honest, Im having trouble with the statement that he wants to play q3a.

I mean, q3a.

:D

I remember that matrox program.
While the g400max was/is a pretty sweet card, that stupid powerdesk program shat me to tears.

[Corduroy]

Thanks for the tip. It is actually a process of Matrox Quickdesk.

I have a Matrox G450 on this computer because I like a dual-monitor setup, but I still like Quake. I get a framerate of around 60fps in 800x600x16, which is fine for my playing.

So don't diss the Matrox, it's the bomb!

[Beefy]

*shakes head in disappointment*

That Matrox problem will always haunt me.. I can't seem to get rid of it.. :(