Problem: Game works fine in Tutorial but crashes after scenario selection

[SchlauFuchs]

Hi!

Seems I'm not the only one who has this problem, but as I'm not sure where the latest thread about that is I post a new one, sorry :rolleyes:

I can play the tutorial without trouble, but the game crashes at once after I select a Scenario/Campaign. Sometimes it just dissappears from screen, sometimes the Visual Debugger wants to catch it for debug.

My system in a short preview: AMD 64 3200+ with 2GB Ram, with Geforce 6600 and Soundblaster Audigy. Win XP with all patches. CotN with patch 1.2, german

I phoned the technical support hotline from Sega in Germany today, leaving me with a phone bill 5 times more expensive than the price of the game when purchased, but no success. We have done this allready:

- Replaced the NVidia driver with most current
- Replaced NForce4 drivers with most current
- reinstalled the game with patches
- removed ALL background programms while starting
- removed ALL background programms while installing and starting

I also replaced the sound card drivers with the latest I found at soundblaster.com.

So any suggestions left?

I attached the dxdiag for analysis.

Kind regards,
SF

[Manni]

Tremendous efforts taken!!! :eek:

Try this:

Go from your Current Mode: 1600 x 1200 (32 bit) (100Hz) to 1024 x768 16 bit and 60 Hz..................and have a try.

You have a lot of drives (partitions)there...........which is CotN installed on?

Before starting the game........do switch off the virus-guard in systray.

[SchlauFuchs]

Hi, Manni,

Same problem when using 1024x768x16 in display settings. BTW I allready experimented with the video settings of CotN between best quality and best performance and in different resolutions, no success.

CotN is installed on E: here (C: is my System Disk, limited size, D: is my programm partition, it is also mapped to C:/Program files - and almost full. E: Is reserved for games, F: is for personal data (Documents and Settings are directed to there, so I have all important data separated from reinstallable binaries, G: is my download drive, everything I download goes there for archiving or reviewing. H: is for backups and I: for video editing. Then there are 2 real and two virtual CD/DVD-Rom drives)

Maybe somebody could analyze what is the big difference between starting a tutorial game and starting a scenario? As I never have seen a scenario starting so I just can guess. Is there a video played? Is there extra memory reserved? Is a IP connection to a server initiated? Is there a malfunctioning copy protection?

ciao!
SF

[Manni]

Hello SchlauerFuchs,

which drive is XP-prof installed on?
on which drive is the page-file (der virtuelle Arbeitsspeicher) situated?

What size did you arrange the vitual-page-file?

[Manni]

Same problem when using 1024x768x16 in display settings. BTW I allready experimented with the video settings of CotN between best quality and best performance and in different resolutions, no success.
Pity!

CotN is installed on E

But E is very tight! Look: E: Free Space: 0.7 GB Total Space: 29.5 GB



Then there are 2 real and two virtual CD/DVD-Rom drives)
Sorry but you`ll have to get rid of those virtual drives for the time being, CotN does not "like" those.


Is there extra memory reserved? Certainly yes!

[SchlauFuchs]

XP is installed on C:\ . As I have 2GB RAM I reduced virtual memory to 256MB (fix) on partition T:\

[SchlauFuchs]

0.7GB free mem is still 700 Megabyte available! When I arranged my partitions It wasn't usual for games to reserve 1GB hard disk space each in minimum. My TheSims2 + Addons directory takes about 6GB now...

I'll try to disable the virtual disks for now. Let's see...

[Manni]

XP is installed on C:\ . As I have 2GB RAM I reduced virtual memory to 256MB (fix) on partition T:\

Righton! XP on C . That looks very tight to me there! Please do clean the TEMP-folder in C/windows!

As I have 2GB RAM I reduced virtual memory to 256MB (fix) on partition T
Very well.......placing virtual memory on T, but why reduced?

I also have 2024 physical Ram and have set it to Anfangsgröße=3800
and Maximagröße=3800

Please set the same figures like on the picture below, reboot and PLEASE defrag T straight away! :)

Then try the game!

[Manni]

Have a look!

By the way.........while defragging..........do not do anything else on the pc...........just let it work.

[SchlauFuchs]

resized virtual memory to 2GB - negative.
cleaned C: (now free: 814MB) - negative.
removed virtual CDs (one can't be removed without completely deinstalling it (VirtualCD V7 requires at least on drive)) - negative.

[Manni]

Please arrange your virtual Ram on partition T exactly like seen on the screenshot! :)

[SchlauFuchs]

BTW - this is after all the first game which is such incompatible to my settings/installation - never had such problems before - and playing games since 386 era.

[SchlauFuchs]

Please arrange your virtual Ram on partition T exactly like seen on the screenshot! :)

impossible - T has just 2GB space. And I believe that should be enough.

