Problem

phandara · December 16, 2000, 15:48

I have had to restart 7-8 of my games due to TERRANX. I can't figure out what this is or how to fix it. Every time I have a small force moving 4-9 units of differnet types I get the same error. "This program has performed an illegal operation and will be shut down." If I go into details it says TERRANX with a page of stuff after it. I hate to have to keep scraping these games, but when that error comes up, I can't get the game to continue and nothing I change seems to stop it. Can anybody help me with this?

Drago Sinio · December 16, 2000, 16:49

Sometimes changing your monitor resolution setting will minimize this error. 800 x 600 high color seems to work best for me. It seems to help some people, but not others. This is a very common bug no one seems to know how to cure. Alien Crossfire is more prone to crashing than the older version was.

Helium Pond · December 16, 2000, 20:33

There are many different things that seem to cause this; the most common one I'd heard of is something about the wheelmouse drivers. I don't know much about that since I don't have a wheelmouse; could someone else post the info on how to disable the wheel, or whatever it is one needs to do? Regardless, wheelmouse or no, I have had a frustrating time with this crash as well. It seems to revolve, for me, around certain terrain hexes; if I click on that hex, or a unit ends its movement on it; or an attack happens on it; or anything that causes the hex to be selected, the terranx.exe crash happens. However, I've noticed that it tends to happen more often the immediate turn that I've loaded a game on. If I can avoif trouble for one turn, I'm usually safe for the rest of my play session. This means doing less micromanagement than usual on the turn that I load a game, but it's a usable workaround, at least for me. Simply skip doing much of anything with your units that turn. I hope that helps.

JAMiAM · December 16, 2000, 22:06

I hate to point out the obvious, but...

Have you tried moving units one at a time?

phandara · December 16, 2000, 22:12

Yes I have moved the units one at a time. It doesn't matter if it's my units or the Caretakers or the Prophets. Once there's more than 6-9 units one the screen; TERRANX hits and I can only control what my units do.

Lefty Scaevola · December 16, 2000, 23:21

the terranx error I encounter alos was localized to two squares and actions occuring on them. The squares altitude was somehow corrupted. It read positive but had ocean shelf in them. The AI had a unit in one square and when it attacked from it i got the terranx crash. I did not have a save from which I could move my unit, the target, so I disbanded it.

------------------
Gaius Mucius Scaevola Sinistra
Pontificator Pendanticus
older richer & wiser than you
[This message has been edited by Lefty Scaevola (edited December 16, 2000).]
[This message has been edited by Lefty Scaevola (edited December 16, 2000).]

Sprayber · December 17, 2000, 03:15

I have had the same problem as these guys. It happens to me when a certain unit moves into a square. I reloaded three time before I realized this. Wasn't thinking just mad as hell. I went through and changed its orders before it got around to that unit. I think it happened once when my base compleated something and the pop up screen came up. It happens every now and then.

Googlie · December 17, 2000, 17:15

i used to have this problem frequently.

In the "readme.txt" there are some lines that can be added to your alpha.ini that could help - particularly the "force voxel algorithm" line (I am not at my PC right now so don't have access to the actual wording of the line to be inserted)

It worked for me. I still experience crashes (freezes, really) but no more frequently than with word, explorer, etc.

Worth a try.

Zonk · December 18, 2000, 06:49

I've tried going 1024 x 768 and 800 x 600 but it didn't make any difference I could see. However, it seems that going from 32 bit down to 16 has helped.

You don't need to lose your game, either. Turn the Ironman setting off, and you can load the latest autosave back in.

I ran 128 meg of ram and had the crashes. I recently added 32 meg and haven't had a crash since.

phandara · December 18, 2000, 08:51

Thanks! I changed screen resolution to 800 x 600 and it seems to be helping. A friend also made the changes that were in the text. I'm currently overrunning 3 Caretaker bases and TERRANX hasn't popped up. THANK YOU!

Sem · December 19, 2000, 04:33

I have the same problem with terranx. when I play smacx. The game always crashes, no exceptions. The crashes always occur with air units attacking, usually another air unit. I have tried all the fixes in the "readme" file, disabled the mouse wheel, played at different resolutions, and I have the latest drivers. Open to all suggestions. Thanks in advance. Do we really want to buy another game from Firaxis when they don't support smacx? By now, they are fully aware of the "terranx" problem. Thanks in advance.

Googlie · December 19, 2000, 12:49

Sem:

I've heard of others with that particular problem, but never experienced it.

Do you have any .sav files right before the attack turn? If so, I wouldn't mind loading and running it just to see if I get the dreaded terranx.exe message.

I've noticed with a couple of other posters that have had crash problems that I've usually been able to play thru their problem turn so I don't know that it is (necessarily) Firaxis ignoring us being the problem as much as maybe a systems incompatibility problem somewhere down the line that is just balking the turn.

I guess tho in the long run if one or two players have the crash, it's a localized thing; if ten to a dozen have it, it's poor QA on Firaxis' part; if 50 or more have it it's shoddy workmanship on their part that in the interests of good PR they should try and patch. I really suspect the latter 'cos we've seen and read of too many instances of it happening, but I'm not holding my breath waiting for SMAX2.

G.

LittleRaven · December 19, 2000, 12:57

I used to have this problem all the time, then I turned off my virus checker software. Haven't seen it since....

Turn off any anti-virus software vefore playing SMAC!

Googlie · December 19, 2000, 16:48

Good point, LittleRaven.

I had the same problem when I first bought SMAC, and in those days the Firaxis dudes actually answered their e-mails - one such dude suggested that I turn off my Norton Nuts and Bolts to reduce the incidence of crashes, and it worked.

(I've had no problems with my current Norton Systemworks - in fact it's been able to revive the odd freeze of Smac/x)

G.

LeMark · December 22, 2000, 01:02

I have had that happen to me a few times, and each time it happened whenever I started a game. I ended up having to reinstall.

Sem · December 28, 2000, 00:42

Googlie, thanks for your offer, but please help me with how we do this. I am going to reload smacx and the updates. I will play with ironman off so each turn is saved. When the game crashes I will copy the previous turn and get it to you. Is that correct? How do I get the game to you? Give me about 2 weeks to get this done. Appreciate your help.

Googlie · December 28, 2000, 01:30

Sem:

Absolutely.

But with Ironman off you don't need to save every turn. After the crash, reload the game, select auto from your save menu that comes up, select and load autosave1 then save it under any name. (That'll be the beginning of the turn immediately before the crash. Zip it and send it to me at:

googlie@mybc.com

(a note as to what you did to cause the crash would be helpful, and I'll replicate it and see what happens on my rig)

Googlie

[This message has been edited by Googlie (edited December 28, 2000).]