Game crashes: menu disappears

parusski · Post by **parusski** » Wed Jul 18, 2001 6:30 pm

Christian, I forgot to tell you something. I also had this happen on my sons computer. When you have blacked out areas just right click(NO LEFT CLICK) any area on the screen and the whole thing should clear up. I never actually discovered the problem on his computer because I purchased a new one for him a few days later and the problem has not occured again. Good luck.

Christian Blex · Post by **Christian Blex** » Wed Jul 18, 2001 8:23 pm

I'm running Windows 98 SE. I do not have any overheating problem, neither with my video card nor with the CPU. I do not have any problems with other games or with SPWaW before ver.5.01 .
The crash appears in the starting menu of MC too, while reading the (very interesting) documents for a while and clicking the "next" button the text does not appear. Going back to the starting menu and trying to start the MC an messages like "game cannot be loaded" appears. Then the game start with a black map, no units and no menu on the right!
I first thought the crash has something to do with how often I'm clicking with the mouse, but even if I just start the game and just wait for some time, the crash (in the starting menu and in the game) appears after clicking with the mouse for the first time!

To swami12: What system (CPU, video card, OS, memory) do you have?

To Paul: I will try to get more HD space.

To parusski: No, I do not have Norton. Is there any other way to look for corrupted .dll-files??

To all: Thanks a lot for your efforts!!!

parusski · Post by **parusski** » Thu Jul 19, 2001 12:54 am

Christian, I use a program called "Anti-Crash". It is a freeware program. Go to [url="http://www.nonags.com,"]www.nonags.com,[/url] then from the left menu choose freeware, then from the middle menu choose powertools. Scroll down until you come to the program-then download it. It is great at monitoring all the "behind the scenes" activity of your computer. Including DLL files beign used and corrupted(DLL=dynamic link libraries). It does much more. Give it a try, even if it does not solve this particular problem it is a nice piece of free software to add stability to your system.

swami12 · Post by **swami12** » Thu Jul 19, 2001 4:29 am

Christian,

I have a 500 Mhz Pentium 3

ATI Rage 128 Vid Card

128 MB RAM

Bing · Post by **Bing** » Thu Jul 19, 2001 5:49 am

Christian - Definitely make some more free space on your HD. You probably ought to have minimum of 500 Megs, more if you can manage it. Windows wants a lot of room to fiddle with the swap file and other system files, these days anything less than about a Gig of free space can be asking for trouble. This might not fix your problem, it certainly won't cure fallen arches or dandruff, but it is the first area I would go to.

Bing

Christian Blex · Post by **Christian Blex** » Thu Jul 19, 2001 10:02 pm

Thanks parusski, I will try it.
I have two HD in my computer, one with Windows 98 SE on it (around 160MB free) and one with SPWaW on it (around 250 MB free). One which one shall I try to free some space? Swami 12, as you do not have the same hardware than I, are you at least short an HD space like I am?

Christian Blex · Post by **Christian Blex** » Thu Jul 19, 2001 10:05 pm

Oh parusski, are you sure about the link? Just tried it, the page was not found. I will try it later.

swami12 · Post by **swami12** » Fri Jul 20, 2001 3:05 am

No I have at least 6.5 gig og free Hard Drive space!

parusski · Post by **parusski** » Fri Jul 20, 2001 5:01 am

Christian the link is nonags.com. I belong to nonagplus.com(pay site) but nonags.com is free-with fewer features-but still great. I just now tried the site and nonags.com worked for me. try again, they get so many hits per day that sometimes their website will not open. Good luck

Bing · Post by **Bing** » Fri Jul 20, 2001 5:41 am

Originally posted by parusski:
Christian the link is nonags.com. I belong to nonagplus.com(pay site) but nonags.com is free-with fewer features-but still great. I just now tried the site and nonags.com worked for me. try again, they get so many hits per day that sometimes their website will not open. Good luck

Same here, it took me a few tries to get in during peak period. Good site, thank you for the rec. I have AntiCrash and it looks good.

May I ask a question? Whast would membership in NoNags do for me? Thanks,

Bing

Jasper · Post by **Jasper** » Fri Jul 20, 2001 6:31 am

I have this problem previous and discovered that the cause comes from my sound card which I reconfigured it. It works fine. Look into the Interrupts of ur sound card.

Bing · Post by **Bing** » Fri Jul 20, 2001 7:03 pm

Parusski - Sorry for a somewhat OT here. Could you drop me al line regarding what membership in NoNags does, the benefits and so on. Thanks,

Bing
bing2@avci.net

parusski · Post by **parusski** » Fri Jul 20, 2001 10:22 pm

Christian, as some have suggested you should free up as much hard drive space as possible. I reccomend 500-700 megabytes on the drive the game is on. You should also check your swap file in windows properties and manually set it to max=250megabytes, min=250megabytes. By setting the swap file max and min the same you will get better performance. And not having enough free space can cause windows to crash with some apps. I just noticed you have 192 mb ram. THis could be a BIG problem. Chances are good that the ram chips are not the same speed in nanoseconds. I had a computer once where I too had 192mb ram and had great stability problems. So, I removed the 64mb chip and things cleared up(and slowed down a little). I saved my money and bought two new 128mb chips of the same make and speed and this made a HUGE difference. Let me know if this helps. By the way, how much does memory cost in Germany. What about new hard drives? I just bought two 256MB chips for my new computer for a total of $170.00U.S., and a new 60 gigabyte hard drive for $219.00(after rebate). Not bragging, would just love to know what the comparative costs are where you live. David

