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Author Topic:   How I solved the crash problems....

Warpig posted 03-29-99 11:27 AM ET
My system:
Intel PII 350 on ASUS board w/ 100mHz Bus
Video: Creative Blaster Banshee (AGP)
Audio: Creative SBAWE64
IDE hard drive (8.4gig Western Dig.) and IDE 12x CDROM
Like most posters in this topic, the game was initially unplayable for me. Mostly Terran.exe related crashes after just a few minutes of gameplay.
The only way I can get the game to run is by disabling basically all the advanced features on BOTH the video and audio cards.
For the Banshee, disable 3D support (under DirectX)and turn hardware acceleration all the way down.
For the AWE64, disable Full Duplex and 3D sound, then set hardware acceleration to the lowest setting (emulation only). Unfortunately this results in alot of SFX stuttering, but the game itself is stable for hours under these settings. Moving the AWE64 hardware acceleration up just one notch solves the stuttering problem but results in random crashes (though less often than with full accel).
I do have v.3 installed, and I did add the d3sd=0/eax=0 lines to the alphacentuari.ini file as Jeff suggested. Neither of these resolved the crashes by themselves though.
Hope this helps anyone who has these (or similar) video/audio cards.
Warpig
*definitely SMACed*
Jeffrey Morris FIRAXIS posted 03-29-99 11:45 AM ET
Actually, you don't want to add those lines to the alpha centauri.ini file. You want to modify the entries that are already at the top of the file after applying either v2.0 or v3.0. If you add additional lines, they are ignored.
jkm
firaxis games
White Tiger posted 03-29-99 11:51 AM ET
My personal take is that it is your motherboard. I had this same kind of problem and worse. I had an Alton motherboard (PCWARE M729) and never could get my agp card to work with it (kept causing crashes). I have since replaced it with a TYAN 1830S board and everything is perfect. No disabling agp support, no special downloads,... My guess is that older motherboards are not agp friendly nor compliant (even though they say they are). I was able to get my old board to work with a pci video card with no problems (this is what lead to a new motherboard). You might check into this. Having to turn off everything to prevent crashes would indicate something deeper is amiss (and not with AC).
firesky posted 03-30-99 12:42 AM ET
I found this to solution to work for me also. or I could run AC by changeing Sound.dll to Sound.dl_ , But who wants to play without sound? anyway I think the real problem may be in our awe64 soundblaster cards and it's compadability to SMAC. Even Stranger is that I loaded the game onto my laptop and it worked like a dream right out of the box! my desktop is virtualy the same as the poster of this thread..but mt laptop is a AMD-6 300 with a JBL soundcard. I will investigate further..
BoSachok posted 04-04-99 01:33 PM ET
I set ds3d=0 and EAX=0 with no improvement kept getting
TERRAN caused an invalid page fault in
module TERRAN.EXE at 015f:005c822b.
Registers:
EAX=84c41113 CS=015f EIP=005c822b EFLGS=00010256
EBX=00000134 SS=0167 ESP=00bf9f98 EBP=00bfa024
ECX=00000000 DS=0167 ESI=ffffffdc FS=3daf
EDX=00000113 ES=0167 EDI=009016d8 GS=0000
Bytes at CS:EIP:
03 4d 0c eb 16 8b 55 f0 4b 3b da 0f 8c bf 00 00
Stack dump:
00000047 007aec08 00000001 00000003 00bfa024 00000090 009016d8 005ccf17 00000001 00000090 009016d8 00000131 00781820 00000001 ffffffee 00000012
I have a Matrox G200/Monster MX300 video/sound using a AbitBX6/Celeron300 MB/CPU
I'll try reducing hardware acceleration on video, but Fraxis needs to fix this.
John_D posted 04-11-99 04:55 AM ET
Agreed, and hopefully soon. I am getting the same crashes and nothing I try so far seems to be working.
Cadfael posted 04-11-99 11:15 AM ET
And for me these problems did not exist in the original game or with v2.
Jeffrey Morris FIRAXIS posted 04-11-99 12:06 PM ET
Email me the details of your systems, where exactly the crash is occuring, and what you've explicitly tried and their results. [email protected]. The problems at the head of this thread sound different from those at the bottom.
jkm
firaxis games
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Author	Topic: How I solved the crash problems....
