eyesodilated
Member LVL 7
May it be a light for you in dark places, when all other lights go out
Posts: 113 
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Post by eyesodilated on Jul 30, 2022 19:43:53 GMT -6
Im taking my laptop to work tonight, i already experienced crashing on as little as the 6th turn, freezing on Order as I played Water. Like completely crashing using all my CPU. Hopefully with my laptop I can run it through IDA which will tell me which line of code or functions the game is crashing on.
On thing i noticed is i cannot leave my units walking and hit the turn button. This is almost definitely a crash.
I have a few ideas about directx's ability to have a maximum amount of graphics on screen, even if you can't see them. Something about the doodad function in LOMSE.
I'll check out these save files tonight
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eyesodilated
Member LVL 7
May it be a light for you in dark places, when all other lights go out
Posts: 113
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Post by eyesodilated on Jul 31, 2022 3:32:21 GMT -6
Yes exactly, in the folder \Lords of Magic Special Edition\English\savegame You will find all the savegames that came default. Some end with .lom others with .sav When you are playing the game and hit the save button it allows you to name your save file. In the savegame folder you will look for the file you just named. It does not have any file types. It is not a .sav or .lom It will just simply have the name you gave it from the in game save feature. here we go, files were stored in an other location. These two files are the death campaing were i can't enter the temple and the life campaing witch keep crushing at turn 69
Ok with the Death Temple I just erased it and put it back in the same spot and I had no problem. However it was very difficult to erase the Death Temple and it did not 'want' me to place a new one. I placed it blindly and nothing showed up but then saved it and reloaded it into the Custom Map Editor. After that it worked fine. The Life crash has me perplexed, I went and destroyed each Chaos party one by one and it still crashed, sometimes wiping out almost all of the Chaos faith. However I found this party out west, and it seems when I destroy this one party it no longer crashes! I tested it unit by unit, apparently the game really doesn't like this Two-Headed Ogre. I can leave just him and the game crashes. I can destroy only him and leave rest of the party and the game does not crash! It is very weird indeed!  I uploaded your save file with this unit destroyed, my guess is that it is simply too much for LOMSE to handle as originally programmed. I think we can fix these as I believe these limitations are arbitrarily set in the game engine. I remember seeing a max setting for all sprites somewhere when I was attempting to upscale LOMSE to have a bigger screen resolution (512 X 512 is what it is set to for max). I will have to dig further. Right now, my disassembler is showing it is crashing during the use of a sub routine utilizing the DirectDraw AND the DirectSound functions. These are legacy functions from the older version of Windows. It could very well not be able to handle all the sounds so many units are making in tandem, and this two-headed Ogre was the straw that broke the camel's back. I wish I could pinpoint why exactly but it was dumb luck that led me to find this Chaos party that was doing what it does best cause Chaos. It is interesting to note that the Chaos faith has one of the highest military strengths in the whole campaign rivaling even Death.  This map is HUGE, it doesn't even load the smallest zoom for me at all and starts becoming sluggish. Most games that use sprites probably don't have to deal with this however there is alot going on in this map where it can't process it all. It is a beautiful map, and I don't want to give up on it just yet. I believe I will try to finish my dream project of completely disassembling the game and try to get a source code from it. There are limits meant to be broken just waiting to be discovered. Again, I attached the save file and tested it to turn 90 no more crashes, the save file is back on turn 69- but who knows how long that will last. Life_crash_fixed.zip (623.49 KB)t me know if this file has any problems like the use of code All Spells... i should have a cleaner version backed up_ |
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Skarn
Member LVL 7
Posts: 113
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Post by Skarn on Jul 31, 2022 7:55:37 GMT -6
So I took more time to take a look at this to find out what the problem since I didn't think there were that many dungeons on the map and I suddenly noticed auto generation for dungeons was on when I thought it was off: There is actually no wonder this map is as unstable as it is. Not only the amount of dungeons gets obnoxiously high, but for some of us out there playing with presets that increases the amount of dungeons generated it gets even more of a problem. So I decided to go and get rid of a lot of pre-placed dungeons, mostly "Faith's caves" and stuff like this, also making sure the left over dungeons are the ones who are far away from the capitals, so the wilderness isn't empty. I haven't tested yet but I'm pretty certain the result will be satisfying enough, I'm actually gonna go and test this out as I post this. I'm posting the map just in case anyone's interested, hopefully the authors don't take this the wrong way, It's a beautiful map indeed that deserves to be played. EDIT: Upon launching this and taking a look at the map, I realised there were EVEN more dungeons than I had thought, because the editor would not even properly load all of them.. like for real, there's no wonder it was crashing. In any case, it seems mostly playable now, gonna keep on testing but I think we're getting there. Attachments:Urak XL v3 fixed.SCN (620.83 KB)
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eyesodilated
Member LVL 7
May it be a light for you in dark places, when all other lights go out
Posts: 113
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Post by eyesodilated on Jul 31, 2022 11:36:08 GMT -6
Great work, im going to try your edited map. I forgot about auto dungeon generation.
