Fan Mission 48: A Score to Settle, by Springheel (2011/07/01)

[TheUnbeholden]

enhanced ambient occlusion

enhanced interaction shader

almost full bloom intensity

with post processing effects

x2 anisotropic filtering

usually get 50-60 frames except in maybe 1 instance, in 2 fm's that I remember

[Bikerdude]

I have noticed some weirdness in missions I have been working on, so try to the following -

• enhanced ambient occlusion - set to 'simple'
  
• enhanced interaction shader - set to 'default'
  

if that dosent fix it then -

• post processing effects - disable
  

Aniso uses no gpu power so this can be set as -

• x8 anisotropic filtering -
  

But AA is the killer so try -

• 2-to-4x depending on the screen res your using (what is that btw?)
  

[TheUnbeholden]

I tried playing it after disabling everything, it still crashes in Down Street it just takes slightly longer for it to happen ~30 seconds.

Knew that wouldn't be it, considering that low frame rates would have signaled such a crash.

[Springheel]

Don't know what to tell you. No one else has had that kind of problem.

[New Horizon]

I tried playing it after disabling everything, it still crashes in Down Street it just takes slightly longer for it to happen ~30 seconds.

Knew that wouldn't be it, considering that low frame rates would have signaled such a crash.

 

Hmmm. Could the map be corrupted I wonder? You could try re-downloading and then reinstalling the mission to see if that clears it up.

[Hewer]

I've been having the same crashing problem. The game will suddenly crash, and the last save is no good.

Here are my specs:

Windows 7 64 bit service pack 1

Intel Core i5-3320M CPU @ 2.60GHz 2.60

8 GB RAM

Intel HD Graphics 4000

NVIDIA NVS 5200M

 

I have changed some of the settings like Bikerdude suggested and restarted without a problem so far, but I haven't had much time to play and I'm just heading in to Down St. So we'll see. I didn't notice a particular place where it was happening before, but I was one who went into Syke's place first, and I started getting the crashes when I thought I'd better go find my contact.

 

Awesome mission, though. Love this kind of Thieving!

I went into Syke's through the front door. I KOed everyone out by the fire, then managed to KO the archer when he came out onto the balcony. All the objectives have been ticking off for me just fine. Found the ring, got Sykes down the privy. Found the Attic- I missed the info on the trap for some reason, and it was too dark for me to even see the trap hit me, but I did figure out on my own to use the wool bail or cotton bail thing to block it. Gas arrowed the two guys in the dining room, then slipped down the elevator from above without activating it. KOed everybody down there and at the back door. Then climbed over the wall into the alley. I stared heading to go see the contact, and there was a new guy standing out in the plaza with his back to me. I KOed him and headed for Down St. when the crashes started happening. Things got spotty from there because the crashes kept setting me back, and I didn't re-do everything as I continued. I did get to see the contact at one point, but never set off the alarm I've read about here- probably because I was missing objectives from the crashes.

 

 

One thing I'm wondering- I tried forever to try to get up out of the dead end alley. It seems as though the boards were placed in there on purpose so you can use them to help climb, but for the life of me I can't figure out how. I know how to pick them up and manipulate them, but whenever I try to get them propped up, they fall down to an unusable state. Is there a video or something somewhere to help me get the trick to it? I think I've read on the forums that you can use the boards in that way- I just haven't figured it out yet. By the way, I did, at one point, climb up the carts and stuff on the other side of the wall, work my way around, then drop down to Syke's back door, then stacked the bail, and climbed back out, just to do it.

 

Again, really good mission, Springheel, I'm loving it, and I'll like it better when I re-do it in the correct order. I'm the type who likes to explore all around before I get down to business of completing the objectives, and if a challenge catches my fancy, I'll get sidetracked.

 

Oh, and I

didn't get propositioned by the whore because I avoided her, thinking she'd raise an alarm

Didn't see the carrot eating because I went in the wrong way and KOed him first

 

[Springheel]

It's a bit disconcerting that there have been two reports of crashes, and I've started noticing them myself now that I'm playing the mission to test changes for 2.0. There were no problems before, so it makes me wonder if one of the latest updates had some kind of affect on the map? Hard to say, especially when they're so sporadic.

 

Is it a direct crash to the desktop for you?

 

Anyway, I'm glad you're still enjoying the mission despite that, and thanks for all the details in your post!

[grayman]

Do these crashes happen with 1.08, or is this just a 2.0 thing?

