GWX 2.0 CTD (seems like)

[bgeorgalas]

Hi guys,
first of all i would like to Thank you all for the great wor you have put into Gwx so far....
Okz now....I formated my pc reinstalled windows, programs and ofcourse silent hunter III and Gwx 2.0 I started a carrer and i noticed that in several occasions while there is bad weather (waves) and i am in periscope depth when i raise my periscope the game crashes. I believe it has to do about the wave effect on the periscope (when you are supposed to see a blured image) and its realy frustrating....Sometimes i return to desktop and receive an error report to sent to Microsoft but most of the times my pc stops responding (keyboard dead, blank screen) and have to reset it using the power button....

I am playing (have always played) on an Amilo A1667G laptop. Specs:
cpu: AMD athlon 64 4000+, 2,6ghz
mem: 2Gb pc2700
GPU: ATI mobility X700 128mb dedicated (512mb hypermemory) with catalyst mobility 7.10
hard disk: Hitachi 100Gb 7200rpm
windows xp Sp2. I have the later version of directx installed.

I do not believe there is a software conflict since as i mentioned before i have performed a full format last week and i am keeping programs down to the minimum necessary....
The only mods i have activated are the 16km atmposphere, the lite harbor traffic and the integrated orders.
I also keep my graphic settings to medium-low.
I do not care about graphical effects as long as the game is playable....
Any ideas and/or suggestions (other than changing my system) would be mostly welcome......

Ps. I am using a no-cd patch but i do not believe that has anything to do with that since it did not gave me any problems playing Gwx 1.03 for about a year now.....

[Wolfehunter]

What is the 512 hypermemory? It that shared memory? I'm not too familiar with ATI cards.

[danlisa]

Provided that you are satisfied that the following requirements are met:

1) Clean/Unmodded version of SH3 1.4b
2) GWX download was not corrupted (check with MD5 mate)
3) You have the most upto date drivers installed.

There's 3 things I can suggest, first - If the CTD happens again, please post the details of the error report i,e SH3 has encountered an error in SH3.exe etc, second - a very detailed defrag of your HDD, something like OO Defrag, where you can order by Name, Accessed etc & third - check for background processes, spyware, adware etc.

[JU_88]

What is the 512 hypermemory? It that shared memory? I'm not too familiar with ATI cards.

512 hyper memory (ATI) basically means their is about 128mb of physical memory on the GFX card and the rest is taken from system memory - Nvidia do the same on their budget cards too, but they prefer to call it 'turbo cache' (its the same bloody thing as hyper memory though)
Judging by the fact that bgeorgalas has a good 2Gb of system memory I dont belive this is causing the problem.

[Wolfehunter]

What is the 512 hypermemory? It that shared memory? I'm not too familiar with ATI cards.

Gernally 512 hyper memory (ATI) is about 128mb on the card and the rest is taken from system memory - Nvidia do the same on their budget card too but call it 'turbo cache' same bloody thing thing though!
Judging by the fact that bgeorgalas has a good 2Gb of system memory I dont belive this is causing the problem.I asumed that what it was but wasn't sure. Thanks. I hate to differ but shared memory doesn't alway work well with games. When I sold computers years ago alot of problems with all-in-one motherboards sharing memory. I figure today MB's it should be fixed?:hmm:

[JU_88]

What is the 512 hypermemory? It that shared memory? I'm not too familiar with ATI cards.

Gernally 512 hyper memory (ATI) is about 128mb on the card and the rest is taken from system memory - Nvidia do the same on their budget card too but call it 'turbo cache' same bloody thing thing though!
Judging by the fact that bgeorgalas has a good 2Gb of system memory I dont belive this is causing the problem.I asumed that what it was but wasn't sure. Thanks. I hate to differ but shared memory doesn't alway work well with games. When I sold computers years ago alot of problems with all-in-one motherboards sharing memory. I figure today MB's it should be fixed?:hmm:

Its not that same as -say intergrated intel graphics that has very poor 3d capabilties, In the case of a desktop you will stil have a dedicated pci-e or agp card with some of its own memory but it will take the rest from the system.

in bgeorgalas's case he has a laptop (just realised) so its going to be intergrated anyway.
His lappy has ATI X700 graphics chipset - i belive that it has NO dedicated memory at all - this is normally the case for all but the most high end laptops on the market.
This 'trend' managed to catch on because turbocache and hypermemory allow for decent enough performace for them to not bother with including dedicated graphics memory (saves the manufacturer money) at reletivley little cost to 3D performance.
Its not as good as dedicated graphics memory, no - but its not too bad either, basically im saying that the recent advances in PC technology and architecture allow for things like this to work much more effectively than they did 5 or so years ago.

