Freeze problems.
 

I have two problems that no one seems to be able to figure out with winSPMBT. The 1st problem is that when I upgrade past version 3.0 the game will run for 2-5 minutes and crash usually while moving a unit. The screen just freezes and I have to restart the PC. I have been in contact with the developers of the patches and we can not figure out why this happens. I am on Windows XP with a GForce 700 series graphics card. I have unistalled and reinstalled the game and my graphics card. The game works almost flawlessly using the game and updates up to 3.0. The only problem I have here is that the screen turns the game into poor graphics that I can't see (pink and green colors mostly) during the buy units and deployment phases. In game it does not produce the colors but an active movie window shows up and takes me out of the game. I simply have to clock the game which is still running in the toolbar and I am back to playing. This can happen multiple times during a game though and gets annoying. Anyone have any ideas?

Re: Freeze problems.
 

Is your graphics card updated with ALL the latest driver updates? Do you have enough memory after installing the game? Are you running the game full screen? If so try running it inside a window.

Re: Freeze problems.
 

My graphics card is up to date with the latest drivers. I do have enough memory after the install. I have tried running the game in both windowed and full and I get the same problems.

Re: Freeze problems.
 

There is a sticky for problems with Vista or Win 7, you are the only person with XP that seems to have graphic issues similar to them but worse. Have you disabled game intro sounds like its starting up all by its self. Sorry to say I think you are the only person with these problems so I would say you have modified something somewhere on your computer or something has. I would seriously deep scan your computer for unwanted guests.

Re: Freeze problems.
 

Just an FYI for anyone wondering , V3.5 was when we officially switched from MP3 to Wav sound format due to compatability issues with some players computers and ended 99.9% of the complants we had related to sound issues and this is when he started having problems and I agree with Imp. He's the only one wo has ever reported anything like this and the "active movie window shows up and takes me out of the game" is totally unique and highly suspicious. NOBODY else has reported anything especially not being able to at least run windowed mode and I've run out of ideas
Don

Re: Freeze problems.
 

If the "active movie window" opens, then it is likely that some user-installed media application has taken over the file extension and/or displaying of the format from the normal Directshow/Directplay of windows itself.

The end user should find out whatever external media player (most likely) he has installed that is intercepting business as usual, and remove it or train it properly (set its file extensions in its options screen or whatever).

Says Andy, who recently installed a media application that decided that .dat extension files were movies. (Duh!) - dat files are data files and have been since before MS-DOS!). Now all my programming data files icons are all set to its icon style. Ahah - It was only in the third config screen I chose. "Gom Player" thought .dat files were an MPEG file format... Anyway, unchecked it and they are back to normal.

Andy

Re: Freeze problems.
 

I use viper anti-virus and online armor for firewall. Im not sure if these are good programs but they do seem to be. They seem to keep my PC full from adware malware tracking cookies trojans etc. How would I find out which media player is interfering and how would I turn it off or set it to a specific media player that will be compatible with the game? I did go through the MP3 .wav advice with DRG and that did not seem to work.Thanks for the help and advice.

Re: Freeze problems.
 

Update: I have uninstalled every media/video player I had on my PC that I know of and I still get the ActiveMovie Window popup. It seems to have relevance to the game because it has a picture of a tank unit in the tool bar representing the window that pops up. I am still running the 3.0 update because of the problem that occurs past 3.0

Re: Freeze problems.
 

Never seen this before, ever - we don't use ActiveMovie.

A quick Google on "ActiveMovie window" brings up many hits about it popping up, and suggestions on how to kill it e.g. http://www.theeldergeek.com/forum/in...showtopic=9047

DirectPlay is used for sounds - have you tried turning sounds off?.
- Set the interface mouse click to off in the game options programme Misc tab
- Set both sound buttons (battle FX and sound FX) to off in the preferences screen of the actual game itself.

DirectPlay is used to show the splash screen at startup
- Set Show Introduction to no in the game options program main tab.

See if that helps your problem.

Cheers
Andy

Re: Freeze problems.
 

