Windows 7 x64 Engine.exe Bug

[piratesjunkie]

Ahoy Pirates!

I searched already all the forum but can´t find a specific answer to my problem. Maybe some experts from you can give me some tips to resolve it.

I´m playing the german version of AoP 2 CoaS on Windows 7 / 64bit with an NVIDIA - Geforce GTX 275 SSC - Graphics Card from EVGA and driver version 195.62 installed.

I also have already the newest update from TAGES drivers installed to be able to princibly play the game on Windows 7.

I can play all the game without any problems from the beginning to the end EXCEPT the CoaS. As soon as i enter the CoaS and start walking or running around the ship wrecks the game crashes to my desktop with the announcement that ENGINE.exe doesn´t function anymore.

Before i installed the game on Windows 7 i was playing it on Windows Vista 64bit without any problems from the beginning till the end but i prefer Windows 7 and would like to play all the game just there.

So at the moment i can only play the game on Windows 7 till the moment that i want to enter the CoaS and can only continue the game on Windows 7 after i played the CoaS on Vista 64bit.

Does anyone here know some configuration changes that i could try to resolve this bloody bug?

Any help is very much apreciated!

Thanks in advance from piratesjunkie

 

[Thagarr]

Ahoy piratesjunkie, an interesting problem you have there mate! I don't believe I have ran across this one before. If the rest of the game is working, I see no reason that the CoAS part should cause a crash. I have a couple of questions for you:

1. Are you running Windows 7 and Vista on the same computer? If so, are you running it from the same directory with both operating systems? If you have it installed to the "Program Files" directory on either operating system it can have problems on either system because of Windows security measures. I would recommend installing it to a different directory such as C:\GAMES\ or something.

2. Do you have any mods installed or are you just running the stock game?

3. Does it crash at the same point every time, or is it random?

One thing you might try is running it as Administrator and see if that helps. Right click on the program shortcut, choose the compatibility tab and select "Run program as Administrator"

 

[piratesjunkie]

Ahoy piratesjunkie, an interesting problem you have there mate! I don't believe I have ran across this one before. If the rest of the game is working, I see no reason that the CoAS part should cause a crash. I have a couple of questions for you:

1. Are you running Windows 7 and Vista on the same computer? If so, are you running it from the same directory with both operating systems? If you have it installed to the "Program Files" directory on either operating system it can have problems on either system because of Windows security measures. I would recommend installing it to a different directory such as C:\GAMES\ or something.

2. Do you have any mods installed or are you just running the stock game?

3. Does it crash at the same point every time, or is it random?

One thing you might try is running it as Administrator and see if that helps. Right click on the program shortcut, choose the compatibility tab and select "Run program as Administrator"

Hi Thagarr,

thanks for your fast reply!

1. No, i have only Win7 installed. I´m using Mobile Racks with some different HDD´s for XP, Vista and 7 because i don´t want to disturb my beloved games by Ethernet Security Software. Here is a Hardware example:
http://www.amazon.com/Syba-SY-MR-35SOF-3-5-Inch-Mobile-HDD-ROM/dp/B002J9HBV6/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1266328257&sr=1-2
I tried already to install to C:\Games but this didn´t change anything. I also deactivated the DEP-Mode and threw out Directx 11. Same Problem after, no changes.

2. I´m only running the stock game, never use mods or cheats because i prefer games as they are ment to be by the programmers (specially this game is so brilliant made that i would never want to change anything) but if there would be a mod that is ONLY changing my problem, i would use it.

3. It is more or less always crashing at the same point. On the ships called Esmeralda, Gloria, Caroline, Eva, Santa Florentina and Pluto. Not on the ships surrounding them.
Very strange, isn´t it?

I also tried to run as Administrator but didn´t help. Anyway i´m the only one that is using this PC and the bloody user account control is always disabled.

There is another strange thing going on. If i install an older driver called 185.85 (the first NVIDIA driver released for Win7) the game is hanging up at the same point but not crashing to Desktop and i can only leave the game by using the Task Manager. Sometimes it´s helpfull to use older drivers for Games that are not really made for Win7 but not in this case.

Any Ideas? :?

 

[Thagarr]

Ah, ok, I understand about your hardware setup. This is a very strange problem... have you tried any of the other Windows 7 compatibility settings? If your using the Windows 7 Aero interface, try setting it to XP compatibility and put a check mark in the "Disable Visual themes" and "Disable desktop composition". Although that's a problem that usually prevents the game from even starting, it might be worth a try.

