Savegame crashes driver-related?

[msalama]

Guys,

I think I might be onto something here. Just might, though.

But still...

I've gotten lots of savegame crashes during my new Black Sea campaign, because it's pretty hard to go further than 50kms from the shore there without missing a serious chunk of the shipping. I've therefore saved in positions not recommended, and thus, I'm seeing a carpload of corrupted saves as a result.

OK, that's driving me f*ng nuts... BUT! What's interesting is that the crashes are always accompanied with a Windows system event / error 45062 stating "invalid display type". The error is from the display driver, or, to be more specific, from a driver subprocess called "ati2mtag". I'm using a Radeon 9600 adapter with Omega 3.8.442 drivers.

Now all this may mean something, or then again, may not. What makes this interesting, however, is to google for a phrase like '+"ati2mtag"+"invalid display type"', because what the query returns is a carpload of assorted GAME CRASH DESCRIPTIONS all accompanied with this error message!!!

So what I'm going to try is to get an older driver and see if it helps. It just might, because as is known many newer drivers (and sometimes adapters too) just plainly don't support older games. And the core of SH3, as you might recall, was done in 2005(?) after all...

I'll report back if I bump into something worthwhile.

S!

PS / EDIT: Isn't the drivers though, but something else altogether. See below.

[Captain Nemo]

Good luck, I hope you find a cure to your save game problems. You might be on to something, my machine was built in 2005 and I've never updated any drivers on my system. If it ain't broke don't fix it is my motto. Never had a save game crash on me.

Nemo

[msalama]

Thanks Nemo. Ain't the drivers, though, but the campaign files usually found in "C:\Program Files\Ubisoft\SilentHunterIII\data\Campaigns\Campa ign".

How do I know? Well, if I replace the AI object / traffic configuration files (namely campaign_LND.mis, campaign_RND.mis and campaign_SCR.mis - which I take relate to land, random and scripted AI units respectively) with empty files of the same name (i.e. ones containing only the mission header) my apparently corrupted saves load just fine! Not that they're playable in this context anymore, because the only traffic there is, then, is my wee little boat all by itself :rotfl:

Any ideas how to sort this out, gals and gents?

[predavolk]

Well I have an ATI 9550 and you go me all excited. I certainly don't have enough knowledge to help solve the problem, but I'm all for encouraging anyone who can! For what it's worth, I believe my drivers are about 1 year old.

[msalama]

Cheers Predavolk.

Seems that it's not the drivers however, but the campaign files mentioned above that cause this. Help is however on its way, because I cooked up a simple mod that offers a cure of sorts - will test it during the weekend, and then share the bugger with you guys.

I'll keep you posted. S!

[croozer]

Has anyone been able to fix this?
SOOOOOOOO frustrating to save a great mission in the middle and then have to start over again.

[predavolk]

Has anyone been able to fix this?
SOOOOOOOO frustrating to save a great mission in the middle and then have to start over again.

Nothing here, other than to suggest that you try to run complete missions at a time and/or make sure you save WELL away from any ships, convoys, or land. That seems to be pretty safe.

[msalama]

Yup - no cure found around here at all as well, sad to say :-? Thus what you've to do is to do as predavolk said...

S!