Strange Occurrence in game with XP using 2.6?

[Timosity]

I've recently upgraded from win98 to XP and I've noticed one strange thing that happens which I'm not sure if it's a bug or not.

note: It's my project, not some random game.

When I skip a particular cutscene by pressing escape (that's what it's set to do), it exits out of the game back to windows without displaying an error message. If I let the scene run through it works fine.

This only occurs in XP as I copied the same files to my other computer with 98 and tested it and it works fine. (although I have no idea about ME or 2000)

I have many cutscenes that I can skip by pressing escape, but for some reason it's only 1 particular one that this happens.

It did happen at 1 other point but I can't get that one to happen now, and I tried starting the game again a few times to get up to the spot where it regularly happens (every time) and it still just exits the game without any message.

I'm running it with a P4 2.6GHtz with 512MB memory. in game when I press ctrl-v it says it's 2.60.693

I don't know if anyone else has had any problems like this with XP,
Any ideas would be appreciated.

Edit: I just tried running the game through the editor with ctrl-t and after the game exited it gave this message:

---------------------------
AGS Editor Error
---------------------------
There was a problem running the game engine. It may have crashed, in which case a message should already have informed you. Otherwise, make sure ACWIN.EXE is in the editor directory.
---------------------------
OK  
---------------------------

I didn't get a message that informed me before that one and ACWIN.EXE is in the editor directory, so I'm not sure what the problem is.


~Tim

[Scorpiorus]

That error message, does it also happen under Win98, because the error AGS displays is like one that used to be under Win2k?

~Cheers

[Timosity]

No, under win98 it runs fine (it doesn't exit, so there's no error message), I've created it all in win98 (25,000 lines of code) so far and it's a new problem (the only one I've found) since changing to XP.

[Scorpiorus]

Hmm, it all seems to me like that problems with exiting with the error message under Win2k/XP. Let's hope CJ will replicate it to find what's wrong with these OS.

~Cheers

[Timosity]

Thanks for replying Scorpiorus, we'll see if CJ has any clues.

[Pumaman]

What sort of thing is being skipped in this cutscene which crashes? Is it a long cutscene or a short one? Is it just Move and Animate calls, or something more exotic?

There was a problem running the game engine. It may have crashed, in which case a message should already have informed you. Otherwise, make sure ACWIN.EXE is in the editor directory.

Thanks for including the detail - for future reference though this message is just shown by the editor if the engine didn't shut down properly (which you worked out anyway ) - it has no special significance.

[Timosity]

It's a fairly complex cutscene which spans over 4 different rooms with many animations & moves, and a few music changes, but nothing too exotic I don't think.

eg. * Room A, it starts from that room with a sound effect, then goes to room B

*Room B animations with speech displays inbetween, then 2 characters walk to room C

*Room C, 2 characters walk to a door (a couple of text displays), animation it opens, they enter

* Room D  many animations inbetween speech displays and a couple of text displays, then It ends with the player character back in Room C


Note: there were a couple of places I could press escape to skip:

In room C & D when text displays NOT on screen.



I could upload it if necessary, probably about 3.8MB

but I don't know if that will help as it might just work fine on your machine

if so what's the best format, ie just the game (with a save at the right point, [or set up to start at right point]),
or the source? (if source, the game folder compresses to 6MB [from 128MB] are there any files unnecessary from the game folder)

I understand you might not have time to download these files

I hope I've given some useful information in there somewhere, thanks for the response

[Pumaman]

Just the compiled game with a save just before the cutscene, would be best. Thanks

[Timosity]

I've PMed you a link to the download with instructions, thanks again.

[Pumaman]

Thanks. Strange though, it didn't crash on my computer which is rather annoying.

So is it room C that's the earliest point you can press ESC without it crashing? If you press ESC just at the end of room B, does that work?

[Timosity]

Yeah, room C is the earliest point I can press ESC, at the end of room B it still crashes.

But I may have found something to help, I experimented with all the settings in the setup and the only one that worked was when I Disabled MIDI music. so maybe it is something to do with my sound card.

Currently I'm using the built-in sound card on my motherboard it's an AI Audio on an ASUS motherboard, a SoundMAX or something, but I also have a soundcard in one of the PCI slots, I'll try switching to that to see if it makes a difference.

Edit: I'm no expert in sound cards but when I disable the built-in sound card in the device manager and use the creative audio PCI card, I can't hear MIDI sounds, eg. in Winamp I can play mp3 ogg etc but midi doesn't play, it doesn't even go through the track it just skips it. (with the built-in card it does play them in winamp)

I checked in the properties of the sound card and in the midi section it says it is functioning properly and the radio button is on "Use MIDI features on this device"

I'm not sure, maybe something is conflicting but I'm not sure what, or what to look for (there's no messages of anything conflicting), maybe I need to ask a music expert.

But the crash probably has something to do with my system & probably not XP specifically.


I don't know if anyone else will read this but if anyone with XP is willing to test this, I'll PM you a link

[MrColossal]

i have XP and would be happy to help

[Timosity]

Thanks Eric, I've PMed you

[MrColossal]

Sorry Tim, no crash for me either.