[bgeorgalas]

Thank you all for the responses....
Let me clear the thinks up a little bit for the Ati X700....The card has 128mb (it's an pci-e mxm type I card)+ it uses memory from the system when it needs and arrives up to 512mb.....As i said before i have played SH3+GWX 1.03 for about a year now with no problems

Danlisa:
I am pretty ready to bet my life that it is not a spyware/virus since i reinstalled all the software after a format and i use an antivirus software (that ofcource i dissactivate before playing any game)
Defragmentation is not a problem either since i defragment quite often....
The drivers are quite new (I now that there mobility catalyst version 7.11 out but i will stick with version 7.10) and directx is the newer version available (last week or so)

I will try to reproduce the problem and hope to get an error report to post here....

[JU_88]

GPU: ATI mobility X700 128mb dedicated (512mb hypermemory) with catalyst mobility 7.10..

Oh my bad, but 'mobilty' implies its in a laptop. Is it one of those new fangled Laptop pci-e cards?
Nevermind im just dragging this thread OT, ignore me.
Anyway I agree about it not likley being a virus or fragmented drive issue. definatley sounds like its graphy card driver related ....
I know its a pain but suggest you reinstall stock sh3 without the no cd patch and re-test. (just to be sure)

[bgeorgalas]

I managed to get another blank screen and dead keyboard issue and had to hard reset my pc without gettting any error report....

BUT looking unde administrator tools in the event manager i found an application error report:

Τύπος συμβάντος: Σφάλμα
Προέλευση συμβάντος: Application Error
Κατηγορία συμβάντος: Καμία
Αναγνωριστικό συμβάντος: 1000
Ημερομηνία: 11/12/2007
Ώρα: 18:49:57
Χρήστης: Δ/Υ
Υπολογιστής: EOL
Περιγραφή:
Ελαττωματική εφαρμογή sh3.exe, έκδοση 1.4.0.1, ελαττωματική λειτουργική μονάδα kernel.dll, έκδοση 0.0.0.0, ελαττωματική διεύθυνση 0x0001758c.
Για περισσότερες πληροφορίες, επισκεφθείτε το Κέντρο Βοήθειας και Υποστήριξης στο http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp.
Δεδομένα:
0000: 41 70 70 6c 69 63 61 74 Applicat
0008: 69 6f 6e 20 46 61 69 6c ion Fail
0010: 75 72 65 20 20 73 68 33 ure sh3
0018: 2e 65 78 65 20 31 2e 34 .exe 1.4
0020: 2e 30 2e 31 20 69 6e 20 .0.1 in
0028: 6b 65 72 6e 65 6c 2e 64 kernel.d
0030: 6c 6c 20 30 2e 30 2e 30 ll 0.0.0
0038: 2e 30 20 61 74 20 6f 66 .0 at of
0040: 66 73 65 74 20 30 30 30 fset 000
0048: 31 37 35 38 63 0d 0a 1758c..

I am sorry to post it in Greek but hopefully someone familiar with the windows error reports would be able to find smth usefull in it.

and here is another one with a different code:

