General CTD precautions?

[Sarisin]

To be honest i don't play rife anymore atm cause i crash every game in the first 200 turns.
This is what makes it even more sad that the release of 1.3 takes so damn long. The alternatives are Orbis where i don't like the 3 food thing, Wildmana with so much stuff being totally useless and making the civilopedia a mess of information no one needs (but my favorite mod anyway cause of the stability and extremly good performance) and ffh2 vanilla which is just bla.

I agree with everything you said. For me, the current version unplayable...unless you don't mind not finishing any games. I have a very powerful new machine and only play normal speed, on a standard size map with the default number of civs. I block out Jotnar as an AI civ. Using large and huge maps just doesn't work for me and the same with the slower game speeds.

No problems with Vanilla, Orbis, or Wildman, but as you said they just are not as much fun as RiFe...if it wouldn't crash all the time.

So, I'm playing other games and waiting, waiting, waiting.....

 

[Tschuggi]

All unique features and living world haven't seemed to give me any CTDs. I'd really recommend you to use "no animals" instead of "timid animals" and report back if there is a difference. I haven't tested it enough to prove a cause-effect, but I really noticed an improvement without them.

admtanaka, i'll give it a try with "no animals" this evening after work (to hot to go out, wife's in paris=rifetime) and report back. Never player before with the "no animals"-option... i like them.

Greez,

Tschuggi

P.S.: Wife's still in paris for the whole next week, so VALK, I hope you bring the child to world this saturday!!! If so, i will gladly kiss your ass

 

[Niveras]

Had a crash yesterday after trying to dispel a mana node to recreate it as a different mana. Some Mechanos units were nearby which I'd hit with Weird Wrack / Death Gaes so I'm guessing some weird interaction caused the crash. I also vaguely recall some discussions (a while back) in the bug thread about dispel magic.

So I guess avoid using dispel magic near units with active magical effects where possible.

 

[Sjru]

I agree with everything you said. For me, the current version unplayable...unless you don't mind not finishing any games. I have a very powerful new machine and only play normal speed, on a standard size map with the default number of civs. I block out Jotnar as an AI civ. Using large and huge maps just doesn't work for me and the same with the slower game speeds.

No problems with Vanilla, Orbis, or Wildman, but as you said they just are not as much fun as RiFe...if it wouldn't crash all the time.

So, I'm playing other games and waiting, waiting, waiting.....

If you mind, you can always "save" your games from death by going to WB and fixing the CTD yourself. It takes time, and might seem unfair, but if you do it correctly you might end killing just 5 units or so. The true is that 90% of my CTD or bugs can be fixed by destroying the offending unit that causes the CTD in the turn of the AI of that civ.
Figuring out who is the offending unit is a bit hard, though, and takes time, but it is rewarding.

 

[Tsathoggua]

If you mind, you can always "save" your games from death by going to WB and fixing the CTD yourself. It takes time, and might seem unfair, but if you do it correctly you might end killing just 5 units or so. The true is that 90% of my CTD or bugs can be fixed by destroying the offending unit that causes the CTD in the turn of the AI of that civ.
Figuring out who is the offending unit is a bit hard, though, and takes time, but it is rewarding.

Entering world builder is not a solution, and so hopefully we can help the devs get RiFE to the point where it's not a choice between stealing the gods' fire or starting a new game. I personally also don't like to see the full map without having explored or traded for it, so I just don't use WB at all. Just knowing how another empire is laid out is often enough for me to start plotting their demise.

As someone else said in another thread though, the 300-400 turns before a RiFE game crashes and burns is worlds more fun than a vanilla FFH game played all the way through. I just retire games that are unrescuable, now; usually by that point the outcome is well decided anyway.

 

[Tschuggi]

admtanaka, i'll give it a try with "no animals" this evening after work (to hot to go out, wife's in paris=rifetime) and report back. Never player before with the "no animals"-option... i like them.

