frequency of crashes

Travathian · February 14, 2001, 19:30

How often does SMAX crash on you?

I've come across a strange circumstance. I think I've played close to 8 complete games on my laptop, and I'd say I've had SMAX crash maybe once a game on average, definitely not more than twice in a game. Usually these were the Interceptor bug I'm sure you all know about.

In my most recent game though, I'm not even 100 years into the game and its crashed at least 6 times. I'm playing Ironman, so needless to say this is extremely frstrating.

I'm wondering if maybe this save is just corrupt and if I start a new game it'll be fine. Has anyone else had a similar circumstance?

Bkeela · February 14, 2001, 23:07

SMAC has never crashed on my Windows 98 system. Although I don't use the X-fire add on. [I am a purest.]

However, on my other computer which uses Windows Me, it crashed before I had even started a game!

Bkeela.

buster · February 15, 2001, 18:14

Very rarely.

I have a computer business so my PC tends to change every month or so. I have played on more than 15 PCs with a wide range of hardware running 98 or win2000.

I think last time I had a regular crash is months ago and I have about 15 mail games going so play quite a bit.

I have had some odd troubles. One was I noticed that at times it ran really slow and I found out it was if I had Internet explorer running a web page with some java scripts in the background when doing SMAC. Another odd thing is my ICQ sometimes would go stuck (panel would not show)and by chance I found out that if I start up SMAC it pops back up. No idea what happens here - seems SMAC must somehow be hooking into parts of the OS some of these programs also use.

Generally I must say though that I always use "proven hardware" (not brand computers - but brand components like ATI graphics cards and ASUS mainboards) that I always install latest drivers and updates to windows and that I get rid of all the little smart programs that do all kinds of things in the background or enhance your cursor etc.
[This message has been edited by buster (edited February 15, 2001).]

Slimehorse · February 15, 2001, 18:23

Do you people really mean to say that you've never, never, not EVER gotten the dread terran.exe bug? You know, the one that tends to happen just when the midgame gets really exciting and you've got a zillion shard choppers poised and ready to strike al of Miriam's bases? The one that consistently crashes the game at a certain point in your term regardless of what you do, until you disband 80% of your chopper force just so the game can go on? The bug that means that I will never play another ironman game as long as I live?
Sorry to vent.

Fitz · February 15, 2001, 18:39

Things to do to try and avoid the bug:

Disable wheelmouse, and other smart cursor/mouse programs (to quote buster).
Always run SMAC by itself in the late game stages.

Also, I always close ICQ before running SMAC. The reason is that if it is open, the Ctrl (Mine/Road especial) terraform commands access ICQ instead of SMAC, which I find a pain.

buster · February 15, 2001, 20:32

I had the needlejet intercept crash a few (two or three)times around half a year ago, till I updated my sound card drivers. Otherwise never saw the much recorded terranx crash.

Normally there is just no problem - and I usually play huge or custom (256x256 maps).

Travathian · February 15, 2001, 20:42

Actually I'm not referring to crashes in general, I'm talking about having the game run fine for months and then suddenly start crashing like crazy.

No change in OS/drivers/game.

Yeah, I know I could start reinstalling stuff, look for updated drivers, yadda yadda, but I just want to know if anyone else has had a similar experience.

Fitz · February 15, 2001, 20:45

Um, yeah actually, that started happening to me. My Winzip shareware expired it's timeperiod of free use, and if I unzipped/zipped a file, then tried to open SMAC, I got a crash. Removed it and the reinstalled it, and :bang: problem solved.

Travathian · February 15, 2001, 21:42

Winzip, SMAC, or both?

Sarxis · February 16, 2001, 02:26

I think that I have only had SMAC crash on me once, ever! This was during a pbem turn that I was doing, and if I recall correctly, I was messing around with the sound setup when it occurred.

Never had the game crash during singleplayer, and never had SMAX crash on me ever.

::knock on wood, throw salt, jiggle rabbit foot::

Aredhran · February 16, 2001, 09:59

SMAC very rarely crashes. SMAX is another story however... In the early game, usually there's no problems, but by mid-game I get at least one terranx.exe crash per session (very often due to the interceptor bug, but not always).

Aredhran

Blake · February 16, 2001, 19:38

SMAX crashes for me in the scenerio editor quite often, especially when placing the Sunny Mesa, thankfully the editor undo autosave thingy works.

I also get a crash sometimes after a designing a unit then putting it in the queue (it's happended atleast twice) I reload and don't design the unit that turn.

In all I mainly encounter the odd "random" crashes (I reload and they usually don't happen again). Quite possibly it is just Windows.

Slaghead · February 17, 2001, 09:33

I can't remember the game crashing on me ever, but it does slow down after playing for awhile. If I restart the computer it's back to playing at full speed. I also think it's probably a Windows problem, but it may be a memory leak. I haven't had the scenario editor crash on me that I can remember either.

KMadeleine · February 18, 2001, 12:54

I get SMAX crashes only once in a blue moon. Nothing like MOO2, 'mark block stack size exceeded' is the mantra there.

On the game slowing down and memory leaks--search for a shareware program called Rambooster. It has improved my life immensely. You run it to optimize memory, it is much faster than rebooting and 99% of the time it does the trick. Note I always exit SMAC before I run RB, I don't know whether it would work right multitasked. I tend to run it after I've been websurfing or checking usenet or email, before I start a game.

Dimension · February 18, 2001, 15:34

My machine is running Win2K with a hideous monstrosity of random hardware thrown together including 2 sound cards, 2 video cards, 6 SCSI drives, a crappy Via 133 board with an overclocked P3-700 at 1GHz and 512-mb of all different brands of RAM, and even with SMAC on one monitor and multiple Internet Explorers and WinAmp going on the other one, it's never crashed once on me. A few times it's started bogging down on me, but restarting has fixed that.

I have a Win98 machine that I use for my gateway server with 64-meg and a really slow hard drive that I let my friend play SMAC on, and it's crashed a few times after he's played for 10 hours straight, but he can always reload the auto save and go on playing just fine.

All this talk of SMAX crashing constantly is kinda scary though, since all I play is seriously micro-managed Ironman games.

Garth Vader · February 19, 2001, 11:07

I play only SMAC, but it seldom ever crashed on SP on W98. In PBEM I get frequent crashes, but not the terran.exe. It starts losing icons and menus, so I can't save, or quit, or do anything in my turn. I have found if I don't play mp3's before, during, or between turns I have less problems.