[AV8R]

I hate to say this, jr2, but you may be onto something. I loaded and played through every FSOpen and FSPort mission with a major capital ship using no mods and all visual options turned on (all 3D options too) and encountered no issues whatsoever while loading or playing any mission (using the RC5 exe). If I switched to the FSPort 2014 MediaVPs, I could load/play any mission in FSPort with no issues, again with all visual and 3D options turned on. When I got to FSOpen using the 2014 MediaVPs, I could load/play any mission until I got to a mission with a Sathanas - then I would get either a failure to load with CTD before command briefing or briefing would load and I'd get a Malloc error loading the ship selection screen with a fatal CTD (have to reset PC). If I turn off the 3D options (Shockwaves, ship models, weapons models), the levels will properly load. This is all repeatable.

I haven't tried this with the old MediaVPs (3.6.12) yet. I may do it just to see how deep this rabbit hole goes.

[AV8R]

Ok, so here's the score (using all graphics and 3D options enabled from the launcher):

FSPort:
No issues with any EXE or mod.

FSOpen
3.7.0 with no mods: No issues
3.7.0 with 3.6.12 VPs: No issues
RC5 with no mods: No issues
RC5 with 3.6.12: No issues
RC5 with 2014 VPs: CTD at mission load or ship selection screen with any 3D option enabled (3D Shockwaves, 3D Models, 3D Weapons). This only occurs with a mission that contains a Sathanas.

If anyone else can duplicate this, that would be great. You must be using an NVidia video card and the latest drivers (none of this ever happened with my ATI brand card). I think jr2 is right - there may be a bug in the Sathanas model when using RC5 with the 2014 MediaVPs in conjunction with an NVidia-based card (especially a 700-series card, but others can verify that) that caused these crashes.

If anyone else can test this on their similarly equipped rigs, please do. A consensus would help narrow down the issue.

[niffiwan]

Well, I can't repro the issue, but my setup isn't that similar:

Trunk r11276 DEBUG
GTS 450
Drivers: 331.113 (Linux Mint 17 default)
All launcher options with "3D" in the description enabled
Mission: Bear Baiting

[jr2]

AV8R, you could try grabbing Linux Mint and installing (you can dual-boot, either re-size your Windows partition, or install it to a file in NTFS (yes, it can do that).

Right now I'm quad-booting 10, 7, XP, and Mint 13 and going to install a couple other Linux distros as well, so if you need help, let me know.

I'm just wondering if this occurs with your hardware under Linux (although that might be driver related, as Linux of course doesn't use Windows drivers.)


Wait... the Sathy model... you can take the 3.6.12 file for the Sathy, and extract it to the appropriate path in 3.6.14

e.g. {MVPs3614}\data\models

This would override the one included in the 3.6.14 MVPs -- if it still crashed, perhaps a texture that gets used?  Although, maybe the 3.6.12 version doesn't use the same textures. 

[AV8R]

I must be honest, I have zero experience with Linux so although I'm willing to try, the learning curve might be a bit wide for this exercise.

Now, extracting the 3.6.12 Sathy model and using it in the 2014 setup may be worth a look. Maybe someone can post the 3.6.12 model here, unless the model is way too big for that?. Or is there a repository somewhere from which the model can be downloaded? If not, can someone walk me through extracting the model from its VP? (I've never done it before)

Keep in mind also that, other than some FPS performance issues, I NEVER had these issues with my ATI card - only after I got the NVidia card.

Could be driver related, could also be hardware related - but I hope not. 

[AV8R]

Well, I can't repro the issue, but my setup isn't that similar:

Trunk r11276 DEBUG
GTS 450
Drivers: 331.113 (Linux Mint 17 default)
All launcher options with "3D" in the description enabled
Mission: Bear Baiting

Maybe this only affects Maxwell-based or 700-series NVidia cards? I dunno. Thanks for trying, though.

The crashes are really bad with my FREDed mission. You wanna try that? It may still be posted in my Frame Rate Drop thread.

[jr2]

It appears Sathy is supercap2s-01.pof in sparky_fs2.vp, and is not present in mediavps3612.  So.. 3.6.12 MVPs uses the retail Sathy?  3.6.12 models are in MV_Assets.3612.vp

I'm using VPGUI (requires .Net Framework 4.5), you can also use Maja Express (requires Java).

To view all the models, tables, etc, install Model View, jTBLEdit, eh.. you'll need the Descent Manager DLL pack from DMTools (run dp2003.exe) for Model View, I believe (model view I linked is newer than the one included in DMTools so use that, not the included one).  You could also use the table viewer in DMTools instead of jTBLEdit.  There are also ANI View, and pilot view, I think.


