Same crash on two different systems

[TheLimey]

Hello,

I can't complete Darwinia as it crashes with increasing frequency as I progress through the game. I get exactly the same symptoms on two radically different systems, so I suspect this is a Darwinia issue vs. drivers. The two systems are:

1) ABS PC (an ASUS motherboard, 3GHz Intel P4 with HT, 1Gig of RDRAM, Nvidia 9600 graphics card with 256MB memory, Creative Audigy sound card), Windows XP SP2
2) IBM ThinkPad T42 (Intel Pentium M 1.8Ghz, 1.5Gig of memory, ATI Mobility Radeon 9600 AGP with 64MB memory, SoundMAX digital audio), Windows XP SP2.

The blackbox.txt from the ThinkPad is included below. The game crashes with the message that the program has unexpectedly exited, do I want to send the details to Microsoft etc. etc. Sometimes sound continues to play for a few seconds after the program has bombed out. Sometimes not. Same symptoms on both systems.

Sometimes I can tell the game is going to crash as the game slows down and the sound starts to stutter. Then it bombs out. Other times it just crashes right in the middle of the action with no warning.

I have tried turning off the hardware sound acceleration per the instructions in the Darwinia support area. Doesn't make any difference. I have upgraded to the latest video drivers on both systems, but this hasn't made any difference (and it doesn't seem like a video problem.)


=========================
DARWINIA BLACK BOX REPORT
=========================

VERSION : win32-full-steam-v1.4
ERROR : 'DirectSound ERROR
C:\Development\Darwinia\code\sound\sound_library_3d_dsound.cpp line 997

Direct sound couldn't set fx
Error Code : E_OUTOFMEMORY
Ran out of memory'

=========================
====== PREFERENCES ======
=========================

ServerAddress = 127.0.0.1
BypassNetwork = 1
IAmAServer = 1
TextLanguage = english
TextSpeed = 15
HelpEnabled = 1
SoundLibrary = dsound
SoundMixFreq = 22050
SoundMasterVolume = 255
SoundChannels = 32
SoundHW3D = 0
SoundSwapStereo = 0
SoundMemoryUsage = 1
SoundBufferSize = 512
SoundDSP = 1
ScreenWidth = 1024
ScreenHeight = 768
ScreenWindowed = 0
ScreenZDepth = 24
ScreenColourDepth = 32
ScreenRefresh = 60
RenderLandscapeDetail = 1
RenderWaterDetail = 1
RenderBuildingDetail = 1
RenderEntityDetail = 1
RenderCloudDetail = 1
RenderPixelShader = 1
ControlMouseButtons = 3
ControlMethod = 1
BootLoader = random
UserProfile = NewUser
RenderSpecialLighting = 0
ControlIconsChatLog = key L
ControlChatLog = key TAB
ControlZoom = key Z
ControlDeselect = key SPACE
ControlUp = key PGUP
ControlDown = key PGDN
ControlIconsTaskManagerEndTask = key C
ControlLeft = key A
ControlBackwards = key S
ControlRight = key D
ControlForwards = key W
ControlSkipMessage = key ENTER
ControlIconsTaskManagerDisplay = key TAB

=========================
====== STACKTRACE =======
=========================

retAddress = 0042134F
retAddress = 00481768
retAddress = 0047E949
retAddress = 00485C43
retAddress = 004B322E
retAddress = 004B3D1E
retAddress = 00425FA4
retAddress = 004D2576
retAddress = 7C816D4F
retAddress = 00000000

[xander]

Generally, I would tell you to turn off Hardware 3D Sound and Realtime FX (there is a memory leak in there somewhere -- hopefully IV will address that soonish). However, looking at your blackbox.txt, it would seem that HW3D Sound is already off. Still, open Darwinia, hit [ESC] to bring up the menu, go to sound options, and make sure that HW3D Sound and Realtime FX are off. If that doesn't work, I am sure that someone will come up with another solution...

xander

EDIT: Oi... thanks, NeoThermic... I missed SoundDSP.

[NeoThermic]

Generally, I would tell you to turn off Hardware 3D Sound and Realtime FX (there is a memory leak in there somewhere -- hopefully IV will address that soonish). However, looking at your blackbox.txt, it would seem that HW3D Sound is already off. Still, open Darwinia, hit [ESC] to bring up the menu, go to sound options, and make sure that HW3D Sound and Realtime FX are off. If that doesn't work, I am sure that someone will come up with another solution...

xander

Hardware sound is off, but DSP (realtime) is on, so thats his memory leak.

Also, whats a nVidia 9600?

NeoThermic

[TheLimey]

whats a nVidia 9600?

It's a GeForce 6600 GT with the first six replaced by a nine. You need to cut 'old gits' like me some slack -- we're the only people who really get the joke of all those ZX Spectrum boot loaders you guys put into Darwinia

OK, so disabling realtime FX is what I need to do... consider it done. Will try it out on a long plane flight tomorrow.

Cheers,

Limey

[NeoThermic]

OK, so disabling realtime FX is what I need to do... consider it done. Will try it out on a long plane flight tomorrow.

You'll have to tell us also how long the thinkpad lasted on its battery when playing Darwinia; I'm more intrested in that

Also, sounds like you're a frequent traveler; what do you do that allows so much travel?

NeoThermic

[TheLimey]

The ThinkPad lasted an hour

However, the Desktop still crashes. It has all the sound stuff turned off. It also does not generate a blackbox.txt file -- just goes straight to the Windows "this program has performed an illegal operation do you want to send an error report" thing.