Clarifying OOS solutions

[Roghar]

Apologies for the new thread, I've spent a lot of time searching for OOS stuff and haven't managed to get it all clear in my head

My brother and I run into lots of OOS issues playing across LAN. Currently with 0.30g, but have had problems with all versions till now, and it is really ruining the game for us. Had 3 games we had to abort just last night, and we don't have much time to play usually. It isn't specifically caused by any one thing I can think of, but is always at start of turn. Once that has happened even if we go back to a previous save it always OOSs back at the same turn. Only once we managed to delay it a bit clearing cache, but it got stuck a few turns later anyway

My understanding of what to do about it is as follows, please correct me if wrong as am not sure:

- download bhruic's 3.13 BTS patch, which is esentially a DLL file (forget the exact filename now).
- Replace the Beyond the Sword DLL file located in the Beyond the Sword Assets folder with the new file
- Delete the Beyond the Sword folder in user settings (My Games folder) to clear the cache etc

Main thing we were unsure of is if we should be replacing the DLL file in the FFH2 Assets folder instead. Pretty sure we did that first and when it failed tried the BTS one, but can try it again if that's where it should be

Apart from that, anything else we can do?

 

[xienwolf]

Not much else you can do really. And yes, Bhruic's patch goes in BtS, not in FfH. I think Kael has a few changes in his DLL, but it still looks to the other for things he hasn't modified, like the mouseover for buildings when it asks you what to build next (which is, from what I recall, all that Bhruic is for)

 

[Tarquelne]

With .30f we had lots of OOS errors when the Kurotates (sp?) were in the game.

I suspect that asking too much of the CPU/RAM during a MP game can give OOS errors. Try smaller maps/fewer civs?

 

[Roghar]

Playing last night we managed to go a fair while before the dreaded OOS struck. Exiting and looking to re-delete the cahced folders, they didn't exist! There was no Beyond the Sword folder in my user data, I had assumed it would recreate when playing? NOt sure what to do at this point to try and get the game going?

 

[Kael]

An OOS occurs when one players game differs from another players game. Civ4 isnt a client server app (all players attach to one computer that hosts the game), instead all players run their own games and a backgorund process tries to keep those games in sync. When it fails to do so you get an OOS.

The big cause of OOS's are:

1. Some new feature Ive added that isn't communicated to all the players. So if I give a defensive bonus to a unit that isnt communicated you may win a combat with that unit because of the bonus but in other players games your unit lost the battle.

2. A popup decision of the players that isnt told to everyone. So if you are present a popup option there is no native way to inform all the other games about which option you selected. So they dont get the effects of your choise. The big example of this is the kuriotates selecting to make a city iinto a hub or settlement (and why I had to remove that choice from multiplayer games).

To fix them I need as much specificity as possible about what caused the OOS. I know thats not always easy to tell, and unfortunatly a save game does me no good (since its not multiplayer for me). Keep an eye on your games and see if you can establish a pattern for when the OOS strikes to help me narrow in on it.

The short version of all this is that multiplayer is pretty complicated, but we are trying to get it worked out.

 

[Goodgimp]

Roghar,

There's no need to start a new game if an OOS error occurs (Sorry if I misinterpreted what you were saying, but that's what it sounded like).

Following these steps has helped my friends and I when we play on a LAN, both in vanilla BTS and FFH2.

1. All players exit game.
2. Hold down SHIFT while double-clicking on the icon to load the game. This will clear the cache, just in case.
3. Host and rejoin game.

I've found that if both people do not completely exit the game, the OOS error with continue (or at least that's been my experience).

If you have 3+ people, you can see who went out of sync. Have an in-sync person (no pun intended) save the game and reload from there. If you are playing only 2-player and are unable to determine who has the "corrupt" version, you can either take a guess on who went OOS based on Kael's info above (thanks for that by the way, Kael, very informative) or reload from your latest autosave, which is at most 4 turns prior.

 

[onedreamer]

My understanding of what to do about it is as follows, please correct me if wrong as am not sure:

- download bhruic's 3.13 BTS patch, which is esentially a DLL file (forget the exact filename now).
- Replace the Beyond the Sword DLL file located in the Beyond the Sword Assets folder with the new file
- Delete the Beyond the Sword folder in user settings (My Games folder) to clear the cache etc

None of the first two can help FFH2.

Main thing we were unsure of is if we should be replacing the DLL file in the FFH2 Assets folder instead. Pretty sure we did that first and when it failed tried the BTS one, but can try it again if that's where it should be

You shouldn't have done anything. And what you did (in both cases) is wrong and most probably what's causing OOS. You MUST NOT replace the dll in FFH2, unless you have compiled it for your own use and you know what you're doing.

 

[Elgorath]

When me and my friend get our 3rd religion, that is we both have one religion each. He has "fellowship of leaves" and I have "runes of kilmorph" and as soon as we finish "octopus overlords" it goes OOS.

This happens regardless of who gets the 3rd (and his 2nd) religion. Even restarting civ and loading our auto save does not solve this...

the only way we could remove this was to save after discovering the religion and then saving and loading our new save file... but it was just a matter of time before this happens again, at random times and now a few turns later it goes OOS no matter what we do.

Hope you understand what I am trying to say and if you have any questions please feel free to email me or reply to this thread

 

[xienwolf]

One method which you can attempt to use to find what the precise OOS cause was is for BOTH of you to save the game (AFTER it goes OOS), then load up each version and compare them closely.

MEANING: Load up your version, have him join you. Look for something on his Civilization that wasn't that way when he saved. If you find nothing, then load up HIS save, YOU join it, and now look all over in YOUR civ for something that wasn't the way it had been at the save.


