posted 02-23-99 11:15 PM ET        

Initial problem:

I started testing the game after I began to get fatal exceptions and I've narrowed the occurances down as far as I can. It appears that the fatal exceptions only occur when I create a customized map size 250 X 250 or greater. Customized maps sizes 225 X 225 and smaller and the regular tiny thru huge maps work as normal, no errors (that I've seen yet). When a fatal exception does occur, it always seems to happen when it's just about to be my turn again (i.e. the turn b4 I end the turn, it goes thru the turns of the computer players and then it switches back to me, and boom!). When I try to reload the autosave, it always crashes at the same place, no matter how far back in the autosaves I go. There is no pattern as to what turn it crashes on, but when it decides to crash at a certain turn, the game refuses to let me go any further. And it always crashes within the first 40 years of the game.

I know its a risk running large maps, but your warning window when people create large maps only mentions system hanging, nothing about crashes. But I know how tempermental computers are...

UPDATE:

I have now reinstalled AC and the patch...twice. Checked dxdiag also. At first, I thought it was something to do with the patch that's on the CD versus the one I d/led from the site. After the first install, I installed the patch on the CD, got the crashes, thought it may be that copy that was bad and tried the d/led patch for the 2nd and 3rd installs. Well, that seems to have worked, sort of. It still crashes when the turn is over, but now it is entirely random. I can now reload autosaves and it will go beyond the point it crashed b4. It can crash several times during the course of a game, and it is not only limited to large custom maps, all maps are now affected. But now it also seems to corrupt the replay. When the replay screen comes up, it it remains black, the years go by as normal, but there is no map with faction colors, just black.

I have a brand new P2 350 with enough free HD space to complete install the game 15 times, so the drivers are updated.

Here is the error I get:

TERRAN caused an invalid page fault in
module TERRAN.EXE at 015f:00591587.
Registers:
EAX=0000010d CS=015f EIP=00591587 EFLGS=00010246
EBX=000001f3 SS=0167 ESP=00c25474 EBP=00c2a8a0
ECX=000d9647 DS=0167 ESI=02c6002c FS=0dd7
EDX=00000000 ES=0167 EDI=0000030c GS=0000
Bytes at CS:EIP:
8a 14 8e 83 e2 e0 83 fa 60 7c 06 8b 5d e8 8b 45
Stack dump:
00000000 00000000 0000000f 00000000 00000000 00c26430 00c25fec 0068066c 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000

Also another minor thing. When I try to command the formers to auto build roads, they won't move or do anything, only sit there with an "a" on their flag. This is a bit inconvenient, as I now have to either manually build roads or use the "build road to" feature.

posted 02-24-99 11:56 AM ET            

jkm

posted 02-24-99 04:15 PM ET            

Would that affect the road building issue, or is that more likely just a regular bug?

posted 02-25-99 02:24 PM ET            

I won't threaten to return the game, because I know how fragile software and systems are. I may just cut down my playing time quite a bit and wait for 3.0 (that is if I can bring myself to play less...). I've probably been able to actually finish only 25% of the games I started.

posted 02-25-99 02:49 PM ET            

jkm