PTW 1.04f Bug & Crash Reports

Backpack · October 30, 2002, 17:17

Well,
I guess it's better to start this now so the problems can be solved quicker.

Sys Specs -
AMD Athlon 800 Mhz
256 MB RAM
WinXP (Up to date)

Crash Report -
The game crashed in the multiplayer lobby room. The system in on an internal network (192.168.1.x) behind a firewall/NAT to a cable modem (Internet is up).
The action that initiated the crash was clicking on the 'host' button. The screen appeared to freeze up, so I then clicked on the internet button. I know the game was frozen when next I clicked the X to back out of the screen, and the game proceeded to crash about 30 seconds later.
I installed PTW, then patched to 1.04f, I had gamespy installed (if that was needed) but I hadn't run gamespy seperatly yet.The game had been run and played and saved successfully before this, and in fact, I had done all that in this instance of running the game.

Bug Report -
The CD copy protection apparently doesn't like me or my system. I dunno which. In 15 times of trying to run the game, I have gotten it to run 3 times now.

First - After installing and patching, I used the desktop icon. I got the large spinning CD cursor. after about 2-3 minutes this went away and the game didn't start.
Second - Repeat of first.
Third - Removed the disk, reinserted it, and ran the game from the autoplay pop-up. This worked.
4th - after quitting from the third time, I used the desktop icon and got the game to run correctly.
5th - after quitting I tried using the program menu link - I got the spinning disk and no joy after a couple of minutes.
6th - repeat of first
7th - repeat of first
8th - I reinserted the disk and tried to start from the autoplay pop-up... No luck.
9th - I tried running the program from the Civ PTW executable in the PTW folder on my HD. - No luck.
10th - I reinserted the disk - autoplay - No luck.
11th - I logged off and rebooted the machine,, Used the desktop icon, no luck.
12th - I reinserted the disk and used autoplay menu - SUCCESS. (It was on this success that the game crashed out of multiplayer)
13th - Desktop Icon - No luck
14th - Reinsert Disk - No luck

OK, I admit it, it was only 14 times with 3 successes.

Thoughts? Suggestions?

Note: I never ran the original PTW. I patched before I ever tried to run it and I modified my INI to include the KeepRes=1 flag

Second Note: Why is the intro movie flag in the readme, when I don't believe the keepres flag is listed anywhere but at places like apolyton in the boards?

Third Note:Civ III PTW didn't show up in Gamespy when I ran it, nor was it listed in the running games screen online. Maybe they need to turn something on???

Thanks

KP

punkbass2000 · October 30, 2002, 17:39

I may be wrong, but I thought I saw somewhere that you can't host with NAT.

Backpack · October 30, 2002, 18:18

I don't think I can host an internet game, but I should be able to host a LAN game on the internal 192.168.1.x network. Heck, I had no intentions of hosting anything today, I just wanted to see what the interface was going to do (you know, going around and pushing all the shiny new buttons (grin)). I only mentioned the NAT so that if that's where the problem is coming from, someone knows.

Bug Update -

15th - Desktop icon - no luck
16th - Reinsert Disk - No Luck
17th - Reinsert Disk - Ahh, I am now Hannibal of the Carthaginians..... Ahh the joys of being Commercial and Industrious without being German. and can I say I LIKE those Numidian Mercenaries (2/3/1) in place of Spearmen. Looks like a prime Builder Civ.

Prima Guide Error Report - The guide book claims that the Mercs aren't upgradable, but the Pedia says they are upgradable to Musketmen. (and for some reason, maybe because I am playing as Carth, the Pikes don't have an upgrade listed in the Pedia.) I will confirm or deny these rumours when I get around to that timeframe in my game.

Later

notyoueither · October 30, 2002, 18:26

See the readme. You have to open up a lot of the firewall to be able to host behind one.

CSO_Cory · October 30, 2002, 18:28

I have the same exact problems and have only been able to get into the game once. I too downloaded and installed the patch before first playing it.

