Combatting Crashes?

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Combatting Crashes? - 5/26/2010 6:33:03 PM

Astax
Matrix Trooper

Posts: 126
Joined: 5/17/2010
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Just now I got the courage to get back into a game that crashed few hours ago, I'm dominating and I'm very far along. But the game crashed so I took few hours break because I just hate having to redo everything once I load autosave. So, I finally got the courage to do it, I load it up and realize I have to re queue all my resort bases that I was building before last crash. Plus the minor refueling of all fleets I have. I set all that in motion. Redesign my resort base also. And I'm good to go, just about ready to continue from where I left off... then BAM! Another crash. This is ridiculous. Now I'm mad as hell, decided to take few more hours off,, maybe I will have the will to try it again, or maybe I'll start a new game. Even at 10 minute autosaves, it's still a pain. The saves themselves take up to 1 minute, so really lowering the autosave timer is hardly an option when you already spend 10% of your time saving.

So I ask you: What can I do to help combat crashes? It's getting ridiculous to a point where I quit most games in progress cause of frustration. Is there some program I can grab to report these crashes so they at least get patched? Cause I'm going out of my mind here.

Post #: 1

RE: Combatting Crashes? - 5/26/2010 6:40:17 PM

Simulation01
Matrix Hero

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Joined: 5/12/2010
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Do you have the latest patches? Were you doing anything special or different than you normally do in a game when it crashed? Have you played a game of Distant Worlds that didn't crash? Have you added any special content or customizations that you are playing with when it crashed?

I'm not a developer...I'm just a player, but if my game was crashing....and it has.....then those are the things I'd ask myself and people are going to need to know in order to help. My problem was a customization issue, which I fixed.

(in reply to Astax)

Post #: 2

RE: Combatting Crashes? - 5/26/2010 7:09:36 PM

Astax
Matrix Trooper

Posts: 126
Joined: 5/17/2010
Status: offline

I have the troop icon mod and weapons fire mod, nothing too big. Also all games crash, it's jsut a matter of when. But smaller games seem to crash more often, which is weird.I have 1.0.4.9 patch.

(in reply to Simulation01)

Post #: 3

RE: Combatting Crashes? - 5/26/2010 7:37:58 PM

taltamir
Matrix Elite Guard

Posts: 1290
Joined: 4/2/2010
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1. make a clean install of v1.0.4.9 (uninstall, delete the app data for codeforce and the leftovers in the distant worlds directory)
2. start a new game with 1.0.4.9 (a lot of problems remain from previous games); example, in 1.0.4.8 the game would retire my ships and not build any, i submitted it and a fix was made based on the save I uploaded included in 1.0.4.9... however, 1.0.4.9 used to play that game still had said bug! Only when I started a new game it went away. So while it technically can open older saves, it is a really bad idea to do so.
3. limit yourself to 250 star galaxies (those contain about 700-750 colonizable planets/moons each) until 1.05 (which will supposedly make drastic improvements to save/load times and size); this also help keep down your ram requirements and prevents crashes (although, I have managed to play 1400 star galaxies, its a bit of the chore with the crashes and mostly the incredibly long save/load times)
4. do not install graphics mods, they increase ram requirements too much and cause the game to crash even on 250 stars.

I daresay that doing the above I actually have a stable game. I played several games in 1.0.4.9 without crashes... (I personally upload 35 save games for bug reports, many of which were due to a crash... and most were fixed within a day; My last 3 games were in 1.0.4.9, the last two I managed to conquer the entire galaxy on 1.0.4.9 without a single crash... the one before it did have some crashes, due to the high res graphics... and when I say high res I mean replacing the games 800x800 textures by 5000x5000 textures... going from 0.64 megapixel to 25 megapixel)

An advantage of 250 star galaxies is QUICK save and load times... which means you can set auto-save to every 10 minutes. 1.05 is said to drastically improve save/load times... so I would move to larger galaxies there. (even if it crashes, as long as I have a very recent save game it isn't a problem... with fast enough autosave id even set it to every 5 minutes)

