game-ending bugs after installing 1.01 patch

[Puercoespin2]

Hi

The game seemed to run smoothly before installing the update patch. I cannot remember suffering any bugs or crashes

After upgrading to 1.01 I have not been able to reach the end of an scenario.

The bug report seems to appear when artillery resolution is developed, both against combat units or when "stonking" HQs, though not always.

A bug report window in XP format -a bit surprinsing cause I run 98SE- allows me to continue sometimes. The same bug happens again and again until you cannot advance any more.

I have uninstalled and installed again several times and it is always the same. Do you want me to produce a couple of bugs and send you the report?

[Erik Rutins]

Yes, please. Any more specific info you can provide would be helpful. If you are willing, a save or procedure to replicate the situation would be ideal.

I'm sorry to hear of the problem 1.01 has caused on your system. Does 1.00 continue to work well - in other words have you tried reinstalling to 1.00 and seeing if the problems disappear?

Regards,

- Erik

[Puercoespino]

Hi again

I am the same Puercoespin2, but I had to register again because I could not log in as Puercoespin2 for unknown reasons. Sorry for the inconvience until I fix whatever is wrong with my account

Yes, I uninstalled and tried again with just 1.0.0. Everything seemed OK with 1.0.0. Problem seems to be only when updated

Here are a few saves of the bugs and a game. Please ask for more if in need. I have plenty of bugs!

There is another type of bug that I couldnt save, but It doesnt worry me too much because it I can continue the scenarios. It is a message that reads like this:

[font="Arial"]error
sorry, could not find file: graphics\FPG Hit3.bmpl[/font]

It can be the same but substitute for [font="Arial"]Miss2.bmpl, or Hit2.bmpl[/font]

Thanks for your help

[IronManBeta]

I'll grab this file and give it a peek when I am back on my main development machine. Thanks for taking the trouble to post it here.

Cheers, Rob.

[IronManBeta]

Well, a month has gone by and Puercoespino had to tactfuly remind me to look into this again. Sorry about that!

The debug files that you uploaded are very helpful. The problem in a nutshell is that the game is running out of key Windows resources like bitmap handles. Flashpoint uses rather a lot of them during combat resolution and Win98SE has a somewhat limited supply. This is not a problem with Win2000 and up but it is a huge problem with the early versions of Windows.

I have repeatedly rewritten the code to reduce Windows resource usage and I believe that it runs well on a fairly clean Win98SE session. If you run into these bugs / crashes make sure that as many other Windows programs as possible are closed. Ideally you could reboot the machine and go straight into Flashpoint Germany. You should have no problems if you do that.

We are trying really hard to still support Win98SE and I have a major set of changes in progress with version 1.03 that might help some more with resource usage. (1.02 has yet to come out and will likely not make a big difference to you.) The biggest thing you can do by far is just make sure that as little else is running at the same time.

I have had one other report of the same sort of problem under Win98SE. That is two reports too many, but not exactly a tidal wave either. I don't believe there were very many resource usage increases from verison 1.00 to 1.01 so please try upgrading again and then running it as I suggest. Post any further problems here.

Thank you for your patience! I really appreciate it.

Cheers, Rob.

[Puercoespin2]

Robert, I followed your advice, but got no better results than before.


However, a few days later I updated to 1.02 and it seems to run perfect again!

So please check this problem as fixed. Thank you very much for your help and adequate Matrix support -as usual