(CTD/freeze/BSOD/crashes) Poss Solutions UPDATED 19/04/05

[Eam]

This is the same problem I have. CTD as soon as I come out of the otherside of the Ore belt gate. I am just working through the tips here to try and solve the problem. I'm using XP on P4-2Mhz, 512RAM, FX5700. Patched to 1.3.

[SPINNER]

I did throw money at the problem and what a wast of cash that was.

Now running a stonking 1gb or ddram and a GF59000FX graphics card and what do yo know. if I maintain a low resolution 800x600 I can actually get to the ore belt cystal fab sation, dock and deliver my load.
Save and leave and Bang as soon as the outer doors open and I see that great big asteroid outside CTD. I have even done this with 600x480 with all graphics enhancements turned off and the damn thing still bombs out.


The visuals running on the card with everything maxed and 1280x 1024 are awsome and the game run as smooth as silk......but I cant follow the gameplay as I cant leave the station.
I updated to 1.3! do I need to go back and restart the game form the begining all with 1.3? do previouse saves retain 1.2 data?

This is virtualy a dedicated machine with nothing else running except win2k.
EGOSOFT Please, Please, Please give me a sensible answer. You wrote it so now fix it.
I Invite you to be my guest and come visit me. Ill pick you up form Stansted airport (only five minutes away) and you can come figure this out for me and solve everyones problems. I promise you can be back in your office in time for afternoon tea. How About It Guys!!!!!!!

[veelad]

The visuals running on the card with everything maxed and 1280x 1024 are awsome and the game run as smooth as silk......but I cant follow the gameplay as I cant leave the station.
I updated to 1.3! do I need to go back and restart the game form the begining all with 1.3? do previouse saves retain 1.2 data?

I dont think the resolution will be causing this, and the driver seems OK. you are running on virtually a dedicated machine, sooooo

what is it that your doing thats causing the CTD

1. have you any scripts installed

2. are you, or have you taken any BBS missions, if so, which ones

3. where abouts are you in the plot (ie mission wise from bandana etc)

[SPINNER]

OK

I have no scripts no BBS (what ever they are)

I have started the game, gone to BanDanna left and gone to the B*ch with attitude and paicked up the PC parts.

Gne through the gate to the Ore belt and either when approaching the station or, after the new card install when leaving the station and enter open space...........BANG CTD.

I have just gone back and started afresh with Hard game set.
I have no SETA or WEAPONS and no cargo space. I buy some space and a SETA and head to the HQ. She says come back when you have 30 spare cargo units. I head for the Ore belt anyway...........BANG ...CTD

This is all alt low res. It has to be the Game........No?

[veelad]

BBS, are the bullitin board mission you can get on board some stations, jobs, assasinations etc, whereby your offered money to complete a mission.

is the fraunhofer codec present and have you tried to disable it/turn it off

[DLP]

Just a quick note, on the subject of CTD. After turning the auto save feature off and just saving manually i've had no crashing problems since.

[CBJ]

The crash on autosave was hopefully fixed in 1.3. Are you using 1.3, DLP?

[SPINNER]

I have no BBS missions running or installed.

I just disabled and then deleted the franhoff codec and also a previouse and un used Matrox Codec from the system.

I have downloaded and updated to the latest Nvidia unified drivers to overwrite the install CD driver of my new 5900 FX card.

I have attempted using 3dCache on and Off, switched off all graphics enhancing features, run the game at 640x480 and enven tried to overclock the processor and graphics card using nvidia system utilities.

Every change I run the game so as to exit the factory into the Ore Belt and I get to see the large asteroid just outside the gate for approx 1 second before the game crashes back to the desk top.

THIS CANT BE RIGHT.

Surely EGOSOFT have an answer. and why hav'nt they taken me up on my offer.

[veelad]

Have you tried uninstalling the game and re-installing, now you have all the latest drivers etc, maybe you could try with a clean installation of the game and see if that helps

[SPINNER]

I have reinstalled the game 3 times now and the last time was after updateing the drivers.

I havnt reinstalled since removing the franhuff driver but I donsee that that worul make any difference to the install.

I did notice that after my first uninstall the saved bames were still there and it remembered my key code.

Next time I uninstalled I removed the game keys manualy form the registry as the uninstall does not remove them. I still found that the saved games were remebered so it clearly does not delete the installa directory .... Next Uninstall I will delete evrything I can think of.

What else is this game installing that I cant uninstall.

Still make no sense.

[hitec]

I run a NVidia FX 5700 Ultra and was crashing about every 1/2 hour or so & it was very very unstable . So I went into the driver and started playing with settings. I turned off write combing in the troubleshoot tab and turn down my video acceleration down one notch and it has been super stable since then . I can leave it in seta for days now .

I hope this helps anyone with a NVidia FX card if they were having CTD's.

Hitec

[doogy_fish]

mm, this is totally unrelated really, it's a case of when the game didn't crash to deskop! I was happily flying through Eleanors Fortune when suddenly, the music stopped playing. I say, aha! I read that bug somewhere... But then I discovered all the objects in space that disappeared when I swung round, never re-drew themselves! confusing... Also, all the library entries had disapeared, no more ship information

Catastrophic you might say?