Christian Blex · Post by **Christian Blex** » Sun Jul 22, 2001 5:39 pm

Hi David, thanks again for your advices. I realy do not think it is a memory problem, both memory chips have the same performance. More interesting, I checked the hard disk space on me old computer (K6-266, 64mb ram, Soundblaster 16), it was only around 100mb, and the game runs fine, although a little slowy (so you always recognize when you were spotted by enemy units while moving!) Nevertheless, I will upgrade my system in the near future: A DVD player is next on the shopping list (around 150DM ($67)). A 256mb no-name memory chip (SDRAM) is around 190 DM (this is ca. $85.)and around 260DM (i.d. $116) if it is DDR ram. A 60gb hard drive cost between 400DM ($180) and 520 DM($232) depending on the model. Interesting the prizes are about the same you had to pay. The Euro (and so the DM as it is not an independent currency any longer. My beloved Deutsche Mark will choose to exist around February 2002 for this Euro

) has became very weak (one USD is worth around 1,15 Euro). Well, this is a different story...
The sound card explaination seems interesting to me casper.
I have a Soundblaster 128 (Creative CT5880) on board. I deactivated it under Windows, and the whole game didn't even start! Before reaching the main menu, the game crashes and I was back on the Windows desktop! I've downloaded the latest driver from Creative, but it did not work at all!!!!
So I had to reinstall the original dirver (from the board CD-rom).
What must I change in the sound card settings, casper? There were no Interrupts problems displayed.

parusski · Post by **parusski** » Mon Jul 23, 2001 2:56 am

OK Christian, this is getting under my skin. I am half finished with a Master of Science in Computer Science and should be able to solve you problem. So, when the game crashes do you get the "blue screen of death", any "fatal error" messages, any "exception error" messages-anything. I need to know before this drives me batty. Give me a more detailed description of what happens. Also, did you install any other program or piece of harware just before installing SPWAW? If so, this could be causing a conflict in you "config", "registry files" or "startup" files. Just give me some more clues my friend-I need them. David.

Christian Blex · Post by **Christian Blex** » Mon Jul 23, 2001 8:09 pm

David, if only I had any clues!!
When I start the MC-game and play or just wait for a while the game crashes: In the menu, the sound and text(documents, orders) disapear. After trying to start a battle, the map is not loaded (a "game failed to load" messages appears in the SPWaW game information windows (with the name of the unit, its remaining shots, etc). The map is completely black, also the unit are on the map (some with icon, some without.) The ordering menu on the right side has just the "preferences" and the "help" button! I can move the mouse, etc.(see my earlier discriptions). As the "exit" button has disapeared(when I started the game and play it for a while) or never appeared(after the "game has failed to load" message) I have to press "Ctrl"+"Alt"+"Del" to close the game. Being back on the windows desktop (no "fatal errors" etc. ) any other program runs fine!!!
I did not install any other hardware before I have installed SPWaW for the first time.
Sorry, but I just cannot give more detailed information. What do you think about my sound card. Can this be the key to my problem??
Again, thanks for your efforts, David.

parusski · Post by **parusski** » Wed Jul 25, 2001 9:48 pm

Christian, many people find what I am about to say as crazy. But many times there is only one solution to some crazy behaviour of a windows program-re-installing windows. I do not mean re-formatting your hard drive. Just insert your windows 98 cd and install it again, over your current edition. This will repair whatever files are damaged and or missing. back up any programs you do not want to lose and do this. Let me know.

Larry Holt · Post by **Larry Holt** » Wed Jul 25, 2001 10:09 pm

Two utilities to try: SFC.exe comes with WIN98 & checks for system file changes.

Also Regcleaner (NOT regclean) works with 98 to clean out vestiges from old programs. I found it from a referal on this forum. After I delete a program & reboot I run it and often find zombie entries in the registry that it can clean out. So uninstall SPWAW, reboot, run regcleaner, reboot & reinstall SPWAW.

Its at http://www.jv16.org/

Unfortunately if your problem is not with the operating system, these tips will not help but you might try them. Have you tried running it with the 64MB RAM chip out?

Larry Holt · Post by **Larry Holt** » Wed Jul 25, 2001 10:19 pm

Oh, I forgot to mention: setting the swap space manuall (min & max to 250 was mentioned) removes the overhead that windows has to do to dynamically grow & shrink it. If your system had little free HD space then letting windows manage it is most effecient. If you can afford to give up hundres of MB of disk space (ususally not a problem when you have tens of gigs on your HD) then a fixed size can speed up your system.

Also the recommendation for swap space to be twice your RAM is an old UNIX convention when RAM was scarce & that I am not sure applies to large Windows systems (gigs of HD & over 100MB RAM). To be sure, run up a typical set of apps and look at your memory monitor (different for W98 & W2000) to see how much swap space it in use. Optimally you should buy enough RAM to not be using any sap space but baring that, set the swap space large enough to not fill up.

Christian Blex · Post by **Christian Blex** » Thu Jul 26, 2001 8:34 pm

Hi I've just bought a new 40gb hard drive.

I' reinstalling my system at the moment (with Windows Me). This will take some time. I'll inform you, if SPWaW will run or not. Thanks for your help.