posted 03-24-99 11:17 PM ET        

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Ok, here is _exactly_ what I do/ see with this blue screen-o-death.
1) I build a project; I have project videos on.
2) The computer voiceover says "Project complete", and the screen flickers black as if it were about to play the video.
3) A blue screen of death appears. One press of a key returns me to the desktop.
4) I click on the terran exe to try to play the game again; the hourglass apprears for 15 seconds or so, then vanishes. No other indication of Alpha Centauri being run apprears.
5) Alt-Ctrl-Del reveals that the computer considers Terran to be running (ie it is an option to shut down this program). The first time this bug occurred, I had about 4 terrans in this menu, since I had tried to run the program 4 times before going to reinstall (turns out I didn't need to do this).
6) DxDiag.exe will not run. The mouse pointer goes to an hourglass, again for 15 seconds or so. Other executables will run.
7) resetting the computer fixes the problem (terran now successfully executes, as does dxdiag)

Ok, this does not happen with every video, just every second or third one. I have V. 3.0, this did not happen in 2.0 or 1.0
DxDiag reveals several ! by my video and sound card drivers. The video card is crap, but the sound card is a sound blaster awe 32. I bought it specifically to get rid of the repeat repeat the voiceovers did with my old sound card. All problems with sound vanished upon buying this card.
ds3D and eax are set to 1
Finally, this is with V. 3.0, and did not happen with 2.0 I did not change any settings that I know of anywhere outside of the game itself (ie in the .ini files)in either the v 2.0 or v. 3.0 install.
I hope this helps
-Chris

posted 03-25-99 10:52 AM ET            

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Set DS3D and EAX to 0. That card does not support EAX. When movies kick in, the program hands off a directsound pointer to the movie player, so sound problems can cause issues with the movies.

jkm

firaxis games

posted 03-27-99 12:13 AM ET            

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Changeing those values to zero does nothing at all. Also, I was wrong about the randomness of this BUG; It happens every time with specific videos and not others.
Videos that work just fine:
-Opening video
-Weather Paradigm

Videos that malfunction:
-Cyborg Factory
-Citizen's Defence Force

I found that program you have to run the videos: playuv15.exe These latter two videos run just fine in windows, and in Ver. 2.0

OK, I am wrong once again; Just before I submitted this, I decided to verify the Cyborg factory (to verify the blue screen indicates a SC related file). This time it worked. But the Citizen's defence force did not work 3-4 times in a row...
Again, I have a soundblaster AWE 32 card with drivers fresh off the net. DxDiag doesn't like a couple of the drivers, which I find odd for a brand name card...

posted 03-27-99 12:17 PM ET            

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Weird. What's the blue screen say? Is it a CD-Rom issue or a memory dump or what?

jkm

firaxis games

posted 03-28-99 12:52 PM ET         

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I'm having a similar problem with the project videos causing blue screens after installing v3, the game worked fine before installing the patch. I have a SoundBlaster 32 AWE also.

Here is what is happening in my situtation:

-Sound and video is working fine until a project is completed.

-The video and sound for the project plays nomrally.

-When the program switches from the project video mode to the in game video mode I get the following blue screen:

A fatal exception 00 has occurred at 0028:C91B9E7 in VXD DSOUND(03) + 000005BB. The corrupt application will be terminated.

If this is the first occurance of the blue screen after a reboot, I can press any key and get back into the game but not have any sound. If the blue screen occurs again pressing a key will return you to the game screen, but the game is frozen.

I've tried the adjustments mentioned in the previous messages (DS3D and EAX to 0), but I still get blue screens afterwards.

posted 03-28-99 07:03 PM ET         

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I have had several problems with DirectSound for the SB AWE 32.

DxDiag does show problems, and in some cases does not complete the diagnostic testing.

I contacted Creative about this, and they told me to download the latest drivers from their web-site.

Unfortunately, the latest drivers do not support DirectX 6.0, only DirectX 5.0.

I fixed all of my sound problems by getting the SB Live! card instead.

Hope this helps.

posted 03-29-99 01:06 AM ET            

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Ok, it finally happened again. It says: A fatal exception has occurred at 0028:C51D85C7 in VXD Dsound(03) + 000005BB. The current application...etc

With more trials, it is indeed random wether I get the blue screen or not. THe weather Paradigm worked fine last game, and then not this one. All sound on my computer is gone until I reboot, and I can't run Terran or DXdiag either, though other executables work fine. None of this happened prior to v. 3.0

posted 03-29-99 10:33 AM ET            

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That error message is definately a directsound error. I'd definately look into driver updates, though interm fixes would include disabling the movies or renaming the sound.dll (not good ones I'll admit). The game only uses features up to DX 3.0, so the creative drivers might do the trick. Also, did you add EAX=0 and DS3D=0 or set the entries already present to 0? Many add these even though they're already there.

jkm

firaxis games

posted 03-29-99 04:16 PM ET         

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I disabled the movies and changed the existing EAX and DS3D entries to 0, didn't fix the problem. I haven't tried renaming sound.dll or downloading any new drivers from Creative. However, I do not have these troubles in any other application that uses DirectSound. This also doesn't explain why the game worked fine before the v3.0 enhancement, but crashes after the enhancement has been installed.

Any ideas?

posted 03-29-99 06:23 PM ET            

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The only thing that changed sound-wise is further work on DS3D support, so that's my line of thinking. Some cards when queried return "Everything's Super!" when in fact the support is emulated or even non-existant. When you say disabling the movies didn't solve the problem, where does the crash then occur? It seems that you're getting it in transition back from the movie player to the game, which shouldn't occur if the movies are disabled.

jkm

firaxis games

posted 03-30-99 12:03 PM ET         

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Results of my recent tests:

- Downloaded the latest drivers from Creative, didn't fix the problem. In fact it causes the blue screen to appear before the video replays rather than after.

- Retested the Project Video Preference. Disabling this does keep the game from crashing when you complete a project. However there are other events which have video and the blue screen that goes with it (eliminating another faction is one).

Any idea why the AC.ini 3DS and EAX settings do not appear to be disabling these features?