Error reporting...
Guys, no one is as upset as I am that people are having problems with RS2. After 3 years of back breaking, mind numbing, wee-hours work on this beast, to have people report crashing, frustrations, errors, and irritation is really a downer. I am seriously tempted to just quit and disappear because of how frustrated I am by all this. I can continue to mod my own game in peace and not have to be concerned with all this, but then I remember that a lot of people put a megaton of work into this...and just walking away is a cop-out. So here's the deal....I need help from all of you.
First of all, I need all of you to realized that this game is old by any and all standards. This game was written for Windows98, and since that time there have been released Windows 2000, XP, Vista, and Windows7. With the exception of Windows XP (up to Service Pack2), none of these OS's are particularly fond or nice to this game. The reason for this is that video, DirectX, and the way Windows handles software installed into the 'Program Files' folder have all changed a lot. So there are various dangers involved with running an older game like this. You really can't just install RTW anymore (or any mod for it) and automatically expect that it's just going to work great, because this game can no longer even detect or deal with some things in the environment into which it gets installed. Security issues, Steam, and various video card 'quirks' are all going to come into play here, so the USER is going to have to have some smarts, and may well have to do some experimenting to make things work on his or her PC.
Secondly, I have recommended...HIGHLY....that people create a separate folder for RS2...copying a working RTW\BI\Alex installation into another folder NOT in the 'Program Files' folder because I KNOW that Windows XP Service Pack3, Vista, and Windows7 have security measures in place that will very likely cause problems with an install in Program Files. Sure, you may NOT have problems, but I know that such installs have caused problems. And yet, I see that people ignored this advice and installed RS2 there anyway. That's fine, you can do whatever you please. But ignoring the advice we gave as a Team really does put the brunt of the resulting problems on your own head. We made these recommendations for excellent reasons, so they should be followed.
Thirdly, I need to find some 'pattern' to the errors people are reporting that can direct me to the causes. Right now, I see people who are playing and having few problems (other than with the botched RS2-Patch file that was in the wrong place, or just the normal RTW stuff), and others who are having all kinds of issues. So what is needed is better error reporting. Since there seems to be no RTW generated error in most of these cases, I suspect there may be a trait trigger issue or an issue that is specific to 'something'. That something may be using ALEX, or it may be specific to not having unit shaders on, or using RTW's anti-aliasing, or using 'auto_save' (set to TRUE) or 'Quicksave', which is the same thing. So what I'm asking is that people who are having issues with RS2 would put the following information in this thread so that I can get some idea of what's going on:
1. The EXE you are playing with (RTW, BI, ALEX)
2. Are you using RTW's anti-aliasing (checked in Options, or set to anything other than NONE).
3. Have you set 'auto-save' to 'FALSE' in preferences.txt. (Bear in mind that this has to be done in EVERY modfoldered campaign. Each one has it's OWN 'preferences.txt', so you either need to copy one you've changed into the modfoldered campaign, or edit it yourself. Just changing the one in the Main RTW folder will have no effect on any of the modfoldered campaigns.)
4. Are you using Steam.
(Regarding Steam: This particular means of acquiring games was, as far as I know, made available as a way for game companies to update their software seamlessly. Well, RTW is NEVER going to be updated. I really don't why it was even offered there, except maybe as a way for Sega to squeeze a few more bucks out of an old game.....but it is a problematic way of using RTW when it comes to mods like RS2. We did our best to try and make RTW\RS2 work in Steam, but if you are having a lot of issues with it, I would recommend spending the 9.95 USD or whatever seriously cheap amount it is to acquire the CD's and install the game normally.)
Thank you all for your patience and help.
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Originally Posted by terzer
(Actually, I had been doing so for several days. That is how much we love your mod and support your guys.)