When i was playing i did notice some buildings and terrain sprites i was using for landmarks to pinpoint the Chaos capital were outright missing.
The extra dungeons also increase marauding parties if im not mistaken. But yes, if the editor cannot handle the map the game has no hope.
Also, i noticed that the battlefield maps even on open terrain are very unique, I've never seen battlefields like these. Like i was really fighting on mountains. It was pretty cool.
Is this the result of the map terrain being extreme or did the author use battlefield editor on even random parts of the open world?
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Post by merlin on Aug 1, 2022 8:28:46 GMT -6
Sorry I forgot to check back! Here's my savegame. I believe this is the correct one. Should be stuck on turn 49. Attachments:Huge Urak.7z (303.98 KB)
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Post by tommyg on Aug 1, 2022 12:01:58 GMT -6
I'm also having issues at turn 120! I've not had any problems until then but unfortunately I cant get past this turn, it crashes to desktop every time on Waters turn whatever I do.
Maybe this is due to the number of dungeons, but I doubt it, if that was the case then the game would crash at the end of the turn, when the marauders take their turn and new marauding parties are generated from dungeons, instead it crashes on an AI faiths turn.
Its unlikely to be the number of marauders in the map as when I remove the fog of war shroud theres surprisingly little marauders wandering about.
With regard to the number of dungeons, the maps been designed with the same density of dungeons as the standard Urak, otherwise there would be huge areas of emptiness.
The editor performance is not an indication of how a map will perform in game. The editor is janky as hell, after awhile the UI just breaks whether I'm editing a small or large map.
Dungeon sprites randomly disappear in the editor, but always appear in game.
If the crashes are to do with the number of dungeons in game then it's a real shame, as playing a large map with the standard amount of dungeons would get boring fast.
Maybe this is just at the limit of what this old game can handle.
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Post by lemminkainen on Aug 1, 2022 17:08:18 GMT -6
I see many of you are complaining about the invisible sprites in the map editor. I already made a thorough investigation on this here: impz.proboards.com/thread/2289/disappearing-sprites-bug-investigationBasically, the amount of sprites is irrelevant. I've made maps with thousands of tree. It's just that the game can't handle having too many sprite types on the map. With this knowledge, you can easily bypass the problem and navigate the editor without invisible sprites.  As for your map, I don't think the in game crashes are linked to the number of dungeons. I've made maps with even more dungeons that crashed very rarely. As Eyesodilated pointed out, it seems to be more linked to the overload of units on the map. Also, we haven't played that much since Boaster introduced the insane mode, and maybe the AI lords littering the map with units is also a source of crashes, especially on larger maps. Oh and by the way, it's so cool to see so many people active on the forum these days. |
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Post by lemminkainen on Aug 1, 2022 17:10:29 GMT -6
Eyesodilated, you are showing great knowledge of how this game works. I hope you keep up with your great work and through the years we will keep improving this game! |
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Skarn
Member LVL 7
Posts: 113
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Post by Skarn on Aug 1, 2022 18:18:16 GMT -6
Well, I don't really know, all I can say is that by the time I cleaned like half the dungeons off the map in the editor it got actually stable afterwards in game. I've had this kind of issue before with another map and it also seemed to be the culprit, well, lowering overall dungeons quantity fixed it at least. The biggest clue about whether will crash soon or not is when, as I mentioned in another post earlier, game starts stuttering between each Faith's turns, like there's a little freeze, to me that always ended up in a CTD eventually, do you guys also get that? Maybe the amount of dungeons itself isn't the cause but something else from it? I don't really think the amount of parties plays a role, since, first off the game crashes very soon for me on that map, can barely go up to a single week, AI barely gets time to get an army by then, and secondly I've been playing on my "fixed" version for something like 120 turns (on medium/insane tho) now and I didn't get a single crash ; About turn 85 the loading screen graphics started getting glitchy tho so I just needed to reload my game and it was fine again.
Anyway, OP needs to update the map a little in any case, like simply for the Death Temple bug other people mentioned and that I also experienced for example, I'd rather he does it than let my half-assed attempt of a fix let it be the only version working.
