Problems since 1.07

[Ebbingford]

Help!!!!!!!! leure: I've been playing since April, always as union. After several restarts when new patches came out (and cock-ups) I finally finished and won the campaign, hardly had any crashes at all. Started to play as the rebs and patched to 1.07 and suddenly crashes all over the place. Sometimes the first one is before the new game even loads, if not I get a critical error message when I hit end of turn. Have tried re-installing, got the latest Directx and video card drivers, but all to no avail. Any ideas anyone?

[Joseignacio]

NO, but I have also crashes, although I cannot tell before 1.07 because my first and only patch by now is the 1.07b. It crashes a lot, almost every turn once, I have to save all the time, and sometimes the files arer corrupted or whatever and the no savegame of that campaign is avaliable.

[Pocus]

IF you have the latest drivers and you get DirectX errors, then you can tweak the settings to reduce the load that your video card have to support. Issues like that are generated by problems between your main RAM and your video RAM, the video RAM being unable to be emptied in time for new images (a video card issue we have for some cards).

So in the Options Window, System panel, please check the leftmost box of 'max texture size' and unselect 'use high memory'.

If the problem remains, please send to support@ageod.com your DxDiag file and your ACW\Settings\general.opt file, all in a ZIP please.

[Ebbingford]

Morning Pocus, I was getting these crashes before I updated my directx and video drivers, but none before patch 1.07. I sent a zip of my saved game and log to support about a week ago under the title constant crashes. Here are the last 3 lines of my Mainlog.txt
08:21:47 [Error ] TGameSim.UnSerialize Exception caught: Violation d'accès à l'adresse 00403940 dans le module 'AACW.exe'. Lecture de l'adresse 00000043 DebugStep: 30
08:21:47 [Critical ] TFactions.GetFactionByUID The faction of UID 1000002 was not found
08:21:47 (Reporting) Main unexpected exception TMain , Violation d'accès à l'adresse 00532B97 dans le module 'AACW.exe'. Ecriture de l'adresse 00000028 try: -386
This was after a crash when I clicked "end turn". If I then restart the game and load the save and click "end turn" it will then process it OK
By the way I thought BOA was a top game, played it for months, AACW is just as good if not better, can't wait for Napoleon!!!!

[Joseignacio]

IF you have the latest drivers and you get DirectX errors, then you can tweak the settings to reduce the load that your video card have to support. Issues like that are generated by problems between your main RAM and your video RAM, the video RAM being unable to be emptied in time for new images (a video card issue we have for some cards).

So in the Options Window, System panel, please check the leftmost box of 'max texture size' and unselect 'use high memory'.

If the problem remains, please send to support@ageod.com your DxDiag file and your ACW\Settings\general.opt file, all in a ZIP please.

That's what I thought, that it had to be a RAM memory or Video Card. Whay puzzled me is that this happenned (before and) after I bought a week ago a new computer, which has 2 giga RAM (theoretically, although I think it's only 1,5 because of what the system says) nad the video card supposedly has 386 MB. The only problem is that it is built in, if I am not wrong.

(Sorry, I am not home to tell the exact features no, but I'll update.

That's what made me crazy, I underdstood that I had to do this sort of configuration before but not now with a brand new computer.

[Pocus]

Both are issues related to how the video card handle the memory needed for the textures. The thing is that ACW need more memory for the map that any video card can possibly contains (even the 512 mb). For the vast majority, this is not a problem, because they ask Windows for a bit of main RAM to store things, and then flush themselves (partly) so to get back a bit of their video RAM.

problem is for some cards, under some drivers, it don't works that well, and they crash after a while (I would say that 2-3% of the users have that)

The trick is then to change settings so that the video card is less under pressure, this is why I ask you the general.opt file

That done, 3/4 of the players having problems are ok, for the rest, this is the dreaded refund option that can be proposed, as a last resort (if you bought from ageod, for retail version we can't do much)

Please send me your general.opt and dxdiag in a ZIP, & I must have missed your mail Ebbingford, sorry.

[Joseignacio]

Errr... Sorry, since I don't have time to read the fori regularly, I only come to read them when I have a certain ocasional question.

This is the reason why i didn't read some of your 'stickys' that warn about a .dll needed for Vista. it happens that the new computer came with Vista, so maybe this affects the program too.

I did what you (Pocus) said, and in a short test seemed to work ok, but I still really didn't check it in one or two afternoons playing which would be the real test.

But anyway, I will try with the .dll too.