[Manni]

BTW - this is after all the first game which is such incompatible to my settings/installation - never had such problems before - and playing games since 386 era.
I believe you!
But if you`d fully read thru the Tech-Threat you would find more examples like yours. :p

[Manni]

impossible - T has just 2GB space. And I believe that should be enough.
Then place the Virtual Ram on some other drive. Faustformel besagt: Virtual kann bis zweifach der ECHT-Ram gesetzt werden. :)

[Manni]

Try this..........
find the Hardwarebeschleunigung at your Nvidia-settings and set in down ONE notch.........try the game. :)

The sceenie shows the same for my ATI-card. Should be simular to your Nvidia.

[SchlauFuchs]

Then place the Virtual Ram on some other drive. Faustformel besagt: Virtual kann bis zweifach der ECHT-Ram gesetzt werden. :)

Faustformel is deprecated. Was a good choice when computer systems had about 32MB Ram. :D I purchased 2GB ram to reduce the time my PC needs to store/load stuff from virtual memory (takes 1000x longer)

[SchlauFuchs]

Try this..........
find the Hardwarebeschleunigung at your Nvidia-settings and set in down ONE notch.........try the game. :)


didn't help.

[Manni]

Wait a second.............Keith is about ;)

[Keith]

You may just have to bite the bullet and free up some physical space on the C: drive and install it there. Many people have had problems with as little as 1GB of free space. 2 or 3GB would be better.

[SchlauFuchs]

that's not a bullet, it's a cannonball. My C: partition has only 5GB, 3.7GB used by XP. Another 500Mb is used in I386. there is nothing I can do beside of a complete reorganization of my harddisk. More probably a complete new installation.

[Keith]

You can try it on another physical partition that has been cleared. I don't think your going to get the virtual partitions to work with CotN.

[SchlauFuchs]

that means clearing some GB on E: where it is curently installed could help?

[MarkDuffy]

I am not a technical person by any means, however my COTN is installed on my D: partition.

(Forget I was ever here)

[Keith]

As long as there is nothing else causing a problem, clearing more space, at least 1 or 2 GB, would probably help.

I run CotN on XP Pro here too, but on a Intel P4 3Ghz, and only one C: drive that is not partitioned.

[SchlauFuchs]

I cleared 4GB on E: where it is installed - negative.

[Manni]

I don't think your going to get the virtual partitions to work with CotN.
My words! ;)

[Keith]

It has to be all those virtual partitions then. That's all I think it can be.

BTW, The FAQ states 1.1 GB uncompressed free hard drive space is required as a minimum.

[Manni]

I cleared 4GB on E: where it is installed - negative.
I feel like being on a bazar............:)

[SchlauFuchs]

So I killed now some files in C:\Windows (nobody needs that stuff anyway :D ) and now I have 1.3GB free on c:
- negative.

[Keith]

That only leaves all those virtual partitions.

[SchlauFuchs]

BTW, thank you all for caring for me :-)

[SchlauFuchs]

what exactly means "virtual" here?

[Keith]

Vitual refers to memory. I believe you mentioned you have VirtualCD installed. That could be contributing factor. The SecuROM security software on the game CD doesn't like things that let the game run on memory drives. In some cases you can't even install the game until you remove those sorts of utilities.

It is too bad that the game doesn't have the Launch Analysis utility that the Zeus and Emperor had. That would make a snapshot file of your system configuration that you email to securom for them to look over to determine if there is a SecuROM conflict with something on your system.

Since CotN doesn't have that function there's no way to do that.

[SchlauFuchs]

But the securom check is usually done when starting the game. My crash happens only when starting a scenario - the tutorials went fine.

[Keith]

The tutorial maps are quite small. The later game maps can be large and this will cause the game to crash on some systems.

You may have to reduce all the ingame settings to minimum and OFF just to see if the game crashes and the slowly increase the settings until the game starts crashing again. This goes for both the audio and graphic settings.

[SchlauFuchs]

I tried that already - negative even with minimum settings. BTW my graphics card has 256MB Ram...

[Keith]

Well, the only thing I can think of then is that its the way you have your hard drive configured that is somehow causing these problems. I am not sure why, but that's about the only thing left.

Have you tried installing the game on on another machine just to make sure that there is nothing wrong with the installer process?

[SchlauFuchs]

I currently don't have another PC to test that. But installer worked without problems an the patch did fine, too.

I've found another crash problem. If I don't select the campaign but a scenario form the list, the game freezes. I can't switch back with ALT-TAB or other combinations.

[Keith]

You might want to try the attached program called Everest Home Edition. It's no longer offered by the author, but it provides more info about your system than the Dxdiag utlity does.

[SchlauFuchs]

Ok, I made a report and attached it.