The things you had me try worked! Thank you. Two questions:

1. Does this mean in order for the game to work correctly I must play without sound?

2. Should I download the rest of the updates and try the game or will this fix not have anything to do with updates 3.5 and beyond?

Again thanks for everyones time.

Re: Freeze problems.
 

1) If this allows the game to play properly then yes.

Or at least until you manage to fix whatever your media player or driver (sound or video) problem is.

2) of course

Andy

Re: Freeze problems.
 

When you say you uninstalled all players that did include windows media player. Its easy enough to uninstall. Once you find the problem putting a clean install back should not cause it to reoccur.
Have you tried checking what the files are associated with, click on a sound file & the intro video if its a seperate file & windows should select your media player if still have one. Or can right click & select properties to find program associated with or at least I am set up that way. Have a few aftermarket if that does not work stick file associations in windows help.
Still sounds suspicious to me if movie pops up randomly not at start something is controlling that, try running a decent process monitor & see what changes between version 3 & 3.5. There is a free one I think surprisingly called Process monitor that can be set to record a log has filters etc. Compare find what extra things running & google it.
Also as Andy mentioned I assume you have checked sound video drivers are up to date this often solves problems.
Edit
Also forget whats called but checked your version of directX or whatever its called. If you have installed an old game bad programing means it may have installed an old version.

Re: Freeze problems.
 

Evan, we established it was a sound problem last December remember ??

and later

What all this points to is a sound card problem and or a secondary program running that's using the resources the game wants to use but I'm busy with the MBT patch and I'll leave this for others on the forum to help you

The whole point of turning off all your sounds was to confirm it was sound related but as we see here we thought that once and then you reported the problems resumed

Everyone needs to remember that he's playing V3 with MP3 sounds. It's when it installs 3.5 that puts the WAV sounds in play that the real problems start and it was 3.5 that ended virtually all of our sound problem complaints except for Evan where everything is reversed

Don

Re: Freeze problems.
 

:D
On sound try doing the following
Do you have any internet radio players if so remove them. iPod have you done something strange with it anything sound related.
Call up your sound cards program & check all settings probably on the advanced tab is what you want to be looking at. Most likely has a diagnostic section as well no harm in running.

If all that fails try this workaround as assume V3.5 can still play MP3
Install to version 3
Copy sound folder & save it somewhere for the future.
Install V3.5 & replace sound folder with V3s
Future updates do the same the odd unit might be missing sound but most should be there.

Though it seems to me your problem is far more than sound you report video problems only people with Vista have namely a distorted pallette.
The only other thing I can think of is when you run process monitor see if cidaemon.exe is running.
If you do not clean out your computer regulary this can cause overflow issues.
If it is running you do not need it (or really want it) however do not shut it down report back here.
Other than that I am at a loss it needs you to be a bit computer savy & try all things suggested & any permutations you can think of like windowed full screen etc & draw a conclusion on whats wrong.

Re: Freeze problems.
 

Thinking about it I am leaning towards another game installing a old version of DirectX check your version number.

Re: Freeze problems.
 

I think my version is 9.0c. Does that sound right?

Re: Freeze problems.
 

That sounds okay then, if you are going to PM me can you please turn them on so I do not waste time replying.
Cant see it doing anything but use Run (or called Command Prompt) its pinned to the right of your start menu or in adminastritive tools. Type chkdsk/f & hit return, may need a reboot to do & takes a while. Defrag if have not done for a while & clean out your computer if you dont have a program download CClean its quick.
Type memory check or test in google & do one microsoft among others have them.

Re: Freeze problems.
 

Got it. Sorry about the PM thing Im not sure I know how to turn in on. I'll check the setting under my profile and see if i can get it figured out. Im running chkdsk now. I did recently defrag but I will also download CClean. I'll le you know what happens.

Re: Freeze problems.
 

