OAW Locks Up

[Telumar]

Okay you guys. You have to create a shortcut. You can do/place it on the desktop or in any folder you want. Just right click with the mouse and select new -> create shortcut. Then you will be asked to enter a command line, you can browse to the folder of the toawIII exe and select it, click next. Then you will be asked to name the shortcut, rename it if you want and click finish.
Then you have the shortcut.
Or you open the toawIII folder, left click the exe and hold and move it out of the folder on your desktop i.e.

Right click on the shortcut icon and go to properties. In the line 'target' you can add a command line in double quotes ("nosound").

Hope this helps and works. See also the attachment; it's from Acow for the toawlog feature, but will be the same for Toaw III and nosound.. It's all in german but the displays will be the same (it's from win98 SE).

[Central Blue]

I just wanted to report that the game has been very stable for me since I used Driver Cleaner Pro to completely scrub existing video drivers and leftovers and reinstall the latest drivers. I also reinstalled monitor support at the same time. So it could be that ATI isn't struggling with leftover Nvidia, or maybe it's just happier at 1280 by 1024. Any problems I'm having with my video now, I can't entirely blame on NKAOW. I have the feeling that 64k of vid mem probably isn't enough to support many/any of the "features" on my Radeon.

I have not tried the "nosound" command line yet. I thought it was sufficient to disable in the preferences. But I will now. I am not going to try emulation unless I develop more problems.

This report is based on only a few hours of gaming. I have been pretty busy. But you all know how Windows is with unistals, etc., and this is something you might want to check for yourself.

At some point I would like to go back to 1024 by 768. But it's hard for me to tell if that will require me getting a better video card or the TOAD crew spending all their time on display issues. I think they have more interesting near term goals than running down every display problem. If I run into "new problems" I will pass them along for consideration.

[caseyf]

Hello everyone. I am still having problems with the game and started haveing lock ups with other programs. I thought maybe I have a problem with a virus or something, so I started a complete scan of my computor and it locked up again[:@]. So I took it in to the local techies. They ran it for awhile and scanned it and never found anything wrong [:@][:@]. So I had them add in more memory (512) and brought it home. Started the game and when it went into resolving combat it Locked up[:@][:@][:@] After a couple of combats the curser won't move and I have to reboot. Then it seems the whole system is unstabil and will lock up at anytime. I've had it lock up while loading from the reboot and have to reboot again. I am at a loss as to what to do now. I've unistalled the game and am planning to reinstall it with the patch. Does anybody have any suggestions for me when I reinstall.
Thanks.
Kevin

[Okimaw]

Hey guys, I'm having the same problem, I posted it on another thread. My game locks up when the PO is in his movements, not all the time though. I have no problems with pbems. I thought it was a problem with my old comp which was quite a bit under the system requirements, 333mz, 400mb mem, 64mg ram, two days ago I got a pent 4, 1.6gz, 512ram, Win2000 OS, with all my drivers etc updated and still the same problem so I don't thnk it has to do with viruses or memory. I haven't tried playing PO on my ACOW (boring) but I'll give it a try and report back here.

[larryfulkerson]

ORIGINAL: caseyf
I thought maybe I have a problem with a virus or something, so I started a complete scan of my computor and it locked up again....
Kevin

So um.......Kevin, you didn't say so while I was watching so I need to ask if this is a laptop. And since you say it locked up while you were scanning for viri I'm inclined to think it's not related to any specific program ( TOAW, etc. ) and I'm wondering if you have a mouse driver problemo or maybe a video card that's beginning to become flakey or some kinda hardware problemo. Laptops are notorious for having problemos when they overheat, I know, I had one that overheated and had to put something under the back edge like a book or something so that air could circulate underneath the laptop to help cool it down.

Sorry you're having problemos. I hate when that happens.

[larryfulkerson]

ORIGINAL: Okimaw

Hey guys, I'm having the same problem, I posted it on another thread. My game locks up when the PO is in his movements...Win2000 OS....

So um....Roger have you tried running this thing in compatability mode? I've heard bad things about Win2K and believe it to be not all that good an OS. Maybe if you tried running as if it were W98 or something the problemo might go away?

Here's how you get into compatability mode:

[Okimaw]

I see a couple of others in this thread are also running Win2000 OS and I think I may have found our problem. In searching some forums after my dxdiag. I came across some threads that discussed issues with other games and the culprit maybe the main driver not being compatible with direct x9. The ati2dvaa.dll was the last release in 2001 quite a number of yrs before the dx9. There have had problems with Roller Coaster Tycoon and other games. So if this was the case where does that leave us as the game is supposed to work on all OS's from 98 to XP with a 32 mb video card. Can it be resolved a patch or what? I've reached the limits of my technical abilities. If I'm mistaken sorry guys, someone correct me.

[ralphtricky]

ORIGINAL: Okimaw

I see a couple of others in this thread are also running Win2000 OS and I think I may have found our problem. In searching some forums after my dxdiag. I came across some threads that discussed issues with other games and the culprit maybe the main driver not being compatible with direct x9. The ati2dvaa.dll was the last release in 2001 quite a number of yrs before the dx9. There have had problems with Roller Coaster Tycoon and other games. So if this was the case where does that leave us as the game is supposed to work on all OS's from 98 to XP with a 32 mb video card. Can it be resolved a patch or what? I've reached the limits of my technical abilities. If I'm mistaken sorry guys, someone correct me.

