Crashing and other problems

[Bloodwyne]

Ok, I bought the game and patched it.. Sometimes pirates look like they are made of wood and they appear half invisible in certin areas.. often time my game crashes for no reason once so ever.. How do I fix these? My computer is pretty top of the line and I almost double the req's for the game.

 

[Cpt. Jack Sparrow]

Garr mayte, you could try reintalling deh game see if dat helps!

 

[Bloodwyne]

That did nothing and it seems to have made it worse

 

[skull]

what video card an drivers ye use'n mate <img src="http://www.piratesahoy.com/forum/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/par-ty.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid="" border="0" alt="par-ty.gif" />

 

[Bloodwyne]

Intel Extreme Graphic

 

[skull]

Built in video card,probly doesn't 'ave enuff power ter run de game mate,read yer minimum specs,I was use'n a GF3 card an ran de game OK,upgraded tew a FX5500 128MB an now kicks arse <img src="http://www.piratesahoy.com/forum/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/par-ty.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid="" border="0" alt="par-ty.gif" />

 

[Bloodwyne]

So where can I buy a better card/download better drivers

 

[Bumsrush]

re: RADEON 9250 256MB PCI card, I get an annoying system hang right as the first broadside hits the enemy ship after a savegame. Event log blames it on DCOM?! I disabled DCOM but that shut down my ISP access <img src="http://www.piratesahoy.com/forum/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/ib012.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":cry" border="0" alt="ib012.gif" />:

Excellent thing about card reveals textures, shadows, terrain and intended game speed and fluid animations, excellent forward-view (Num9) graphics. Also refunded 64MB motherboard RAM in dumping/disabling integrated VGA.

:idea: I can't believe I didn't upgrade sooner! $$$ ! <img src="http://www.piratesahoy.com/forum/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/ib012.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":cry" border="0" alt="ib012.gif" />:

 

[Bumsrush]

Sometimes after a save game, the towns literally disappear from the map and ships going to and from the actaul locations simply sail throught he surrounding jungle terrain and my ships want to land on the shore where the town is supposed to be- thought at first this had to do with whether one had prior recon of the area -but no, because ALL town names vanish from the world map.Have to restart game. Must be a bug - didn't appear until after i installed RADEON card.

 

[Bumsrush]

I'm working out the kinks.

In the ATI RADEON Profile manager included with newest driver package, I created a shortcut with custom parameters to run Pirates!, disabling anti-aliasing and downloading most recent Bink video player <a href="http://www.smacker.com/down/Bink/RADTools.exe" target="_blank">http://www.smacker.com/down/Bink/RADTools.exe</a> and Miles Sound System <a href="http://www.smacker.com/down/MilesSndSys/MilesT32.exe" target="_blank">http://www.smacker.com/down/MilesSndSys/MilesT32.exe</a> and chose Default for 3D Sound Support inside the game - this eliminated a sound loop which seemed to coinciide with the game-hang (Thanks to post on Pirates Ahoy!).

Disabled "Wait for vertical refresh", as trying to icrease frame rate is futile because DirectX9c refreshes at 60Mhz, and trying to force higher refresh can cause lockup. At one point, the kernel debugged DirectX9, adding code, so the dll's loaded slower - also incompatible. Disabled VPU Recover to prevent graphics card from resetting if it overclocks the display driver during heavy-rendering scenes. Also disabled Trilinear Filtering, but kept Advanced Lighting On, kept Shadows On, kept Shaders On, raised all detail levels to highest inside game (tried to raise World Detail level to 6 in the Pirates! config.ini to add "Sparkle effect" - but it wrote back to 5 , and apparently this is the correct setting for water, cloud, and sunlight sparkle).

On ATI Control Center, configuring the Pirates! launch shortcut, I pushed all 3D settings to highest quality, and yes, it is making me appreciate the graphics more, now that the game runs smoothly. I upgraded from Intel Extreme integrated graphics which freed 32-64MB RAM on my motherboard resources. Then go the the Pirates!.exe file inProgram Files.FiraxisGames.Sid Meier's Pirates!, right click, go to Properties>Compatibility and check "Disable visual themes" and "Turn Off Advanced Text Service for the Program.

Also added boot.ini switch in Control Panel>System>Advance>Startup and Recovery>Edit boot parameters ... type on the end of the Windows XP load line "/PCILOCK"; this forces the BIOS, not XP, to manage PCI bus - new hardware does all the graphics work; XP running better overall!

Another useful Win XP tweak that has greatly improved overall Windows stability and functionality add, also in the boot.ini as described aboe, the "/3G" switch (allows 3 Gig max of paging for apps and dlls instead of default 2G), added swtich "/userva=3006" to fine tune software memory use, and set Virtual Memory in ControlPanel>System>Advanced>Performance>Change to: 768MB MIN (approx. 1.5x my physical RAM), and 3006MB MAX to match /userva switch and /3G setup.

 

[Bumsrush]

My tweaking of RADEON and of XP was not in vain because I figured some other things out. ...

Good news! ... PROBLEM SOLVED! ... <img src="http://www.piratesahoy.com/forum/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/diomed.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":dio" border="0" alt="diomed.gif" /> <img src="http://www.piratesahoy.com/forum/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/modding.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid="" border="0" alt="modding.gif" />

... through analysis of the system messages, specifically the SYSTEM page, in the Event Viewer - Start>Run>EVENTVWR.MSC (with the requisite electronic dialogue with Microsoft available when you right click an event message, select Properties then click the link to MS - some useful info and tips free).

Turns out the <u><i><b>Pirates</u>!</b></i> application <b><i>nor</i></b> the ATI RADEON hardware were hanging - the <b><i>SYSTEM (XP SP2)</i></b> crashed when a Service called <i>"Registry Management"</i> tried to access some other program in the background unrelated to the game. ***[ this was even after I had disabled other applications and services listed under my Windows Login using Task Manager (Ctrl+Alt+Delete), prior to launching Pirates!].

Every time, the "Registry Management" service tried and failed to access something I had uninstalled long ago, a utility program, and Windows reported that "Regisrtry Management" service, in this instance, was commanded to run by "Unknown".

So I disabled "Registry Management" under Services in Start>Run>MSCONFIG.EXE, rebooted, Registry Managment service never loaded, and SINCE THEN, Pirates! has run, with all RADEON features maxed, supremely well, and I had a 6-hour session last evening with no lockups in which I learned much more of the game and had a hell of a good time - !

I bought some adapter cables at Radio Shack (stereo miniplug converted to stereo RCA with 12-foot cable cost $8.99), connected my computer's sound card to my Sony theater system and FILLED THE HOUSE, no, BLEW THE DOORS <i>OFF</i> THE HOUSE! with the sounds of cannon fire, scurvy yells and chatter, thunder, waves, rain, duels, mortal combat, quips and challenges, ballroom dancing, etc, and all the great music and ambient sounds of the game; I'll never play with the wimpy desktop speakers again - but I left them connected and cranked them to fill in the soundscape directly in front of me while the room roared. This kind of total immersion can also be achieved using high quality headphones minus the physical rumbling feel. or: <img src="http://www.piratesahoy.com/forum/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid="" border="0" alt="biggrin.gif" /> ing: