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Thread: Discussion about the ents, spiders and wolves crashes.

  1. #201
    Withwnar's Avatar Script To The Waist
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    Default Re: Discussion about the ents, spiders and wolves crashes.

    Quote Originally Posted by El-Vi-Riachi View Post
    1. (Like previously advised) I moved the entire M2TW folder outside program files so it sit at the top of my hard drive
    2. For both Kingdoms.exe and medieval2.exe I clicked "Change settings for all users" in the compatibility tab, set it to in Win98/ME, ticked "override high DPI Scaling" selected "system" in the drop down box, ticked "disable full screen optimizations" and ticked "run as administator"
    3. This is the interesting bit and the solution I think worked, when I looked at the "Medieval II Total War" folder it was set as "read only", I unticked this and allowed it to apply to all the folder and subfolders.
    This.

    Having recently started using Windows 10 I am now getting the crashes this thread's on about. The above seems to have fixed it for me.

    1) N/A for me - I didn't install there.

    2) You're right, it was read only. Which also prevented my game from creating the log folder and file. I don't know if unticking read-only helped my crashes but it certainly helped me get my log.

    3) This is the one which seemed to do it. I could play a custom battle of a full stack of wolves, many times, all without fail. It was previously crashing nearly every time (80-90%?) in many tests. As soon I put the settings back to how they were it crashed. Re-applied the settings and it worked.

    NOTE: Ticking "run as administator" makes the log disappear again (for me anyway) - it's writing it to somewhere else I think. To get around that I changed the mod's config to use an absolute path:

    to = c:/games/m2tw/logs/system.log.txt (for example)

    ...instead of the usual relative one...

    to = logs/system.log.txt

    By the way, I also disabled all custom battle AI (G5BAI script). Not that I think that has anything to do with it, just to rule it out. It is random by nature so 1) I didn't want it to be applying random elements to otherwise identical tests, and 2) just to be certain that it had nothing to do with the crashes.

    Quote Originally Posted by tomdoof2236 View Post
    Its not an easy fix and required the animation to me modded. Basically elephants NEED the first bone to be bone_E_platform, ...
    Thanks for sharing. Hopefully that is the true underlying cause and somebody can fix it. Not me I'm afraid - definitely not my area.

    Quote Originally Posted by alreadyded View Post
    If it crashes during the battle only a log will tell you what it was.

    I personally don't have any issues with crashes so I am not about to go out of my way to fix it, but I'll enjoy looking into it if someone makes it convenient for me. No one has so far that I can remember.
    Thanks for the offer, though I looked at the trace log and it was unhelpful. Nothing at all in there for many seconds prior to the crash message.

    For me the crash was within the battle: battle started -> jump the camera to the enemy wolves -> CTD. Usually instantly.

  2. #202
    Veteraan's Avatar TATW Local Moderator
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    Default Re: Discussion about the ents, spiders and wolves crashes.

    Interesting. IIRC I have tried El-Vi-Riachi's solution when he posted it and it didn't help. However, perhaps I'm mistaken, so I will probably try this again.

    Having said that, this bug is absolutely unpredictable. When I upgraded my desktop, I was able to play without creature crashes for weeks and then they suddenly started happening again. This is how it still is, sometimes it crashes for a while and then I can play just fine until it starts crashing again for some reason.

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  3. #203

    Default Re: Discussion about the ents, spiders and wolves crashes.

    After I go into properties, and untick the "Read Only" box, and apply the changes to all files and subfiles, the folder still stays read only after I exit then go back in.

    It seems to not let me untick "Read Only"

  4. #204
    Veteraan's Avatar TATW Local Moderator
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    Default Re: Discussion about the ents, spiders and wolves crashes.

    Quote Originally Posted by Orbyn View Post
    After I go into properties, and untick the "Read Only" box, and apply the changes to all files and subfiles, the folder still stays read only after I exit then go back in.

    It seems to not let me untick "Read Only"
    That's a very annoying Windows 10 behaviour. It looks like all folders are read only, it seems you can make them all non read only, but when you go back in, it does indeed show read only again. In fact the read only property does not mean read only, thank you Microsoft. If you check the files in the folders you unticked the read only box for, you will notice that all the files are not read only anymore.

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  5. #205

    Default Re: Discussion about the ents, spiders and wolves crashes.