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Post by flyingwalrus on Aug 5, 2022 4:27:43 GMT -6
So I took more time to take a look at this to find out what the problem since I didn't think there were that many dungeons on the map and I suddenly noticed auto generation for dungeons was on when I thought it was off: There is actually no wonder this map is as unstable as it is. Not only the amount of dungeons gets obnoxiously high, but for some of us out there playing with presets that increases the amount of dungeons generated it gets even more of a problem. So I decided to go and get rid of a lot of pre-placed dungeons, mostly "Faith's caves" and stuff like this, also making sure the left over dungeons are the ones who are far away from the capitals, so the wilderness isn't empty. I haven't tested yet but I'm pretty certain the result will be satisfying enough, I'm actually gonna go and test this out as I post this. I'm posting the map just in case anyone's interested, hopefully the authors don't take this the wrong way, It's a beautiful map indeed that deserves to be played. EDIT: Upon launching this and taking a look at the map, I realised there were EVEN more dungeons than I had thought, because the editor would not even properly load all of them.. like for real, there's no wonder it was crashing. In any case, it seems mostly playable now, gonna keep on testing but I think we're getting there. Agreed, this map is really beautiful and i am positv that the problems will be fixed in the long run.
I will start a new test run and report what i find ^^
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eyesodilated
Member LVL 7
May it be a light for you in dark places, when all other lights go out
Posts: 113
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Post by eyesodilated on Aug 5, 2022 9:06:39 GMT -6
Well, the map editor warns us not to use auto dungeon placement on maps greater than 128X128. So, I am gonna agree with Boasters warning here, I assume he left this message in the map editor, that we cannot use auto generate dungeon on this map. This would explain why removing that feature has allowed to me to play without crashing still haven't got past aa few dozen turns since I haven't had time. To me this is case closed on what's causing the crashes- can it be fixed? I might take a look at the auto generate dungeon function see if there is a work around- but it clearly tells us to place dungeons manually. Guess I never noticed that warning.  |
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eyesodilated
Member LVL 7
May it be a light for you in dark places, when all other lights go out
Posts: 113
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Post by eyesodilated on Aug 5, 2022 9:19:23 GMT -6
Sorry I forgot to check back! Here's my savegame. I believe this is the correct one. Should be stuck on turn 49. I had an even worse time trying to fix this game, I basically went and eliminated all two-headed ogres and now the turn 49 wont crash on Chaos! The game really hates this creature. I couldn't leave a single one alive or the game crashes. I killed about 4 of them. Weird thing is sometimes the kill wouldn't confirm on the post battle screen. One time I killed the ogre, and he became a panther. This could have been a polymorph or creature summon shenanigans but still very weird. Here is your save file uploaded at turn 50. Again, it is a matter of time before the Chaos summons another Ogre. Check out these strange results screens comparasions.  Two headed ogre is not on the results screen!  Two headed ogre defeated but result screen has a living lion unit in its place  Two headed ogre defeated and now a panther unit takes his place! Here is your save file but again no telling how long this temporary fix will last! Seems like Two headed ogre is crashing for Chaos I know somebody else said Water was crashing on turn 150 or something. I dont have 7z but here is .zip or .rar versions of the save file: Urak Huge fix.rar (367.83 KB) Urak Huge fix.zip (590.76 KB) |
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Post by flyingwalrus on Aug 5, 2022 12:49:50 GMT -6
I restarted the life campaing and it was stable until turn 55. It crashs again when chaos takes the turn. Maybe it is still the problem with the ogers that eyesodilated found. here is the savegame. In case somebody get's bored over the weekend ^^
Attachments:Life_crash_turn_55.rar (360.27 KB)
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Post by tommyg on Aug 5, 2022 17:10:42 GMT -6
Well this is very strange, none of the investigations hint at any one factor being the culprit, and people are crashing on very different turns.
My game crashes every time on turn 120, when Water takes their turn. Chaos is alive and I have no doubt they have Ogres in their army. This appears to be the longest anyone has been able to play this map without it crashing, which makes me wonder, could the crashes be related to computer performance perhaps?
As the game progressed onwards, I started to notice more and more of a slowdown, turns began taking longer and the over-map loading screen was taking longer to progress. Perhaps even this old game, with a large map and many dungeons is too much for some computers CPU to handle. My PC is a dedicated gaming machine so maybe I was able to survive until turn 120 due to it's capabilities. I will post my savegame file when I'm back home.
@eyesolidated, Booster confirmed the auto generated dungeons warning is out dated and the auto placement works, which I why I opted to have additional dungeons generate. But its a good point and worth testing for sure!
