Some information on how to really give a good bug report.
Ok, you've got Darwinia to crash, not work on you, slow performance from it, or Darwinia managed to kill your siblings (Yay?). Before you start posting about it here in the bug forums, please take a second to consider the following information..
The information in this post applies only to Windows operating systems. If you are having problems with Darwinia on a Linux or Mac systems, please read and post a bug report in the appropriate forums:
Mac Support
Linux Support
Before we go anywhere, update Darwinia!
First and foremost, if you are running the full version, get the 1.42 patch:
Darwinia 1.42 Windows patch.
The patch has improved code and can make the game far faster than the un-patched version. It also fixes a lot of bugs. Finally, all modifications require the 1.42 patch.
Now, if the patch doesn't solve your problems, you'll need to check a few things:
Before we go anywhere again, Read this!
This thread contains common Darwinia bugs and should be read before you get here. So, if you haven't done, have a read!
For all types of crashes, non-starting Darwinia, and performance issues:
- Update your graphics card driver!
This is very important, and a lot of people forget this step.
If you need to check what card you have, and what drivers you need, Go to Start and click 'Run'.
Type in: dxdiag
When that loads, Go to the Display tab.
On the left hand side of the Display tab, in the box labelled Device will be your graphics card name. On the right hand side, in the box labelled Driver will be your driver version. Follow the next step to see if you are in date or not.
If your card is:- ATi:
The current version of ATi's Catalyst drivers is 7.2.
In dxdiag, this shows up as:
Version: 6.14.0010.6666
Date: 02/02/2007 20:03:43
You can get the updated ATi driver here:
http://ati.amd.com/support/drivers/xp/radeonx-xp.html
- nVidia:
The current version of nVidia's ForceWare drivers is 93.71.
In dxdiag, this shows up as:
Version: 6.14.0010.9371
Date: 10/22/2006 12:22:00
You can get the updated nVidia driver here:
http://www.nvidia.com/object/winxp_2k_93.71.html
- Intel, Matrox, other
These cards might not be able to play Darwinia. You are more than welcome to try though.
To get the latest driver for these cards, run Windows Update, and see if there are newer drivers for your card.- According to some information from FloydDread (thanks!) if you have a Mobile Intel(R) 915GM/GMS,910GML Express Chipset in your laptop, Darwinia will run with the drivers dated 2/7/2005 19:52:32, build number of 6.14.0010.4250. You will need to set RenderLandscapeMode to 0 though. Good luck!
- If you have an Intel Extreme graphics chipset, the drivers that are verfied to work (according to snoonan) Will have this information under dxdiag:
Version: v6.14.0010.4332
Date: 6/8/2005 11:19:08
- Note: if you have Darwinia running fine under the above mentioned card types, please PM me the info about it
- According to some information from FloydDread (thanks!) if you have a Mobile Intel(R) 915GM/GMS,910GML Express Chipset in your laptop, Darwinia will run with the drivers dated 2/7/2005 19:52:32, build number of 6.14.0010.4250. You will need to set RenderLandscapeMode to 0 though. Good luck!
- ATi:
- Update your DirectX version!
Darwinia requires DirectX 9. Latest version is 9c. If you are unsure as to which version you have, Go to Start and click 'Run'.
Type in: dxdiag
On the System tab, the last item in the System information box will be 'DirectX Version'
It should say DirectX 9.0c, if it doesn't say that, update your DirectX install. You can get it here:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=0A9B6820-BFBB-4799-9908-D418CDEAC197&displaylang=en - Update your sound card driver!
Sometimes your driver for you sound card can be outdated. Since there's a huge range of drivers and software for them, the best advice I can give you is to find out what card you have by going to Start and click 'Run', and typing in: dxdiag.
Select the Sound 1 tab. The name of your device will be listed on the left hand side, in the box labled Device.
Take the device name to Google, and see if you can find a new driver for it. - 0 - uses Vertex Arrays. This was found to be slightly faster on some ATi hardware, and thus should be considered when testing out which setting to use
- 1 - uses Display Lists. This setting emulates the way Darwinia rendered in 1.0
- 2 - uses Vertex Buffer Objects. This is the default setting that Darwinia uses in v1.2 onward.