You might also try re-installing DirectX 9 and DirectX 10 and overwrite any newer .DLL files. It could be something left over from 11 that is causing a problem. If that doesn't work, Nvidia has a newer driver version than the one your currently using, 196.21 released on 1-19-2010. I hope that helps mate, I'll do some more thinking on it and let you know if I come up with anything else to try.

 

[piratesjunkie]

Ah, ok, I understand about your hardware setup. This is a very strange problem... have you tried any of the other Windows 7 compatibility settings? If your using the Windows 7 Aero interface, try setting it to XP compatibility and put a check mark in the "Disable Visual themes" and "Disable desktop composition". Although that's a problem that usually prevents the game from even starting, it might be worth a try.

You might also try re-installing DirectX 9 and DirectX 10 and overwrite any newer .DLL files. It could be something left over from 11 that is causing a problem. If that doesn't work, Nvidia has a newer driver version than the one your currently using, 196.21 released on 1-19-2010. I hope that helps mate, I'll do some more thinking on it and let you know if I come up with anything else to try.

Hi Thagarr, you are really a kind and helpfull pirate, thanks for that man

I tried already all of the Win7 compatibility settings but it didn´t help anything and i must tell you that i really don´t like them at all because in XP you just can configurate them however you like and Win7 is only telling you that there is an incompatipility found with your engine.exe and after you have no more chance to force the system to try it anyway.

Also disableling Visual themes and desktop composition didn´t change anything. Same result with re-installing DirectX 9 and DirectX 10 which i tried already before. Anyway i heard about that it shall be impossible to throw out DirectX 11 completely from Win7 because it´s a part of it and the OS will not run without it. This might be my problem, don´t know. If you know about a method to get 100% rid of DirectX 11 please explain it to me and i will try out.
I tried out the newer driver version already 2 weeks ago but went back to the one released before because it had a well known bug with the compatibility to the EVGA-Precision-Tool so that overclocking wasn´t possible anymore but also the newer driver didn´t change my problem.

I come to the conclusion that it must have to do with a specific incompatibility between win7, my hardware and the settings of the engine.exe from the game because with Vista64 everything is running well and there is more or less nothing else installed. But to change that special problem, Microsoft, the hardware devellopers and Akella would have to work together and as we all know the interest in that is very near to zero :

I will try now to upload my system specs for you as a PDF dokument that i created today just in case it could bring up some more idears in you

Have a nice day mate

 

[mcd-2003]

Ah, ok, I understand about your hardware setup. This is a very strange problem... have you tried any of the other Windows 7 compatibility settings? If your using the Windows 7 Aero interface, try setting it to XP compatibility and put a check mark in the "Disable Visual themes" and "Disable desktop composition". Although that's a problem that usually prevents the game from even starting, it might be worth a try.

You might also try re-installing DirectX 9 and DirectX 10 and overwrite any newer .DLL files. It could be something left over from 11 that is causing a problem. If that doesn't work, Nvidia has a newer driver version than the one your currently using, 196.21 released on 1-19-2010. I hope that helps mate, I'll do some more thinking on it and let you know if I come up with anything else to try.

Hi Thagarr, you are really a kind and helpfull pirate, thanks for that man

I tried already all of the Win7 compatibility settings but it didn´t help anything and i must tell you that i really don´t like them at all because in XP you just can configurate them however you like and Win7 is only telling you that there is an incompatipility found with your engine.exe and after you have no more chance to force the system to try it anyway.

Also disableling Visual themes and desktop composition didn´t change anything. Same result with re-installing DirectX 9 and DirectX 10 which i tried already before. Anyway i heard about that it shall be impossible to throw out DirectX 11 completely from Win7 because it´s a part of it and the OS will not run without it. This might be my problem, don´t know. If you know about a method to get 100% rid of DirectX 11 please explain it to me and i will try out.
I tried out the newer driver version already 2 weeks ago but went back to the one released before because it had a well known bug with the compatibility to the EVGA-Precision-Tool so that overclocking wasn´t possible anymore but also the newer driver didn´t change my problem.