For example: If it was the problem where a defensive bonus wasn't transmitted and on your computer you won the battle, and on his version you lost the battle, when you load his version you will find that you are missing the unit who had been in a fight. When you load your own version, you neither of you will notice anything different unless he happened to have that fight in his Line of Sight, then he'll notice that the little man is still there when he should not be.


Since it is based on the founding of the religion in your first guess, I'd look at which city gained the Holy City, and if there is a Disciple unit there.

 

[Elgorath]

Since we play in team, the line of sight idea is ruled out and none of us have any disciples.
The game goes OOS at the begining of the turn when we get the new religion.
We started a new game and have not had any problems so far but we have only one religion each. Going to research a new religion next and report back with my findings.

 

[xienwolf]

I don't mean a disciple you already have, I mean the free one you should get with the new religion that you discover.

Haven't played team, so I am guessing here, but from what I understand you BOTH get any technology that you discover. That means it is triggering BOTH of you as founders of the religion. You have one Holy City each, so I guess on first religion it just considered you as a single Civ and granted the Holy City in the normal way. When you got the second one it said "Player A has a religion, so let's allow Player B to found this one!" and granted the Holy City to only Player B's best choice city.

Now, I suspect it is saying "Whoa! They both have a religion, let's give it to Player C. And shut down the game until he shows up!"

Alternatively, it could be doing the Holy City just fine, but then it decides to grant each of you a free Disciple because one of you counts as having discovered the technology, but not founded the religion. However, since you already have the religion, it might be wigging out on the other player's computer and saying that you founded the religion, so shouldn't get a free Disciple.

 

[onedreamer]

nope, the religion goes to the one who discovers the tech, it's not random.

 

[Playciv2948]

The reason it goes OOS at the start of a turn is because a Random Event is causing it. I don't recall this being a problem since Patch B, but it seems to be back in patch G. If once it goes OOS you click on save game, rename it so easy to find, then rehost by loading game, it will not be OOS until the next random event and no turns/etc. are lost whatsoever.

 

[Elgorath]

We played another game today and sure enough. as soon as we finished our 3rd religion it went OOS....
So my guess is still the religion or perhaps the deciple you get from the religion.

When you research an religion the player with the lowest score gets the new religion, the second goes to the player without religion and the third goes to the one with the lowest score or the city without religion (usually both).

 

[Roghar]

thanks all for your replies.

going back to a saved game and clearing cache does not unfortunately tend to solve the problem, normally it reappears back exactly the same turn. I'll try disabling events to see if that is it

 

[Great Oleander]

With patch e I never had any OOS errors (played 3 whole games from beginning to end). But with patch h I had some OOS errors, even a repeatable one. When I switched to God King and Apprenticeship on turn 2 the error appeared (I gave myself a few great sages so that I can summon hyborem earlier). When I switched only to Apprenticeship or only to God King no OOS error appeared.
I hope this helps a bit to get rid of those nasty OOS errors.

 

[LastWordz]

Another post regarding OOS errors with this mod. Was over at a friend's playing on his LAN - one computer was XP the other Vista. We had *constant* OOS issues with this mod, and the base (unmodified) game - when starting the game, restarting, reconnecting, whatever - we could not get rid of the error. Cleared cache as well, with no luck. It started from turn 1, no matter what settings were used, and what map script was used, etc. - everything we tried made no difference.

We then decided to play his mod (Seven05's World Piece) - which used a modified Bhuiric's (sp?) unofficial 3.13 patch .dll. NO ERRORS at all this time arround. We ended up playing for about 8 hours solid with no errors, about 400 turns. Thus, there's something in both the base (unmodified) game and in this mod which are causing OOS errors, especially with Vista/XP (we never had these issues up until this week, which is when he recently installed Vista on his computer - prior to this, we could play the default game and different mods with no error - however, we never tried previous versions of FfH2, so I couldn't say if this is a recent issue with patch H or something that's been there all along). Whatever the case, there definitely seems to be an issue in the .dll.

Incidently, people who have been suggesting using Bhuiric's .dll along with FfH2 are way off base. There is no way that making a change to the default .dll can affect a mod which uses the same .dll, as a mod's version of the file will override the base game file (except in the case of modular loading, which is .xml file loading only, from what I understand). And obviously you cannot replace FfH2's .dll with Bhuiric's without completely breaking FfH2.

I hope this information helps somewhat in tracking down the issues for the mod team.

 

[Roghar]

thanks for that - interesting, my brother and I run vista/xp respectively, wonder if that could be a big factor

 

[SwordofStriker]

The idea to make sure people are using Bhruic's patch was simply to make sure everyone was on the same page with the same files in their basic BTS files. By making sure the basic game is up to date and using all the most recent fixes, it eliminates the possibility entirely of that being the cause (no matter how remote it might seem) if the problem continues. It's called troubleshooting.

It seems to me the problem may very well be Vista as I've been playing multiplayer with patch g for several days in a row now, with not one single OOS. We are all using Windows XP.

In addition, I feel it being an Octopus Overlords problem is not likely because I have been founding it every game. Events don't seem to be an issue either as they are on and we are also using the living world option.

 

[Elgorath]

Could be Vista and/or Vista vs XP problems.. A lot of other games have problems with Vista or when one uses Vista and another XP. Ill ask my friend to confirm but I'm almost 100% sure that he is running XP and I am on Vista.
But the Patch plays a part of this as well.
When we applied patch H it when OOS after just 4turns...
Reverted to patch G and its not a problem until 150- 250 turns on normal speed this is...