Urgent: Fatal crashes! Please help

jperleevt · Post by **jperleevt** » Thu Jul 08, 2004 9:39 pm

I'm running it now, but of course I haven't crashed yet. BTW something similar did happen in RTW, althought it only happened when swiitching back and forth betwenn Windows and RTW.

Jen

Gen · Post by **Gen** » Thu Jul 08, 2004 10:02 pm

OK Patrick - I loaded the wdltest file and renamed it and the wdlgame file. I started playing in W1 and moved on from there. I had EI loaded and did switch back and forth as I had previously when the game hung. The "Total Video memory" was 66174976. This remained the same as far as I could tell. I have seen previously and this time, where the picture jerks, particularly when you are moving the character fast. I have DirectX 9. I don't know if this is involved or not, but I noted it as follows:
W2L8 - available memory 60989440, Active textures 401, Tris rendered 2446

W2L10 - 59569408, 437, 4496
W3L3 - 57700864, 482, 22082
W3L4 - 61183744, 545, 3886
W4L4 - 57957632, 671, 2738
W5L3 - 52855296, 932, 6092
W5L4 the game hung and no numbers were available.

I had to play W5L3 numerous times in order to get the timing right. Had played W5L4 once, made a mistake and hit Esc to restart when it hung.

Hope this helps!

Gen · Post by **Gen** » Mon Jul 12, 2004 11:12 pm

Patrick, the game hung again today. I was still playing with the "wdltest" in place of the "wdlgame". It happened when I hit "esc" to restart a level. So, there were no numbers to report. I was playing a custom classic level. This time I was able to kill the program. The error message said the hang address was 0x000a1fb3. Do you want the data in bytes or words?

On another thread, someone said that they had an icon for RTW and one for DRTW. I only have the icon for RTW, but it goes to DRTW. On the hard drive, there are two folders, one for each. Would this have anything to do with the hanging?

Also, I had IE open as well as Outlook Ex., but had NOT been switching from the game to Windows.

Edited to add: I have been playing with 640 X 480, 16 bit, full screen.

BIGZIPZ · Post by **BIGZIPZ** » Mon Jul 12, 2004 11:56 pm

Hey Gen, does your monitor support higher resolutions? playing games at 1024x768 or greater is so much better picture. But only use this setting if you have a good video card.

P.S try 32bit colours too if you can

Gen · Post by **Gen** » Tue Jul 13, 2004 1:15 am

Thanks for the information, BigZip. I will try that. My video card is a NVIDIA GeForce2 MX.

I gave that information because it was brought up on the "Possible Bug Solution?" thread as a possibility for the crashes. Patrick recommended using the lower settings.

A question for others that are experiencing crashes - have you been see a lot of jerkiness of the picture? I know some have said that you need the latest version of DirectX to stop this. I think that I have the latest version, 9.0 and I still see this happening frequently.

SharonM · Post by **SharonM** » Tue Jul 13, 2004 2:29 am

I get that too Gen. I have the same video card you do and I play 16 bit 800x600 resolution. I have a 5 year old monitor, so I don't like to push it. Some of the levels do get jerky on me. It's quite annoying.

Gen · Post by **Gen** » Tue Jul 13, 2004 3:12 am

Thanks Sharon, you may be right! And you are also right that it is very annoying. But I'm not convinced that it is the monitor or video card. Both of mine are just over 2 years old. Plus the jerkiness seems to have gotten worse with the new DRTW. It seems to happen with every level now whereas it was only occasionally before.

Patrick, do you have any ideas about it and does it relate to the crashes?

boupeloup · Post by **boupeloup** » Tue Jul 13, 2004 4:56 am

Hi! It's my first post!!! I mean, the very first... in my entire life... well anyway.

My computer hung the very first time I played RWD when I tried to leave the game.
I used to quit Wonderland & Return to Wonderland by hitting Esc several times till I got back to Windows. I did that with RWD and it hung. Told myself "I won't ever do that again"... and since then, everything OK.

I have:
P4 1400
256 MB RAM
Win ME
DirectX 9.0b
NVIDIA GeForce MX 64MB
ZoneAlarm 4.5
McAfee virus scan 5.2

Of course, the image sometimes gets jerky, but I ha ve learn ed to l ive with i t!

Pierre B.

popo · Post by **popo** » Tue Jul 13, 2004 2:22 pm

I've just crashed again while playing Malcs new level. I pressed Esc. to resstart and it froze and made an awful noise. I had the editor open at the time too.

I was able to use Ctrl-Alt-Del to shut the program and the following error was logged.

Event Type: Error
Event Source: Application Hang
Event Category: (101)
Event ID: 1002
Date: 13/07/2004
Time: 15:12:04
User: *****
Computer: ***********
Description:
Hanging application wdlgame.exe, version 0.0.0.0, hang module wdlgame.exe, version 0.0.0.0, hang address 0x000ad207.