Cory

ixnay · October 30, 2002, 19:06

I have the same problems with the game not starting up. If this is how it's going to be, I'll get a no-CD patch so the damn cd protection doesn't keep doing this all the time.

notyoueither · October 30, 2002, 19:16

Try the Civ3 disk in the CD?

CSO_Cory · October 30, 2002, 19:47

Just tried it and it doesn't work.

Backpack · October 30, 2002, 20:20

No on the Civ III Disk. The game docs specifically say that you will need the PTW CD in the drive to play, NOT the CIV III CD. Additionally, I belive that somewhere I read something that reminded you that you needed to have done a full install of Civ III as well.

As far as the not being able to host on a LAN, I understand the issues involved in hosting through a firewall, I was contemplating hosting BEHIND the firewall. Does anyone know of any reason why I shouldn't be able to host a game that way (i.e. the other computer is local? In fact, Isn't that what the game means when it you switch it to local? The only reason I mentioned that I was on a firewalled LAN was to fully inform the powers that be of the conditions of the crash, not to confuse the issue.

Update - On # 17 as described above I did enter the multiplayer lobby again and poked around a bit. The game didn't crash and I subsequently left it and started and played a single player game for a while.

notyoueither · October 30, 2002, 20:52

re the start up problems. I'm stumped.

re the hosting issue. What version of Windows?

Ed O'War · October 30, 2002, 23:30

I'm also having a problem getting PTW to start. I just get the spinning disk symbol when I click on the PTW icon. Same when I try to auto-start from the CD-ROM. Well, at least I can play with the editor until someone figures out how to fix this.

Chuckles · October 31, 2002, 00:06

I started by loading a regular Civ3 game and was playing for several turns. Then, when the game is moving my units that already have move orders from previous turns (go-to), the game freezes. It consumes 99% of my CPU and I have to kill the process. I have reloaded 4 times and it freezes at the same point all the time. I have an Athlon1800XP+, Radeon 8500, 512DDR, WinXP with SP1. I had path 1.21f or whatever the latest one was on regular Civ and I have installed 1.04f on PTW.

I am going to try to load another regular Civ3 game into PTW and see if I get the same behaviour.

Chuckles · October 31, 2002, 00:52

Check this out. If I reload the game, and hold down shift while my units are auto-moving, the game does not freeze. If I reload and let them move normally it freezes again.

WIERD.

TheeLord · October 31, 2002, 01:33

This is the most screwed up thing I have ever seen, I never thought Firaxis would release something THIS buggy, i do not think I am ever buying a firaxis release until I hear word from the community that it is bug free.. I am disgusted... havent even been able to play the game keeps freezing randomly and without reason. Hope they get a patch soon..... I was reallly lookin forward to this. Thaaaankkks Firaxis/ infogrames, and Thaaaaanks for updating your "Official" website with any news or patches, the only freakin way to get the patch that I could see is the encryptic firaxis.com or much easier Apolyton.com.

Hey, has Infogrames made Apolyton.com their official website?!!! wow, quality.... how unique..

Chuckles · October 31, 2002, 03:00

You're game is freezing up too? Is it during automoves like mine?

Spanscape · October 31, 2002, 03:15

Game isn't very stable yet... very BIG disappointment for an official Civ product!

Here's my skinny:

1) Played on LAN. Was actually playable for the most part. But when you meet your friends, the diplomacy window is mostly blank, and gives you a single option to 'accept a trade'.... WTF? Also when you build your 2nd city (or others I suspect), theres a good chance you'll crash to desktop. This is with NO AI either!

2) Played on the Internet. 3 people, all sub 200ms ping. Even played turn-based, and well, pretty much unplayable. Tried 2 people, 120ms ping time, playable, if you don't mind waiting 10 seconds after you move a unit.

All playtesting done with 2.0Ghz+ machines with 1.0GB+ RAM on DSL or cable!

statusperfect · October 31, 2002, 08:24

Anyone knows if there are more patches coming up?

Backpack · October 31, 2002, 11:40

I haven't seen any evidence of freezing during gameplay.

Update

18th - Desktop - No luck.
19th - Reinsert - No Luck
20th - Reinsert - Success.