[Joseignacio]

Well, It works (it sems, let's pray )! I did both things, I downloaded the missing .dll, and change the visual options, and I played like 4 hours without CTDs, then I tried going back to the original visualization options (to check if the problem was only the missing dll) and had one (only, before there were like 5 or 6 in 4 hours) CTD.

So, it seems that the dll was not the problem or at least was only part of the problem, and it was like Pocus said, but the best is that it seems I will be able to go on playing this game.

[Pocus]

congrats!

No the DLL is not the problem, it is just popping up an annoying message but has no side effect.

[Ebbingford]

Morning Pocus, I seem to have fixed my constant crash problem. I ran the patch exe again although my game was already patched to 1.07e. I have just loaded a new full campaign game and clicked end turn through til aug 61. No crashes at all. It seems to me like my patch hadn't installed properly on any of the previous times that I had run it???!!! Does that make any sense to you??!!
I shall start a fresh campaign and keep my fingers crossed.
Thanks a lot for taking the time to try and help me.

[Pocus]

Errr... I'm very happy that the issue seems to be fixed, but as I think this is an hardware problem, I'm not totally sure that it is gone for good, by just applying the patch.
Keeping my fingers crossed too!

[Ebbingford]

leure: Just as you said Pocus it didn't work, as soon as I started a new game, at the second end of turn, crash! How come yesterday it went through till aug?

[Pocus]

Damn.

I sent you a new config file to your other email address (fsmail), the other being rejected.

[Franciscus]

Ebbingford:

Try this:
In your general.opt file (you can open it with notepad, for instance) change MemUsage to 15 (Memusage=15). It should be 50 now (75 if High memory usage is selected in the options menu).
This problem reminds me a lot of my own, that you can find by searching the forum.

(@ Pocus: if this solves Ebbingford problem, I think that you should really revise your position and maybe put an easy option (say, low memory usage, or such) in the option menu to change Memusage to 25 or below, to avoid further aggravation... )

[Pocus]

No he has already tweaked his file with such settings. His problem is rather resilient to tweaking shall I say.

[Ebbingford]

Thanks for that file Pocus, it still crashes though when I click the end of turn button. leure:
If there is anybody out there with the same graphics card as me, geforce FX 5200, could they please let me know what drivers, Directx etc they are using. (Am running on winxp with 1Gb ram) As I said before, had no problems playing as the union, only started when switched to the rebs and patch 1.07. If any one is playing with the same sort of system I would like to hear how you are getting on with it.
Perhaps its time to think about getting a new graphics card?

[Pocus]

bad news indeed. We did a survey (main ACW forum) with 100+ players answering on their video card, your is in, so the problem is even stranger. Is your XP an old installation or a fresh one? Windows have strange habits best not discussed in length

see:
http://www.ageod-forum.com/showthread.php?t=5785

[Ebbingford]

WinXp Prof ver2002 service pack 2. Its been on my puter for as long as I've had it, Feb 02ish, with no reinstalls at all. Seemed very stable, until now.

[Ebbingford]

I'm telling porkies, I've only had this system since Feb 05.
I have also tried running the game with lower quality screen settings, size and colour. Also with no winter textures, memusage set to 15, smallest textures. Still get the dreaded critical error when hitting end turn, or even sometimes when I click on the file to load a game.
I have just read through the post from Franciscus
http://www.ageod-forum.com/showthread.php?t=4120&highlight=critical+error
And you say about Directx 8 and changing to 9 Pocus, has this happened?
I am playing on regardless, just a bit of a pain having to relaunch aacw just about every go.

[Pocus]

No this was pushed for VGN, as we already took some delay with AACW. Sorry for the inconvenience.

[mjw]

Ebbingford,

I had the exact problem...only while playing the confedercy as well. The game would always crash after the Dec '61 turn. I just installed patch 1.07(f) or (e)...can't remember. It works fine now. Gibe it a shot.

[Ebbingford]

Didn't work for me MJW, still crashing. Thought I would start a fresh full campaign with 1.07f, it took 3 trys just to launch it. Got a crash each time when I clicked the scenario name. Didn't even get to choose what side I wanted to be. Got it to go eventually but it's still crashing when I click next go. leure:

[Pocus]

Sorry again Ebingford, but these are hardware issues. Somehow Directx8 is not liked by your system. For now, nothing can be done but refund you

[Ebbingford]

In theory I have managed to fix my problems with a lot of help from Pocus Turns out my memory was bad, I've bought some new and NCP is now running like a dream, haven't tested AACW yet but I would like to think it would be too.
Thank you again Pocus for all the help, top rate support and top games

[Pocus]