serious question about captured RTEs and crashes

[greploco]

just bought a new PC and had fresh install

even with the most clean of environments the RTE (run time error) and crash rate is still very high

so like, I don't mean to be a basterd cause I know how hard debugging complex aps is --- but do you guys (devs) have any idea what the source of these problems are ?

[SamuraiPizzaCat]

the correct term is FRE - Fatal Runtime Error
kthxbye
(sorry cant help)

[RayBob]

When I first started playing this game, I was immediately shocked by the frequency of crashes. I knew the game had just come out so I accepted it. I expected it to be fixed soon yet more than a year later the situation is the same and I don't think I have ever seen a single post by KK even acknowledging that the problem exists.

Most games take a while to load up. KK is damn lucky that Neocron loads so fast. If I had to go through a 60 second load-up each time the game crashed, I would have quit a long time ago.

[QuantumDelta]

Odd.
I been testin my new system out, changing components around with my two other PCs as well to try to find a "crash often" setup...

guess what o_O

With 35 different system configurations tested.
I STILL DIDN'T CRASH.

.......

I really think people can't design machines :p

edit;
Sadly, all the tests were done on the best windows platform.
Win98se.

I cbf to buy any of the shitty versions of windows.

[ZoneVortex]

Originally posted by QuantumDelta
Odd.
I been testin my new system out, changing components around with my two other PCs as well to try to find a "crash often" setup...

guess what o_O

With 35 different system configurations tested.
I STILL DIDN'T CRASH.

.......

I really think people can't design machines :p

edit;
Sadly, all the tests were done on the best windows platform.
Win98se.

I cbf to buy any of the shitty versions of windows.

what're you talkin about...

it has nothing to do with computer specs...

i've played NC on atleast 7 different comps, 2 of them BRAND NEW just purchased the parts, just installed the first ever OS to ever go on the heard drive to ever use this RAM to ever use this processor etcetera...but i've never played on a system that doesn't FRE

obviously it's a GAME mechanic that causes the computer to want to FRE.

and to go with your edit, the first two comps i used HAD win98, first one had win98 second one had win98 second edition

win98 crashed the worst for me. rather than FREs when they were supposed to happen, NC would just close, my comp would completely lock up and i would have to do a hard reboot about twice an hour.

[QuantumDelta]

Then how come it works PERFECTLY fine on my PC(s) and crashes ALL the time on these guys and your own?

Hmmmmmmm?

I'm not really talking about "specs" I'm talking about configurations themselves.
My first Cron PC was fairly old, I assumed because it was, just that, fairly old, and based on the designs that 'cron was rooted in, it was more stable for it...

So when I got my new PC I borrowed a friends account mainly to test the stability there.
I managed to do 8 hours leveling, watch an op fight, and leave the computer to idle for a further 12 hours, without a single crash.

All this in over 50 of the games zones.

So seriously? o_O

And uhh.
ZV
"win98se" stands for WINDOWS NIGHTY EIGHT SECOND EDITION.

If you didn't know.. o_O

[ZoneVortex]

duhh i know that

i was just sayin compared to your win98se my win98se was the most unstable OS I ever played NC on :D

i see that you have some configuration that doens't crash NC...but when it crashes on everyone else's computers and no other games do...then it IS something wrong with NC

[QuantumDelta]

Try runnin CnC:Generals .. or Zero Hour... that's the only game that crashes for me.

I still can't lock down why either..
I think it's something to do with my, still slightly dated SB Live Value...

I thought you were saying win98 crashes more (which makes sense, without se .... 98 tends to die.... a lot.....and suck..... badly.....)
I really intend to skip over XP/2K3 (unless the next version of windows is a pos, because 2K3 looks fairly stable/decent piece of software..) and grab the next platform.

Then again, ZH was what retail was supposed to be for CnC:G and ZH is still in beta right now (imo).

Sound familiar? :p

[40$Poser]

blame it on every computer company except the one that made QDs. Neocron is fine, everyone's pc is crap. It's the equivilent of a super nintedo... (sarcasm of course)

[ZoneVortex]

i play CnC generals frequently and it never crashes for me ;)

[QuantumDelta]

Originally posted by 40$Poser
blame it on every computer company except the one that made QDs. Neocron is fine, everyone's pc is crap. It's the equivilent of a super nintedo... (sarcasm of course)
*Made his own PC* f00.
Buy from a company and you DESERVE Crashes.

ZV: I hate you :p

[ZoneVortex]

Don't hate me yet because as of right now I can't play at all considering everytime I start a skirmish all my units blow up in 10 seconds, stupid safety lock thing...

[QuantumDelta]

O_O

ZH has been better recently I gotta admit, but still, I get a weird hanging effect on all video sequences...
That's my last *real* problem with the game to solve.
That and trying to work out a way other than a mem cleaner to beat the memory "leak" (pffffffh more like flood) from when you alt-tab.

[Clyde]

I crash but sure as hell not as often as when i was on my 1ghz. Maybe KK should open a email where you can send your error/callstack logs too. Part of the problem was poor beta testing feedback :rolleyes:

[ZoneVortex]

Originally posted by Clyde
I crash but sure as hell not as often as when i was on my 1ghz. Maybe KK should open a email where you can send your error/callstack logs too. Part of the problem was poor beta testing feedback :rolleyes:

they encourage you to send them your callstacks actually, i forget where to though

[Shadow Dancer]

Dunno QD, maybe if I crashed 5000000000000 times a day in all the other games and mmorpgs I've played, I might agree with you.