- Operating System
- Processor
- Memory
- DirectX version
- Under Device:
- Chip Type
- Approx. Total Memory
- Under Drivers:
- Main Driver
- Version
- Date
- trickfred
- xander
- snoonan
- Booster
- The_GoldFish
- FloydDread
For performance issues
Darwinia needs a sufficient system to play well. You will need a good graphics card, and a fast processor to get the most out of Darwinia. However, there are quicker ways to gain a few FPS in Darwinia:
First and most dramatic is RenderPixelShader. Setting this to 0 on older cards can improve performance quite well.
ScreenWidth and ScreenHeight also play a role in how hard your computer has to work. Setting these to 800 and 600 respectively on older hardware can increase your frame rate.
Believe it or not, the sound subsystem is also a huge drain. Setting SoundHW3D to 0 and SoundDSP to 0 will help frame rates.
The RenderLandscapeMode flag, added in 1.21 patch (and still in the 1.42 patch) allows you to specify how Darwinia renders the landscape. What is important to note here is that there is no real set rule as to what will be faster for you. This setting has three options:
Finally, there's setting these options:
Code: Select all
RenderLandscapeDetail
RenderWaterDetail
RenderBuildingDetail
RenderEntityDetail
RenderCloudDetail
The values range from 1 (best) to 3 (least detail). Some of the options do go a bit further and thus can be set to 4. Play about with these settings until Darwinia gives you a comfortable frame rate at the expense of visual quality. The balance of speed over quality is fully up to your preferences.
You can also adjust the last five settings actually in Darwinia, by pressing Esc and going to Options, Graphic Options.
If that still doesn't solve your problem, you need to make a report. That brings us on to the section entitled:
How to make a good report!
The key to making a good report is including enough information for the people who can help to solve it. The most important thing you can give us is the information from your blackbox.txt file. Darwinia might create one of these in the same directory as where Darwinia is installed.
Here's an example of a blackbox.txt file:
Code: Select all
=========================
DARWINIA BLACK BOX REPORT
=========================
VERSION : win32-full-v1.21
ERROR : 'Invalid map file specified'
=========================
====== PREFERENCES ======
=========================
ServerAddress = 127.0.0.1
BypassNetwork = 0
SinglePlayer = 0
IAmAServer = 1
TextLanguage = english
TextSpeed = 15
HelpEnabled = 0
SoundLibrary = dsound
SoundMixFreq = 44100
SoundMasterVolume = 255
SoundChannels = 32
SoundHW3D = 1
SoundSwapStereo = 1
SoundMemoryUsage = 1
SoundBufferSize = 512
SoundDSP = 1
ScreenWidth = 1024
ScreenHeight = 768
ScreenWindowed = 1
ScreenZDepth = 24
ScreenColourDepth = 32
ScreenRefresh = 60
RenderLandscapeDetail = 1
RenderWaterDetail = 1
RenderBuildingDetail = 1
RenderEntityDetail = 1
RenderCloudDetail = 1
RenderPixelShader = 1
RenderNegative = 0
ControlUp = key E
ControlDown = key Q
ControlLeft = key A
ControlBackwards = key S
ControlRight = key D
ControlForwards = key W
ControlChatLog = key TAB
ControlZoom = key Z
ControlDeselect = key SPACE
ControlMouseButtons = 3
BootLoader = random
UserProfile = Stricken
ModSystemEnabled = 1
Mod = CrazyCentipedes
=========================
====== STACKTRACE =======
=========================
retAddress = 0041F3E5
retAddress = 004A0F2B
retAddress = 004A27DE
retAddress = 0049B636
retAddress = 00489F4F
retAddress = 004AADD5
retAddress = 00424A0F
retAddress = 004BF89A
retAddress = 7C816D4F
retAddress = 00000000
In most cases, a blackbox file will allow us to track down the problem faster. However, this is not all you should give us.
You should also tell us what you were doing just before it crashed (throwing a grenade a bunch of units on temple, creating an officer, etc), if you can reproduce it (if you can, list what to do), and finally if you were either modding or using a mod.
After that we need to know your system specs. You can find all these by running dxdiag (see above for how). The System tab lists what information we need; here's a list of what is best to add:
On the Display tab lists other information that you should include:
Once you've included this information, you may post a new topic.
Don't be discouraged by the lack of replies, or what the replies that you do get might say. Co-operation with those helping you will solve the problem faster than just shouting at someone to fix it, or whining at how broken Darwinia appears to be (its not, honest!).
People who provided info for this topic:
NeoThermic