This is really disappointing as combined with Boosters Insane mode and improved changes, this map was really epic. Even at turn 120 only fire had been destroyed and it felt like my game was just getting started. I was amassing huge amounts of gold and had x5 large, high level armies. I was ready to take over Urak, though I did have a Fire Drake legendary creature making its way over to my capital to take revenge for me destroying their lord!
I had also sent a number of Thief spies into deaths territory to try and locate Balkoth, though many met an untimely demise...
Anyway, I'm sorry for anyone who's tried this map and had their game ruined by the crashing, I share your disappointment.
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eyesodilated
Member LVL 7
May it be a light for you in dark places, when all other lights go out
Posts: 113
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Post by eyesodilated on Aug 6, 2022 4:02:20 GMT -6
Well this is very strange, none of the investigations hint at any one factor being the culprit, and people are crashing on very different turns. My game crashes every time on turn 120, when Water takes their turn. Chaos is alive and I have no doubt they have Ogres in their army. This appears to be the longest anyone has been able to play this map without it crashing, which makes me wonder, could the crashes be related to computer performance perhaps? As the game progressed onwards, I started to notice more and more of a slowdown, turns began taking longer and the over-map loading screen was taking longer to progress. Perhaps even this old game, with a large map and many dungeons is too much for some computers CPU to handle. My PC is a dedicated gaming machine so maybe I was able to survive until turn 120 due to it's capabilities. I will post my savegame file when I'm back home. @eyesolidated, Booster confirmed the auto generated dungeons warning is out dated and the auto placement works, which I why I opted to have additional dungeons generate. But its a good point and worth testing for sure! This is really disappointing as combined with Boosters Insane mode and improved changes, this map was really epic. Even at turn 120 only fire had been destroyed and it felt like my game was just getting started. I was amassing huge amounts of gold and had x5 large, high level armies. I was ready to take over Urak, though I did have a Fire Drake legendary creature making its way over to my capital to take revenge for me destroying their lord! I had also sent a number of Thief spies into deaths territory to try and locate Balkoth, though many met an untimely demise... Anyway, I'm sorry for anyone who's tried this map and had their game ruined by the crashing, I share your disappointment. Yes I turned off auto dungeon generator and I am crashing on turn 4 on a Water playthrough. That is even worse than previously with the auto dungeon on! I guess back to the drawing board. |
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Post by Boaster on Aug 6, 2022 12:18:35 GMT -6
I've been somewhat shadowing this thread for a moment, and you're all figuring stuff out quite nicely. So much so that input from me doesn't seem necessary. But I can confirm some things. Just keep things simple, and then build on it. That's really about all I can say in summary on this for now.The map sizes themselves will not cause crashes. It may slow down the load times between combat and the real world, or between loading saved games. I suppose map sizes could run into issues with world view magnification levels. The number of player armies on the overland map could have an impact on crashes. The more armies on the overland maps, the more things the game has to re-load and re-place. Going from combat to the overland map is effectively like loading of a saved game. Total number of sprites doesn't matter when it comes to invisible sprites, or sprites not showing on the map editor. It has more to do with the total number of sprite TYPES. So, if you use a lot of sprites as beautification for a map and also use other sprites exclusively for dungeons, you may more quickly run into depleting that maximum allowed. And believe me, I looked for a way to work around this and nothing turned up favorably. Dungeon auto-placement setting ONLY effects things when creating a map using the mod and then going to an standard version of the game and using maps of non-standard size. I think it was maps when they are too small or too large it will be an issue. I don't recall the exact qualifying parameters these days: I do know I adjusted some things (in GSZ and GS5) to make things more dynamic, and if a map size was larger than expected that it would then use the last set of variables of the arrays involved for auto dungeon placement parameters (doesn't apply to unmodded game). The ogre business doesn't make any sense to me, just so no one asks me about it. It makes no sense, and have no leads. Should NOT be happening, yet it is (reminds me of the degeneration of society, hah!). Giganta256.scn, which comes with the mod, I haven't even played in a long time. This map is 256x256, or twice the standard dimensions. In maps I have created, I don't do auto dungeon placement. I know the idea of creating very detailed maps is what people want to do, but, what if this doesn't work for practical/pragmatic reasons: as in, game limitations? Map making is fun, yet also a lot of work and time consuming. Start simple with a map, dress up the terrain with different regions, place chunks of sprites for decorations, and do a play through. Don't go wild on sprite quantity for decorations. If you're doing automatically placed dungeons, then perhaps be careful about adding too many extra placed dungeons? Hope this encourages more than it discourages  |
