[spitfire_ch]

Hi,

I am very thrilled about finally being able to play two of my favorite games again: WC and FS2. Thanks for this great project!

Unfortunately, the joy only lasts until the end of Mission one, after the simulated attack on the Corvette. Soon after I choose the Navpoint to Wellington and engage the autopilot, the game crashes. I tried it twice - and both time it crashed at the same point. Here's the head of the error-log:

wcsaga caused an Access Violation in module wcsaga.exe at 001b:004d3ef8.
Exception handler called in FreeSpace 2 Main Thread.
Error occurred at 1/23/2007 03:13:48.
E:\Games\Wing Commander Saga Prologue\wcsaga.exe, run by Pesche.
2 processor(s), type 586.
1023 MBytes physical memory.
Read from location b2cf00ac caused an access violation.

Thanks for any help!

- spit

[Turey]

what's in fs.log? What's in launcher6.ini?

[Tolwyn]

Are you using OpenGL or DirectX? I have received several reports that the game crashes on change-ship SEXP in DirectX mode.

[Admiral Edivad]

Welcome to the HLP Station. Exits are located to the right, left, up, down, and 4th-dimensionally. However all of them are blocked, except the 4-d one, and no one's yet figured how to reach it. Somebody says there is anoter one in the 5th dimension: if you find it, let us know! In the event of a landing of any kind, you can and will be used as a flotation device. We are currently suffering from technical problems from time to time, which may cause the lights go out at any instance, and sometimes even the basic life support fails for some time. At these times, stay calm and composed; for these cases the station system automatically drops a computer from the roof above you with FSO installed and ready. They have independent power sources. Please keep all appendages within the installation at all times. Do not feed the resident Shivan Carl as he will become voracious and chew your leg off. You can find him in the ventilation duct. Throw him your lunch and hope he is not hungry and leaves you alone. Flamethrowers can be found under your seat but due to financial constraints have been re-filled with holy water. Phased Plasma rifles (40 watt range of course) can be found in storage lockers. To prevent act of n00b, however, these can only be opened by Moderators, Volition or a hyperintelligent shade of BluE. Please remember that any attempt to use the ASCII characters 0046h, 0053h, and 0033h in sequential order will result in you being trampled by the whole FreeSpace community. Your trampled remains will be fed to Carl so that the rest of us don't have to carry around so much food for lunch. If you shall go in the Vasudan section of the station and find a boxes labelled “Headz”, please don’t open them, unless you are a Vasudan. Trust me on this one.... In the event of catastrophic hull failure please board the nearest lifeboat which is pre-programmed for autonomous flight to our sister station the Game-Warden outpost. Thank you and enjoy your stay at Hard Light station as long as you will!

[spitfire_ch]

I'm using OpenGL and this is my launcher6.ini

[launcher]
exe_filepath = E:\Games\Wing Commander Saga Prologue\wcsaga.exe;
game_flags = -ambient_factor 75 -spec -glow -env -jpgtga -mipmap -nomotiondebris -2d_poof -missile_lighting -cache_bitmaps -targetinfo -rearm_timer -ballistic_gauge -ship_choice_3d -3dwarp -warp_flash -wcsaga -snd_preload ;
active_mod = ;

Thanks for trying to help!

[Wanderer]

You could try changing to debug build (from the launcher) and then running the game again. If it crashes search for 'fs2_open.log' named file and post ONLY the last five or so lines

[Starman01]

Those aren't the command line parameters that the installation created, aren't they ? I suppose one of the additional entries is making the problems

[spitfire_ch]

How do I activate the debug mode?

Right, after installation, I chose the "All features on" easy mode, and activated some more features in the selectable list. Could it have something to do with -3Dwarp or -warp_flash? The crash occurs after I finish the simulated fight against the corvette in mission 1 and activate autopilot. The ship will accelerate, time compression will increase and then CRASH. What happens at this point of the mission? Are any ships warping in? Am I jumping to the Wellington?

I'll try to play again with inactive Warping effects.

[spitfire_ch]

This did the trick, although I did not see any ships warping in or out in this mission. Strange, but it works

[karajorma]

Not really surprising. Both of those are FS2 Features and are completely unsupported in the WCS game.

[Tolwyn]

Not really surprising. Both of those are FS2 Features and are completely unsupported in the WCS game.

yeah, this is why I can't wait for the new launcher, where projects will be able to exclude options unsupported by the game (and also lock certain features, e.g. making them impossible to disselect)

[karajorma]

To be honest I don't see why the launcher should have options you can't deselect. If the option is that integral to the project it shouldn't be in the launcher in the first place.