Hi everyone.
Our friend is not the only one who gets nasty freezes. I have both SO MBT 4.5 - CD and SP WWII 4.0 commercial download version. I own two PCs, the old one and the new one with SLI, both operating Win XP. When it comes to the first one there is not a single problem with the exception of the game being a little laggy when it comes to fire exchange or arty bombardment, but in regard to the latter - it's an ordeal. It seems like both games' installations have slowly degraded to a point where it is almost impossible to play them without a freeze that strikes after a couple of minutes each time when You attempt to play. At the beginning there were virtually no freezes - now when it freezes, it freezes for good and nothing but reboot works. Then the freeze is back again in a couple of minutes; if I want to finish my turn, I need to pop in and out of the game to save the progress uninterrupted, but it still manages to catch me first now and again. I have scanned everything, I have a firewall, antivirus software etc. and I am almost 100% sure that there are no unwanted prsence in my PC. I am forced to apologize to my opponents each time and I am moving both games to another PC of mine since I have used up all my wits to figure out what the problem might be but completely in vain. It seems to affect only SP, but sometimes it also freezes when I use the browser and watch some videos.It could also be that some more demanding technically games used to have the same effect - I can remeber that being the case, but I haven't observed anything like that in quite some time, but on the other hand I don't play them anymore.

Re: Freeze problems.
 

When you say the old one is a bit laggy you don't tell us any details about it so how are we to help you with your problem ?.

My computer is over 10 years old running XP but both it and the video card were built for Me, it's a 586 processor with 384 MB of total memory running at 797 mhz and I can run the game, Paint shop pro, Outlook express and internet explorer as well as a text editing program and MOBHack all at the same time and it's not "laggy" as you discribe at all and only get's "laggy" if I try to run MBT and WW2 at the same time . You also don't say what you have the graphics and move delay set to.

You don't tell us any info about the new computer nor do you tell us why if you have noticed the original install has "slowly degraded" why you haven't tried re-installing. We know that frequent use of ctl-alt-delete will cause problems with the game that requires a re-install so it's not a stretch to think if you have had the game frequently freeze up for whatever reason that this might cause problems to. What you discribe is not normal. If it was we'd be flooded with complaints like this

You say you have " scanned everything " but what does that mean ?? That you have scanned for viruses or you have defragged your HD and run scandisk ??

Let's start there. Delete your installation of both games, defrag your HD and re-install the games. Tell us what happens

Don

Re: Freeze problems.
 

Overheating.:mean:
Ask someone knowledgeable to (mechanically) clean out your PC, and you most likely will be fine!
:sick:

Re: Freeze problems.
 

Seem to be several of these so will just say I have to agree with DRG the problem is not the game its your computers.
Sorry but just like a car if you do not maintain service them performance degrades over time till they eventually become unusable.
Do maintain them clean stuff out regulary including the registry updating drivers making sure you need the stuff in startup etc. If you dont do this they naturaly degrade over time, a physical clean from time to time to keep heat sinks etc free is also advisable. I cleaned out a freinds ancient PC sometime back that was similar spec to DRGs as it was running slow glitching. Alls fine with it now its had drivers updated & over 2000 entries removed.
If you are the sort of person that downloads demos etc need to do this frequntly most things do not uninstall properly you need to manually check after or your computer is soon filled up with rubbish they leave behind.
There are some graphic possibly sound issues with some operating systems system setups but the Camo games are otherwise very stable in my view I often have 3-5 other things running & the only thing I have ever noticed is on very rare occasions one unit will be a bit slow when I move it. Only 1 other game I own lets me do this the others tend to have far higher overheads or just lock because they expect to hog the system.

Re: Freeze problems.
 

Since I am in a bit of a hurry, I'll have to restrict myself to saying thank Yoy very much, gentelmen, for all the counselling. I took everything into consideration and despite the fact that most of the ideas were of no regard to my hardware & software status it helped me a lot to reassess the overall situation. I thoroughly had gone over the most meticulous scrutiny and aferwards the machine has been working flawlessly. I know that it's a relatively short period of time to be over the moon just like that but I have tested the equipment quite harshly and if the problem persisted it would have struck again and again - and it did not and haven't up 'til far. So far, so good. Thanks a lot everybody again. Long live the community.