For more information, see Help and Support Center at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp.
Data:
0000: 41 70 70 6c 69 63 61 74 Applicat
0008: 69 6f 6e 20 48 61 6e 67 ion Hang
0010: 20 20 77 64 6c 67 61 6d wdlgam
0018: 65 2e 65 78 65 20 30 2e e.exe 0.
0020: 30 2e 30 2e 30 20 69 6e 0.0.0 in
0028: 20 77 64 6c 67 61 6d 65 wdlgame
0030: 2e 65 78 65 20 30 2e 30 .exe 0.0
0038: 2e 30 2e 30 20 61 74 20 .0.0 at
0040: 6f 66 66 73 65 74 20 30 offset 0
0048: 30 30 61 64 32 30 37 00ad207

Danell1975 · Post by **Danell1975** » Wed Jul 14, 2004 3:12 am

ok, glad to hear I am not the only one freezing up. I have to do a manual shut down every time too. As a matter of fact, I was just playing box factory 3 in the custom levels and it froze on me, twice. I only froze on the Delux Levels once and I don't recall which level it was. I am only in W6 L7 (trying to get everything in order properly on that one. GRRRR). I do think though that all of the levels I have froze up on have been custom levels. I don't really understand why, but I am not as far in the Delux Levels as all of you, so I don't believe I have hit the levels that froze up on you guys. Within the next month, at the rate I am going, I should be in world 7, and I will let anyone know if I freeze up in it. Incedentily I am a Windows XP user, with trend micro PC Cillian as my antivirus software. Totally up to date on everything when it comes to Windows. oh and I just remembered, when I Alt X on any level, I automatically freeze up. Just a thought.

vk · Post by vk » Thu Jul 15, 2004 10:25 pm

I AM ALSO HAVING THE FREEZE-UP WITH THE NEW LEVELS AND GAME. I HAVE DELETED SOME OF THE CUSTOM LEVELS THAT I HAD DUPLICATES OF, USING BIGZIPS GREAT PACKAGES. IT SEEMS BETTER NOW THAT I HAVE CLEANED UP THE FOLDERS. I HAVE KIDS, COMPLETED, AND NEW FOR FOLDERS. SEPARATING THE FILES SEEMS TO HELP. VIKKI

Gen · Post by **Gen** » Sat Jul 17, 2004 3:29 am

Patrick - have you all made any progress on finding out why we are having these crashes? I am still having them.

One thing that I have noticed is that if you get killed or restart a number of times, the video memory available decreases each time. It doesn't seem to matter what level you are on or whether you are playing Deluxe levels or custom levels. The more the available memory decreases the more likely you are to have a crash. Also the jerkiness of movement becomes more frequent. I have now taken to leaving the game frequently and then coming back in trying to prevent crashes.

popo · Post by **popo** » Sat Jul 17, 2004 9:04 am

I play like that all the time, I play a couple of levels then do a spot of modelling, then play a couple more levels. That may be why I'm not crashing as much as some people.

Whenever I have crashed it's always been after I got killed a few times, so I think the memory leak is a likely culprit.

timothy2 · Post by **timothy2** » Sat Jul 17, 2004 6:59 pm

Gen wrote:

I have now taken to leaving the game frequently and then coming back in trying to prevent crashes.

I'll try this as well. In the beginning I just had occasional crashes playing RTWD, but now it happens every now and again (already four reboots only today). My system had never crashed before. Hope MS can solve this. BTW, my system specs are pretty much the same as mentioned above (Windows XP Home, NVIDIA GeForce GTS/GeForce2 Pro, DirectX v. 9, only NIS 2004 running, full screen mode 800x600).

lgrapes · Post by **lgrapes** » Sun Jul 18, 2004 12:00 pm

malcdelsol wrote:Hi Patrick,

Just had 3 'lock-up's' in the space of 1 hour playing the custom levels. (Although all of my previous problems were within the game itself.)

On all 3 occasions I had just made a mistake so I had pressed ESC and was at the menu wanting to 'Restart this Level'

Malcdelsol

This is exactly what happens to me Malcdelsol...it is soooooo frustrating

It also happens on the custom models an awful lot...

Lori

Salin · Post by **Salin** » Sun Jul 18, 2004 4:23 pm

Gen wrote:Patrick - have you all made any progress on finding out why we are having these crashes? I am still having them.

.

Well??? Have you

Inger

popo · Post by **popo** » Sun Jul 18, 2004 4:29 pm

I don't know if this means anything but last time I crashed, and managed to use Ctrl-Alt-Del to end the program, in the box at the bottom of the Task Manager it said 'CPU usage - 100%'. I don't know if it always says this when a program crashes or hangs, but could the fact that the CPU is using it's entire resources have something to do with the crashes?

Did the crash cause the 100% usage or the 100% usage cause the crash? It's the chicken and the egg thing.

Kaboom! · Post by **Kaboom!** » Sun Jul 18, 2004 4:36 pm

Most probably the egg. The game crashed because of excessive usage of the CPU memory.

Post by **Midnight Synergy** » Sun Jul 18, 2004 9:39 pm

Salin wrote:
Gen wrote:Patrick - have you all made any progress on finding out why we are having these crashes? I am still having them.