    I tested on my system,

    Win10 64 bit
    I7-6700
    3,4 Gh
    32 GB RAM
    Nvidia 1080

    The 2nd setting because i use the steam version and test some custom battles with dragons, ents, spiders and wolves and have no crash, a longterm test will still be in progress


    In the last 3 days, i checked a way to find out if a VDI can be a possible solution and it worked (till today) without crashes

    The VDI is created with VMware workstation 15

    the Settings be:

    Win 7 32 bit SP1
    Only steam and mediavl 2 adn dagor ennor be installed, no uneccessary things.

    virtual machine and graphic settings:

    https://picload.org/view/dcowcdlc/1.jpg.html
    https://picload.org/view/dcowcdli/2.jpg.html

    I doesn't count how often i tick and untick the medival2.exe options, reinstalling medi2 and mods on different systems and a working solution is like a cold beer after a hard week in summer

    Great work!

  6. #206
    Veteraan's Avatar TATW Local Moderator
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    Default Re: Discussion about the ents, spiders and wolves crashes.

    Updated the First Post with a link to the suggestions made by El-Vi-Riachi which may be of use to some people.

    @Azanumlimbar:

    Interesting solution, although a virtual desktop is perhaps a bit of a stretch for the casual computer user.
    Last edited by Veteraan; January 08, 2019 at 12:01 PM.

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  7. #207
    nadalio's Avatar Civis
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    Default Re: Discussion about the ents, spiders and wolves crashes.

    Any one looked into this for the possible cause of the crashes?
    3) About Bounding Spheres

    First of all, if you want to know what a bounding sphere is, read this (a short definition, for what concerns 3d modeling, could be the following: "g
    iven a non-empty set of points of finite extension in a 3-dimensional space, the bounding sphere for that set is the smallest 3-dimensional solid sphere containing all its points").
    Here is an example of a MESH bounding sphere data (after the conversion to MS3D format, you can read them in Milkshape from Model Tab -> Comment):

    Code:
    -0.01930268 ; X Offset
    0.2401515 ; Y Offset
    0.4286239 ; Z Offset
    1.331218 ; Radius
    /
    In M2TW engine, they have many different usages:


    • they are used to interrupt charges;
    • they make soldiers aware of their position on the battlefield and into the unit formation itself;
    • they make soldiers aware of the proximity of enemy soldiers so that they know when one of them is close enough to be reached and hit by their weapons;
    • they works as helpers for collision calculations especially for what concerns siege engines' projectiles.


    The most common symptoms of wrong bounding spheres are:

    • charges are interrupted too close or too far from enemy units;
    • CTDs under certain circumstances (especially during siege battles);
    • reinforcement units are stuck along the battlefield map's border and can't be moved anymore;
    • soldiers perform hitting animations but the edge of their weapons is not touching enemies' body (this is particularly noticeable when they use lances, pikes and spears).
    • the spacing of unit formations is incorrect and soldiers move in a silly way while repositioning.


    After discovering how bounding spheres are calculated for M2TW meshes (a variant of the Ritter's algorithm), I can now say for sure that 99,9% of the custom models created to this day have wrong enclosures that can potentially lead to one or more of the above listed problems. Since creating custom models for M2TW became possible, modelers started using ready-made values for their new models taken from existing Vanilla M2TW units (from a similar archer's model for a new archer unit,
    from a similar pikeman's model for a new pikeman unit and so on)... an approach that was probably enough to obtain a working bounding sphere, but that was also producing bounding spheres completely unrelated to the real models themselves.
    Every model has a bounding sphere except stratmap ones. Basically, all what can be used in a battlemap, must have a bounding sphere: siege engines, mounts, soldiers, captains, generals... everybody. And yes, 99,9% of the non-Vanilla models around there have an incorrect one... and this is the result of the bad practice of using comments for new models taken from similar existing models. If you change only one extreme X/Y/Z axis extreme vertex, then you invalidate the bounding sphere since:

    Given a non-empty set of points of finite extension in a 3-dimensional space, the bounding sphere for that set is the smallest 3-dimensional solid sphere containing all its points.

    Spoiler Alert, click show to read:





    Hence, if you take a soldier and you change his weapon from a sword to a pike, you have invalidated the current bounding sphere and he will start behaving in a silly way.

    If you want more information about this, I just wrote it down in the Technical Details spoiler of the first post. My tools can acually recalculate (hence, fix) the bounding sphere of a model during the conversion from MS3D to MESH. So basically, if you convert a MESH to MS3D and then convert the resulting MS3D model into a MESH again without making any change, you will have a fixed bounding sphere. I'm working on a tool that can fix bounding spheres on a large scale (fully recursive directory search) for the upcoming version.
    In this thread?

  8. #208
    Veteraan's Avatar TATW Local Moderator
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    Default Re: Discussion about the ents, spiders and wolves crashes.

    atthias mentioned it earlier in this thread HERE. Still it's always nice to see people giving input that might help.

    My take on it can be found in the post just below the one atthias made which I linked to above.

