System hangs with KQ1 on x64

Message

augie1111 · #1 Post by **augie1111** » Fri Oct 28, 2005 11:52 pm

I'm running an AMD Venice 3000+ x64 with 1GB RAM, XP SP2 32-bit. I've had to reset my rig twice as the salute doesn't work. I'm running stock speeds on an ASUS A8N-E using the onboard Realtek ALC850 audio and an ASUS N6200TC PCI-E video card. Any hints are very much appreciated.

#2 Post by **navynuke04** » Sat Oct 29, 2005 1:08 am

Hmmm... perhaps your system doesn't meet minimum specs?

What specific errors are you getting?

augie1111 · #3 Post by **augie1111** » Sat Oct 29, 2005 4:31 am

navynuke04 wrote:Hmmm... perhaps your system doesn't meet minimum specs?

What specific errors are you getting?

Hehe navynuke04 ;) :P The darn thing is fast! :eek :D I didn't get any messages nor any blue screens, the system just froze, once when I was entering the farmer's hut and the other was at a pond and I had to reset both times. I also checked the event viewer, which showed diddly squat.

Anyways, I'll rebuild my 1GZ Celeron rig soon and see if it works on that. I wonder if my current rig is too fast for KQ1? I'm not a programmer, but I've had issues with old DOS games running on my Celly, 286 stuff, on which I needed Dosbox to play the games. Perhaps this is a similar matter?

#4 Post by **navynuke04** » Sat Oct 29, 2005 5:07 am

No... there really shouldn't be an issue with your computer being too fast.

Does it completely hang up and quit responding, or are you just not allowed to walk anywhere? There is a known bug that happens at the wood cutter's cottage. Sometimes when you enter the screen, the player won't appear in a walkable area, and therefore becomes stuck. The drop down menu and everything else should still work though.

It sounds like you have a pretty new computer, but it might be worth checking to ensure you have the latest drivers and DirectX stuff. Drop by windowsupdate.microsoft.com to ensure you have the latest and greatest DirectX drivers.

augie1111 · #5 Post by **augie1111** » Sat Oct 29, 2005 5:37 am

Does it completely hang up and quit responding

Yes

There is a known bug that happens at the wood cutter's cottage. Sometimes when you enter the screen, the player won't appear in a walkable area, and therefore becomes stuck

What I saw was that entering the cottage, Graham just disappeared and then the salute gave me my task manager in a huge font which I couldn't get rid of.

but it might be worth checking to ensure you have the latest drivers and DirectX stuff.

Yup, directx 9.0c and the latest and greatest drivers out there for my rig. I keep uptodate though several weeks behind, I like to see if anyone blew up their system first and then install. I'll let you know if I find something, thanks for your help!

#6 Post by **navynuke04** » Sat Oct 29, 2005 5:45 am

I'm afraid I don't know what to tell you then... please share if you find a solution. Sorry...

Pidgeot · #7 Post by **Pidgeot** » Sat Oct 29, 2005 9:25 am

It might be worth a shot to try windowed mode. At least in that case, you can recover more easily if it crashes.

augie1111 · #8 Post by **augie1111** » Mon Oct 31, 2005 4:10 am

navynuke04 wrote:I'm afraid I don't know what to tell you then... please share if you find a solution. Sorry...

Thanks for all of your help and time navynuke04,

The only thing that seems to work is to turn on the anti-aliasing in the advanced options. I'm not sure why, though I hope I have helped someone else. LOL, anti-aliasing? I have no idea. :\ I'm not a gamer, not the twitch stuff at any rate.

I'll let you know if the "fix" lasts.

BTW, I changed the title to include x64. There's only one other thread on this site about x64 and it's not here. Let's see if we have some other x64 users. Great site all! Keep up the great work!

#9 Post by **navynuke04** » Mon Oct 31, 2005 5:12 am

Glad to hear you got it running. I'm always glad to help out (even when I'm not much of a help.

)

akanucho · #10 Post by **akanucho** » Thu Nov 03, 2005 3:07 pm

Hmm. My home computer is pretty similar to yours, augie1111. The biggest different is that I'm running Windows XP 64 Professional on my Athlon 64 3000+ (Venice) and ASUS A8N motherboard. I played through KQ1VGA without any technical problems, but I did have anti-aliasing activated. Since I don't know if AGS bothers to utilize available anti-aliasing in hardware, I can't know if my video card affects the issue, but I'll try deactivating anti-aliasing and running through the game again to see if I can recreate your crash. AGS has been extremely stable for me so far, which is very impressive considering how many programs no longer function in WinXP-64.

akanucho · #11 Post by **akanucho** » Tue Nov 08, 2005 3:21 am

I wasn't able to get the game to crash or throw any error messages, but I was able to reliably recreate the bug at the woodcutter's cottage where the avatar ends up in a non-traversable region. That bug is caused by a combination of two factors.

The first is the 'walk onto the screen' code. When the avatar moves north from one screen to the next, the game usually places the avatar sprite below the south edge of the new screen and proceeds to automatically move the sprite north until it is completely displayed on the screen. This 'automatic walk' code doesn't check for interaction (traverable boundaries or hotspots) because the area the avatar usually traverses is not part of the screen. However, in the case of the woodcutter's cottage screen, the game initialized the avatar position as fully on the screen, so the 'automatic walk onto the screen' can move the avatar into a non-traversable region, thus preventing any further movement.

The second half of the bug is related and it also involves the initial position of the avatar in the room. The game usually has one or two designated 'entry points' per screen edge where the avatar is initialized when it enters the screen. The southern edge of the woodcutter's cottage screen seems to be lacking a designated entry point. As such, the avatar is initialized to the same position on the x-axis that it had when it exited the screen to the south. In other words, if you leave the screen south of the woodcutter's cottage at a point 75 pixels from the west edge of the screen, you will be initialized by the south edge of the woodcutter's cottage screen at a point 75 pixels from the west edge of the screen. However, as the game assumes that you are not yet on the screen, it will walk you north a ways, and you will end up standing in the non-traversable area of the right-hand spruce tree.

There are three solutions to this problem that I can see. Either designate an entry point on the southern edge of the woodcutter's cottage screen that contains no non-traversable region to its north, prevent the 'automatic walk' code from executing when you enter the woodcutter's cottage screen, or change the positional initialization to place the avatar off the screen as the 'automatic walk' code expects. I suggest implementing both of the first and third solutions.

augie1111 · #12 Post by **augie1111** » Fri Dec 02, 2005 4:33 pm

Thank you so muck akanucho for putting all that time in to test it out along with such a beautifully detailed explanation. You are truly a gamer! :D I have been able to recreate the known bug at the woodcutter's hut and have had no issues elsewhere with anti-aliasing on.

I'm currently "trying to get a lift"

but that's another post. I'll replay the game over the holidays and this time turn anti-aliasing off and see what happens where. Thanks again for your your help. Oh, before I forget, kudos to the coders and I'll be playing KQII soon!