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Skarn
Member LVL 7
Posts: 113
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Post by Skarn on Aug 7, 2022 16:52:41 GMT -6
Well, the map editor warns us not to use auto dungeon placement on maps greater than 128X128. So, I am gonna agree with Boasters warning here, I assume he left this message in the map editor, that we cannot use auto generate dungeon on this map. This would explain why removing that feature has allowed to me to play without crashing still haven't got past aa few dozen turns since I haven't had time. To me this is case closed on what's causing the crashes- can it be fixed? I might take a look at the auto generate dungeon function see if there is a work around- but it clearly tells us to place dungeons manually. Guess I never noticed that warning. I'm afraid you've misread this warning - this does not mean not to use auto generation for dungeons for maps greater than 128 per 128, it's in case of a map like this being made in the GS5 editor and then being shared online. Not everyone uses that mod and people that doesn't could not use that map due to impending errors (at least that's how I get it). In any case, I've done more testing: I tried to go back from the original version of the map and gradually delete dungeons in order to reproduce the "fix" I ended up coming with; this time I went with dungeons "far" enough from the capitals, stuff you'd find in the wilderness, and reduce their density ; This didn't give any meaningful results, even deleting a lot of them still leads to crashes early on, which is why this makes me think the cause of the crashes is probably lying with the invisible dungeons close to the capitals, I'd recommend the author try to delete those, place only dungeons he's able to see in the editor and then give it another shot. I'll get around it myself anyway sooner or later but again OP needs to get around it as well, I expect this was posted to other places so better fix it and let them update it. |
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eyesodilated
Member LVL 7
May it be a light for you in dark places, when all other lights go out
Posts: 113
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Post by eyesodilated on Aug 8, 2022 0:28:59 GMT -6
Well, the map editor warns us not to use auto dungeon placement on maps greater than 128X128. So, I am gonna agree with Boasters warning here, I assume he left this message in the map editor, that we cannot use auto generate dungeon on this map. This would explain why removing that feature has allowed to me to play without crashing still haven't got past aa few dozen turns since I haven't had time. To me this is case closed on what's causing the crashes- can it be fixed? I might take a look at the auto generate dungeon function see if there is a work around- but it clearly tells us to place dungeons manually. Guess I never noticed that warning. I'm afraid you've misread this warning - this does not mean not to use auto generation for dungeons for maps greater than 128 per 128, it's in case of a map like this being made in the GS5 editor and then being shared online. Not everyone uses that mod and people that doesn't could not use that map due to impending errors (at least that's how I get it). In any case, I've done more testing: I tried to go back from the original version of the map and gradually delete dungeons in order to reproduce the "fix" I ended up coming with; this time I went with dungeons "far" enough from the capitals, stuff you'd find in the wilderness, and reduce their density ; This didn't give any meaningful results, even deleting a lot of them still leads to crashes early on, which is why this makes me think the cause of the crashes is probably lying with the invisible dungeons close to the capitals, I'd recommend the author try to delete those, place only dungeons he's able to see in the editor and then give it another shot. I'll get around it myself anyway sooner or later but again OP needs to get around it as well, I expect this was posted to other places so better fix it and let them update it. Yes! I did misread this, and Boaster also clarified some things I did not know. Thankyou. Anecdotally, even after removing the Auto Dungeon feature, I am still crashing before turn 10 on a Water/Wizard playthrough! On that Death Temple fix when I deleted the Temple and put it back in, I was surprised to see a small blue house sprite in its place after I reloaded. I didn't really think much of it at the time just deleted it and put the Death Temple back. What if overland building sprites were "overlapping" because of bad luck? The Two Headed Ogre does have one of the smallest sight radiuses in the game (Even though he has two sets of eyes). What if certain units with sight radius of 1 can't handle two building sprites on the "same" spot. Just a wild thought I had trying to connect the dots. This map is massive I wonder what a full playthrough would be like? I myself play very slow and isolationist. This map would be nice if it worked! |
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Post by flyingwalrus on Aug 18, 2022 7:45:11 GMT -6
i did a rerun with life on dificulty hard instead insane. Crah apeared at turn 67 and later then in the insane campain. I have not much expertise in modding or the technical terms but is it possible that game runs out of "memory space" at some point or something like this?
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Post by merlin on Aug 27, 2022 18:13:03 GMT -6
Started a new game with the Urak huge fixed version. Let's see how far we get!! I'm at turn 40 now, but I'm not nearly as sprawling at this point as I was in the previous game.
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