But alas..............

[naimex]

I believe it is about ISP stability we should start searching for the problems..


I hardly ever crash... but the days i do... i crash almost every 5 minutes..


So my honest guess in locating and solving the "FRE" is to make every ISP used by runners and have them sync up or summet, cuz i honestly believe that its synch between ISP and Game Server that´s the problem..


but as said, several days go through between the days of the FRE´s

[Whitestuff]

Originally posted by QuantumDelta

edit;
Sadly, all the tests were done on the best windows platform.
Win98se.

I cbf to buy any of the shitty versions of windows.

Sorry, Windows 98 SE is poor in comparison to XP. I used to think the way you do, but after seeing the shit XP chews up and spits out, I won't buy any other until they come out with one better. (Which I heard BTW from some serious networking friends of mine, Windows Server 2003, is a fecking dream for them.)

I have had Red Hat b4, but it just takes a while to configure b/c most drivers have to be custom written (getting better tho). XP is so much easier and it crashes less in every game since I upgraded from 98SE.

Of course, if you use ME, don't even bother looking at me, cause I will bring you bodily harm.

It also fixed many bandwidth problems I had with 98SE.

[Load_HeavyLoad]

After This New Patch I have changed nothing about my PC but i seem to FRE Alot (every 20 mins mebbe) and Relogging = FRE Which causes ddhelp to cause an illegal stack dump which in turn makes me have to Restart my PC to run ANY game again :mad: :mad: :mad:

[Lathuc]

well the only times i really crash is when 2-3 secs earlier my comp slows down and i think crash and boom a fre oh and sometimes when i log out but im mostly going to bed anyway lol

[kurai]

Fatal Runtime Errors, Crash To Desktops, disk thrash perma-load syncs, normal perma syncs, process halts/lockups etc ...

They all occur with varying frequency to the vast majority of the player base, across a wide range of hardware, networks and windows flavours.
The frequency is, unequivocally, *way* above the mean for the games industry, let alone the software industry as a whole, and it happens on rigs that don't have the least problem with any other game or network.

The code base is big enough, and messy enough that there won't be a single cause - in a project of this complexity the sheer number of recombinant variables is astronomical.

It'll never change much, with KK's current limited coder resources, and also their QA policies. (i.e. there don't seem to be any).

It takes big man-hour numbers to nail this stuff down and KK simply don't have the resources/budget.

Unfortunate, but just the harsh reality of the situation.

:shrug:

[PaulVinten]

Originally posted by QuantumDelta


I cbf to buy any of the shitty versions of windows.

I didn't have to pay for my copy of windows XP Pro - Microsoft gave it to me for free! :) No joke! Part of the 'Microsoft academic software aliance' or some bollocks thing with Uni. Either way, I got a full legal copy of loads of software worth over £2000 :) Granted, I had most of it ANYWAY, not legal though. But it does feel good to be running a legal copy of windows for the first time EVER!!! hehehehe...

[El_MUERkO]

Originally posted by kurai
Fatal Runtime Errors, Crash To Desktops, disk thrash perma-load syncs, normal perma syncs, process halts/lockups etc ...

They all occur with varying frequency to the vast majority of the player base, across a wide range of hardware, networks and windows flavours.
The frequency is, unequivocally, *way* above the mean for the games industry, let alone the software industry as a whole, and it happens on rigs that don't have the least problem with any other game or network.

The code base is big enough, and messy enough that there won't be a single cause - in a project of this complexity the sheer number of recombinant variables is astronomical.

It'll never change much, with KK's current limited coder resources, and also their QA policies. (i.e. there don't seem to be any).

It takes big man-hour numbers to nail this stuff down and KK simply don't have the resources/budget.

Unfortunate, but just the harsh reality of the situation.

:shrug:

what he said /\

To test fully DOY I'd want a team of 16 testers and with maybe 3 engineers on hand for bug fixing for around 2 months.

I'd spend alot of time looking at loading, memory usage & network code.

[Sleawer]

My callstack.log's seem empty (just a blank page) or I dont know with what to read them, but my error.log's are FULL of missing sounds lol.

Anyway I seem to crash farily few.. about 1 time or 2 a day (some days none).
What I found is that old bugs like "right-click not working" are here again, if they ever got fixed that's it.

Oh and anyone noticed how annoying is to click GR to somewhere and the game lagging, crashing or synching, and then you have to relog to find yourself still in your appt but with 19% SI?

I wonder if would be possible to code the SI to add AFTER the genrepping somewhere.

[John.nl]

Originally posted by QuantumDelta
Odd.
I been testin my new system out, changing components around with my two other PCs as well to try to find a "crash often" setup...

guess what o_O

With 35 different system configurations tested.
I STILL DIDN'T CRASH.

.......

I really think people can't design machines :p

edit;
Sadly, all the tests were done on the best windows platform.
Win98se.

I cbf to buy any of the shitty versions of windows.

Wanna sell your PC and config?

[kurai]

Just an FYI ... you realise Win 98/SE/ME are end-of-life, and were retired 16th Jan 2004 - only supported on a "paid incident" basis now ? ;)

They were hoping to kill it off entirely, but migration take-up is slower than their bean counters would like, so they will still provide self help knowledgbases and existing update download, but there will be no new work.