[Tolwyn]

To be honest I don't see why the launcher should have options you can't deselect. If the option is that integral to the project it shouldn't be in the launcher in the first place.

oh yeah, why is wcsaga flag then available in the launcher in the first place? Same goes for glow and spec flags.

[Turey]

To be honest I don't see why the launcher should have options you can't deselect. If the option is that integral to the project it shouldn't be in the launcher in the first place.

oh yeah, why is wcsaga flag then available in the launcher in the first place? Same goes for glow and spec flags.

Also, -jpgtga.

[Tolwyn]

-jpgtga is not required, since we are using DDS maps and they are used by default

[karajorma]

If you run a HEAD build you'll notice -jpgtga is gone. It was more trouble that it was worth to have that flag. Instead we're going with the more sensible option of saying that if you don't want people to use TGAs or JPGs, don't include them!

As for the WCS and TBP options, they should never have been in the launcher in the first place and will probably be removed from there at some point.

For one thing I'm quite interested in using the no wingname features option in BtRL but right now I can't because it's an all or nothing option at the moment. That sort of thing is exactly why options like this shouldn't be in the launcher. They should be in the tables where the modders are in control of them. Don't be surprised if that's exactly what has happened by 3.7.


As for spec and glow you shouldn't be locking them. Turning off spec and glow is a good idea if you're using a less powerful machine. It vastly reduces the amount of texture memory required and also the number of passes required (Well I assume it does at least ). Locking this sort of thing is bad idea as it actually prevents some of your audience from being able to play the game. It's like forcing antialiasing and anisotropic filtering. Far better is a simple return to defaults button that turns them back on if the user has turned them off by accident and can't remember how to reverse what he did.


While I support being able to hide unsupported options as that will stop errors like this one with things that should remain a launcher setting, I see still see no good reason why the launcher should force you to use a setting. Setting up defaults is a good idea but I can't see a single launcher setting that should be forced except those which have no business being in the launcher in the first place.

[Tolwyn]

that is your oppinion, I, on the other hand, would like to have some control as to which options are used, and which are not. For instance, 3d radar is not a WC feature. Whbile certain users like it, I do not want to see it. Spec maps and glow maps have virtually no impact on perfomance. Then again, WCS is not using insane textures/models like BtrL. We built the game with low end machines in mind. While the graphics may not be up to current stadards they preserve the retro feeling that makes out Wing Commander Universe. Anyway, spec and glow maps are not essential, I agree on that. Certain options can affect the gameplay or even cause crashes as seen in this thread

Finally, current launcher is by no means user friendly. There are too many options, too many categories.

And I do not like having options that control in the amount of specular mapping in the launcher either. This should be controled by the developers, not the users.

Ambient light should be controled by a slider.... I could go on and on

[karajorma]

You have to remember that different people have different systems. What is the right amount of ambient light for you may easily result in a black screen for me. I have a very crappy monitor. If I don't stick the ambient factor up high I can barely see a thing. That's why ambient is a factor rather than an absolute. The mission designer can alter the amount of lighting in FRED and the launcher setting acts as a multiplier to make that work on the user's machine.

As for things like the 3D radar I said I was fine with having things hidden if they don't work or can cause crashes. My issue is with things being locked on when they really shouldn't be. It's because of options that shouldn't be in the launcher that it is so complicated and unfriendly.

Not to mention the fact that once you have a tickbox you can't turn off you're going to be stuck with dealing with questions on how to turn it off all the time (unless you can also hide options that are locked).

[Tolwyn]

Yes, but I would likle to have a slider (like the AF) instead of the command line for the ambient factor. It would make the whole thing easier. Default lightning setting for specular mapping are not optimal either. I would like to have an ability to set them to different values.

And, of course, there are a lot of features, that we do not use. People end with "I have a fast system" and activate every available option without thinking and then complain about instability, gameplay issues, etc. I myself read various reports about crashes on various forums as described here (returning to the Wellington). It could have been easily avoided if we could have some control as to what is displayed in the launcher and what not.

I believe, that taylor is working on a completely new system anyway - relevant information will be stored in an INU file.

[karajorma]

I agree with you 100% on that Tolwyn. It's just that you'll notice that once again the problem is with hiding stuff that the player shouldn't be touching rather than with forcing him to use anything.

Simple fact is that if you lock a button you then get 5 posts saying "This button doesn't work. What does it do anyway?"