This pattern of desktop, reinsert, reinsert has shown up now twice..... just a coincidence so far. Time will tell.

Gyromancer · October 31, 2002, 11:45

OK, Here's a couple of bugs I experienced last night:

Bug #1: Playing two player with 6 AI on a LAN. Using version 1.04 on both computers. Host is XP machine, other player is Win98(patched version of OS) No time limits on turns playing chieftan. (Teaching my SO how to play ;-) Host locks up on turn 5 or so. (Total machine hang--had to hit reset button) Hadn't done anything on the hosting computer for a few minutes. (Was busy explaining roads or something.)

Bug#2: Decide to continue the game on the non-host computer after it recognizes that the host is gone. It works surprisingly well, but at some point I notice that every time we hit end turn, the game cycles through two turns. (e.g. We see an AI stack of warriors show up on the outlands. Click end turn see the AI move, get some production messages, see the AI move again and get some more production messages. My theory on this one is that the game was trying to recognize the "Auto-end turn" (which apparently is automatically disabled in MP) and the actual end turn command (from the spacebar/enter/clicking the end-turn button) at the same time. After we saved and loaded the game as a SP game, everything worked normally (and the Auto-end turn was enabled again...)

Small complaint: When you move a unit on it's last movement point, the game INSTANTLY recenters on the next unit. (you don't get any time to register what the unit saw with its last move.....) I think a 1/4 to 1/2 second delay would have been nice there.

SpencerH · October 31, 2002, 12:52

Just a thought kpwilli..... do you have two CD drives, one for the CIV3 disk and one for PtW?

TheeLord · October 31, 2002, 14:21

Well, I played a game with 3 people last night, didnt seem to run much worse after one of the guys quit.. I had the map on tiny, game actually didnt freeze, just was slow enough to be unplayable.. guess Im gonna be stuck with single player for a while.. hopefully that stops freezing soon too.....

Backpack · October 31, 2002, 15:03

SpencerH,
Nope. I only have a single CD drive installed. For the record it's a WPI-4424 model, which translates into a Wearnes (Products International??) 4x Write, 4x ReWrite, 24x Read. I forget what name brand it was sold under.

Later

Inverse Icarus · October 31, 2002, 15:21

ERROR MESSAGE:

The exception Breakpoint
A breakpoint has been reached.
(0x80000003) occured in the application 0x77f7f570

Click OK to terminate the program.

[ OK ]

this happened when someone made a game, i joined, and they left.

IBM Thinkpad T30
1.8 GHZ
ATI Readon Mobile
WinXP SP1

SpencerH · October 31, 2002, 15:23

KWP...

It was just a thought about possible copy protection.

isak · October 31, 2002, 16:08

Quote:

Originally posted by kwpulliam1973
SpencerH,
Nope. I only have a single CD drive installed. For the record it's a WPI-4424 model, which translates into a Wearnes (Products International??) 4x Write, 4x ReWrite, 24x Read. I forget what name brand it was sold under.

That's actually a CD-RW drive, not a CD-R drive

CD recorders and copy protection schemes have never been too happy with each other - if reinstalling the game doesn't fix this, you should write Infogrames and complain about it - they made a patch for this, for the original Civ3, so if enough people complain to them, they might do the same for PtW.

Dominae · October 31, 2002, 16:58

Ok, I've been trying to play MP for the better part of 2 hours now, and I mus say (even though I don't want to), that I've never seen a worse piece of commercially-available software.

1. The game crashes whenever it wants to. Either going from the 'Staging Window' screen to the 'Multiplayer Setup' screen, or waiting for the clock to tick down in-game, or whatever, I've seen Play the World crash. It must be about 25 times now in one day.

2. The lag is horrendous. Although I've heard of some lucky few who managed to play relatively lagless games, they are very few and far between, and they were usually 1v1. In one of my own 1v1 games (with 2 bots, but that shouldn't matter), the lag was so bad that I couldn't even chat without having to wait about a mintue for the dialog box to appear.

