Is Tremulous dangerous to Windows Users?

[DragonsUnite96]

So, Here is the story...

One October night, I am in my studio, finishing up some art commissions and I had the itch to play a little bit of classic tremulous...

I use to play this a lot when I had my upgraded PowerMac G4. I have since upgraded to Windows many years later and got a whole new PC.

Anyways, (just noting, I was still using Windows Vista at the time with an up-to-date version of F-Secure) I decided to start up tremulous. I played for about an hour until the game suddenly started freezing really bad on me. my frame rate dropping to about 20FPS (from 60) to almost a near stop 5 FPS until it crashed. I then noticed once I got back to the desktop, that my computer was totally bottlenecked.  The processor and all 4gb of ram being fully utilized with NO background processes running, no virus scans or file restructuring no updating...NOTHING. I had an Intel Quad Core EastFork processor with 2 Nvidia GeForce 8800 inside at the time so I was totally blown away at what was happening. Suddenly after trying to painfully diagnose the problem, my graphics driver fails along with the sound driver and disk drive failure.  I try to power down the computer properly, with an error coming up saying it could not execute the command. So I power down the computer by pressing the power button. 

Once rebooted I logged in and everything was running fine...for about 5 minutes until it just started doing the same thing. Processor being fully utilized for no reason, everything freezing. So I ask myself, oh my god did trem give me a virus?

I went ahead and started a virus scan (slowly) and let it go for the night to wake up the next morning to a blue screened computer. I go to reboot, totally stuck in a bootlooping blue screen, unable to start in safe mode even. After doing some trouble shooting and file digging. almost all of the important registry files and DLLs that windows uses for booting and loading the drivers had been totally corrupted and or overwritten....

I eventually gave up with trying to repair and replace DLL files and decided to save what I could using a Linux live CD and installing a clean copy of windows 7.

Just think....I haven't played tremulous in about 10 or more years...I play it one time for nostalgic reasons and it completely wipes my entire PC. I lost a lot of work and a lot of disappointing emails had to go out to awaiting commissioners all because I ran a game I hadn't played in years.

Now could it be because I was still running Windows Vista(a now unsupported OS that is NOT receiving important security updates)? Who knows...

I never had something THIS BAD happen when I played on Linux and Mac machines but god forbid running it on a windows machine.

So this raises an important question for important tremulous users.  Is tremulous safe to run on a Windows based machine? and it even raises more questions and concerns for games like Cube2(saurbratten) or Quake 3 arena.

So if someone could shed some light onto this topic that would be awesome.
I'm glad I could share this experience here!

I love Tremulous, I always have, but until I know I can feel a bit safer playing it on my devices, I don't know if I will play this game anymore.

Thanks!
~HjMizu (DragonsUnite96)

[cron]

Generally, yes it's safe to run Tremulous on Windows (lol Vista). But, I wouldn't recommend using an old version of the client (or Windows) to do it.

The actual problem that you experienced could be totally unrelated to Tremulous or Windows, something like your CPU and/or GPU overheating, corrupt system memory, or other related hardware problem.

I am currently stress testing a 64-bit Tremulous 1.3 alpha 0.13  on win 7 as I write this...
https://github.com/GrangerHub/tremulous/releases

[DragonsUnite96]

After I had completely re-installed windows I did a complete system check using the tools within the BIOS on my computer.  Processor threading check and RAM checks were done, hard drive checks were done will all passing.  I wish I had a picture to share of the process done.

Did a GPU check as well and all was well, current firmware and driver updates were done on it before installing tremulous.

I can't remember but I believe I was running an older version of the client at the time.

I feel like the problem was from running an older "insecure" client and running vista well past it's end of life date.  I was just reading an article that a lot of people are starting to target these end of life operating systems.  But, I thought it would have done something like WannaCry, not totally wiping out every DLL in my windows folder.

If you remember, I stated that I started the process of replacing the damaged DLL files. But every time, I would restart, I started noticing in the repair console on my windows vista disc, the so called "virus" continued to re-execute itself, further hindering my ability to fully repair my installation of windows vista and making it impossible to boot Safe Mode. Leading me to install 7.

Now, from what I have learned, I should definitely make sure I am running a "current" version of the client.  I feel better running windows 7 ult, and I am still using F-Secure.
I am going to give this one more try after I make a recovery drive of my entire OS and a system restore point that I can go back to, IF something goes wrong.

[Loki]

God, I remember burning my uncle's PC by playing Tremulous

Tremulous is DANGEROUS