DDHELP.EXE error ... I give up!!!!!!!!

[unmerged(24105)]

I thought I'd fix the problem but after some hours of play got the dred error:

ddhelp.exe casued error

I went to old vga driver updated directX to the latest one 9.01b I think and reinstalled my Nvidia Geforce4 Ti4200 driver (latest one) and it seemed to work for awhile and then as I stated about rec'd the error. I know it has something to do with my video driver but why does it keep kicking me out of the game to desktop?

I have plenty of ram 128mb plus the video ram of 128mb, 900 amd, 16 bit on my monitor.

Anyone have the same problem?

Thanks much in advance
Ray

 

[unmerged(23238)]

I thought I'd fix the problem but after some hours of play got the dred error:

ddhelp.exe casued error

I went to old vga driver updated directX to the latest one 9.01b I think and reinstalled my Nvidia Geforce4 Ti4200 driver (latest one) and it seemed to work for awhile and then as I stated about rec'd the error. I know it has something to do with my video driver but why does it keep kicking me out of the game to desktop?

I have plenty of ram 128mb plus the video ram of 128mb, 900 amd, 16 bit on my monitor.

Anyone have the same problem?

Thanks much in advance
Ray

Not that I can remembering having that problem, but the ddhelp.exe file is not a HOI file but a DirectX. I wonder if you wrote the whole error message.

Historicaly, video drivers has caused lots of grief, regardless of application or game started.

I would start with Reducing Graphics Hardware Acceleration. Do that first and then try HOI.

If that does not help...
I guess you could try disabling the music in HOI and do that avi directory renaming trick. Descriptions of these could be found in the FAQ here.

If that does not help...
I wouldn't swear on it, but something may have got mixed up in the DirectX upgrade so you may have to re-install the drivers and/or DirectX.
Be sure of having everything in Windows closed while installing/re-installning these things AND while testing HOI later.

If you have tried a re-install and post again, consider these items:
- complete error message
- What Windows version do you use
- How did you upgrade DirectX? Online from Microsoft or from somewhere else?


Hoping for the best!

 

[jdrou]

I wouldn't say 128MB was "plenty of RAM." It is above the official minimum requirements but the patches tend to increase the actual requirements. It should run with 128MB but I would recommend at least 256MB. (In fact, I would recommend at least 256MB for almost any game released in the last few years. It may not stop the crash but it will certainly improve performance.) Your video card is certainly more than enough. What OS are you running (Win98/WinME/Win2000/WinXP)?

 

[Castellon]

Rename the AVI folder to AVI_back and set the color depth to 16 BIT is always the first thing to try.

 

[unmerged(23238)]

Rename the AVI folder to AVI_back

Yeah, that was what I meant with "that avi directory renaming trick". Well, I wasn't that clear was I? I admit I wasn't. A bit lazy maybe

But is really avi:s (the three bik-files) played within the game during game play? To be honest, I doubt it. It is easy to test-play those bik-files separately with the bikplayer included in the directory. Maybe the directory is used for more things during game play? Like a temp. area? I have not the slightest idea.

Anyway, I agree with the idea on testing the simplest thing first.

 

[jdrou]

But is really avi:s (the three bik-files) played within the game during game play? To be honest, I doubt it.

No, but the player loads to run the intro movie(s) and maybe it doesn't unload completely when done. That could affect the rest of the game. If the avi folder is deleted/renamed the player probably doesn't load at all. More free memory seems to help stability of Paradox games.

 

[unmerged(23238)]

No, but the player loads to run the intro movie(s) and maybe it doesn't unload completely when done. That could affect the rest of the game. If the avi folder is deleted/renamed the player probably doesn't load at all. More free memory seems to help stability of Paradox games.

That is a very good point. An effective work around.

Actually I have seen myself that the Binkplayer may be seen a little while longer parallel with the main game. It has happened less than one time of ten on my PCs though and hasn’t caused any real problems (for me) as far as I know. Well obviously it may have caused problems for others.

Looking at the binkplayers version one can see it is a VERY early version and RAD Game Tools may have fixes several of these problems in their latest ten updates or so.

I am not sure about this, but I could have been a good idea to update the Binkplayer with the game patch. It is a very small file.
I realise that it is neither practical nor worth the trouble in go for each new update on licensed third party tools.
IF a few people do have serious problems and work around wouldn't work, maybe a separate fix with a later player could be a good idea?
Maybe it could work to just switch the exe file? (maybe not?). I guess that depends on how specialized the HOI implementation to it is made.

 

[unmerged(24105)]

Thanks for the tips. . .

Sorry, I gave short version of my problem and the error message was partly unkwn, I just couldn't remember rest of error msg. Just remember is was dealing with the ddhelp.exe.

My system is ME and I have 256 ram not 128. I didn't get the error last nite after 5 hours of play. Its not appearing early when game is started now. I'll try the suggestions and thanks again for them. But the nite b4 after several hours play it happened the ddhelp.exe error. If happens again I'll be sure to write the exact error phrase.

One thing, when I tried to reinstall directx it won't do it as it stated already updated version dectected and reinstall is cancelled. I have downloaded directx directly from microsoft, no 3rd party.

Lets see what happens.

 

[jdrou]

Note that WinME is widely considered to be the least stable version of Windows in the last five years; Win98SE and NT/2000/XP are all better (but I wouldn't try NT for games). (Based on a poll I saw in PC Magazine.) Also many programs other than HoI will list higher hardware requirements when running on ME than on 98 or 2000.