    It would be very welcome if somebody that can actually work with this bounding spheres stuff and the tool made by Zarathos would have a go at one of the offending units (spiders, ents, wolves in particular). However, there are few people still active that may have that skill and I suspect they are quite busy doing their own thing. Perhaps it's bit much to ask, especially since there is no guarantee that it will actually fix the problem. On the other hand, we won't know for sure unless somebody tries it.
    Last edited by Veteraan; February 24, 2019 at 10:21 AM.

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  9. #209
    nadalio's Avatar Civis
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    Default Re: Discussion about the ents, spiders and wolves crashes.

    Glad to see people that still care of third age mod with such passion

    It could be a possible cause sure spiders, ents, wolves have strange bounding sphere. Other mods that have beasts such call of war hammer has reported this crashes?
    The right guy to ask could be Zarathos himself, but he is still active here?

  10. #210
    leo.civil.uefs's Avatar É nóis que vôa bruxão!
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    Default Re: Discussion about the ents, spiders and wolves crashes.

    Could someone please resume na explanation about the the progress made around this matter?

    What is really working? Is there a final solution?

  11. #211

    Default Re: Discussion about the ents, spiders and wolves crashes.

    Quote Originally Posted by leo.civil.uefs View Post
    Could someone please resume na explanation about the the progress made around this matter?

    What is really working? Is there a final solution?
    If your issue is with ents specifically I would recommend using the DaC ents which I believe were developed by the Third Age Reforged Team. The new ent animation / skeleton is based on the trolls and not whatever is currently in use. I have fought many custom battles with them without a crash.

  12. #212
    jurcek1987's Avatar Protector Domesticus
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    Default Re: Discussion about the ents, spiders and wolves crashes.

    Greetings fellowship

    Ok so I downloaded TATW after a few years and started a Gondor campaign (with MOS 1.7). Everything was great until I ran across the damned spiders Invasion was declared on Minas Tirith and one of the Mordor stacks had a unit of great spiders. And, like many others, I got an almost immidiate ctd, I tried replaying the battle 5 times, same result :/ So I browsed this thread and someone mentioned that incorrect bounding spheres as one of the possible causes so I went and corrected the model with Zarathos' Modellers toolbox and managed to play the battle without a hitch. Then I tried a custom battle with 19 spiders and 1 bodyguard (if I selected 20 spiders the battle wouldn't load for some reason) and managed to play it without a problem. Though more tests would have to be done before it can be certain, it's a good bet that this was indeed the issue. So if anyone is still playing this and gets a spider related ctd, I can upload the modified files

  13. #213
    nadalio's Avatar Civis
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    Default Re: Discussion about the ents, spiders and wolves crashes.

    Quote Originally Posted by jurcek1987 View Post
    Greetings fellowship

    Ok so I downloaded TATW after a few years and started a Gondor campaign (with MOS 1.7). Everything was great until I ran across the damned spiders Invasion was declared on Minas Tirith and one of the Mordor stacks had a unit of great spiders. And, like many others, I got an almost immidiate ctd, I tried replaying the battle 5 times, same result :/ So I browsed this thread and someone mentioned that incorrect bounding spheres as one of the possible causes so I went and corrected the model with Zarathos' Modellers toolbox and managed to play the battle without a hitch. Then I tried a custom battle with 19 spiders and 1 bodyguard (if I selected 20 spiders the battle wouldn't load for some reason) and managed to play it without a problem. Though more tests would have to be done before it can be certain, it's a good bet that this was indeed the issue. So if anyone is still playing this and gets a spider related ctd, I can upload the modified files
    Thanks for sharring this!
    It's very interesting, did you only correct the bounding spheres? Does this unit based on a elephant or a normal unit? Maybe this is the reason of a 19-20 models limit

  14. #214
    jurcek1987's Avatar Protector Domesticus
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    Default Re: Discussion about the ents, spiders and wolves crashes.

    Yeah just bounding spheres and some model group comments. None of them had the "primaryactive0" line but I'm not sure if this affects anything. And yes, all these units (spiders, ents, balrog, sauron, wolves) are based on elephants. Though I have to say that seeing all those spiders in battle made me quite uncomfortable

  15. #215
    Veteraan's Avatar TATW Local Moderator
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    Default Re: Discussion about the ents, spiders and wolves crashes.