You should only need VP viewer, model viewer, maybe table viewer (to see what textures etc are used with MVPs 2014 for troubleshooting)

Keep in mind that the ships table file (.tbl) for FreeSpace is most likely modded with a .tbm in MVPs 3.6.12 / 3.6.14 (so that the table can be modified, instead of being overridden for minor edits).

You can easily open table files in Notepad without using a table viewer, but it might be a bit easier to read in a viewer (as it is probably sorted into columns for you)  HOWEVER I'm not sure if jTBLView or TableView32 {from DMTools} supports tbm files; you might have to use notepad for those.


Someone who has modded FS recently should be able to help you sort these out; but you can start playing with it using the information I gave above.  Oh, and read skim through this:

http://www.hard-light.net/wiki/index.php/FS2_Data_Structure

EDIT: Oh, and how FS2 handles hierarchy:

Say you are running a mod (fscoolmod36) which depended on 3.6.14 MVPs:

fscoolmod36\data\models\fancymodel6.pof would override fscoolmod36\models.vp/data/models/fancymodel6.pof

If there was a fancymodel6 in MVPs 3.6.14, whether a file or in the 3.6.14 vps, fscoolmod36's version would be used instead, as fscoolmod36 is selected as a mod

And, of course, any retail fancymodel6 would not be used, file \data\models\fancymodel6.pof or .vp/data/models/fancymodel6.pof

Basically, this allows mods to be distributed without distributing any assets from the mods they are based on, unless the assets are modified, and, it allows users to extract the assets, modify them, and place them into the directory for testing, without changing the .vp file (which would make diagnosing errors more difficult as you wouldn't know if the distributed .vp had been altered -- modifying .VP files is highly discouraged, unless you are making your own mod.  To change something, extract the files you want to change and leave them in the mod's \data\models or \data\tables etc).

[AV8R]

Holy cow, jr2! All I wanted was a model and you schooled me in the entire course of "FreeSpace Modding 101".  lol  This is all a bit much to take in.    But thanks for being so thorough.

Just so we're clear, all I want to do is test the previous Sathanas model's compatibility on my platform (the awful retail version causes no issues). To do that, all I want to do is extract the SuperCap2s-01.pof file from the MV_Assets.3612.vp file (as you specified). What is the bare minimum I have to install to do just that? Will the DMTools Dlls and VPViewer 2.0 be enough to extract that one file so I can put it in the models folder you specified and I can begin testing?

[AdmiralRalwood]

It appears Sathy is supercap2s-01.pof in sparky_fs2.vp, and is not present in mediavps3612.  So.. 3.6.12 MVPs uses the retail Sathy?  3.6.12 models are in MV_Assets.3612.vp

Close; MV_Assets.3612.vp is a patch file that overrides MV_Assets.vp. The 3.6.12 MediaVPs' MV_Assets.vp does, in fact, contain a SuperCap2S-01.pof file.

[AV8R]

Wait, how many official versions of the Sathanas were released since retail? Is the 3.6.12 version different than retail (from what I saw when I played it they looked similarly lame). Maybe I really wasn't playing with the true 3.6.12 model during my testing? What happened?

[jr2]

Hmm.  Unsure.  Perhaps extract both models (retail and 3.6.12) and view them with model view?  Hmm, but then you wouldn't see the textures I think... blah, it's been years and years since I did any of this (extracting from vps and loading in model view).  ModelView might be able to pull the textures from your FS2 install to view the model, but even if it did, they would be retail, as Model View is retail era...


Someone who is up to date on all this has to clarify. 

[AV8R]

Delete/rename MV_Advanced.vp and see if it still crashes.

Sorry. I didn't want to necro an old thread but it seems like the Admiral's suggestion was the only thing that has kept my system stable playing FSO since the rebuild of my PC after the replacement of my motherboard and video card. It all seems strange as my system had always had enough resources to play Freespace with all options enabled (even with a 32-bit OS, a 512MB vid card and 2GB of RAM). But now, after the upgrade with the same OS, RAM and a better video card (NVidia GeForce 750 Ti w/ 1GB RAM) I simply cannot play without Malloc errors if too many options are turned on in the launcher.

I did narrow the CTD issues down to the 3D settings in the launcher and the Sathanas being part of a mission being loaded. But, as the Admiral suggested, renaming the MV_Advanced.vp file was the key. Trying to load the 1.8GB 2014 MV_Advanced proved to be too much for my system configured as it was. Missions with a Sathanas took up too much memory space and crashed my system when trying to load them, especially with 3D options enabled. Why this happened on a PC with more resources available is beyond me - but at least I have a reliable system/game now.

Anyway, thanks AdmiralRalwood for giving me back a stable Freespace experience. I can live without the MV_Advanced.vp for now since it doesn't seem to affect the quality of gameplay. Maybe if I upgrade my RAM or switch to a 64-bit OS I may try the using the Advanced file again.