Plane explode CTD bug?

[tosu]

Does anyone know a fix for the:

shoot down enemy plane -> explode -> CTD (memory cannot be read error msg) bug? Doesn't matter if it's onscreen or offscreen. Same nuts.

It's sooo bloody annoying.

Pretty please?

[Bogan]

One way to counter the plane exploding CTD is to turn your gamma settings down a little, and also the effects quality.

The massive burst of gamma when a plane explodes sometimes causes a ctd.

[Adrian Taylor]

Unfortunately, this is a problem with the Blitzkrieg engine. Some video cards are unable to handle the sudden burst of gamma that occurs then a plane explodes.

As Wolfgang suggests, turn down your Gamma and reduce the effects quality, which should reduce the starin on your video card.

Please can you confirm what type of card you have?


Adrian

[tosu]

8500le 64mb

Did some brief testing, and it does seem a bit more stable now. I believe in strong AA support, so this was driving me nuts.. hehe

Typically I play @ 1600x1200 because of my monitor and the vision ranges.. Can't play any other resolution now . Perhaps this "overloaded" the good ol' 8500 until I turned those things down a notch..?

Thanks for the advice.

[Adrian Taylor]

I think your video card may be the problem with this issue combined with the resolution you are playing the game at.

To be honest the highest resolution we tested the game at was 1280 x 960, but that was with 128MB vid cards and everything worked fine.

We have found even though alot of te BK engine is 2d the 3d elements demand alot of output from the video card and system memory.


Adrian

[tosu]

After some further testing, yes, I agree.

Seems 128mb would be much better suited to the task. But still, running 16bit depth and enabling texture compression should reduce the demands quite a bit? But in this case I found that it didn't matter.

I suppose the lesson learned is not to underestimate the system requirements for this mod.

But it was worth a try

Once again, thank you for a fun & well crafted mod! Eagerly anticipating Kursk.

[tosu]

Ok.

I have now tested a fresh system install with another Radeon card, a 9600xt 128mb. This time using Catalyst 5.2.

Needless to say the problem persists.

When you say I should turn down the gamma, just how much? Also, do you mean ingame gamma or the catalyst gamma? Neither seems to prevent the gamma killflash completely. Sooner or later a recon plane buys the farm, and I'm left with a bright white freezeframe. Are you saying I should run the game in near darkness??

Out of curiosity, what cards are 100% unaffected by this bloody bug then? Because I'm rather fed up with it.

Has this been reported to CDV & ATI respectively?

You guys put all this wonderful work into the mod(s) and this just takes the mojo right out of it.

[Adrian Taylor]

Sorry to hear you are still having problems with this issue. I myself have a Radean 9600 card usng the following drivers "6.14.10.6497".

I still get the flash, but know CTD or freeze. I use 1280x960 resolution, but have no trouble using 1280x1024.

Can you state the rest of your system spec and do you have any other problems with BK or any other games?


Adrian

[tosu]

No, this is the only real issue I have with Blitzkrieg v1.2.

BTW it isn't resolution specific. I'm trying to decide what is causing it, but it's a weird one. The game runs fine except for the unpredictable gammaflash debacle..

Other games are fine, 3DMark is ok etc. No problems in dxdiag etc.

Used a clean install with WinXP SP2, NForce 5.10 UDP & Catalyst 5.2 (tried earlier versions before).

Hardware specs: (tested & stable 12h memtest, 24h prime, superpi, 12h 3dmark)

Abit AN7
Barton 2800+
Twinmos 2x256MB PC2700
Radeon 9600xt 128mb
Seagate 160gb SATA
Tagan 380w PSU

[Adrian Taylor]

Will look to see if we can cut down the gamma blast in the explosion.


Adrian

[tosu]

The lockups will also occur if a plane explodes offscreen, and no gamma flash is actually seen onscreen.

However, it is always the same event that is triggering the problem, i.e. "a plane explodes" --> lockup. Makes me wonder what is so special about the plane explosions?

This happens seemingly at random. Sometimes "planes explode just fine ;D", but sure enough sooner or later they cause this lockup problem for me.

Out of curiosity, is anyone else experiencing this problem?

[BBFred]

Hi Tosu, I can only speak of my own experience, being a bit wary of ATI and esp. the quality of their drivers I only played BK on PCs equipped with GeForce cards (3X, 4X, and now 6X) and the generic Nvidia drivers. I never suffered from that plane explosion CTD. But then your mileage may vary... Adrian has an ATI card & doesn't get any CTD either.

[Adrian Taylor]

Tosu, I did have problems during testing with my ATI card on my old system. But, we cleared up some garphical glitches in teh game and the plane explode crashes dis-appeared. I know some gamers still have problems with it during Multi-player games using teh vanilla Blitzkrieg.

What I suggest is I send you a patch that changes the plane explode file to plane burns. If this resolves your problems we know its the original file and can then hopfully pin point the problem.


Adrian

[Adrian Taylor]

I have now run a few tests trying to resolve this issue and can confirm that the actual graphic files play no part in the crashes.

Whenever, a plane explodes it checks to see if the data files have an entry for the "fatality" parameter. If it does it then produces a gamma flash and initiates the graphic. This is why you still get the flash and CTD even if not seeing the plane explode on desktop.

Unfortunately, this gamma flash appears to be embedded code and thus can't be altered. The only way round it is to remove the graphic entry from the "fatality" parameter of each data file concerned. This will mean that all planes when shot down will diss-appear off board smoking.

I will release a patch asap for those who are having problems with this.


Adrian Taylor
ACTive Gaming

[tosu]

This is jolly good news!

Our beloved german aces will no longer perish when shot down. They will merely do a "controlled" crash landing offscreen.

And live to fight another day.

Jolly, jolly good I say!

;D ;D ;D