Warpig	posted 03-29-99 11:27 AM ET My system: Intel PII 350 on ASUS board w/ 100mHz Bus Video: Creative Blaster Banshee (AGP) Audio: Creative SBAWE64 IDE hard drive (8.4gig Western Dig.) and IDE 12x CDROM Like most posters in this topic, the game was initially unplayable for me. Mostly Terran.exe related crashes after just a few minutes of gameplay. The only way I can get the game to run is by disabling basically all the advanced features on BOTH the video and audio cards. For the Banshee, disable 3D support (under DirectX)and turn hardware acceleration all the way down. For the AWE64, disable Full Duplex and 3D sound, then set hardware acceleration to the lowest setting (emulation only). Unfortunately this results in alot of SFX stuttering, but the game itself is stable for hours under these settings. Moving the AWE64 hardware acceleration up just one notch solves the stuttering problem but results in random crashes (though less often than with full accel). I do have v.3 installed, and I did add the d3sd=0/eax=0 lines to the alphacentuari.ini file as Jeff suggested. Neither of these resolved the crashes by themselves though. Hope this helps anyone who has these (or similar) video/audio cards. Warpig definitely SMACed
Jeffrey Morris FIRAXIS	posted 03-29-99 11:45 AM ET Actually, you don't want to add those lines to the alpha centauri.ini file. You want to modify the entries that are already at the top of the file after applying either v2.0 or v3.0. If you add additional lines, they are ignored. jkm firaxis games
White Tiger	posted 03-29-99 11:51 AM ET My personal take is that it is your motherboard. I had this same kind of problem and worse. I had an Alton motherboard (PCWARE M729) and never could get my agp card to work with it (kept causing crashes). I have since replaced it with a TYAN 1830S board and everything is perfect. No disabling agp support, no special downloads,... My guess is that older motherboards are not agp friendly nor compliant (even though they say they are). I was able to get my old board to work with a pci video card with no problems (this is what lead to a new motherboard). You might check into this. Having to turn off everything to prevent crashes would indicate something deeper is amiss (and not with AC).
firesky	posted 03-30-99 12:42 AM ET I found this to solution to work for me also. or I could run AC by changeing Sound.dll to Sound.dl_ , But who wants to play without sound? anyway I think the real problem may be in our awe64 soundblaster cards and it's compadability to SMAC. Even Stranger is that I loaded the game onto my laptop and it worked like a dream right out of the box! my desktop is virtualy the same as the poster of this thread..but mt laptop is a AMD-6 300 with a JBL soundcard. I will investigate further..
BoSachok	posted 04-04-99 01:33 PM ET I set ds3d=0 and EAX=0 with no improvement kept getting TERRAN caused an invalid page fault in module TERRAN.EXE at 015f:005c822b. Registers: EAX=84c41113 CS=015f EIP=005c822b EFLGS=00010256 EBX=00000134 SS=0167 ESP=00bf9f98 EBP=00bfa024 ECX=00000000 DS=0167 ESI=ffffffdc FS=3daf EDX=00000113 ES=0167 EDI=009016d8 GS=0000 Bytes at CS:EIP: 03 4d 0c eb 16 8b 55 f0 4b 3b da 0f 8c bf 00 00 Stack dump: 00000047 007aec08 00000001 00000003 00bfa024 00000090 009016d8 005ccf17 00000001 00000090 009016d8 00000131 00781820 00000001 ffffffee 00000012 I have a Matrox G200/Monster MX300 video/sound using a AbitBX6/Celeron300 MB/CPU I'll try reducing hardware acceleration on video, but Fraxis needs to fix this.
John_D	posted 04-11-99 04:55 AM ET Agreed, and hopefully soon. I am getting the same crashes and nothing I try so far seems to be working.
Cadfael	posted 04-11-99 11:15 AM ET And for me these problems did not exist in the original game or with v2.
Jeffrey Morris FIRAXIS	posted 04-11-99 12:06 PM ET Email me the details of your systems, where exactly the crash is occuring, and what you've explicitly tried and their results. [email protected]. The problems at the head of this thread sound different from those at the bottom. jkm firaxis games