110 Image Limit... megamod anyway?

DrPraetorious · #1 April 30th, 2007, 10:03 AM

Okay, here's the last mod I tested before concluding that "sprnbr too high for file" really is a bug with the number of custom graphics I'm using. The mod was generated automatically by an awk script.

The nation of test is playable - and can recruit their two units.

The nation of example is playable - but when you try to recruit units, the game crashes.

The units and graphics are exactly the same, but there are hundreds of units of filler in the mod file between them.

It isn't a duplicate names issue, because the first nation is still 20 units into the file.

I've also attached the mod and the crash output, but I can't think of any other elucidating tests to run. I should note that the mod does load just fine - it doesn't complain about the sprites until you actually display them.

Oh! The bug still appears if you split the mod back up into individual mod files and load them all at once. It depends on the order in which the mods are loaded, which sprites cause a crash when you try to display them.

Other than that, can't think of anything.

Gandalf Parker · #2 April 30th, 2007, 01:20 PM

Thank you. Its a very thoughtful and complete test which will be passed on.

To answer the original question "110 Image Limit... megamod anyway? " I would say that its still worthwhile to continue working on megamods since it is obvious that Johan wanted it the game to be much more supportive of large mods than this. So at least I would say that it will get fixed.
Johan loves modders.

Foodstamp · #3 April 30th, 2007, 04:20 PM

I hope so. I am working on my 12th nation currently, most of them use custom graphics and I was afraid that I would have to make due eventually with just in game graphics. When this issue is resolved, I am going to go back through and do custom graphics for my public releases

Sombre · #4 May 1st, 2007, 03:12 AM

I just ran into this running these mods all at once in the late era.

Conceptual Balance Mod
Worthy Heroes
Streamers and standards
CBM Vaettihiem SE 2
CBM Jomon Broken
CBM Teutanion 2
CBM Ulm Reborn 2
CBM Kharamdzu
CBM Sanguinia 2

I noticed something was wrong when during the god setup screen all the mod nations came up with 'no description found' instead of their proper descriptions. Then once in the game the first several nations in the list worked (I had them all set to human) but when I reached Vaettihiem and tried to look at the recruit screen, the game crashed and I got the sprite number too high for this file or whatever error message.

I can verify that there are no conflicts between these mods. The problem only occurs when I have them enabled together.

I am going to try the same settings but with all the nations bar one set to AI and see if that makes a difference, just out of interest. Oh and the descriptions of the nations are still missing if you try to look them up within the game.

The map was silent seas.

Sombre · #5 May 1st, 2007, 03:29 AM

Ok I just did some further testing and came up with a very interesting result.

I noticed that all the nations worked (although they were missing descriptions) except for Vaettihiem. Now Vaettihiem wasn't the last mod I enabled in preferences, or the last side I added,.... but alphabetically it was the last in terms of the name of the DM file, the name of the mod etc, since it started with V.

I then renamed CBM Ulm Reborn.dm to CBM Zulm Reborn.dm and made a new game on Aran, LA, same settings but with Zulm Reborn now enabled rather than Ulm Reborn.

Now vaetti works but Zulm (ulm) reborn does not. This means that the game loads up the .dms alphabetically and that once is reaches (z)Ulm Reborn there are too many sprites.

I hope this test helps in finding a solution. I am personally convinced that it's to do with the number of sprites. I have no idea why the descriptions broke as well though -scratches head-

Sombre · #6 May 1st, 2007, 03:39 AM

DOH

I just ran another test to confirm what I thought I had found out and it turns out I'm wrong.

It's the order that you enable the mods in preferences that determines the order they are loaded and therefore which one will produce the sprite error. The only reason I thought it was alphabetical was because I was enabling them in that order because that's the order they were listed. When I renamed Ulm to Zulm I had to re-enable it and therefore it was the last one I enabled and so it was the one that crashed.

So yeah, it's the order you load them up in that determines when the crash happens, not the order they are alphabetically or otherwise.

Gandalf Parker · #7 May 1st, 2007, 12:06 PM

Good info. Thanks for that.
That should help someone pin it down.

Just a stray thought but in many programming/scripting problems its non-closure. Im not a modder so this may be way off but will a mod operate on its own happily without a final closer (such as #end) but fail when chained together?

And on the massive checks, did we get a search/count on sprite lines? Im guessing thats what we need in case some sprites were used multiple times rather than a count of the files themselves.

Missing descriptions? So it might not be the cap on sprites but the space allocated for new descriptions? 1000 sprites I can see but 1000 descriptions? wow.