.
Well??? Have you

Inger

Not yet.

Very sorry about that folks, we're usually much quicker with bug-fixes etc., but this on has me stumped so far. Here's hoping.

BIGZIPZ · Post by **BIGZIPZ** » Mon Jul 19, 2004 12:39 am

I'll gladly load my debugger up and help ya out

haha

Been playing that frazzled for about a week now, its reallllly addictive

Gen · Post by **Gen** » Mon Jul 19, 2004 6:15 pm

Patrick, I've found one level where I don't lose available memory even though I got killed numerous times. The available memory stayed the same as when I first started playing the level. Hopefully there is something about that level that will help you solve the memory loss problem!

The level is "Watch Your Step" by you.

Dianna · Post by **Dianna** » Thu Jul 22, 2004 4:20 pm

Oh heck, I'm finally experiencing this crash problem that all of you have been talking about for so long!

It happens to me on W4/L5 Wonderland Invasion. It is SO frustrating, because it always happens at the exact same moment, just as I finally get to the point that I get to eliminate the UFO. The cannon hits the UFO and the game crashes to the desktop, message says "memory access violation."

This is SOOO FRUSTRATING, since I can't finish this level. Grrrrr!

I'm running:

Pentium 4, 3GHz CPU, 512 MB RAM, ATI Radeon 9600 with 128 MB memory.

Tried to download and use that file to check for, what was it, memory leak? Anyway, did so, renamed file, etc., but when I did this the game just wouldn't start at all. When I went back and got rid of that file and used the original game file it ran fine. Must have done something wrong, but I couldn't figure out what it could be.

Dianna · Post by **Dianna** » Fri Jul 23, 2004 8:57 pm

And now Deluxe W5/L2 will not load at all. When I try I get a memory access violation and game crashes to desktop. Have tried three times, so unless someone knows of a fix for this, guess I'll have to move on.

Oh well, I already unlocked all worlds after I couldn't complete W4/L5.

timothy2 · Post by **timothy2** » Fri Jul 23, 2004 10:38 pm

The best way would be to reboot your computer in the normal way (through the Start menu) before it crashes, rather than in an abnormal way (Ctrl+Alt+Del, or the power button) after it crashes.

The crashes seem to have nothing to do with the actual level you're playing, but rather with the time you're playing RTWD in one stretch.

Once you're aware of it, it's mostly pretty easy to tell when your computer is going to crash, as the movements on the screen are becoming jerky.

If this happens, you should exit RTWD immediately, and restart your system. (Simply exiting and re-entering RTWD is not enough, is my experience.)

If this doesn't happen, you could still exit RTWD and restart your system from time to time, just as a precaution.

Of course this is not a fix, it's just a trick to survive for the time being. For the ultimate solution, I guess we'll have to wait for Patrick. Don't worry, Patrick is working on it! (Aren't you, Patrick?)

Post by **Midnight Synergy** » Fri Jul 23, 2004 11:02 pm

Yes, working on it.

Dianna wrote:And now Deluxe W5/L2 will not load at all. When I try I get a memory access violation and game crashes to desktop. Have tried three times, so unless someone knows of a fix for this, guess I'll have to move on.

Oh well, I already unlocked all worlds after I couldn't complete W4/L5.

I think this is actually something different from what other's are expriencing - your resource file might be corrupted, a memory access violation simply means that it can't find a resource (a graphic, a sound effect, etc) for the game. I would try a re-install, and obviously do a virus/spyware check.

timothy2 · Post by **timothy2** » Sat Jul 24, 2004 1:02 am

Midnight Synergy wrote:Yes, working on it.

Well, good to hear that, as your previous post in this - most popular - thread was submitted six days (!) ago.

And, if the problems we're experiencing day in and day out can't be solved, then it's always a good idea to keep the community up-to-date, I think.

Post by **Midnight Synergy** » Sat Jul 24, 2004 10:07 pm

Here's a new beta version 2.01. I'm still tightening screws and bolts

but I'm curious to see how this one runs so far.

It's just the executable, so you'll need to download it into your current RTWDeluxe directory, or you'll get your memory access violation error.

http://www.midnightsynergy.com/returnto ... dlgame.exe

Again, don't click and "Run"/"Open" from that link, but "Save" it in your Deluxe directory first. Let me know if this made any difference as I continue on this end.

Post by **Midnight Synergy** » Sat Jul 24, 2004 10:25 pm

Just updated the file one more time, if you downloaded in the last few minutes please do so again.

Post by **Midnight Synergy** » Sat Jul 24, 2004 11:46 pm

Sorry - just found one more leak around custom models and have plugged it and updated the file one more time. (again, same address as above)

The main menu should read v2.02 in the top-right corner.

bpurcell · Post by **bpurcell** » Sun Jul 25, 2004 1:41 am

Thanks Patrick,

I've downloaded it and will tell you if anything weird happens. Looks good so far (2.02 on upper right corner!)

Brian