Greez,

Tschuggi

P.S.: Wife's still in paris for the whole next week, so VALK, I hope you bring the child to world this saturday!!! If so, i will gladly kiss your ass

Ok, played my usual stuff, this time with "no animals", as khazad on standard erebus continent map, deity, all raging barbs, aggressive ai, no settlers, advanced start, no liberation, no hell counter, no demons, no basium and infernals, lock modified assets, wild mana, mana guardians, no directly terraforming civ (just bannor, calabim, doviello, hippus, clan of ember, amurites, svartalfar) etc. ... everything was going well, second of civs was me, building around, one city only, Bambur in my holy runs of kilmorph city Khazak, mines of gal dur nearly ready. CRASH in round 270. Nothing special happened at the moment of the crash. I bossed two workers around (build mine) and some barbs were moving near my command-posts. No special event, no attack, nothing.

Computer said:

problem situation name: APPCRASH
name of application: Civ4BeyondSword.exe
version of application: 3.1.9.0
application time stamp: 4a0c27e6
error module name: CvGameCoreDLL.dll
error module name: 0.0.0.0
error module time stamp: 4bb6e8d1
ecxeption code: c0000005
ecxeption offset: 00202880
operating system version: 6.1.7600.2.0.0.768.3
territory scheme-ID: 1031
additional information 1: 8485
additional information 2: 84853502223d8164a31468861a7c3d71
additional information 3: a4ea
additional information 4: a4eacf9d27e5ee8cb3a70ac0035eb8ab

So... what the is happening? I'm using a monstermodern computer with a humongus graphic card and tons of ram. A lot of other (good one, like orbis) is running with no probs.
So... I agree that I don't agree with that anymore.

Greez,

Tschuggi

 

[Tschuggi]

Ok, there is censorship here... i can't write tihs and kcuf ... will appear instead.

 

[admtanaka]

hmmmm....

No idea then Tschuggi. I really find Rife to be stable, and my machine isn't that great. Is the CTD repeatable, or can you load an autosave?

 

[inuyashasama]

I'd like to put forth a suggestion:

A guide is made on how to fix CTDs yourself, with instructions to post the reason of the CTD once it is found, and stickied, so that the Rife team can actually work on fixing them, and we don't get so many posts begging for someone to fix their game.

 

[Tschuggi]

I can't load the autosave but a previous saved version... and I don't beg nobody to fix my game, that's nonsense, but to fix THE game. And yes, it would be nice to make a guide for these kind of problems with a super instruction how to fix ctds.

 

[Zai]

I personally also don't like to see the full map without having explored or traded for it, so I just don't use WB at all.

As someone else said in another thread though, the 300-400 turns before a RiFE game crashes and burns is worlds more fun than a vanilla FFH game played all the way through.

How are you going 300-400 turns without uncovering the map?

 

[Tsathoggua]

How are you going 300-400 turns without uncovering the map?

I play on Epic speed, for one.

I also generally don't trade maps unless I'm at pleased/friendly with a civ or I suspect they have a significant march before they can get to my doorstep.

By that point in the game, I usually know where 7 of the 9 civs I usually play with are, and have typically stamped out two or three. I am also usually engaged in a protracted war with any of my neighbors who don't like me and continually make demands, which is usually quite a few because I generally play games with an equal number of good, neutral and evil civs.

Plus, with naval warfare essentially non-existent in this game, and with weird like bears and lizard packs being able to run on coastal water and kill my early exploratory vessels, I just don't see much point in exploring the way I used to in vanilla Civ IV, where I basically rushed circumnavigation for the bonus +1 move.

 

[Sarisin]

I can't load the autosave but a previous saved version... and I don't beg nobody to fix my game, that's nonsense, but to fix THE game. And yes, it would be nice to make a guide for these kind of problems with a super instruction how to fix ctds.

I also have a super computer (IMO anyways) and it doesn't seem to matter much. Please try dialing down your game specs. I used to always play large/huge maps with loads of civs at a slow speed, but it's been my experience you are just asking for a game to die before completion if you do.

