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Author Topic:   The game hangs...

Dave posted 02-18-99 05:33 PM ET
Hello, I wrote an email to you about this problem previously but got no response. As you already know, several people have had the problem where the game just stalls and they have to Ctrl + Alt + Del the program away. I would just like to add to this...I have the same problem. I have a saved game that hangs in exactly the same place every single time, either the shipping version or 2.0, with DirectDraw disabled or sound.dll renamed or both at the same time...so absolutely nothing seems to work. This is interesting however, in that directly after playing SMAC I got frustrated and decided to run SimCity 3000...upon loading a New City the program reported the the system timer has failed and that restarting the machine would fix this. The message went on to say that the game could still be run but the timing would be noticeably off. I hope that helps some...my system information is as follows...
Dell Dimension XPS R450 w / 384 mb RAM
Diamond Monster 3D 2 / 12 mb
(V 2.07 drivers...most recent)
DirectX 6.1
Turtle Beach Montego A3D
(not too sure of version number, but dxdiag reports that it is certified)
windows 98(post y2k patch)
For me, the game hangs when Morgan takes his turn (I am Zakharov), it is the year 2413...I get the idea that there is a bug in the ai that uses a randomization routine using the system clock as a seed value but the routine might inadvertantly changed inadvertantly. Either that or in infinite loop that goes nowhere...I hope this gets resolved soon because I have played two long games...one went without a hitch and the other stalled...thank you for any assistance you can offer and for reading this post.
Jeffrey Morris FIRAXIS posted 02-18-99 06:33 PM ET
Did you try playing from an autosave a few turns back? Try loading autosave5 for instance, and see if you can get past that point. Many have been able to. Thanks for the save, regardless.
jkm
firaxis games
Dave posted 02-19-99 01:53 PM ET
Well, the autosave I loaded up was Autosave1...so I decided to use Autosave10...this time it did not hang in 2413 but it hung later by about 5 or 6 years.
Dave posted 02-19-99 01:55 PM ET
Sorry, forgot to add this before...after it hung again I loaded up Autosave5(which put me at about 2418) and played through to the end of the game. So there were two times during gameplay that I would have had to load a previous autosave.
Booming posted 02-19-99 05:42 PM ET
I've the same problem but there is an other problem too. After viewing same of the movies for the secrets the game exits to an errorscreen (not blue) telling me that ddhelp (sorry don't know the exact line.)
My game locks up in the year 2307 (university too)
My machine:
asus p2b
pII 400MHZ
256MB-ram
12GB HDD
Diamond viper 550 16MB AGP (no tv)
Creative SBLIVE
Macronix 9713 fast ethernet Connected to a novell NDS Tree
UK version of a.c. (?) no patches!!
I've got a custom install. everything from cd.
Booming posted 02-19-99 05:46 PM ET
p.s. I do have a saved game. Want/Needed for anyone??
Jeffrey Morris FIRAXIS posted 02-19-99 08:22 PM ET
Nah, if it's a DD error is DirectX. I'd completely uninstall the game, delete the firaxis folder from the program files folder, and reinstall. If that doesn't work, run DXDiag.exe and look for "!" and run the tests. If any problems are detected, download DX 6.1 and install it (www.microsoft.com/directx.
jkm
firaxis games
KenAshford posted 02-20-99 10:57 AM ET
I've been following the threads re: game freezes, and have been having the same problem, and tried all the suggested solutions that most people have tried. Yes, sometimes I can reload (after rebooting) and sometimes I can get past the point where it initially froze, but tends to freeze up later.
I don't have a saved game to send, but one thing I have noticed -- the freeze seems to have something to do with enemy air units. The past couple of times the freeze has happened, the screen centers to those air units (and then the game stops). It may be a coincidence -- is anyone else noticing this?
Lord Gek posted 02-20-99 03:29 PM ET
Hey KenAshford,
I was almost thinking something similar, the few times it happened to me directly coincided with the few times the AI sent missiles to some of my cities. One thing I have yet to verify and maybe one of you fellow sufferers would like to check for me is disabling direct draw (adding "directdraw=0" in the .INI). While Jeffrey doesn't seem to think its likely related it seems a LOT like the crashes I experienced a ways into some of the Chaos Gate missions. If somebody could add this argument and STILL crash then we'll know once in for all there is no connection.
Dave posted 02-20-99 07:51 PM ET
Sorry guys, for me it was a probe unit...not an air unit. I tried disabling direct draw and renaming sound.dll but neither worked for me. This is NOT a directX issue most likely...and it is not a sound issue for me either.
mdupont posted 02-20-99 09:40 PM ET
Just for the record I also seam to be having the same problem. The game locks up after a number of hours into the game. It happened with the version I received in the box, so I updated to version 2.0 and now it happened again. It happens everytime and shows up as a page fault error. If someone from support wants to give me an e-mail address I will send the save game and the details to the error.
[email protected]
kludwick posted 02-21-99 09:59 PM ET
I'm having the same problem as these other people, but restarting from a saved game hasn't seemed to work. The game keeps freezing at exactly the same point, every time. I do have a saved game at the end of the turn just before the crash. What email address should I send it to? (BTW, I did fill out the feedback form on the EA Tech Support page, but have gotten no response yet.)
Tuffgib posted 02-23-99 11:54 PM ET
Same problem. I've been able to get past most of the crashes by disbanding the offending unit.
Obviously this dosen't work if the unit is not mine! Then the current game is down the Sh***er.
I have benn unable to finish a complete game.
Jeffrey Morris FIRAXIS posted 02-24-99 11:54 AM ET
Well, we've found a problem that could cause this issue, but I'm not sure it's the same one. Send your saves to [email protected] and i'll get you past it.
jkm
firaxis games
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Author	Topic: The game hangs...