There are some things to try

1) Try adding the nosound parameter to the command-line, that will eliminate the sound card as the problem.

2) It doesn't help now, but the next patch may help this.

There is a problem with the audio library causing problems on some systems. It's intermittent, I haven't had any problems, but other people have reported them. I'm allowing an alternate sound library to see if it helps those people.

There is also a problem if the bottom display line will try to display more than 132 characters. That's fixed in the next patch.

[caseyf]

I do not have a laptop just a desktop running windows xp home edition. I didn't know if I had a virus or not but when I tried to run a full system scan Norton would lock up after 99630 files. That is when I wodered if I had a virus. When I tool it in they ran the computor for several ours and didn't find anything. I did not have this kind of problem until after I installed TOAW and GGWAW. I went and uninstalled them and anything else that I thought might be a problem went back throught and updated all my drivers and software and installed TOAW and the same thing locks up after I end the turn and the computor does the combat resolution phase. I tried the nosound and it didn't matter.
Do I have a virus?
Do I have a software problem?
Do I have a harware problem?
The only thing I know is that it does not work and I'm very frustrated. I have crown of glory and never had a problem playing that.
So I'm packing this damn thing back up with all the hardware and taking it in the the shop and seeing if I can make it break and they can tell me why.
Thanks
Kevin

[caseyf]

Updating my previuos post. I believe that I've narrowed this down to a software problem with the game itself. (I think). Follow my logic and tell me if I'm off base or not. If I turn my computor on and try to run TOAW it will lock up when I click on the button to end the turn and the computor resolves combats. Sometimes a few combats are resolved once all were resolved ( there were three) and then it locked up when going to the next phase. After the lock up I have to hit the reset button and the computor will reboot. Sometimes it reboots and is locked up and sometimes it doesn't but when I go to another program and use it it will lock up after a few moments. I tried scanning my hard drive to insure that I didn't have a problem with viruses, etc. but it would lock up while scanning. But I could go to the internet and it never would lock up on me then no matter how long I was on.
I shut down my computor and turned it back on and scanned my hard drive. No problem finished the scan and there were no problems detected. Tried to run the program and it locked up as usual. Tried to scan my hard drive locked up. Tried another game and it locked up.
Shut the computor down and turned it on and no problems since. As long as I do not run TOAW my computor is o.k. when I run TOAW it becomes unstabil.
I have updated every driver that I could on my computor. I added more memory (512). I meet or exceed all the system requirements for the game.
So now what do I do?
I could not run the old TOAW II on this computor when I first bought it and never could figure out why. I tried everything then to get to run and couldn't. I have a few questions that I hope some of the more learned people out there can answer for me.
[ol][*]Is it possible that I could have received a CD that has a problem on it from the factory and if so how can I check that out and resolve the issue if there is one?
[*]My hard drive is formatted NTFS not FAT32 could this be an issue with this game?
[*]Is there any way a novice like me can find out what and when my computor locks up so that I can try to find the cause of the problem and possibly resolve it?[/ol]
Thaks to veryone for there help in this matter. While it has been very frustrating it does help to have a place to go and at least try to resolve issues that arise.
 
Kevin

[caseyf]

I may have stumbled upon a solution to my problem.
Card name: NVIDIA GeForce2 MX/MX 400 (Microsoft Corporation)
Manufacturer: NVIDIA
Chip type: GeForce2 MX/MX 400
That is the graphics card I have and I did find another update to the driver.
84.21 forceware winxp2k_en. this is a 20 meg file. After I downloaded and installed it still froze but then I used the quick start icon with the "nosound" command and it didn't freeze on me. I played the France 40 scenario and got into the 5th turn and it still hasn't frozen up. I will try some other scenarios to confirm this but so far so good. Anybody having a problem that has a NVIDIA graphics card could use this as a possible solution.
 
Kevin

[a white rabbit]

..caseyf, i've the same video card on an HP something or other, now running XP pro (upgraded all on my ownsome, gosh i was proud...) with NTFS, and other than having to up the on-screen res i've not had any problems
 
..i used to get the odd lock-up under ME when i got a bit click happy on big scens and wasn't patient enough to allow toaw-acow to cycle thru the units to find the target unit, i think it was more a ME prob than a toaw one

[Judd]

Telumar,

I have tried the suggestion of adding the command line "nosound" in my shortcut but it has not turned off the sound in the game and the game still crashes. What might I be doing wrong?

Thank you for your help!

[Telumar]

If you've left a space between the shortcut's target (c:program files/matrix....) and the nosound command and if you've the nosound command in double quotes you did nothing wrong.
I just tested it on my toaw3, it turned the sound off and the game works alright..

Is the shortcut's Target also in doublequotes? Check this out, maybe i'll post a screenie from xp later... my screenie was from ancient win98se - off to barbecue now.. Guten Appetit!

[Telumar]

Okay, i can't let you hang.. here is the screenie from the german Win XP Professional, should be the same in english.

Maybe you added the comand line into the false field, look at the pic. I marked the right field.

But now to the barbecue..

[buff111]

Playing sicily to brenner pass twice and OS locked up each time. Sound was on both times, however this is the only scenario I've had a problem with.

[buff111]

 
for anyone still having problems with AI locking up, I tried this and it worked. I have the sound off. The AI locked up, that is, the mouse was working but the AI stopped processing. I depressed CD button and the CD tray came out and then, just pressed the button again and the cd went back in. All of a sudden, the intro screen came, I minimized it and the AI started processing again. It may have been a fluke but it worked.