OM / OMEGU problem

[orangehat44]

I had one campaign start in the first flotilla and everything seemed fine. I did start another campaign in the second flotilla and Im on my first patroll very beginning and I sunk some ships at dover on the way to my objective, and I keep crashing to desktop, cant get away from dover ( I saved right after the attack luckly) but I cant get away with out crashing. is dover considered too large of a port to get near? after attacking I sunk two ships in the port but after words it would look like the whole port was on fire or other boats were on fire other than the ones I sunk. Also, minor tid bit on the side. the boats I sunk never appeard with the sunk marker on my map, it does list them in the log that I sunk them. Should I just start over and avoid ports completly? as I said its only like the 3rd day into my first patrol in 1939 september. Not a huge loss to dump that campagin and start over.

[alexradu89]

It clearly says in the OM thread to say away from ports. I "kind of" went through something like this so I had to restart. I'm not sure how everything works but, last time I visited a port everything was good (I managed to sink 2 battleships, a destroyer, and a few merchants).

[ShadowWolf Kell]

I've had this problem extensively in the past.

While it still happens to me, I discovered reducing extra mods (sounds, especially those including their own sh.sdl file) and high res texture files seems to help.

Time Compression combined with SH4's very poor memory handler seems to be the culprit.

RFB's been giving me some CTD issues specifically with Gatos and I've been trying to figure out why. As it turns out it uses high res uniform textures (from the RUIM mod) which also gave me issues with OM awhile back (I used only specific textures and left all the campaign data files out. It'll mess up your sub otherwise.)

I managed to completely get around the CTD issues by actually moving my deck crew to hogan's alley and then going to the bridge without any CTDs. After that, I was able to put them back on the bridge. Normally if I go directly to the bridge after high TC, or first loading it'll CTD as soon as I do so. I've noticed one of the bridge crew also sometimes appears as a black mesh. Oddly, this doesn't happen with Porpoise, Salmons or Sargos even with the exact same crew.

I think this is due to SH4 loading a LOT of stuff all at once, and the memory handler still processing the stuff. Unlike many other programs, it doesn't handle it gracefully and tends to CTD if you go to a scene area before it's finished loading everything. OM adds tons of stuff into the game which stretches this to the limit I think, moreso than RFB or TMO since the PTO is far more detailed in SH4 than the ATO was.

The bigger and more intricate the files, the more time required. I've also used this theory when returning to port and actually waiting a minute or two before clicking to finish a patrol. It always switches to an external camera at the debrief screen which could sometimes also be a source of random CTDs. I've all but eliminated this occurance with TMO (the only time it CTDs on me basically.)

Keep in mind this is simply a theory on my end based on patterns of events and trying to track down what's been giving me issues personally. This obviously doesn't explain all CTD issues so some trial and error is required.

It might also be a combination of factors too. For example, I'm using an GTX295 Nvidia card with Vista 64. That might be contributing to my issues.

[GlobalExplorer]

Most importantly: backup your SHIV folder often, so that you can always go back when something went wrong. I have four or five backups at various stages, starting right after installation, and ending with my final modded setup.

I initially had sometimes CTDs, but they have now been mostly banished.

CTDs related to SH4 data

During patrols you should not change anything in the SH4 data (graphic and sound files are ok), otherwise you may not be able to load your saves again.

Example: I edited renown for a single ship and got a (reproducible) CTD on loading all of my savegames. Put back the old file and everything went back to normal.

SHIV seems more touchy in that respect than SHIII. My theory is that it keeps more data in its savegames, which leads to crashes when the old data that which is referenced has changed.

CTDs related to sound

Since I created my own sound mod I had a lot of sound related CTDs.


I had only very few CTDs since I made the following changes (so few that it doesn't bother me any more):

• installed the latest driver for my soundcard
• reduced (DirectX) hardware sound acceleration to 'Standard'
• use only sound files that are reasonably short (15s instead of 10mins as in some mods )
• use no sound files that are stereo (this was recommended in some forums, however in the original UBI files stereo/mono as well aws bitrates are mixed up too)
• removed a certain radio mod that allegedly has dangling references and causes CTD at a defined point in time
• use a reasonably large pagefile for Windows (lest the system runs out of memory)

Which was the main problem I cannot say. It could be all contribute to the problem, it could be none, but all of these measures potentially improve stability.