3. After kicking someone out of my game in the Setup window, that player (or, that player's Play the World software) proceeded to reinter my game twice, taking up two seperate slots. After attempting to boot both copies of him (again!), the game crashed (see 1 above).

4. In my experience, if the host leaves a game, a crash usually occurs for the other players, although I have heard otherwise.

5. If you're behind a firewall, read the readme, because there's no way MP is ever going to work for you. This isn't a bug, but it's so important that I might as well mention it.

6. Some minor considerations (in light of 1 and 2 above): you can't chat simultaneously in the 'Multiplayer Lobby' window and the 'Staging Window' (making shopping for games very difficult), the victory conditions are available in both drop-down menus and buttons (making the Setup quite confusing), and there's no way to see who is online in the Lobby unless they say something (making finding opponents quite annoying).

So, I'm going to try again later tonight, but I think we may have to wait a bit to really play some MP. Good thing Play the World comes with some other features!

Dominae

isak · October 31, 2002, 17:23

Quote:

Originally posted by Dominae
1. The game crashes whenever it wants to. Either going from the 'Staging Window' screen to the 'Multiplayer Setup' screen, or waiting for the clock to tick down in-game, or whatever, I've seen Play the World crash. It must be about 25 times now in one day.

I haven't had a crash yet

Quote:

5. If you're behind a firewall, read the readme, because there's no way MP is ever going to work for you. This isn't a bug, but it's so important that I might as well mention it.

LOL - reading the readme is probably a good idea even if you're not behind a firewall. The fact that certain firewalls are so restrictive that you need to set them up, is not really something there's a hell of a lot to be done about. They're supposed to keep internet traffic out, remember

Dominae · October 31, 2002, 17:30

I'm not even going to try and start defending my rant about MP in Play the World, because 1) I'm not an idiot (i.e. I know when something sucks and when it's a matter of preference), and 2) the chat room is full of unsatisfied players (who presumably aren't idiots either).

As for the firewall thing, let's just say that many extremely popular internet games don't require any firewall tweaking whatsoever.

Dominae

isak · October 31, 2002, 18:02

You don't need to defend anything - I believe you already and you have some good points too. I merely pointed out, that I haven't had any crashes yet. That doesn't mean there aren't any bugs, nor does it mean I won't ever experience a crash.

I don't think anybody are idiots either, but I do have a feeling that a lot of people just rush in without thinking about the fact that a computer is not a closed system - Firaxis didn't test the game on your computer, so there's no way to guarantee that it will work off the shelf - or even ever. It most likely will eventually work, but there's no guarantee. If there's a readme, at least do yourself the favor of going through it. I know you did Dominae or else you wouldn't be pointing those things about the router out.
But a lot of people don't read it, and then complain that the game isn't working. Ignorance is fine with me - but when it's combined with juvenile use of foul language, it really gets on my nerves.

I work as a part-time ISP hotliner, and about 50% of the stories I listen to, start out like this: "My internet isn't working, so there must be a problem with your servers, cause it was working fine yesterday and I didn't touch nothing...."
I have to be nice and don't mind being nice either, but every now and then someone gets to me so much, I almost reply: "Well our internet was working fine yesterday too, and we didn't touch nothing either, so going with your logic, sir, it would appear your internet is actually working - have a nice day!"
In about 10% of these conversations, the error turns out to be on the ISP end of the connection

As for the firewalls - do you know how many firewalls there are? Software and Hardware combined. I find it hard to believe that any but the simplest Java games could be run without any problems on all firewalls. But regardless of that, Firaxis decided to use Gamespy, and they require the Firewall tweaking actually - the instructions in the PtW readme are basically identical to Gamespy's instructions.
I would have loved to see direct TCP/IP too - but I'm sure I can live with Gamespy for now - even though I'm behind a Firewall too.

Sinapus · October 31, 2002, 18:27

I did get a crash when I clicked on the "description" button in the choose Player Civ screen when "Random" was selected as the player. Which probably means there is no Civpedia entry for "Random" civilization. Otherwise, I just got it and haven't run into any problems yet, but probably will.