[mouse]

There is very little free space on any of your drives/partitions which could prevent the game from running properly. The Everest report doesn't show what driver you using for your video card.

[SchlauFuchs]

There is very little free space on any of your drives/partitions which could prevent the game from running properly.
It's true some drives are full. But I believe not percentage of free space is relevant but free size in MB. Drive C: as system drive has 1.4GB free, Drive E: as Installation path has 3.4GB free, Drive F: (holds "Documents and Settings" and temp folder) has 8.4GB free.
The Everest report doesn't show what driver you using for your video card.
It does:
nv4_disp (6.14.10.9131 - nVIDIA ForceWare 91.31)

[mouse]

Free space is very important on both the system drive (windows needs room to move files around) and the drive where the game is installed. Windows likes to have 20% free space (if nothing else for defrag and page file movement). CotN needs space for install and file movement it's a very demanding on hardware game. It also needs a DX 9 compatible video card. Just because you can install DX 9 doesn't mean you card is DX 9 compatible. Don't think CotN was tested with forceware drivers you might need to install standard drivers for your video card. Other things that usually help games run well is all drives defragged and all junk files cleaned off the system drive.

[Amenirdis]

Forceware are Nvidia's standard drivers.

Schlaufuchs:
Have you ever tried using the old 61.77 drivers for your card?

[SchlauFuchs]

I had this idea, too, but where to get drivers about 2 years old?

[Amenirdis]

Nvidia's homepage has their old drivers archived. You can get the 61.77 here:

http://www.nvidia.com/object/winxp_2k_61.77.html

[SchlauFuchs]

61.77 has indeed 2 years birthday in 12 days :-)

I'll try but I hope this doesn't affect my other games.

[SchlauFuchs]

Hi,

I'm not perfectly sure, but I think 81.95 was where I started before Sega hotline told me to get recent drivers...

add-on harddrive? I'm not sure. The only thing similar to an add-on drive is my SATA-disk, and it is mounted fix into the case. Do you mean this?

Ciao!
SF

[arcan]

try that, and also if you have a software like alcohool120% that creates virtual drives.

[SchlauFuchs]

[COLOR="LightBlue"][SIZE="4"]Just going by what your DxDiag shows. Your H and I drives are "Laufwerk" with no number where all the others are "Maxtor 6B300S0", so I can't say where it is, but that might be your problem. If you can disable the drive using the H and I partitions, that's what I meant as it's not part of your original systme.

I'm not sure why this is saying just "Laufwerk", these are just normal hard disks, both are Maxtor AFAIK. Nothing virtual. Maybe some registry problem? Can't tell how to fix that.

[Keith]

I believe Phil was thinking that you had a plugin USB or similar drive and the you should try disconnecting it in the event the drivers for it might be causing a problem.

You can try the older Nvidia drivers, at least it is something else to try. Make sure you always uninstall the current drivers first.

Other than the partitions you have on your hard drive and the decided lack of freespace I don't know what else could be causing your problem.

[SchlauFuchs]

Hi,

I'm currently more and more stripping my system. The both "Laufwerk" drives are fix installed to a second IDE-controller inside the case, nothing unpluggable. If I remove these I would make my system instable. There are some limits how far I modify PC for a prissy game. I own more than 60 PC games which are running 100% without problems in my configuration, even back to the Win95 era, but even forward to actual high-reqs games. It is that kind of crash which let me think about we are all on a wrong trail. The game crashes directly after selecting the scenario (within 3 seconds: click -> black screen -> back to windows). It doesn't even try to load or store data from CD or HD , it doesn't even show up an error, it just dissappears. Maybe I should aquire a debugger and check the assembler for myself... but first I'll try that older video drivers. Next week I maybe have a second PC to test it there.

[King Faticus]

Phil.... POSTING???????:eek:

good to see you again:)

sorry for the off topic post just ignore this and read the next ones:rolleyes: too late:p

[Satanic Mechanic]

Hey all, been following this thread for a few days in an effort to solve the same problem on my system, followed all the advice given to no avail, the one thing I can offer you though is a work around... Under normal circumstances, I can select tutorial, plays fine, but if I select scenario or campaign, once I select the actual scenario to play, boom, dumped to desktop, however, if instead of selecting play, I first go to the scenario editor, load up the scenario of choice, and click test, hey presto, from there I can freely load autosaves without having to first load the scenario editor but full saves appear to be saved as a new scenario and so don't work.

Now the first question that needs asking is what happens after scenario selection that doesn't happen upon entering test mode or loading an auto save?

[SchlauFuchs]

Just as an update from my site: In meantime I have refactored my partition layout. I don't want to talk too much about lost data and XP reinstallation. As soon as my system is again stable enough for some real work which needs to be done before, I will try to play the game with fresh installed XP ...

Ciao!
SF