SpWaW Crashes to desktop, I can recreate the gripe continuously<more>

[gainiac]

Great game.....I love it.....

I'm running an Alienware Aurora DDR, XP2000 Cpu, 512 meg of DDR, Geforce2, Soundblaster Audigy........

Anyway, I start the Solitaire campaign as the Wehrmacht, purchase my force, purchase support force for the first battle and deploy.

I start the battle and advance towards the enemy. Everything works fine up until I'm within retaliation range of the enemy.

As soon as I hit the next turn button and an enemy opens fire the game immediately drops to desktop.

Annoying but consistently.

Needless to say it's driving me bonkers.

Any help would be appreciated.

thanks for a great game though,

Marty

[gainiac]

Ntxt.

[john g]

Originally posted by gainiac
Great game.....I love it.....

I'm running an Alienware Aurora DDR, XP2000 Cpu, 512 meg of DDR, Geforce2, Soundblaster Audigy........

Anyway, I start the Solitaire campaign as the Wehrmacht, purchase my force, purchase support force for the first battle and deploy.

I start the battle and advance towards the enemy. Everything works fine up until I'm within retaliation range of the enemy.

As soon as I hit the next turn button and an enemy opens fire the game immediately drops to desktop.

Annoying but consistently.

Needless to say it's driving me bonkers.

Any help would be appreciated.

thanks for a great game though,

Marty

Was your opponent for that battle the UK? I know I had the same problem when testing the beta 7.0x versions when doing a UK campaign.

I could play battles and 3-4 turns into it the game would drop, but if I saved each turn sometimes I could make it thru, or if I loaded a save I could often make it thru, though my system is perhaps more finicky than most, it would yugo with the mcdf, it would try to sync with other players with 7.0 but with the 7.1 beta it seems very stable, just the occasional problem when a there is an underlying problem with an early version scenario

[gainiac]

It doesn't happen every turn, just almost every turn, no matter what the scenario/ campaign is or the enemy. this is quite a bug....................Anyone have any ideas???

Marty

[Paul Vebber]

Trying all the sound effects off.

What OS are you using?

[Svennemir]

There seems to be more than one thread about this, and Ill copy-paste my input from the other one:


I think I have some valuable informations about this bug since I'm experiencing it myself.

Last week I bought a new motherboard (ECS K7S5A) and new processor (AMD Duron 1200MHz). With that was a built-in sound card.

I reinstalled Windows 98.

After that I have experienced the sudden, random desktop crashes without warning or error. This occured in both PBEM's I have been playing since then (UK vs GE and GE vs SO) and also against the AI. If I create a new game, the desktop crash can occur both in BUY phase and in the game. Both in version 7.0 and the 7.1 beta I have installed the problem has been there.

I tried reinstalling SPWAW v7.0. Didn't work.

I tried reinstalling Windows 98. Didn't work. (current install had certain other problems as well)

I tried reinstalling SPWAW 7.0 again. Didn't work.

It never happened with my K6-2 400MHz.

Would it be necessary to state that I'm P*SSED OFF?

End of copy-paste.

I've also tried deleting steel.prf and turning sound off.

The following should describe my current state of mind:

[john g]

Originally posted by Svennemir
There seems to be more than one thread about this, and Ill copy-paste my input from the other one:


I think I have some valuable informations about this bug since I'm experiencing it myself.

Last week I bought a new motherboard (ECS K7S5A) and new processor (AMD Duron 1200MHz). With that was a built-in sound card.

I reinstalled Windows 98.

Are you saying that you reused the same video card and hard drives from your old comp just with a new cpu and mobo?

Are you using the improved sound set? I know I have problems with my system if I try to run some programs with 8 bit sound (like C&C Renegade) but have never had problems with 16 bit sound. I could be a problem with the built in sound not functioning with the normal sound files.

You might want to get everything stable first then see if SPWAW works. I think some people have had problems with DX8.1 as well, I am holding at 8.0a.
thanks, John.

[gainiac]

I'm using XP home........Version 7.1 of the game.