Τύπος συμβάντος: Σφάλμα
Προέλευση συμβάντος: Application Error
Κατηγορία συμβάντος: Καμία
Αναγνωριστικό συμβάντος: 1000
Ημερομηνία: 11/12/2007
Ώρα: 13:39:12
Χρήστης: Δ/Υ
Υπολογιστής: EOL
Περιγραφή:
Ελαττωματική εφαρμογή sh3.exe, έκδοση 1.4.0.1, ελαττωματική λειτουργική μονάδα unknown, έκδοση 0.0.0.0, ελαττωματική διεύθυνση 0xb005f482.
Για περισσότερες πληροφορίες, επισκεφθείτε το Κέντρο Βοήθειας και Υποστήριξης στο http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp.
Δεδομένα:
0000: 41 70 70 6c 69 63 61 74 Applicat
0008: 69 6f 6e 20 46 61 69 6c ion Fail
0010: 75 72 65 20 20 73 68 33 ure sh3
0018: 2e 65 78 65 20 31 2e 34 .exe 1.4
0020: 2e 30 2e 31 20 69 6e 20 .0.1 in
0028: 75 6e 6b 6e 6f 77 6e 20 unknown
0030: 30 2e 30 2e 30 2e 30 20 0.0.0.0
0038: 61 74 20 6f 66 66 73 65 at offse
0040: 74 20 62 30 30 35 66 34 t b005f4
0048: 38 32 0d 0a 82..

and another one:

Τύπος συμβάντος: Σφάλμα
Προέλευση συμβάντος: Application Error
Κατηγορία συμβάντος: Καμία
Αναγνωριστικό συμβάντος: 1000
Ημερομηνία: 11/12/2007
Ώρα: 10:21:34
Χρήστης: Δ/Υ
Υπολογιστής: EOL
Περιγραφή:
Ελαττωματική εφαρμογή sh3.exe, έκδοση 1.4.0.1, ελαττωματική λειτουργική μονάδα unknown, έκδοση 0.0.0.0, ελαττωματική διεύθυνση 0xdb36ca00.
Για περισσότερες πληροφορίες, επισκεφθείτε το Κέντρο Βοήθειας και Υποστήριξης στο http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp.
Δεδομένα:
0000: 41 70 70 6c 69 63 61 74 Applicat
0008: 69 6f 6e 20 46 61 69 6c ion Fail
0010: 75 72 65 20 20 73 68 33 ure sh3
0018: 2e 65 78 65 20 31 2e 34 .exe 1.4
0020: 2e 30 2e 31 20 69 6e 20 .0.1 in
0028: 75 6e 6b 6e 6f 77 6e 20 unknown
0030: 30 2e 30 2e 30 2e 30 20 0.0.0.0
0038: 61 74 20 6f 66 66 73 65 at offse
0040: 74 20 64 62 33 36 63 61 t db36ca
0048: 30 30 0d 0a 00..

Ju 88: I leave this option (reinstalling the game) as the last resource since i wanted to keep everything nice and clean until XP SP3 comes out in order to minimize formating/reinstalation.....and yep X700 is an pci-e card!

[bgeorgalas]

i am sorry to bring this up again but my system continues to stop responding when raising (and looking) through periscope in rough seas....
has anyone else experienced the same problems?
Any help would be realy appreciated....

The no-cd patch deals with these files: utils.dll, statemachine.dll, simdata.dll, sh3.exe, missionengine.dll
Does anyone know if GWX 2.0 affect any of the above files? I have kept a backup of my old ones (clean sh3+1.4b patch) and thinking to revert back to cd-check to see if the problems persists there but i would like to be sure before making things worse

Thanx!

PS. doublechecked my system for memory problems (the only think that came in mind) and harddisk errors and i'ìm absolutely clean!

[bgeorgalas]

http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/http://www.imageshack.gr/files/p4nu3ghn5137oi4fgaba.jpg (http://www.imageshack.gr/view.php?file=p4nu3ghn5137oi4fgaba.jpg)

[bgeorgalas]

Ok sorry to bring this up again but i noticed some strange behaviours:
i Installed the kl-mega codec pack to find out that whrn starting the game and while in the welcome screen (when you are supposed to choose a new carrer etc) i see only a black screen and the mouse leaves permanent trails.....

I reformated my pc reinstalled everything and started a new carrer and i have noticed a couple of funny things (without installing kl-codedc pack this time):
1. in flak artillery naval academy planes are shooting each other
2. See picture above
3. in Game and near a convoy or lobùnely ships i my fps drop an awfull lot (have not yet received a CTD) and makes the game nearly unplayable.....For sure this happens when an empire type freighter is involved and the low-fps persists for the rest of the game period (i.e. even after sinking the ship and moving 500km away from it)

I use minimum graphic settings for my video card and have disabled the gigh quality images and set particle density to 10 form the ingame menu. I also have the in game music disabled.