< Message edited by taltamir -- 5/26/2010 7:46:32 PM >

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Post #: 4

RE: Combatting Crashes? - 5/26/2010 8:05:09 PM

Astax
Matrix Trooper

Posts: 126
Joined: 5/17/2010
Status: offline

1) I have installed the game about 10 times now to fix various persisting problems. Latest reinstall was last night. Where I had to reinstall the whole .NET frameworks, because regular reinstall did not fix the problem!
2)The game is new, started in 1.0.4.9, less than 2 days ago.
3) In games 250 or less there is a greater chance of a bug with the background where the game fails to load it properly during gameplay. The backdrop is replaced with a white box with red lines in form of an X over it, results in a crash. On tiny galaxy, which I would prefer, this occurs no later than 20 minutes into any game. As final resort I have been playing 400 star galaxies, much to my dismay, and the bug is fairly under control.
4) The graphics files tend to be same size or less (I dont install the 2kx2k, and I may even make a small pure black background file thats 40x40 pixels :). . Plus I find the game unbearable without the troop mod. IMO it should be incorporated into the game, it's just that damn good.

I do play with auto save on 10 minutes. Still frequent crashes every 30-40 mintues can really put a damper on your gameplay! Worst part is that seldom do I get any form of indication what went wrong. I just get the same popup about application encoutnering error and my 2 choices are debug or close. And debug option does not work.

Thnx for your thoughts. If anyone knows where we can get some sort of a debug/reporting tool that the devs can use to fix the crashes, I would be happy to send reports.

(in reply to taltamir)

Post #: 5

RE: Combatting Crashes? - 5/26/2010 8:14:45 PM

taltamir
Matrix Elite Guard

Posts: 1290
Joined: 4/2/2010
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quote:

4) The graphics files tend to be same size or less (I dont install the 2kx2k, and I may even make a small pure black background file thats 40x40 pixels :). . Plus I find the game unbearable without the troop mod. IMO it should be incorporated into the game, it's just that damn good.

The troop mod is fine, I am using troop mod and even star trek mod... but combining some other more intensive GFX mods caused crashes.
which are you specifically using?

quote:

I do play with auto save on 10 minutes. Still frequent crashes every 30-40 mintues can really put a damper on your gameplay!

That was the case for me with v1 @ 1400 stars... but with 1.0.4.5 I went down to a crash every 8 hours and with 1.0.4.9 I had no crashes at all with the exception of that one game with the GFX mods. (I was using every single GFX mod I could get my hands on, all together)... i scaled it back to the star trek mod only and the troop mod and it was fine...

The troop mod is really cool in concept, but implementation is a bit problematic because its too small to actually properly SEE what is going on with the troops, the colors are a big confusing on whether they are ready or under construction.
The game was designed with that being an eventual thing to add, because the game uses by default a different "picture" for each race's troops, it simply has 20 copies of the exact same picture by default to get them to have the same picture. I am not sure if that is because they noticed it was a bit confusing to have different troop pictures, or because they didn't get around to creating the art (the former makes more sense).

So I ask, what type of GFX mods do you have and what is the specific stuff the crash says? And what is your OS?

< Message edited by taltamir -- 5/26/2010 8:15:14 PM >

_____________________________

I do not have a superman complex; for I am God, not Superman.

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Post #: 6

RE: Combatting Crashes? - 5/26/2010 8:33:18 PM

Astax
Matrix Trooper

Posts: 126
Joined: 5/17/2010
Status: offline

Other than the troop mod I replaced the effects in weapons folder with the weapons mod. I just tried a dwarf game and as soon as I started I got anotehr error related to the issue I posted in #3. This one is getting on my nerves so badly I posted it on tech forum. I assume its not at my end because it's wierd behavior. But it could be, I don't know. Hopefully if others have same problem they will post so I can be reassured.

(in reply to taltamir)

Post #: 7

RE: Combatting Crashes? - 5/26/2010 8:43:15 PM

taltamir
Matrix Elite Guard

Posts: 1290
Joined: 4/2/2010
Status: offline

i am not having any such problems in a 250 star galaxy (tiny)... i haven't played dwarf (100 stars) in a while (I used to for a little while) but I don't recall that problem there.

_____________________________

I do not have a superman complex; for I am God, not Superman.

(in reply to Astax)

Post #: 8