Dave	posted 02-18-99 05:33 PM ET Hello, I wrote an email to you about this problem previously but got no response. As you already know, several people have had the problem where the game just stalls and they have to Ctrl + Alt + Del the program away. I would just like to add to this...I have the same problem. I have a saved game that hangs in exactly the same place every single time, either the shipping version or 2.0, with DirectDraw disabled or sound.dll renamed or both at the same time...so absolutely nothing seems to work. This is interesting however, in that directly after playing SMAC I got frustrated and decided to run SimCity 3000...upon loading a New City the program reported the the system timer has failed and that restarting the machine would fix this. The message went on to say that the game could still be run but the timing would be noticeably off. I hope that helps some...my system information is as follows... Dell Dimension XPS R450 w / 384 mb RAM Diamond Monster 3D 2 / 12 mb (V 2.07 drivers...most recent) DirectX 6.1 Turtle Beach Montego A3D (not too sure of version number, but dxdiag reports that it is certified) windows 98(post y2k patch) For me, the game hangs when Morgan takes his turn (I am Zakharov), it is the year 2413...I get the idea that there is a bug in the ai that uses a randomization routine using the system clock as a seed value but the routine might inadvertantly changed inadvertantly. Either that or in infinite loop that goes nowhere...I hope this gets resolved soon because I have played two long games...one went without a hitch and the other stalled...thank you for any assistance you can offer and for reading this post.
Jeffrey Morris FIRAXIS	posted 02-18-99 06:33 PM ET Did you try playing from an autosave a few turns back? Try loading autosave5 for instance, and see if you can get past that point. Many have been able to. Thanks for the save, regardless. jkm firaxis games
Dave	posted 02-19-99 01:53 PM ET Well, the autosave I loaded up was Autosave1...so I decided to use Autosave10...this time it did not hang in 2413 but it hung later by about 5 or 6 years.
Dave	posted 02-19-99 01:55 PM ET Sorry, forgot to add this before...after it hung again I loaded up Autosave5(which put me at about 2418) and played through to the end of the game. So there were two times during gameplay that I would have had to load a previous autosave.
Booming	posted 02-19-99 05:42 PM ET I've the same problem but there is an other problem too. After viewing same of the movies for the secrets the game exits to an errorscreen (not blue) telling me that ddhelp (sorry don't know the exact line.) My game locks up in the year 2307 (university too) My machine: asus p2b pII 400MHZ 256MB-ram 12GB HDD Diamond viper 550 16MB AGP (no tv) Creative SBLIVE Macronix 9713 fast ethernet Connected to a novell NDS Tree UK version of a.c. (?) no patches!! I've got a custom install. everything from cd.
Booming	posted 02-19-99 05:46 PM ET p.s. I do have a saved game. Want/Needed for anyone??
Jeffrey Morris FIRAXIS	posted 02-19-99 08:22 PM ET Nah, if it's a DD error is DirectX. I'd completely uninstall the game, delete the firaxis folder from the program files folder, and reinstall. If that doesn't work, run DXDiag.exe and look for "!" and run the tests. If any problems are detected, download DX 6.1 and install it (www.microsoft.com/directx. jkm firaxis games
KenAshford	posted 02-20-99 10:57 AM ET I've been following the threads re: game freezes, and have been having the same problem, and tried all the suggested solutions that most people have tried. Yes, sometimes I can reload (after rebooting) and sometimes I can get past the point where it initially froze, but tends to freeze up later. I don't have a saved game to send, but one thing I have noticed -- the freeze seems to have something to do with enemy air units. The past couple of times the freeze has happened, the screen centers to those air units (and then the game stops). It may be a coincidence -- is anyone else noticing this?
Lord Gek	posted 02-20-99 03:29 PM ET Hey KenAshford, I was almost thinking something similar, the few times it happened to me directly coincided with the few times the AI sent missiles to some of my cities. One thing I have yet to verify and maybe one of you fellow sufferers would like to check for me is disabling direct draw (adding "directdraw=0" in the .INI). While Jeffrey doesn't seem to think its likely related it seems a LOT like the crashes I experienced a ways into some of the Chaos Gate missions. If somebody could add this argument and STILL crash then we'll know once in for all there is no connection.
Dave	posted 02-20-99 07:51 PM ET Sorry guys, for me it was a probe unit...not an air unit. I tried disabling direct draw and renaming sound.dll but neither worked for me. This is NOT a directX issue most likely...and it is not a sound issue for me either.
mdupont	posted 02-20-99 09:40 PM ET Just for the record I also seam to be having the same problem. The game locks up after a number of hours into the game. It happened with the version I received in the box, so I updated to version 2.0 and now it happened again. It happens everytime and shows up as a page fault error. If someone from support wants to give me an e-mail address I will send the save game and the details to the error. [email protected]
kludwick	posted 02-21-99 09:59 PM ET I'm having the same problem as these other people, but restarting from a saved game hasn't seemed to work. The game keeps freezing at exactly the same point, every time. I do have a saved game at the end of the turn just before the crash. What email address should I send it to? (BTW, I did fill out the feedback form on the EA Tech Support page, but have gotten no response yet.)
Tuffgib	posted 02-23-99 11:54 PM ET Same problem. I've been able to get past most of the crashes by disbanding the offending unit. Obviously this dosen't work if the unit is not mine! Then the current game is down the Sh***er. I have benn unable to finish a complete game.
Jeffrey Morris FIRAXIS	posted 02-24-99 11:54 AM ET Well, we've found a problem that could cause this issue, but I'm not sure it's the same one. Send your saves to [email protected] and i'll get you past it. jkm firaxis games