Game Crashing!

#1
On the mission after defending Enif Station where you have to escout 3 supply ships, when the "blockaid" jumps in, my game crashes EVERY TIME! Ive had similar problems with Babylon Project when 2 caps switch sides all of a sudden. This has gotten me to belive that its because of SCP.

How the hell do i stop this :?

Ive got a 500MHz 320MB RAM and FX5200.

Here are my current SCP settings:

-spec -glow -jpgtga -nomotiondebris -2d_poof -cell -rlm -noscalevid -pcx2dds -ship_choice_3d -orbradar -tbpwarpeffects -env -decals -ambient_factor 75

HELP!

#2
You're lucky to have FSO working at all on a machine like that, I used to have a simlair one and it was always crashing. Try using retail on the missions that crash, and FSO on the ones that don't.

#5
Is -pcx2dds really neccesary?
No, and it will be removed in the next day or so, officially replaced by -img2dds (also not required) which is a more complete feature. The -img2dds option (in case you never used it in my test builds) does the same basic thing as -pcx2dds but uses the compressed data for both the video card copy and the system copy thereby reducing overall memory usage which helps speed up the game even more.

Given the large number of ships which need 9 to 25 meg of system and video ram at the moment this option is capable of between 4:1 and 6:1 compression ratio of files that aren't already compressed (non-DDS images). Obviously there are compression artifacts with this but if your video drivers aren't crap then the artifacts are minimal, and as I said, it's totally optional.

#7
Sweet. Does it eat into framerates much?
Unlike how -pcx2dds worked -img2dds does it's thing only during mission load. Mission load will take a litlte longer (it's not bad, you may not even notice) but there is no overhead when you are actually in a mission. If anything you should get slightly higher frame rates across the board. In my tests, 10-15 FPS boost was the norm with bursts going even higher. The less system and video ram you have the greater the speed boost. Really beefy computers would not get much improvement, they would just be able to do more at any given time.

And because it's been asked before I'll just go ahead and say that an image has to actually qualify for compression before it will happen. Qualification will mean a texture that is already power-of-2, not an EFF, and not a DDS (whether that DDS is compressed or not). All power-of-2 TGA, JPG, PCX, and ANIs can be compressed.

EFF frames aren't compressed since it offers compression already and if the artist didn't use compression in the first place then there is probably a reason. Same thing for uncompressed DDS. Although it's possible to compress these images I wanted all the artists out there to have a little wriggle room and be able to avoid compression, even if the user wants it with the cmdline option, if the compression artifacts are just too bad with that particular image.

#10
Taking it out of the launcher doesn't remove it from the game, you would just have to use it as a custom flag. I've already removed -pcx32 from the launcher as well in my upcoming commit btw. It will still be usable as a custom flag, or if it's already in your cmdline, but it's description is deceptive and most people just don't seem to understand what it's supposed to do.

Also -img2dds will automatically turn on -jpgtga since those images should be compressed and selectively uses -pcx32 automatically. I say selectively since it will only use the affect of -pcx32 on images that it's going to compress.


If warpcore ever comes back on I'll finish up and commit my changes. In the meantime though here is what you will get with the cmdline changes:

removed from game:
-pcx2dds (replaced by -img2dds)
-dxt (replaced by -img2dds)
-loadonlyused (it's default to on now)
-cache_ani (completely useless 99.9% of the time)

removed from launcher:
-UseNewAI (should be determined by mission maker)
-pcx32 (not well understood, typically wasteful)
-cell (I agree with phreak on this one)

added to game/launcher:
-loadallweps (retail behavior, what you get if not using -loadonlyused)
-img2dds (compress images that qualify for it)

renamed:
-dnoshowvid is now -nomovies
-d3d_no_vsync is now -no_vsync
-d3dmipmap is now -mipmap

#14
Two things:
1) Weren't we going to make -jpgtga default to ON at some point?
2) Are you going to commit your repeat count fixes? :p
Can't really remember the result of that discussion, maybe we were. It would be nice, though I really like to not use it at times. I don't really have an opinion either way.

As for 2, the server has to get working first. :) That fix is part of the big graphics update I'm sitting on. Unfortunately I introduced a crash bug somewhere in the D3D code but without CVS I can't get a good diff to figure out what all I changed. When the server is back on line it shouldn't take long to track the last little problem down, fix it, and commit what I've got before getting back to work on the sound code.
So does anyone have any idea what setting would cause the crashing? It works fine on all my other missions...
Well you still have said what build you are using and I would assume that you haven't tried a debug build yet either. Try one of the current CVS debug builds and when it crashes post any messages that it gives, if any, plus the last 5 lines of fs.log and the first 10 lines of errorlog.txt.
Theres a new AI?
Yes (been there) but it's supposed to only be a mission flag. It is sort of useful, being a cmdline option, to test with but it's not something that people need to be using since it causes known bugs and that's why it shouldn't be in the launcher. Unless the mission was designed for the new AI then no one but developers should be messing with it.
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