I tried in each room a few times.

[Timosity]

Thanks Eric, it makes it sound more like a problem to do with my system, more specifically something to do with the sound.

[Pumaman]

Hmm, does the cutscene involve a couple of music changes?

It's possible that when you skip the cutscene, because AGS flies through the script and the music changes happen almost instantly after each other, it's confusing your sound card driver and locking up.

Could you try commenting out a PlayMusic from the cutscene (assuming you have more than one) and see if that stops the problem?

[Timosity]

Could you try commenting out a PlayMusic from the cutscene (assuming you have more than one) and see if that stops the problem?

I tried commenting out a couple of playmusics, and it worked better but still not perfectly, ie it still crashed at some points, but less points than before, I tried commenting out everything to do with sound including stopmusic, there was a givescore that has a sound (ogg not midi) there was only one sound I didn't get rid of which was in room C I have a playmusic on room load ticked.

I went backwards romoving the comments and found certain points where the playmusic in a following room was the causing the crash.

I also tried breaking the cutscene into 2 seperate cutscenes, I didn't start the cutscene until after the first screen change, then ended it just before going to Room C so the first cutscene was just in one room and that worked fine, which also may be a good idea as the cutscene is really 2 seperate scenes. But I couldn't get the second half to work all the time but did work when I commented out the playmusic in room D.



I downloaded 2.6 sp1 to see if it fixed the problem, strangely enough I couldn't get that particular scene to crash at anypoint, but there was another cutscene similar to that which crashed instead, and in version 2.6 final it doesn't crash at all at any stage in that scene.

It seems a really strange thing to happen, I'll try playing the game from scratch again a few times to see if it occurrs in any other scenes differently to what's happened already.



I tried splitting up the other scene into 2 seperate cutscenes aswell and it worked except if I press ESC twice quickly the first one skips but the second crashes.

(Note: I just tried something with that last part that worked, originally I had a stopmusic() at the end of the first section, just before an endcutscene and newroom, and a playmusic just a little bit into the new room.

I changed it so the stopmusic was at the beginning of the new room, just before the second startcutscene and that stopped it from crashing.

Edit: Ahh, after changing around the stopmusic to the next room, I put it back to 1 cutscene and it worked.

Edit2: well when I tried it again from start, the above edit didn't work this time, but it did when I split it back into 2 cutscenes. The original cutscene I had the problem with still works fine in SP1.

Edit3: I tried again and if I press ESC quickly twice it still crashes but if I wait for a tiny bit in the 2nd cutscene it doesn't crash.

Edit4: I figured out how to set my other sound card up for MIDI and It all works perfectly as it did before on my old machine, so there is some issue with the built-in soundcard I have, it seems to work fine with all my other programs though, so I'm not sure what the reason is for it crashing AGS skipping cutscenes.

Edit5: I got the crash with my other sound card once, but I couldn't replicate it, seems like a possible glitch somewhere that isn't common but exists, I guess this hasn't come up before or it's not reported, I'll have to find some other games that have cutscenes skipped to see if occurs with other games.

I hope this all makes some kind of sense, even though it doesn't quite pinpoint the problem. It may be a bit confusing cause I've been testing all day and there are many edits in this post.

[Pumaman]

This is very odd indeed - especially as it only seems to happen on your computer. I'm not really sure what to suggest at this point.

Edit3: I tried again and if I press ESC quickly twice it still crashes but if I wait for a tiny bit in the 2nd cutscene it doesn't crash.

Hmm, are any commands happening in this time that you are waiting for? Any PlayMusics or anything like that?

[Timosity]

I tried it again today and it crashes during this period when ESC is pressed
(note: This is with sound card I thought worked fine)
Here's the code from the room: (note I used first time player enters screen, and it's the only time this room is used)

 // script for room: First time player enters screen
StopMusic();
SetMusicRepeat(0);

StartCutscene(1);
Wait(120);

SetObjectView(2,93);
AnimateObject(2,3,2,0);
while (IsObjectAnimating(2)==1) Wait(1);


I thought it might just have been during the "wait" but I tried starting the cutscene after the wait and it still crashed, but it seems to work fine after the first animation, even though there is a music change in the next few lines.


SetCharacterBaseline(STA,110);
SetCharacterBaseline(CHD,111);
MoveCharacterDirect(STA,156,123);
MoveCharacterDirect(CHD,156,100);
while (character[CHD].walking) Wait(1);

PlayMusic(12);
Wait(80);


If I press ESC in that last little part It doesn't crash. It still may have something to do with the playmusic but it's just strange.

Edit: if I comment out that PlayMusic(12); it doesn't crash


I guess I'll just assume for now that it's something to do with my computer, if it works on other peoples, that's more important. but I'll make a point during beta testing for people to test skipping the cutscenes.

[Pumaman]

Edit: if I comment out that PlayMusic(12); it doesn't crash

Hmm, were you still using SP1 when you tried this? Very strange.