 

[unmerged(23238)]

I just tested the 1.6b version of blinkplayer by replacing the existing exe-file in the HOI avi directory. Seems to work fine, but as the 'public' exe-file is a demo file, one get a short splash from RAD just after playing the bik...
The readme from RAD is interesting. Not that I understand everything, but there are some things that could be related to 'technical' game problems.

Agree very much with jdrou on the Windows ME bit. Personally I never had ME as a gaming platform. It simply felt like too many problems with new drivers at first and later I lost interest anyway.
Win 98 SE is still the working horse, with Win XP for some new games, mostly because the XP PCs in general have more up-to-date hardware and is something which is good to learn a bit about.

But don't despair. Try these tips first (one at a time!) and see if the situation improves.
I guess there is little else you can do on short notice if Windows ME is what you got.
Everything thats work is good.

 

[Castellon]

The problem with the Bink player is that on some systems it does not unload properly from memory and causes problems with other things. Renameing the AVI folder has the added benefit of skiping the intro videos and getting into the game sooner.

 

[unmerged(24105)]

ME vs XP vs 2000

I agree with 98SE being one of the best platforms I use to use. But I bought this PC (my first prebuilt, I've always built my own, and never will buy a prebuilt again) as it came with ME. The only I don't like about ME is its DOS enviroment is not like 98SE as there are games now I can't play unless I do alot editing, (Silent Hunter 1 and X-Com).

I also heard that XP and 2000 are unstable gaming platforms. So I'm hearing both good and bad about these two platforms on gaming.

So whats the truth about these out there?

Ray

 

[jdrou]

I have only used XP briefly (before replacing with 2000). Win2k Pro works fine for me. I run EU2/HoI and Quake3 (Urbanterror and Truecombat mods) regularly SP & MP on LAN. I have tested the old DOS game Command HQ and it seems to work OK. I have seen reports that The Operational Art of War doesn't run on XP. Haven't tried it on 2k yet.

 

[Castellon]

I run XP pro and have not had any problems with games, although I have not tried many older games.

 

[unmerged(23238)]

I have had serious problems with some (very) old games on my Windows XP Home. There are a number of compatibility options in XP... but there are no guarantees. I am very glad that I still have Win98 for all good nostalgic games!

Have played some new games (0-2 years or something like that), on Windows 2000 Pro and have had few problems. It is a good thing to update the DirectX and close most background stuff.
Only tried one old game, MOO II (Master Of Orion II) on Win2k Pro and it worked nicely. For LAN game, I had to add IPX/SPX support!
MOO II didn’t work that well on XP, but I didn't look into it in earnest. Maybe it could work.

Win2000 is good, especially as a compromise for (playing) games and work, but I wouldn't update from Win 98 without changing hardware.
The Win2k PC I tried on was an up-to-date office machine that was certified for Win2k.
I guess a good rule of thumb is to match any new (Microsoft) OS with new hardware to get most of the OS.

What's the status on HOI by the way? Does it work better now?

 

[Castellon]

meerkatt ?

 

[unmerged(24105)]

** ** DDHELP.EXE part 2

Tried to lower video accelator to basic and thought it worked except start getting bootup errors. Think it might have been a bad video file which I copied over.

Otherwise, still recd the DDhelp error and this is the exact error statement:

DDhelp has caused an error in <unknown>. DDhelp will close now." And when I closed it the same error appeared but just replace the word ddhelp with Hoi. THis was a first I've seen this one. THis error happened prior to turning the video accelator.

But this is the kicker. I changed my resolution down to 800x600 16 bit. I got the error hours later. I then tried my new game got in the mail, Victoria. I installed it checking to see if its the game (Hoi) or not. Played victoria for 2-3 days before getting the ddhelp error on this game, too.

I've been hearing about some kind file called blinker or something like that. Does that have anything to do with this ddhelp problem?

Thanks

 

[jdrou]

I've been hearing about some kind file called blinker or something like that. Does that have anything to do with this ddhelp problem?

Probably the Bink player. That plays the intro video(s) in the avi folder. Renaming/deleting that folder is the standard action to bypass that possible problem. Any sort of crash problem could be related to it so that is always one of the first things suggested.

 

[Castellon]

Blinker maybe you are thinking of the Bink player.
But if you followed my advice above you have already renamed your AVI folder to AVI_back and therefore disabled the Bink player.

If you mean something else then I do not know.

 

[jpd]

It sounds a lot like a video (driver) problem. DDHelp is the low level interface between the DirectX subsystem and your particular driver. When you say that lowering the resolution delays the error from cropping up, then it's a safe bet your video driver has problems managing the video memory, and gets into trouble somewhere.

What are your exact system specs, like chipset, AGP aperture size, AGP bus speed (x1, x2 or x4), sidebanding, fast writes. Especially the AGP aperture size is important, as you are running on a system with very, very little main RAM. WinME is rather memory hungry, and it's swap logic isn't bullet proof when it's runs on low RAM configurations.

Also, try one of the older NVidia reference drivers. The new 50.x ones aren't flawless.

Also, try the CacheBooster from www.analogx.com to reduce the amount of memory Windows reserves for it's internal use. That makes more memory available for general use, including the video driver and DirectX

Jan Peter