I come to the conclusion that it must have to do with a specific incompatibility between win7, my hardware and the settings of the engine.exe from the game because with Vista64 everything is running well and there is more or less nothing else installed. But to change that special problem, Microsoft, the hardware devellopers and Akella would have to work together and as we all know the interest in that is very near to zero :

I will try now to upload my system specs for you as a PDF dokument that i created today just in case it could bring up some more idears in you

Have a nice day mate

I could be the over clocking that is causing it??

give it a try with over clocking it?

 

[piratesjunkie]

I could be the over clocking that is causing it??

give it a try with over clocking it?

thanks for your reply captian matt but i never used overclocking for CoAS, only for very hardware hungry games like crysis if i want to play in high resolutions with antialising

 

[Thagarr]

I had a look through your system specs piratesjunkie, I don't see anything that should cause a problem. This one has got me stumped! I was hoping maybe trying some of the simple stuff above might help, but no such luck!

When you have this CoAS problem, are you loading from the same saved game file? Have you tried loading from an earlier save? there have been some issues with corrupted save files.

Another thing you might try is disabling all your codecs to see if maybe one of those may be interfering, although it is very unlikely as far into the game as you are, I have seen some codecs do some very strange things with Windows. Have a look at THIS thread for an easy way to do this without to much of a hassle. At least that would be one more possible culprit we could eliminate if it doesn't work.

 

[piratesjunkie]

I had a look through your system specs piratesjunkie, I don't see anything that should cause a problem. This one has got me stumped! I was hoping maybe trying some of the simple stuff above might help, but no such luck!

When you have this CoAS problem, are you loading from the same saved game file? Have you tried loading from an earlier save? there have been some issues with corrupted save files.

Another thing you might try is disabling all your codecs to see if maybe one of those may be interfering, although it is very unlikely as far into the game as you are, I have seen some codecs do some very strange things with Windows. Have a look at THIS thread for an easy way to do this without to much of a hassle. At least that would be one more possible culprit we could eliminate if it doesn't work.

Sorry for my delay but my provider had a server crash down and i couldn´t use my ethernet yesterday :sad

I´m aware of the save game issues. i played all the game already 10 times and always save and keep every little bit because the wind can turn against you every single minute and i don´t let the game fool me anymore

No matter if i use older or newer save games this has no influance to my problem.

Thanks for the nice little codec tool, i like this kind of stuff very much because i´m always open for new experiments. I also thought about this possibility already and will try it out slowly step by step and inform you about the result within the next days.

I want to tell you about a little interesting thing that i realized when i played the whole lost ship city yesterday on my well working Vista64 System. Sometimes while i´m running around the ship decks my body movements are turning into SLOW MOTION for a short moment and back to normal after. That is telling me that this part of the game is tiring for my system somehow. I was in this kind of situation already some years ago with my FAR CRY game in XP and Vista but to my big surprise this is much better now in Win7. There we can see that Computers and OS´s are as much difficult to understand as women sometimes :

Anyway i have the same codecs pack from shark007 installed on my Vista System and no problems with the game there. In Win7 the codecs pack even changed the performance into better after installing because before i also could not play the part where you have to defeat the 10 MAN o WAR ships from the spanish expedition for the Ascold Quest and now this works perfekt after installing the codecs :wacko:

I have the personal feeling that my problem could have something to do with some tiring video sequences from some games but i absolutely can´t figure out what is causing that :urgh

You know, i´m building computers and configurating OS´s for myself and all my friends since 8 years now and i really could fix more or less every problem that was crossing my way but this thing is absolutely to much for me :eww

Not that this a real problem for me because i can play everything on different OS´s but it´s interesting me pesonally to find out 8)

solong, piratesjunkie

 

[Thagarr]

I know what you mean mate, I have been working with computers for almost 30 years now, when I run across a problem I can't figure out, even when it's a small one like this, it just drives me nuts till I figure out what is going on! I'm not much of a programmer, but I do know hardware. Back when I was learning how to overclock, you actually had to unsolder and replace IC's on the motherboard it's self. Much easier to just flip a couple settings in the BIOS! :nk

I know the slowdown issue your referring to, some locations it shows up even worse on different hardware. I really think it has something to do with the limitations of the Storm engine it's self. Some hardware and drivers just handle the engines flaws a little better than others. Your hardware should be able to run CoAS flawlessly, compared to what is out nowadays, the 3D in this game is very tame.

There we can see that Computers and OS´s are as much difficult to understand as women sometimes :

Amen brother! But at least computers have an off switch! :

That little codec program is really handy, sure beats the hell out of uninstalling and reinstalling everything! I'll let you know if I come up with anything else to try mate.