Sometimes it crashes when I fire at someone.

So this problem seems to be triggered by "firing" events.

I'll see if it happens from the target selection/firing screen.

This is a real nefarious one, I've been able to go 3/4 turns without it happening.

I've got all the latest game updates installed, incuding the sound update.

thanks,

Marty

[Ross Moorhouse]

What other games do you have that are also crashing?

[gainiac]

No other games I own are crashing at all...........

Marty

[Svennemir]

Just recently tried playing Indiana Jones & the Fate of Atlantis. The game also has some strange, random desktop crashes but here there is an error message (standard "has performed an illegal operation").

One could suspect CPU temperature to cause this as they seem to occur when I've been playing for some time, but I must say I'm not sure here.

It doesn't crash when I play Counter-Strike, perhaps CS doesn't use the CPU so much? But then, why should it crash when playing Fate of Atlantis which runs on a 33MHz machine?

[Arralen]

Check for CPU usage.
SPWAW runs with 100% all the time - something what cannot be avoided because it origins in the DOS roots of the game engine.

All DOS games, and most of those portet to Windows show this behaviour, while native Win32 games may request only those CPU cycley they really need - but I have seen lots of them running at 100% all the time as well ...

A.

[john g]

Originally posted by Arralen
Check for CPU usage.
SPWAW runs with 100% all the time - something what cannot be avoided because it origins in the DOS roots of the game engine.

All DOS games, and most of those portet to Windows show this behaviour, while native Win32 games may request only those CPU cycley they really need - but I have seen lots of them running at 100% all the time as well ...

A.

It might run with 100% of what is left available, but it will tolerate other programs running in the background. I have run Agent and newsbin, and downloaded files all while playing spwaw.
thanks, John.

[Paul Vebber]

gainiac - did turning the sound effects off have any effect? OR try moving all teh sound files to a temp directory so it can't even try to play them.

If turning the sound effect off prevents the crashes, then its a problem of your sound card not being entirely compatible.

Running in WIN98 compatibility mode under XP may help this. May not.

Also always use teh alt-L combat.txt logging to see if the same unit firing (or target fired at) is consistant.

[gainiac]

I've been away for a couple of days.....

I'm going to re-install the game and try your suggestion if I keep running into this problem.

I'm using a Soundblaster Audigy card......

Thanks,

Marty

[Arralen]

Originally posted by Arralen
Check for CPU usage.
SPWAW runs with 100% all the time - something what cannot be avoided because it origins in the DOS roots of the game engine.
Originally posted by john g
It might run with 100% of what is left available, but it will tolerate other programs running in the background. I have run Agent and newsbin, and downloaded files all while playing spwaw.
thanks, John.

But 100% usage is 100% usage - and willl generate heat and use power accordingly, both of which could be a problem with a high- or overlcoaked AMD CPU.

A.

[young turk]

for what it's worth, i have the identical problem that ganiac is having, a seemingly random crash to desktop when small arms fire. it happens right at the moment i expect the sound to be played. i am running xp. i will try the suggestions, and see if any of them help. seems like a sound problem to me.

strangely, i ran the program for a couple of months prior to 7.1, and i do not remember ever having this problem, although i now have it quite consistently.

[mogami]

I had my first ever Blue Screen crash while running SPWaW online game yesturday. Happened when I ended my turn. However today I ran a longer/larger online battle with no problem at all.
The first thing I would do:
Start
Programs
Accessaries
System Tools
System Config
Start Up

uncheck all but what is required to boot machine (turn of all TSR)

now restart computer and try game.

If no crash redo all the above and recheck one item you turned off
keep repeating till crash

[gainiac]

Fully patched up to 7.0, including sounds. No problems, no crashes except for every once in a while I get a, "waiting to sync with other player" hang....... no big deal from what I remeber this happens with this version.

Other than that the game runs without a hitch.

Any ideas?



thanks

Marty

[Supervisor]

Upgrading to ver 7.1 will fix the waiting to sync problem.