    Quote Originally Posted by jurcek1987 View Post
    Greetings fellowship

    Ok so I downloaded TATW after a few years and started a Gondor campaign (with MOS 1.7). Everything was great until I ran across the damned spiders Invasion was declared on Minas Tirith and one of the Mordor stacks had a unit of great spiders. And, like many others, I got an almost immidiate ctd, I tried replaying the battle 5 times, same result :/ So I browsed this thread and someone mentioned that incorrect bounding spheres as one of the possible causes so I went and corrected the model with Zarathos' Modellers toolbox and managed to play the battle without a hitch. Then I tried a custom battle with 19 spiders and 1 bodyguard (if I selected 20 spiders the battle wouldn't load for some reason) and managed to play it without a problem. Though more tests would have to be done before it can be certain, it's a good bet that this was indeed the issue. So if anyone is still playing this and gets a spider related ctd, I can upload the modified files
    Quote Originally Posted by jurcek1987 View Post
    Yeah just bounding spheres and some model group comments. None of them had the "primaryactive0" line but I'm not sure if this affects anything. And yes, all these units (spiders, ents, balrog, sauron, wolves) are based on elephants. Though I have to say that seeing all those spiders in battle made me quite uncomfortable
    I'm sure many people would be interested in those modified files. I had some contact about this a year ago with some folks that claimed to have fixed it. That may very well have been the case, but we (DCIi:la team) couldn't get it to work based on the instructions I got.

    I would love to see some none crashing Ents, Wolves and Spiders. And there are still quiet some mods out there that are plagued by this problem. Could you try this with Wolves and Ents also? If it works, I will even update MOS 1.7 for the first time in 5 years with those files. And I would definitely recommend that fix to my team mates in the DCI:LA team.
    Last edited by Veteraan; April 22, 2020 at 02:20 PM.

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  16. #216
    leo.civil.uefs's Avatar É nóis que vôa bruxão!
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    Default Re: Discussion about the ents, spiders and wolves crashes.

    Quote Originally Posted by jurcek1987 View Post
    So if anyone is still playing this and gets a spider related ctd, I can upload the modified files
    Do it.

  17. #217
    jurcek1987's Avatar Protector Domesticus
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    Default Re: Discussion about the ents, spiders and wolves crashes.

    Sure. Are the ents and wolves models in MOS 1.7 same as in base TA? Also I really don't want to raise anyones hopes to soon, it may have just been a coincidence that I didn't get a crash (though it would have to be a very large one). Some more tests will have to be made first. Veteraan, did those folks said that bounding spheres were the issue?

  18. #218
    Veteraan's Avatar TATW Local Moderator
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    Default Re: Discussion about the ents, spiders and wolves crashes.

    Quote Originally Posted by jurcek1987 View Post
    Sure. Are the ents and wolves models in MOS 1.7 same as in base TA? Also I really don't want to raise anyones hopes to soon, it may have just been a coincidence that I didn't get a crash (though it would have to be a very large one). Some more tests will have to be made first. Veteraan, did those folks said that bounding spheres were the issue?
    I don't think we changed the Ents and spiders in MOS. Perhaps the Wolves, at some time. Mind you, MOS was around before I became a member of this site (2013). One thing is sure though, they all crash for a part of the players.

    I will have to drive deep in my PM history to find what the 'folks' said about their solution. So it may take some time find as there are more than 5000 stored there.

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  19. #219
    jurcek1987's Avatar Protector Domesticus
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    Default Re: Discussion about the ents, spiders and wolves crashes.

    Judging by the dates, I'd say these files are most likely original. Oh and why didn't those folks simply send you the modified files? Anyway I tried 3 custom battles ents vs wolves and always got an almost immidiate ctd. One battle only had one unit of each but it made no difference. Then I played 2 battles with fixed (hopefully ) models with 19 ents vs 19 wolves and played them to the end without a problem. I was also zooming in like crazy. Needless to say, the ents utterly wiped the floor with wolves

    Here are the files, I didn't know whether the rider or the mount was the problem so I modified both to be sure. I'd say it's the mount because the "rider" is same for all these units and it's just a single blob that isn't visible in the game. The mounts are the actual units but elephants need to have riders so they made that to make it work.

    The ents_lod0.mesh and ents_crew_lod0 go into data/unit_models/_units/en_lmail_hmail folder
    the mount_wolf_lod0 goes to unit_models/mounts/wolf
    and the black_spiderA_lod0 to unit_models/mounts/creature

    https://mega.nz/file/Mp4xiIxD#vVUMEA...0amI9JZiZB8xgs

    Please let me know the result, I'd like to hear the feedback of others that suffered these ctds

    Are there similar issues with other "elephant" units like sauron or balrog?
    Last edited by jurcek1987; April 15, 2020 at 09:07 AM.

  20. #220
    Veteraan's Avatar TATW Local Moderator
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    Default Re: Discussion about the ents, spiders and wolves crashes.

    Thank you very much. This is most welcome.

    Crashes with Sauron and Balrogs do occur, but for some reason less often than with the terrible trio. Mumakils also are based on elephants also, but crash even less. At least that is my experience.

    I will have a go at those files today. These are meant for MOS 1.7?
    Could they be used for to replace stuff in other mods too, or are the fixes specific?

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