 

If the latter, I can try to play for a while in debugging mode and see if it crashes for me, and why.

[Springheel]

It crashes for me under 2.0, but the last two posters were using 1.08. Since the map hasn't been changed since it was released, it makes me wonder if some change to TDM might be a factor?

 

If you're going to look at it, let me upload the most recent version for you; might as well test the one that's crashing for me.

[grayman]

Well, I tried playing this with 2.0, but got this fatal error during mission load:

 

 

ERROR:idAFEntity_Base::LoadAF: Couldn't load af file 'atdm:env_chain01.af' on entity 'atdm_env_chain01_1'

 

Edit: Ninja'ed.

 

I'll try your version.

[Springheel]

Ok, I've uploaded the pk4 into darkmod/maps/Springheel. Thanks for looking into it.

[grayman]

I'm not seeing any update. spring5.map in that folder is dated last August.

 

Edit: date is irrelevant. The released map was spring12, and it's much larger than spring5.

[Springheel]

It's still uploading...taking forever for some reason. Guess I shouldn't have used the past tense.

[grayman]

Okay. Maybe some beta testers are DL'ing the full SVN tree.

[grayman]

I started the new pk4 and got as far as the ERROR message noted above. I know I was using the latest because when I installed it, it said "Needs TDM 2.0" in the description text.

[Springheel]

There must be some local replacement I haven't uploaded ...

[Springheel]

ERROR:idAFEntity_Base::LoadAF: Couldn't load af file 'atdm:env_chain01.af' on entity 'atdm_env_chain01_1'

 

This error shouldn't be happening, as I can't find any files that I haven't uploaded. Can you check and make sure you have darkmod/af/tmd_chain.af?

[grayman]

darkmod/af/tdm_chain.af is there.

 

I looked inside and it has a definition for atdm:env_chain01.af.

 

I looked at the code and "can't load file" is a generic and misleading error message. The true reasons for the failure are printed out as warnings somewhat earlier than the error message:

 

WARNING:Couldn't load anim: 'models/md5/environments/chain01_anim.md5anim'
WARNING:file def/tdm_rope.def, line 99: Couldn't load anim 'models/md5/environments/chain01_anim.md5anim'
WARNING:idAF::Load: articulated figure 'atdm:env_chain01' for entity 'atdm_env_chain01_1' at (-1375 1322 309) has no or defaulted modelDef ''
ERROR:idAFEntity_Base::LoadAF: Couldn't load af file 'atdm:env_chain01.af' on entity 'atdm_env_chain01_1'

[grayman]

I got the updated file, thanks.

 

I started it in debugging mode three times.

 

The first time, it crashed when the thug knocked on the door. I heard the first knock, then it crashed.

 

The second time, I descended the stairs and it crashed.

 

The third time, I didn't do anything. I just stood at the top of the stairs and it crashed.

 

In each case, it crashes in a way that provides me no information about what happened. It's so far down into the guts of things that all I know is it's trying to convert a string of numerical characters into a number, but the string is pointing at a bad place in memory, so it crashes.

 

Next step is to start putting print statements into the frame and think code to try to narrow down who's trying to do what.

 

L8r.

[grayman]

This conversation should probably move to the ASTS beta-testing thread. I'll try to remember to put further comments over there.

[Springheel]

Glad it's a repeatable issue...I think.

 

Thanks again for looking into it.

[grayman]

The archer who's patrolling the inn is doing something funky. Caught red-handed in each of 3 crashes.

 

Have to dig down and find out what he's doing.

[Hewer]

Hey- just finished playing- this time I did things in the correct order and no crashes. I think the only problem was that the chimey Dark Mod music box intro music played over the end cutscene instead of the audio I presume should have been there.

 

Again, super mission. lots of fun.

[grayman]

Continue the beta discussion here.

[Ryan101]

(I'm unable to view the beta thread, sorry!)

 

Just wanted to mention that I've had a similar crashing issue, with the last save invariably being corrupted - this generally happens at the tail end, so I've mostly gotten a fairly complete experience of the mission without actually having ever been able to complete it, haha.

 

But yeah, I've tried three times to play, have gotten through most of it each time, but inevitably encountered a corrupting crash. It's a great mission overall, I just wish I could finish it, lol. I should clarify that I tried to play through this a few months ago, back when TDM was in 1.08, and still crashed, so while I'm certainly not an expert, my problem at least isn't tied to 2.0.

Edited May 22, 2013 by Ryan101