Received 1st crash. Level: Biosphere

[ult]

Okay, I received my first crash of the game during a very busy time in Biosphere.

Strangely enough there isn't a blackbox.txt file anywhere on my drive. It was one of the infamous:

Faulting application darwinia.exe, version 1.0.0.1, faulting module darwinia.exe, version 1.0.0.1, fault address 0x000517a2.

Fortunately I've never had a problem throughout the entire game. This is the first time. When I went back into the game, obivously the level had reset and I guess I'll be starting over.

Not much to mention aside from, Steam version of Darwinia, file properties of the darwinia exe is 1.0.0.1. (??), XP SP2, and yes.. latest versions of directx (9.0c), video card (nvidia 6800.. driver:8195), sound card: Sigmatel cmajor driver:5.10.4249), Dell 9300, etc.

1st crash I've ever had with darwinia. Oh well. Still love the game! Will attempt the level again. If it crashes again during a very busy time, I'll try lowering level of details on graphics and sounds and report back.

[xander]

Have you dissabled Realtime FX and Hardware 3D Sound? You probably should... They are in the Sound Options menu.

xander

[ult]

Hardware 3d was disabled but realtime was enabled. I'll have to try the level over with realtime disabled.

[xander]

Hardware 3d was disabled but realtime was enabled. I'll have to try the level over with realtime disabled.

I would put a small sum of money on that being the cause of the crash.

xander

[NeoThermic]

Hardware 3d was disabled but realtime was enabled. I'll have to try the level over with realtime disabled.

I would put a small sum of money on that being the cause of the crash.

xander

I wouldn't

I would generally assume that during your play in the few mins before the crash you were assulting a spawnpoint controlled by reds, you using cannons to try take it. However, I assume that they pushed back and gained control of one of the cannons. About 10 - 20 seconds later, Darwinia crashed.

If that is the case, then you've hit the strangest bug in Darwinia we know about, the Armour crash

If you have a look at Issue #1 in this post, you'll see that it is a verifiable problem in the steam version with relation to reds taking a battle cannon. Although The Goldfish was unable to raise an error in biosphere, it appears that you did, thus causing the crash.

There's genreally two ways to fix the issue. The first is to try never let the red darwinians take over a battle cannon of yours. This won't be easy, but ctrl+c is your friend here.

The other is to extract Darwinia's working files from the steam directory to a new directory, and apply the windows 1.3 patch. The non-steam version of Darwinia does not have this issue.

If this is the case, do tell

NeoThermic

[ult]

well, I redid the entire level with realtime disabled and hardware 3d disabled. No problems. Kudos xander. However, to save NeoThermic, I have to admit that the red did not take over an armor this time around. Guess it's a coin toss.

[xander]

Hardware 3d was disabled but realtime was enabled. I'll have to try the level over with realtime disabled.

I would put a small sum of money on that being the cause of the crash.

xander

I wouldn't ;)

I would generally assume that during your play in the few mins before the crash you were assulting a spawnpoint controlled by reds, you using cannons to try take it. However, I assume that they pushed back and gained control of one of the cannons. About 10 - 20 seconds later, Darwinia crashed.

Bah. I keep forgetting about that one, as it doesn't effect the Mac version :) (of course, neither does the other bug).

/me hands over $0.02 to NeoThermic

Is that a small enough sum?

xander

[zebedee]

I keep getting this crash in Biosphere too... it might well be shortly after the reds capture a cannon but I'm not sure (things are pretty heated when it crashes).
I'm running the Steam version, which I thought was already patched to 1.3 because it has the new "tab-only" task manager?
Anyway, I'll try copying the files somewhere and will download the 1.3 patch...

[xander]

I keep getting this crash in Biosphere too... it might well be shortly after the reds capture a cannon but I'm not sure (things are pretty heated when it crashes).
I'm running the Steam version, which I thought was already patched to 1.3 because it has the new "tab-only" task manager?
Anyway, I'll try copying the files somewhere and will download the 1.3 patch...

The Steam version is actually 1.4. By using the 1.3 patch, you are downgrading to a previous version. But you can avoid the red DG/armour crash error by downgrading.

xander

[NeoThermic]

I keep getting this crash in Biosphere too... it might well be shortly after the reds capture a cannon but I'm not sure (things are pretty heated when it crashes).
I'm running the Steam version, which I thought was already patched to 1.3 because it has the new "tab-only" task manager?
Anyway, I'll try copying the files somewhere and will download the 1.3 patch...

The Steam version is actually 1.4. By using the 1.3 patch, you are downgrading to a previous version. But you can avoid the red DG/armour crash error by downgrading.

xander

The diffrence between the 1.4 and 1.3 versions is the 'Steam code', not much more.

Thus, by downgrading, you're not missing out on anything major, and you're fixing a bug while you're at it.

NeoThermic

[zebedee]

Thanks guys, I tried "downpatching" to 1.3 and all was going well until I fired a rocket, which was so powerful it apparently blew up the whole game with the message "missing sounds/rocket_boom3" or something like that.

I searched on the forums and I guess that problem was fixed in a steam patch... hmm let me guess.. 1.4 ?


Oh well, I'd better improve so that no red darwinians can take a cannon from me...