Home Trending Latest threads New posts Developer diaries

CTDs . . .

Jump to latest Follow Reply
  • We have updated our Community Code of Conduct. Please read through the new rules for the forum that are an integral part of Paradox Interactive’s User Agreement.
Show only dev responses
Luskan

Luskan

Corporal
5 Badges
Jan 25, 2002
27
0
Visit site
  • Hearts of Iron III
  • Hearts of Iron III: Their Finest Hour
  • Victoria 2
  • 500k Club
  • Hearts of Iron IV Sign-up
Have had 3 CTDs in about 6 hours of play.
I've reinstalled, repatched, installed latest and greatest video drivers, turned off the music, turned off the hardware acceleration for sound and graphics. All countries (so far) and as far as I can tell, different dates (not too sure on that one).

The fact that there are CTDs - having read the forums I sort of expected a few. No biggie as long as future patches fix them. My problem is that the save files are corrupted (but not in any way that the other support threads describe it).

The autosave is on every ten months. So after the sudden CTD, I reload the game and try to load the autosave. It goes to the loading game screen, and spends about 6 seconds under the heading "reading the scenario" and CTDs immediately. Doesn't say save file corrupted, but it is obvious the autosave isn't flash.

The 3rd time I tried the game without CTD without any difference.

Any ideas?

Patch: 1.01 NA
733mHz P3
Win 2000
128Ram
Riva TNT2, detonator driver version at about 42.09 (released 3rd december).
Dx8.1.
 
Hmm.. that's a tough problem to figure out.

A few questions for you:

-Do you use special characters in your savegame names? (eg !@#$%^&)

-Are you saying the 3rd game you played you received no CTDs?

-Are you ever able to load save games? Are your problems only with Autosaves?
 
Sorry about the unclear post

I'll clear all that up. Was late ;)

I only have problems loading autosaves after a CTD - I can load saved games or autosaves just fine usually. But after the CTD if I restart then reload then it crashes. This would lead you to think that maybe the autosave is causing the CTD and getting about halfway through writing the file before crashing, but the dates weren't autosave dates.

The 3rd game I played I turned autosave off - and I still had the CTD and then corrupted autosave.

No, no strange characters - no other corrupted saves.

I have had a 4th game, almost 3 hours in play at full speed without a crash.

Only things I've done different between the first three games (with CTDs) and the 4th game without CTDs are regular manual saves (as well as the 5 month autosave) and in the 4th game I only flick to the weather map now and then. In the first 3 I was in weather mode all the time.
 
Hmmm...just thinking out loud here, not actually recommending anything...

Let's say that one of the known bug situations (puppet state for instance) crops up sometime but somehow goes goes "unnoticed" by the AI through an autosave - thus "saving" the bug. Then the CTD happens and the on reload the "bug" would cause a CTD since it will detect the bug at that point.

Any sign of something like that in a corrupt autosave if you open it? (That's probably asking a lot!)

A question...when one of these situations crops up do you erase the corrupt autosave before restarting? If you don't, what happens if you start a new game, play through an autosave and then load it? Does it work? If you do, next time it happens don't erase the corrupt file and try it. Keep in mind that I'm just asking you to test a hypothesis...not proposing a solution yet.
 
I never delete those save files - I want to pick up where I left off etc. Soon as it starts reading the scenarios, if it has CTD'd, it is long gone . . .

However I did 8 hours play straight last night and no CTD.

If I had to hedge a bet, I'd say that since the only thing I'm doing differently to before is regular manual saves as well as autosaves, I'll point the finger at two possible culprits.

1. HOI runs in memory just fine, and doesn't write to the HD unless it is saving or loading. However if the HD hasn't been written to in say . . . more than 45 minutes, it goes into "sleep" mode or something, which HOI doesn't handle and causes a CTD.

I found a similar bug with another game that did the same thing. I'm not sure what my 'puter is set to (couldn't be bothered to check the BIOS to see what I've decided on HD sleep mode and low power mode - no this pc is not a lap top before anyone asks).

By regular saving, I'm regularly (once an hour or so) accessing my HD, and keeping it "Awake". Sorry for the non-programming-oriented language.

2. Autosave either writes a whole "new" autosave file from scratch, or it just keeps writing on the end of one. Either way if you leave it long enough, too much has happened in the game and maybe overloads a buffer somewhere or is just too much for the poor old autosave to handle???? Not really plausible but hey it makes a great story . . .
 
Could be, I know empirically that is what I found with EU2, Once I started manually saving the game I got zero CTDs.
 
0 CTDs in about 14 straight hours. I think that has solved it.

Maybe this should go under the known bugs with solutions sticky.
 
Go to the PCs Control Panel and then the "Power" icon (I assume there is one on the Win2000?). You should be able to set the power down time, or turn it off, from there.
 
I don't really think it is a drive going to sleep problem, I have mine on "all the time". More likely a memory leak, that is reset with a save? funny that it is a manual save that does it though. I contacted Johan to let him know as it is a little strange.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top Bottom
Back