Crashes during Russo Japanese Scenario

[leftguard]

To prepare myself for the long campaigns to come, I've been playing through the Russo Japanese War scenario from both sides, to learn a little more about the specifics of this game.

My first game as Japan went well. I experienced a couple of crashes (game not responding pop up), but it didn't really impact on my enjoyment of the game.

My second play through as Russia was fairly swift as the Japanese sued for peace, and for the most part I just had to watch my forces grow and hit the end of turn button. No crashes that I can recall.

However I've had to abandon my 3rd play through as Japan, as it pretty much crashes every turn. The main difference I think is that I discovered the joys of ship to shore bombardment! The black bombardment icon flashes, and the game almost invariably crashes before the turn resolution can be completed.

I've not set my system for error logging, so can't attach any log files for you, but I'd be willing to figure out how to do that for you if it would help (not done it before). I have tried reducing maximum graphics size from setting box (4) down to (3) but it made no difference. I'm not willing to reduce down to (2), as all the sea zone textures disappear. I always disable CPU sleep, as I have found that prevented crashes for me in RoP and AJE, and I have maximum memory availability for caching.

Does anyone know if there are known problems with the Russo Japanese scenario, or the bombard display? My PC is about 18 months old, and has so far been able to play anything I've bought recently with maxed out settings, but I'm worried that I might not be able to play the big scenarios and grand campaign, if this small campaign crashes out.

[leftguard]

Well, I decided to enable error logging so that I could attach something to show you, but it's decided to play nicely today, so I have nothing to add.

I imagine the problem is graphics memory based, as the map only displays in a very basic (blurred) form during the turn resolution phase. Can anyone say whether I could expect the same kind of problems during a full campaign, or whether things would be worse due to the much larger scope of a full game, and the amount of calculation that requires?

[Pocus]

Sorry for your trouble leftguard. It is difficult to say if there is a memory management problem or if this is a gamelogic problem, we will need your logs for that. Keep us posted if you get another crash and you have logs.

[leftguard]

Thanks Pocus

Well, I thought I'd restart as Japan, as it's only a short scenario, just in case I had got past whatever might be causing the problem. Tonight it only allowed me to play 3 turns before crashing, so I am at least now able to attach my logs - I've had a quick glance at them but don't know what I should be looking for, so am attaching the full folder. Perhaps you could have alook at them for me.

[ATTACH]22481[/ATTACH]

[Pocus]

I see nothing in the logs. Can you activate error logging (Main Menu|Options|System) please? At the very least, you should now see a image on screen, take a screenshot, and also give me again the logs.

This is probably related to the video driver and the fact PON is only using Dx 9.

[leftguard]

Hi Pocus,

Thanks - screenshot and latest logs attached as requested. I should say that I have just restarted the game today, and not played at all. If you need me to play until it crashes and then provide new logs I'm sure I can do that, as I haven't changed the setup in any way.

One thing that occurs to me is whether having both my Steam version, and a separate copied and fully updated version on my PC at the same time might be causing any conflicts. I'm not playing the Steam copy, but it does appear that the Steam version updated from 1.02 to 1.03 when I applied the update to the separate folder version, as I mentioned in a separate thread.

[Pocus]

Thanks for the infos, but yes, I would need the logs and screen when you get a crash, with the crash message displayed in the picture

I'm rather sure that having a separate copy, patching it, and playing it, is totally safe. Our games are rather user friendly on that.

[leftguard]

[ATTACH]22567[/ATTACH][ATTACH]22568[/ATTACH][ATTACH]22569[/ATTACH]Okay, thanks Pocus

Took about an hour and a half to crash the same game today, but eventually it did. I'm attaching screenshot of the crash error, from which my only choice is to close the program. Also my latest logs.

I'm also attaching a screenshot taken to show what usually happens to the map graphics during the turn resolution phase (this happens almost always, regardless of whether it then crashes), as I suspect now that this is probably at the heart of the problem.

[leftguard]

Did nothing show in the logs again? If that's the case I guess I'll just have to persevere - at least the autosave each turn stops me from losing too much progress.

I've had a very quick start in the main campaign and didn't find the same issues, and am thinking of trying the Franco Prussian War campaign next (because I know next to nothing about it) - so fingers crossed.

[Pocus]

Sorry, I missed the update of this thread.

This is not related to any game logic. Even when we get a crash from displaying the map, we don't get this message, so I guess this is more related to a problem revolving around the video driver and how PON uses it (or how DirectX 9 uses your video card). Can you try using 25% memory in Options settings (Main Menu/Options). Blurry images can happen, but not systematically, during hosting, but this should not crash the game.

[leftguard]

Thanks for the continued feedback Pocus. I retried the campaign with the 25% memory setting as you recommended, but the same thing happened again.

However, I do have an OEM Nvidia card (GTX555) which doesn't receive full video driver support (ie, if you search for it by name on the official site, it doesn't get recognised) - which means that sometimes I get notified when new drivers are available, but not very often. I've now done a latest driver install today, and although I still get the blurry map effect during turn resolution (which I can live with as it clears afterwards), it does seem generally a lot more responsive and hasn't crashed out since the update, so hopefully this will have fixed my problem. I think it's time to move on from this scenario now and play the others