Very impressed

[Leslie]

The short story here, I seem to have hit the memory requirement wall.

Guys, get some skill in closing things in Taskmanager, you might need it.

Finally got a game operational after doing some work in Taskmanager.

This might be the source of my CTD issues.

The jury is still not convinced though. I will need a while more.

[Double_Deuce]

Leslie said:Changed over to 800x600 and even went to 16 bit colour mode. I have tried scenario after scenario and I am lucky to get 3 turns in without a CTD.

Anyone got any thoughts?
CTD, its an experience I never experience normally.
Going to of course bring this up over at Shrapnel.

Are you running in Windowed or Full Screen Mode? Not that I have an anwer for you just been reading through the manual and came across some important points. Not sure it is relevant in your situation BUT one of these is:

NOTE!

Before attempting to play the game in WINDOWED MODE first ensure that you do not, repeat do not have your windows task bar set to "Auto-Hide" mode. Right click your task bar, choose "properties" and ensure that The Auto Hide check box is not checked!. Auto hide, if on, will confuse the game's calls to the windows system metrics routines, and a false result will be returned for the desktop size. As well, you should also ONLY run the taskbar from the top or the bottom of your screen while playing in WINDOWED MODE. DO NOT run it from the side of the screen.

These are simple restrictions to make the game happy. NO autohide and DO NOT run a taskbar from the side of your screen.

These restrictions DO NOT apply to fullscreen mode!

[Mobhack]

Leslie said:
I am using an atypical 800 Celeron with a 32 meg video card of no real import and a more or less mediocre sound card. Running XP and I have nothing else running (to my knowledge).

Changed over to 800x600 and even went to 16 bit colour mode. I have tried scenario after scenario and I am lucky to get 3 turns in without a CTD.

To say I am frustrated is a great understatement.
I am sure the download went fine. I am sure the install went fine. I think I can recite the manual now from memory too

Anyone got any thoughts?
CTD, its an experience I never experience normally.
Going to of course bring this up over at Shrapnel.

edit to add, going to now attempt the "download again" option. Thank god for broad band.

Keep in mind, I am sad, not angry, and I hope I am more or less a rare case here.

The game minimum system requirements are as at http://www.shrapnelgames.com/SPCamo/wSPMBT/8.htm
and item 1 in that list is:
Pentium II 500 MHz

And as specified in the Game Requirements section of the manual, as well.
"Recommended CPU would be a Pentium 2 of 500 MHz or better.. ."

A Celeron is not a Pentium, unfortunately!.

Early model Celerons have no Floating Point Unit (I think they use a software emulation). Later P4 based Celerons are the same chip (FPU is not disabled) with half the level 2 Cache, so may well be up to the job.

This game does quite a lot of floating-point maths!.

I have put a call out to the playtesters to see if they have actually run the game on that processor, or have one to try it on, but as far as I know it was only ever tested on processors that had an actual FPU. (Pentium 1..4 and Athlon).

We'll see if anyone comes up with any success, but it may well be that we have to emphasise that "Pentium" means precisely that, i.e. Pentium or AMD processors, and (possibly) Pentium 4 based Celerons, but not the early model no-FPU celerons based on the P2 and P3.

Cheers
Andy

[Mobhack]

Double_Deuce said:

Are you running in Windowed or Full Screen Mode? Not that I have an anwer for you just been reading through the manual and came across some important points. Not sure it is relevant in your situation BUT one of these is:

NOTE!

Before attempting to play the game in WINDOWED MODE first ensure that you do not, repeat do not have your windows task bar set to "Auto-Hide" mode. Right click your task bar, choose "properties" and ensure that The Auto Hide check box is not checked!. Auto hide, if on, will confuse the game's calls to the windows system metrics routines, and a false result will be returned for the desktop size. As well, you should also ONLY run the taskbar from the top or the bottom of your screen while playing in WINDOWED MODE. DO NOT run it from the side of the screen.

These are simple restrictions to make the game happy. NO autohide and DO NOT run a taskbar from the side of your screen.

These restrictions DO NOT apply to fullscreen mode!

Nope - the entire game screen area becomes "squished" in that case. Very obvious when it happens, and requires task manager to kill the process.

Cheers
Andy

[Celozzi]

Im also very impressed! Just installed it and cant beolive how great it is.
Just ordered the CD also as a way to show some gratitiude, and of course, playing at 1600x1200 and having a manual to read is a bonus.

Great job guys & thanks!

Celozzi

[Leslie]

The Celeron comment might bear more examination from our "expert crowd" that would exclude me though

To my knowledge, I have not experienced trouble with having a celeron before. But always a chance for a first.

Oh well, I am due for a computer upgrade eventually, the important thing, is will SPMBT be waiting for me?

Now that's the key detail ain't it. A week ago, there was no point in caring, now there is hehe.

[Leslie]

Oh and just so everyone knows, yes, I read the whooooooole manual.

Not something I do often, but yes, I have scanned all the permutations variations and potentialities.

I have also installed and uninstalled several times testing this and that. Also downloaded from a different source and did same thing. Plus also tested it out on my second computer.

Might be a memory hog issue and a celeron deal with me.

[MadSlob]

A superb game yet again spcamo..You never disappoint!!!Sincere thanx for all your hard work!!I would buy the game if i had a credit card.Maybe in the future when i get a full-time job.Cheers MD

[Mobhack]

Leslie said:
Oh and just so everyone knows, yes, I read the whooooooole manual.

Not something I do often, but yes, I have scanned all the permutations variations and potentialities.

I have also installed and uninstalled several times testing this and that. Also downloaded from a different source and did same thing. Plus also tested it out on my second computer.

Might be a memory hog issue and a celeron deal with me.

Some possibilities:
Early model Celeron, so software probably pushing loads of intermediate results onto the stack. Extra RAM may help, but the stack size is limited. Probably only worth trying if you had a spare stick of RAM to hand (e.g. temporarily borrow off the other PC, if compatible RAM).

Same problem on the second PC you mentioned - If so, I presume that is another Celeron-based PC?

Reduce RAM demands.
1) if you use "Show Move Radius" option, go to Preferences and turn that off, because to highlight the possible path around a unit, the game has to calculate a lot of paths, and the more you are zoomed out the worse this can be, especially with units with a large number of MP.
2) Sound off
2.1) Switch the battle sounds off first. Although these are MP3, and so much complressed, they are still large files, playing continuously as a loop.
2.2) Switch off the regular sounds. There can be upo to 20 simultaneous sound "voices" going on. Each channel is a DrectPlay object.
2.3) Switch off the interface mouse click - that gets rid of the "snick" sound, You do that in the main game control panel application Misc tab.

Cheers
Andy

[Arralen]

@Leslie

Please choose "Start", "Run.." and type in "dxdiag" .
Wait for a while.
The use "save all info" (or the button which says something simliar), save as .txt file to your desktop. ZIP it up and attach it to a posting here in the forum.

That way we can have a look at your precise machine specs and drivers version etc.

You may include a screenshot of the taskmanager as well, that we might identify some "offending" tasks by name.