[i_b_spectre]

bgeorgalas, this may be a longshot, but sometimes the latest graphics card drivers are not the greatest. I'm running an aging ATI 9800 Pro and stopped updating the drivers with version 4.10. As ATI superceded my card with the X-series, their drivers were geared toward the newer cards and caused performance issues and artifacting on my 9800. Consider that the Xx00 series (which includes the X700) has been superceded by the X1xxx (X1950, etc), the 2000 series and now the 3000 series. You may find an earlier version works better for you.

[bgeorgalas]

bgeorgalas, this may be a longshot, but sometimes the latest graphics card drivers are not the greatest. I'm running an aging ATI 9800 Pro and stopped updating the drivers with version 4.10. As ATI superceded my card with the X-series, their drivers were geared toward the newer cards and caused performance issues and artifacting on my 9800. Consider that the Xx00 series (which includes the X700) has been superceded by the X1xxx (X1950, etc), the 2000 series and now the 3000 series. You may find an earlier version works better for you.

thank you for he response but i have allready tried that....
I begun downgrading the catalyst mobility each time the game crashed (down from catalyst mobility 7.12 to 7.4 one step at a time) i noticed that while with catalyst 7.12 the pc stoped responding with catalyst 7.4 was able to reset the graphic processor....
Now (after reformating) i am with catalyst 6.14 (the original ones provided from my laptop manufacturer) and although i have not yet received a CTD i experience very low fps as described above....
The thing that bothers me (No offence to GWX team that made a marvelous work"!!!) the most is that i have played sh3+gwx 1.03 in the same system with catalyst 6.14 for over a year with no problem. So it must be something that bothers the X700 in the GWX 2.0 and leads to slow fps/system crash.....and i would very much like to find a workaround to it.......so any help provided will be really appreciated......

[TarJak]

I know this is a long shot, but have you tried a different GFX card in the same machine?

[i_b_spectre]

Another thing you might try...run dxdiag and set the sound acceleration slider to "Basic" or even "no acceleration". Test to see if there is an improvement and which setting works best. This can affect frame rate presumably by reducing CPU load.

[onelifecrisis]

I reformated my pc reinstalled everything and started a new carrer and i have noticed a couple of funny things (without installing kl-codedc pack this time):
1. in flak artillery naval academy planes are shooting each other

Chaps, I really doubt this issue has anything to do with the GFX card.

bgeogalas, did you check your GWX2 download with that MD5 hash thing as danlisa suggested?

BTW I also run a cracked version of the game with GWX2, no problems.

[Palidian]

I am getting a fair amount of CTD, I even got one from a saved game, when It would run for 10 seconds and crash, repeatable. However I went to a earlier saved game and it deletes any games after that one.



Where can we send saved games that crash?

[bgeorgalas]

I know this is a long shot, but have you tried a different GFX card in the same machine?

Unfortunately this is not possible since the pc is a laptop......

I have allready checked GWX 2.0 files with MD5 and they are ok.....

Yesterday i installed the omega drivers for the ATi X700 and although i did not have enough time to test it, i run into a convoy with heavy seas/heavy rain/ low visibility and the whole system performs a lot better......
Sure when looking through the periscope lowers fps to 15-20 (when water covers the periscope lenses) but still better than the ati catalyst.....
I noticed some strange things with the sound though....It seems to me that "rough sea" sounds are stronger when submerged (than with the catalyst) and also at the begining of the campaign some funny "digitized" voices....(which is strange since the omega drivers should only be vido drivers....)
I will do more testing and keep you folks updated.....

Thank you very much with your time!

[bgeorgalas]

I am getting a fair amount of CTD, I even got one from a saved game, when It would run for 10 seconds and crash, repeatable. However I went to a earlier saved game and it deletes any games after that one.



Where can we send saved games that crash?

If i am not mistaken there is a known issue about crashing games....you should save while on surface and away (i.e. no contacts of any kind) of anything to be sure that your savegame will work.....
I used to save near convoys in my first patrols and although sometimes the game loaded normally most of the times just crashed.....
My advice to this would be to delete the save game that crashes and load the previous savegame in port after mission......