Woops I say, my hard disc had died

Good luck with the real bugs, I'm off to website shopping heaven

[peterhill1972]

I've also got a CTD on arriving through certain jumpgates. I've been trying jumping through them all evening and I've narrowed it down (on my machine) to the game persistently crashing when arriving at either 'Ore Belt', 'President's End' and 'Herrons Nebula'. Other systems, such as 'Red Light' are not affected and I can jump back and forth between 'safe' jumpgates endlessly.

So, this would seem to be a bug, non?

Apart from this showstopper it all seems to work fine. I can't imagine that it's anything to do with the machine in particular, as it's a new 3.2gHz Alienware with a ATI 9800 PRO 256mb graphics card. All other 3D and Direct X titles work - Far Cry, Lock On etc... I've patched X2 to 1.3 (English).

Any thoughts or solutions greatly appreciated.

[CBJ]

The likelihood is that this is a sound-related problem, and that the codecs you have installed are having problems with the specific music file used for those sectors.

You could also try updating your sound card drivers and codecs. If that fails, you might like to have a quick search for threads about resampling music files. This "unofficial" solution has helped a number of people with sound and codec problems.

[SPINNER]

This is no help to any one. The fix was drastic and for most no practical.
Having Purcahsed a new Graphics card and that didnt work I purchased a new Intel 865gbf motherboard and a P4 2.8 processor. Installed a 2 new HDDs one 80gig ide and a 120gig sata. installed X2 form scratch and now .........so far no CTD.

The comment on sound codec and music played in certain sections may be a valid one and worth playing with on the previouse build, but this points to a seriouse devlopement flaw by egosoft. Why would music produced for the game work for some files and not others.

I fail to see why the customers should have to use these forums to collectivly identify problems by countless interactions guess work and expensive trial and error.
A game written for a minimum spec system should work and be compatible. if not they should make it clear why not or at least take some pro active position.

[CBJ]

There are hundreds of different sound cards, each with dozens of drivers, and dozens more codecs. The game developers cannot possibly test every possible combination, though they do manage to test on quite a broad range through the beta programme. There is, however, no way that they can solve problems in hardware and software developed by other people.

[Steel Magpie™]

Okay, now to pour a little more oil onto the water so to speak...

Rather than a CTD I have an XP Blue screen of death which then reboots my entire system after politely telling me my "DRIVER IRQL NOT LESS OR EQUAL" it also quotes "adm8820.sys" and a few adresses therein.
This only happens when playing X2 and has never happened before and has happen three times now exactly the same on X2. I haven't found a connection between what I am doing in the game and the crash. I think it is fight related but I have fought many more complex battles with no problem then "PHOOT!" Blue screen of death on a simple little skirmish of three ships. Maybe it is just coincidence as I have only the last two crashes to work on as the first was such a surprise I have no idea what I was up to at the time (probably making another cup of coffee )

I am currently investigating this Driver Irql information but any help from anyone who has seen this and resolved it would be greatly apprciated as it would save me time (which could be spent empire building )

Many thanks for any help offered.

Steel Magpie™

[CBJ]

The file "adm8820.sys" is a Vortex AU8820 WDM Driver from Aureal. Look out for updated drivers.

Blue screen problems with messages such as the one you are experiencing are almost always driver problems. The fact that they only occur in one game is neither here nor there; each game will make slightly different calls to a driver and has the potential to expose different problems at the driver level.

[Steel Magpie™]

Many many thanks... I am now on the case!

Thanks for the point in the right direction


Steel Magpie™

[peterhill1972]

Still CTD'ing the exact same way, everytime. Otherwise, the game can be left running, it works seemingly perfectly (and smoothly) otherwise.

I'm in agreement with Spinner, I still think the problem lies with Egosoft. I'm downloading the latest driver for my soundcard now, but what I keep thinking is why should I even have to do this? At the risk of repeating myself again, this is a spanking brand new Alienware PC, bought for game development and playing - all brand components, mmkay?

Alienware very nicely install all the latest Windows certified drivers for you. I've updated the videocard driver but apart from that I haven't fiddled with it. Because I don't need to - All of the games I've installed have worked perfectly (Call of Duty, Deux Ex - Invisible War, Half-Life, Max Payne 2, Far Cry, Operation Flashpoint, Medieval, Morrowwind, Lock On, Republic, Homeworld 2 etc.) Effectively, this is as close to a 'test' machine as I could buy. So to have to suddenly install the very latest drivers from a hardware vendor to fix a problem with one title seems a little like shifting the blame. Why is the sound so different in X2? Perhaps Egosoft should look to whatever solutions these other developers took.

As a software developer, and one developing a space game too, I can only say I'm pretty unimpressed. This looks like either a scripting error or memory hole problem to me and therefore one that lies within the code of X2. Having to go around tightening up the rest of my system, fiddling with drivers and graphics setting just to get X2 to play seems a pretty poor prospect.

I'm also wondering whether other people with ATI cards have found these problems, a good friend of mine with an Nvidia card reports no problems whatsoever. Seeing that Nvidia logo everytime X2 starts is starting to annoy.

Exactly why would there be a problem with some sound files and not others? Are they using different audio codecs and if so, why? Why should I even be having this problem when I installed the Windows Media do-da that came with X2? Has anyone at Egosoft been able to reproduce this problem? So far, I've counted three posts on this message board describing this jumpgate-specific problem. There must be a common problem and I think it's very poor to keep pushing it back to the player's machines.