Newbie Questions

[unmerged(13365)]

1. First of all I think its a pretty good game, but I would like to know if everyone else has problems with it crashing back to desktop at random every few months? I have updated all my drivers (Athlon 900 MHZ, 512 RAM, 64 Meg Raedon 7500). I turned music off, play at 1024 X 768 (even tried the lower setting), tried turning down sound and video acceleration, have latest patch, and god knows any other thing I could have thought of. Is this still common for all after the 1.02 patch? I usually play as USA and I know a common time for it to crash is loading paratroops into planes.
Anyone have any other ideas what I could do to make this thing more reliable? It gets to be a pain when you forget to save and you lose an hour or two of game playing time.

 

[unmerged(6777)]

I'm going to answer question #1 in this forum (HoI Support) in a moment since it relates to a technical issue with the game. I'm also going to make a copy of this thread and move it to the GD forum since your other questions are not support issues. There will be people there who can give you some advice. Please have a look there for the copy. Thanks.

(Note for the future: please limit your questions in the support forum to strictly technical support issues like your first one).

 

[unmerged(6777)]

Okay, now that the copy is over in the GD forum, let me address your first question.

There could be several causes.

- Did you upgrade from 1.0 to 1.01 and then 1.02? If so, completely uninstall (see sticky for uninstall instructions) and then reinstall and patch directly to 1.02 (skipping 1.01). It rpobably wouldn't hurt to do this anyway (a fresh install) just to be sure.

- Try renaming the AVI folder to AVI_OLD because the binkplay can sometimes leave lingering problems that will cause gameplay crashes.

- How certain are you that the drivers are up to date? Double check on the manufacturer's respective sites to make sure.

- I see that you have tried reducing your hardware acceleration. Are you running DirectX 8.1 or 9.0? After renaming the AVI folder, try adjusting these again or even turning them off.

- If none of the ablve quick solutions works, please post back here with complete system details as per the sticky (OS+build, DIrectX+build, sound and video cards+builds, country version of HoI (SF/VP/etc.)

Thanks.

 

[unmerged(13365)]

Country version SV
Ive tried skipping the 1.01 patch
Ive tried renaming the AVI folder
Ive just recently (month or so) updated drivers (because of PC crash)

SYSTEM INFO:
------------------
System Information
------------------
Operating System: Microsoft Windows XP Professional
System Manufacturer: VIA Technologies, Inc.
System Model: VT8363
BIOS: Award Modular BIOS v6.00PG
Processor: AMD Athlon(tm) Processor, MMX, 3DNow, ~901MHz
Memory: 512MB RAM
---------------
Display Devices
---------------
Card name: RADEON 7500
Manufacturer: ATI Technologies Inc.
Chip type: Radeon 7500 (QW)
Display Memory: 64.0 MB
Current Mode: 1024 x 768 (16 bit) (75Hz)
Monitor Max Res: 1600,1200
Driver Version: 6.13.10.6218
-------------
Sound Devices
-------------
Description: VIA AC'97 Audio (WAVE)
Manufacturer ID: 1
Product ID: 100
Type: WDM
Driver Name: viaudio.sys
Driver Version: 5.12.01.3820
Driver Attributes: Final Retail
Driver Signed: Yes
Date and Size: 9/16/2002 03:20:00, 64128 bytes
Driver Provider: VIA Technologies, Inc.
HW Accel Level: Standard

 

[unmerged(6777)]

Thanks. Just need a couple other things....

- You list your country version of HoI as "SV". Am I correct in assuming that's a typo and should be "SF"? Are you positive that the patch you downloaded is the SF North American patch?

- What is your DirectX version and build? :

- Have you applied the SP1 to your XP Pro?

- Did you apply the Windows Q327979 patch?

- Could you have a look at this: http://www.viaarena.com/?PageID=2 which I believe has an update (Dec. 10/02) for your VIA driver. You ATI driver is definitely current.

- After renaming the AVI folder, have you tried adjusting hardware acceleration again? If not, give that a shot.

- If you have not done a cold boot recently, please do so (sometimes that can be an issue).

Let us know how that goes.

 

[unmerged(13365)]

DirectX Version: DirectX 8.1 (4.08.01.0810)

About patch ...the patch wont install if wrong version ...(yes I d/l the wrong one at first).

SP1 upgrade i havent done. Its 30 plus megs and on a 56k dialup that does 26k because of the phone companies crappy DLC, its just something i put off. (Isnt it mostly security updates and such?)

The sound card drivers i have just now updated. (still same CTD results)

And after the above, I have checked the harware acceleration settings for both sund and video again.

So everything besides the SP1 patch are pretty much up to date. Is there something specific within the SP1 patch that fixes issues in the game that you are aware of?

 

[unmerged(6777)]

SP1 contains a gazillion major fixes and I would consider it manditory as far as most game stability issues goes...not tom mention standard business software too. Until SP1 was released, we did not consider XP suitable enough to implement at our office (I'm talking about my office, not Paradox). After than, we went ahead with the multi-user license and had a virtually perfect environment up and running in no time. It may take a long tome to d/l, but I would say that you really don't have any alternatives at this point other than ordering a CD with the patch directly from Uncle Bill...which will take longer to arrive than doing the d/l.

Here's the complete (I thnk) list of SP1 fixes:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=/support/ServicePacks/Windows/XP/SP1FixList.asp

A couple of the Multimedia fixes and a number of the Base OS fixes may easily be your problem...although so much of this is user-hardware/driver specific that it isn't a 100% guarantee that it will resolve your exact system issue.

I also strongly recommend you d/l the Q327979 patch that I gave you above...do this after applying the SP1 patch.

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=327979

I am fairly conident that installing these two patches will eliminate your problem, although it's possible that you will find that you must remove HoI and then reinstall it before it picks up the SP1/Q327979 changes correctly...if you're lucky, it'll fix them right away though.

Let me know if the above works for you.

 

[unmerged(13365)]

OK ...will give it a try ...thanks for your very timely responses.