Beta Requirements and Known Issues

from Elemental Forums

Before posting a problem report, please take note of the following requirements and common issues:


Internet access is required.
In order to keep everyone on the same page and allow the developers to update the data without needing to stage an entirely new build, the beta requires internet connectivity in order to download data files at runtime. Ensure that you are connected and that the game is allowed through any firewall apps you have; apparent startup hangs or in-game oddities can result if you do not. This is only a requirement of the beta, and will not be present in the final version.

Minimum video card requirements.
Elemental will require a DirectX 9.0c video card. While it currently uses Shader Model 2 only and will probably work on DirectX 9.0 a/b cards, we will not be guaranteeing that it will. Listing of video cards and which versions they support are available for ATI, Nvidia, and Intel (9.0c chips are those that list Shader Model 3.0). More specific requirements have not yet been set, so your technical and performance feedback will be helpful in determining them.

Video driver versions.
Even if you are not encountering any obvious issues, it is vitally important that you use the latest video drivers available from your video card/chipset manufacturer (ATI/Nvidia/Intel). If you do run into a problem down the line, updating them is one of the first things you'll be asked to do if they're not reasonably recent. We really don't want to see complaints followed by debug.err files noting drivers from 2005!

Emulators and virtualization.
We will not be supporting running the game under emulation of any kind. This includes Wine, VMware, Parallels, and any other emulation systems. If it works, great, but we will be concentrating solely on issues present in a normal Windows environment.

Other crashes or graphic anomalies.
If you encounter any crashes or severe graphical issues, please report then through our bug tracking system as described in the stickied beta reporting guide. Resolving any such issues is one of the primary goals of this first beta phase.

Reported Bug Roundup.
The regularly updated roundup of issues that testers have previously reported is available at elemental.kryofx.com.

Latest Changelog.
Changelogs are posted in the Dev Journals section, and are also available via the history option in Impulse.

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Reply #1 from Elemental Forums Top

Even if you are not encountering any obvious issues, it is vitally important that you use the latest video drivers available from your video card/chipset manufacturer (ATI/Nvidia/Intel). If you do run into a problem down the line, updating them is one of the first things you'll be asked to do if they're not reasonably recent. We really don't want to see complaints followed by debug.err files noting drivers from 2005!

Problem is NVidia's latest drivers are bugged.

For instance when I restart my laptop(s) with the latest driver, I lose my screen resolution. Happens on 2 computers with different vid cards, and that didn't happen with the old 2006 driver, and that's the only thing I changed on this computer, so... So I'm reverting to the 2006 driver because it's better than the 2009 version.

 

Reply #2 from Elemental Forums Top

You can get earlier 2009 updates, don't have to get the most recent.

TouchTasks - Access tasks with ease on Windows touchscreens.
Reply #3 from Elemental Forums Top

You lose your screen resolution when rebooting? SO what is stopping you from setting it back manually? :/

If it occurs consistently you can browse the nvidia boards to see if there is a solution. Very often there is a solution. The latest drivers will still be an asset because the game will be written for those drivers rather than the 2006 drivers so if you encounter an issue in Elemental you will be asked to update drivers anyway.

Reply #4 from Elemental Forums Top

It's not uncommon for your resolution to be reset when reinstalling video drivers. Just set it back once the the post-install-startup stuff has all run itself.

Reply #5 from Elemental Forums Top

The problem is with the Nvidia drivers themselves (I think it was the April or May version).  You can't actually change the screen resolution after they're installed in some cases.  It was very irritating and took several hours to revert.

 

For reference though on my 8800GT I'm using:

 

   Driver Version: 7.15.0011.8122 (English)

      DDI Version: 10

Driver Attributes: Final Retail

 Driver Date/Size: 1/15/2009 08:19:00, 6070272 bytes

 

Which has the benefit of not being screwed up and also not causing any problems with Elemental.

Reply #6 from Elemental Forums Top

Yeah, can't figure out what drivers to get for my gateway laptop.  It has embedded ATI Radeon Express, which has been moved to AMD's legacy.  Latest legacy drivers won't even install, because chipset not recognized.

Sometimes you REALLY just CAN'T get the latest drivers, sigh.  Oh, it IS a DirectX 9.0c card..... it SHOULD meet minimum (2 gigs, XP 32bit on a Turion AMD64 dual-cpu)

Reply #7 from Elemental Forums Top

we can use ths topic as memento of already know bugs (load/save bug etc etc) so maybe we can stop the spreading of duplicate posts (sure that would be a lot of work for moderators).

However seems that not all the people had read this topic (see all the reply in the topic where you can't choose the f"r"action, where the problem is the simpli lack of internet connection)

Reply #8 from Elemental Forums Top

Updated. The official reports roundup is now available at elemental.kryofx.com.

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Reply #9 from Elemental Forums Top

Ah sweet! Thanks Kryo! :thumbsup:

Reply #11 from Elemental Forums Top
kryo, do you still want us to report crashes and post logs of said crashes even if the issue is on the list of known issues?
Reply #12 from Elemental Forums Top

Unless something different happens I don't see why they would need a copy of the same crash/bug

Reply #13 from Elemental Forums Top

Minor update to the roundup today.

I'll continue to gather reports of unresolved crashes. Lesser issues though will generally be ignored in subsequent roundup updates once they've been initially noted, unless someone has a new lead or useful additions.

Reply #15 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Karalis, reply 14
i think there's no need to report know bugs like river on the sea, i'm right Kryo?

Yeah it's pointless. The devs know about these bugs. ;)

Reply #16 from Elemental Forums Top

Roundup updated.

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Reply #17 from Elemental Forums Top

Updated.

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Reply #19 from Elemental Forums Top

wanted to post this to help people who cant play the game.. i had issue trying to run game from impulse.. game would load then crash to desktop.. repeatedly.. then i tried it from my desktop shortcut.. game loaded.. game played fine.. sometimes thru complete games.. sometimes crashing to desktop.. so those of u who have tried playing from inside impulse try going to the game folder and draggin your elemental app to the desktop and loading the game from there.. hope it works for yas;:)

 

 

Reply #20 from Elemental Forums Top

Roundup updated for 0.25 release weekend.

Reply #21 from Elemental Forums Top

Sorry for asking, but couldn´t find a topic it would fit better:

how can one join the beta ? Is somewhere the possibilitiy to sign up ?

Thanks for a short answer.

Reply #22 from Elemental Forums Top

Pre-order the game, you'll automatically be in the beta when the next stage (beta 2, in this case) rolls around.  They're saying December for that one, iirc.

Reply #23 from Elemental Forums Top

Preordering a game, which will be released sometime in 2010 and informations are quite few so far ?

Ok, I trust Stardock because they make great games, I liked Master of Magic alot, but preordering a game I just know a bit more of than the name is quite risky.

I will think about it - thanks for the answer :-)

Reply #24 from Elemental Forums Top

Roundup updated for 0.255.