[0.24] [Crash] at the splash screen. Some food for the toughts

from Elemental Forums

I have already submitted the bug 70274

I have a 5 year old pc with a 5 year old graphic, that is listed as DX9 compatible but not DX 9.0c compatible. And I experience the crash on splash screen problem. The game is not installed in a subdirectory of  C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data

DebugMessage:  Version 0.22 last updated on: Thu Sep 17 11:59:54 2009
DebugMessage:  *********DXDiag info follows.*********
System Info
Time: 9/19/2009, 00:36:22
DirectX Version: DirectX 9.0c (4.09.0000.0904)
Machine Name: NOM-641695C7437
Operating System: Windows XP Home Edition (5.1, Build 2600) Service Pack 3 (2600.xpsp_sp3_gdr.090206-1234)
Languages: French (Regional Setting: French)
System Manufacturer: HP Pavilion 061
System Model: PN084AA-ABF t747.fr
BIOS: BIOS Date: 08/27/04 13:45:15 Ver: 08.00.10
Processor: Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 3.00GHz (2 CPUs)
Physical Memory: 1536MB RAM
Page File: 840MB used, 2593MB available
Windows Dir: C:\WINDOWS


Display Info
Display device 1:
Device Name: \\.\DISPLAY1
Card Name: ATI Radeon X300/X550/X1050 Series
Manufacturer: ATI Technologies Inc.
Chip Type: ATI Radeon Graphics Processor (0x5B60)
DAC Type: Internal DAC(400MHz)
Key Device: Enum\PCI\VEN_1002&DEV_5B60&SUBSYS_032A1043&REV_00
Display Memory: 128.0 MB
Current Display Mode: 1280 x 1024 (32 bit) (60Hz)
Monitor Name: Philips SmartManage Monitor
Monitor Max Resolution: 1280,1024
Driver Name: ati2dvag.dll
Driver Version: 6.14.0010.6925
Driver Date: 2/25/2009 23:41:10
DirectX Acceleration Enabled: Yes

 

After doing some tests and reading various posts on this topic, I have done some experiments and found the following:

- if I launch the game in windowed mode (either by modifying pref.ini file or adding -w to the shortcut), the game crashes before starting the intro screen

- after that step, if I launch the game in fullscreen (by editing or deleting pref.ini), the game crash before starting the intro screen

- If I delete all things (except the sig.bin file) in C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Stardock\Elemental - War of Magic, I got the into movie but the game crashes when hitting space, enter or clicking.

- After that, if I don't change anything and run the game in full screen,  I got the into movie but the game crashes when hitting space, enter or clicking.

- If I delete all things (except the sig.bin file) in C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Stardock\Elemental - War of Magic,  and launch the game in windowed mode, the game crash before starting the intro movie

28,217 views 4 replies
Reply #1 from Elemental Forums Top

After more testings on dxpack files, it apperars that the file TitleWnd.dxpack causes the crash after the intro movie in fullscreen mode.

When this file isn't present (but all others are here), the game hangs on a black screen and I must kill the program with the task manager

When the file is here (even if it is the only one), the game crashes to desktop after the intro movie   

Reply #2 from Elemental Forums Top

If I keep all dxpack files but remove all movies, I am able to get to the menu screen but it crashes as soon as I click on any entry (except exit but that doesn't help for playing).

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Reply #3 from Elemental Forums Top

This still applies for version 0.24

Reply #4 from Elemental Forums Top

Hey Peace Pheonix,

I've been talking to the devs about you guys with startup issues, and we're going to re-tool how the UI textures are handled to hopefully take the guess-work over what's going on. My gut says that the Texture Atlas generation is having trouble, and we've seen enough first-run slowdown due to that feature where I feel that we should be including a default atlas and making re-generation (to optimmize on fast cards) an paramater option or something.

While I'm out next week, you'll hopefully be seeing some progress while I'm away  :)  Also, feel free to jump onto IRC to interface with the devs about the issue!