Even with playing Standard sized maps with the default number of civs at normal speed (these are the specs the designers use in creating/testing the game), I only make it through about 1/3 of my games...and those are the ones you snag a Cultural, Altar, or Conquest victory before the map fills up. Forget about a time victory!

The key I find is if the map fills up (and the AI superexpansion is the main culprit here) then the game will slow down and eventually crash sooner than later.

I just am not into opening the WB and futzing around by deleting, etc. As I mentioned before, I used to put my last save of a dead game in a folder and try it later. Sometimes I can actually play on. This after going back to prior saves. Then, I just gave up as the folder was getting full. I decided to just wait for the next version.

 

[Tschuggi]

Holy mother er ...

played with D'Tesh... same settings di merda as mentioned in my post before. ingcomputer says same stuff as before, now in german (too angry to translate in english or italian) col cazzo. Vatenevanculo...:
Problemsignatur:
Problemereignisname: APPCRASH
Anwendungsname: Civ4BeyondSword.exe
Anwendungsversion: 3.1.9.0
Anwendungszeitstempel: 4a0c27e6
Fehlermodulname: CvGameCoreDLL.dll
Fehlermodulversion: 0.0.0.0
Fehlermodulzeitstempel: 4bb6e8d1
Ausnahmecode: c0000005
Ausnahmeoffset: 00202880
Betriebsystemversion: 6.1.7600.2.0.0.768.3
Gebietsschema-ID: 1031
Zusatzinformation 1: 8485
Zusatzinformation 2: 84853502223d8164a31468861a7c3d71
Zusatzinformation 3: a4ea
Zusatzinformation 4: a4eacf9d27e5ee8cb3a70ac0035eb8ab

Campo cavallo che l'herba cresce...

night,

Tschuggi

 

[Sjru]

Well if you don't want to manually fix the CTD that appears in the game, then at least do not swear and complain, as you know as I do, that it is almost impossible end a mid sized game without some kind of bug or CTD. All of those are fixable in the WB, though.

 

[Valkrionn]

To be perfectly frank: The crash description you listed does absolutely NOTHING to tell us why it crashed. It is a completely generic crash report, that cannot be used to debug it in any way, shape, or form.

 

[Tschuggi]

Good morning

i tried to fix stuff causing the crashes a hundred times, but it nearly never worked. And how can I know what caused the crash when entering the worldbuilder. Please make a post where you pros in modding explain how to handle these kind of probs. Maybe i'm dumb or maybe i'm not interested into python or xml etc. or maybe i just like to play without having to fix every two hours a bug or a crash. I'm not proficient in these kind of stuff at all. I just like to play. I love your modmod, valk. I hate the lack of stability. I just want to play it, not fix it. That's maybe a basic problem with mods/modmods etc. I really honor your time, work and effort you guys put in modding and I don't want to complain without having put something into the project... but sometimes it's frustrating (often) playing your mod... and sometimes it's frustrating waiting for the release of the stable (hopefully) version.

Tschuggi

P.S.: I always said i'm willing to donate.

 

[Grey Fox]

Basically start by making a copy of the autosave the turn before it crashes, resave it basically.
Then go into Worldbuilder and start deleting lots of stuff, entire civs, start with barbarians. If you can continue playing you fixed it.
Then reload the save you made and delete Less stuff until you find the cause of your crash. Try to make a fix on which civ it is that is causing the crash first, then check what their cities will finish the next turn might be that. Delete their units and see if that helps, or maybe one city at a time.

Etc.

 

[Tschuggi]

Thanks, greyfox. Did similar stuff all the time, sometimes found the cause (often it seems to be caused by terraforming civs (playing without malakim makes my game more stable, same with d'tesh, but i love them) or stack unit attacks...) but, to be honest, this isn't fun and it takes a lot of time.

Bye and thanks again,

Tschuggi

 

[Sjru]

To add, Random seed on reload will yield sometimes other combat results, and the AI might act different. Checking that when creating a game sometimes will make the bug skip the second time you reload, but not all the time, and when it is combat-based.