Sim3d2 crashing

[rdklein]

press ALT-X then F6 to see the parameters on top, what fps is displayed?

(I am almost out of ideas)


Please check if ATI has a performance monitor (we use such a thing for nvidia), there you can see used texture space etc, to find out the bottleneck.

I remeber customers having a 9800 pro which works and I used a X600 some time ago,

the effect is typical for a texture memory managment lockup, but currently we use less than 64mb for most scenes and less than 128 for new york etc, (Thanks to DCT compression which the grafic cards do support (hopefully)

if the compression of textures is emulated you need about 256 MB or more memory (I have to check again teh parameters of the X800). we need 8 texture stages suporting this at the same time (but only if you switch mirror and shadow on).

[schido]

Well, now i'm stumped. Just came home from work. Nothing changed since yesterday
I wanted to check the framerate. Start it from xxl, after selecting level, easy this time, quick alt-x, F6, and no lock-up.
Solid average 110 fps (settings: no detail at all, 1024x768)
Kept going, 2nd mission finished, Lock-up after sim3d2 closed down after pressing enter at the press next message.

Will try some more, and with the performance monitor thingy. I do hope my harddisks can take all these hard reboots though.

[schido]

Well, lockups are back, fps:ranging between 0.02-0.33

Here's a capture of pocsim3d2 without xxl, Queen Mary 2, in Sidney, still on lowest detail. Framerate 50~60. The 100, 184, 429 values are before closing pocsim3d2 down, the others are after:

[rdklein]

indeed strange,

can it be a cooling problem. Try to put a huge ventiualtor in front of the motherboard, and grafic card, just that we an be sure its not a hw problem.

I had a strange problem years ago with a motherboard always loosing one bit in a specific file (it was a setupfile ), when copying it !!! Everything else worked , then I palced a additional ventilator in the case and the problem disappeared. So pleas etests this alsio.

[rdklein]

we have an other customer wit the same problem and a X1300 and X1600 card,
we start now an in depth search on our side.


Please anybody hows card is below or same X1600 with a working combination of pocxxl and pocsim3dii report HERE !!

It looks like a special ATI problem. POCXXL is polling the applicaton every 200ms (which worked before) this is one candiate and I check all parameters (if acciendtly something is wrong there but that cannot be ATIO specific) as I have a 5800 card (like X600) which works without problems and other cards also. Also a X1950 works with no problems (100fps in a standard harbour).

Also on your side please check if you have any 3d screensaver running video etc. ?? !

[rdklein]

do you have silent hunter installed, -- though we dont know, there was a strange effect on ati after running the program we only have 0.2 fps in windows modus but for all windowed 3d applications using multisampling in the primary window (dual display)- but your fault sounds different though I want to check,
or any other new game (we are not sure if silent hunter has the cause).

[schido]

Sorry i didn'y try the fan thing. But it can't really be heat problems, 2 giant zalman fans on both the cpu and the graphics card, and plenty of ventilation in the case.

Screensaver is set to none

I don't quite understand what you mean by your last post.
No, i don't have silent hunter, or ever tried it i think, plenty of other 3d games though. Do you want me to try one in a window?

I do regurarly play anarchy online in a window with 2xaa + 2xaf at 1600x1200: www.anarchy-online.com

I have 2 monitors connected, but i have the 2nd turned off when gaming, only use that in clone mode when watching tv from bed.

[rdklein]

ok lets test another thing (as we have a 2nd customer with the same problem)

1. start pocxxl but switch sim to non (no 3d no 2d sim),
paly to the state where you berth (choice of manual). then

2. start pocsim3dii manuall and set to full screen modus, and try berthing at a place which usually works when playing standalone.

I want to check if the problem is either a) the communication (which is dead in this test) or b) the appearance of both programs in the memory.

Then I can prepare an update with a test, depends on the result.

[schido]

That worked, no lockup.

[rdklein]

good news, I will check our polling loop (really strange ) - and also the parameter passing process (can also be a problem).
---
new version coming...

[rdklein]

also for tests with the ATI card you can use

http://ati.amd.com/developer/gpups/index.html


a great tool, just start it then drag pocsim3dii onto the direct x launcher, then connect ALL,

then you can start the analyser for example and also you see memory usage etc. on the fly for all scenes.

[rene pro]

hi rdk & schido

i have ati mobility radeon x700 256MB
screen 1440 x 900 ( 32 bits )

and i can play poc 3d2.
only the screen is sometimes ( when i sail with speed) a little bit slow
but i have al the setting on high.

hope that this help.

greetz / groeten,
rene

[rdklein]

I think we found the problem.

when using a tanker, liner, ecranoplan, pocsim3dii is crashing when starting from pocxxl using 1.59,

this was due to the new delayed loading, a flag was not valided then searching for the ship camera (unload =undefined cam = crash). We put some ships in the delayed load as tanker,liner,...
when starting pocsim3dii standalon, you always load the ship in the ship select scene before the harbour is started (cam search).

a new version 1.60 is just in the testphase, I have it shortly in the update.

this might be the problem with the reported X850 .

[schido]

Ah, indeed it was starting with another camera as normal. Sort of a mouselook it seemed.
But i couldn't aford a tanker or liner yet though, still only the trellyon.

[rdklein]

maybe also alöl ships not loaded from the beginning (in the addon we have the treylon so that could match).
I just upload now the new version then lets see.