 

[piratesjunkie]

I know what you mean mate, I have been working with computers for almost 30 years now, when I run across a problem I can't figure out, even when it's a small one like this, it just drives me nuts till I figure out what is going on! I'm not much of a programmer, but I do know hardware. Back when I was learning how to overclock, you actually had to unsolder and replace IC's on the motherboard it's self. Much easier to just flip a couple settings in the BIOS! :nk

I know the slowdown issue your referring to, some locations it shows up even worse on different hardware. I really think it has something to do with the limitations of the Storm engine it's self. Some hardware and drivers just handle the engines flaws a little better than others. Your hardware should be able to run CoAS flawlessly, compared to what is out nowadays, the 3D in this game is very tame.

There we can see that Computers and OS´s are as much difficult to understand as women sometimes :

Amen brother! But at least computers have an off switch! :

That little codec program is really handy, sure beats the hell out of uninstalling and reinstalling everything! I'll let you know if I come up with anything else to try mate.

Thanks man, so we are living in the same street, "only" difference is that you are even MUCH more experienced then me, what a pitty that you don´t live next door to me (mine is in Hamburg) :cry

Talking about the limitations of the Storm engine and that the 3D in this game is very tame, is exactly what i ment when i talked about incompatibilities between my strong modern hardware and the programming of the game.

You know in my upinion the Russians are making the most interesting games very deep from their hearts but the support (Playlogic is not even replying to emails, seaward.ru is not reacting to new registrations and akella is only releasing patches or updates if EVERYBODY has problems to play their games) is a shame. I mean what is so difficult by testing CoAS with Win7 and release a compatibility update after. They always say that they want us to really enjoy their games, so this issue should also belong to that statement and not only by helping us to get the solutions to their riddles.

I thought already about changing another feature in the ENGINE.exe with the editor but i don´t understand enough about this kind of stuff. In there i was only changing the sound "Use MM = 1" into "Use MM = 0" till now and it helped me to get rid of my sound problems.

I was already using your tool to just tell me what codecs i have installed. in the 32bit modus everything is just fine but in the 64bit modus it´s telling me that C:\Windows\system32\ac3filter64.acm and C:\Windows\system32\WavDest.dll (3 different ones like WAV DEST / WAV FORM and WAV RENDERER) are missing. This effects the Direct Show Filters in some way.

I don´t know yet why they are missing and if that could have something to do with my message that engine.exe stopped working. Maybe i can find some freetime during the next days to setup a new win7, just install the game after, change absolutely nothing else and play the Coas savegame right after. If the problem still exists, i think i have to give up for the moment.

Have a nice weekend brother


EDIT: My biggest nightmare became true right now. I made a clean install of Win7, installed AoP2 right after and absolutely NOTHING else. I could walk around CoAS without any problems as long as the weather is fine. As soon as the bad weather is starting with flash and lightning, the game is freezing. So it must have something to do with an incompatibility between the game, Win7 and my hardware because with Vista installed, the game is running perfekt on the same machine. The last thing that i could try now is to remove DirectX 11 without leaving any rests but i don´t know exactly how to manage that. Could you please tell me that Tagharr? :?

 

[`toxic-nova`]

i think i have the same issue like you.
i tried to deaktivate PostProcess effects in engine.ini. for now i get no crshes, but i hadnt enough time for testing now...

edit: ok...forget what i said...know anyone a way to turn the bad weather off in the COAS? i think the crashes is caused by a weather effect (in my case the error has sth to do with WaterRings.dll)

 

[`toxic-nova`]

i disabled the storms on COAS. you have to enter the city after copying the file to "...Age of Pirates 2\Program\Quests" (don't forget to backup the original file)

without storm i didn't have any trouble in COAS

Edit: a little problem i found: if you leave COAS you didn't swin, you will "fly" (go to the Fernanda (the ship where Teaser Dan had his stuff) to board your new ship)

 

[Wataru]

Hello, piratesjunkie.

I had same problems of yours. My system was win7 32bit and NVIDIA GTX200.

Game crushed at specific location... in the street of CITY of ABANDONED SHIPS !! It is real nightmare.

However, when video board was changed to ATI HD3870, crush have been not occurred, at least, same location.

 

[Cuco]

Know its been a while since this topic has been activated but encountered the same problem and when i switch to an ATI card on my other computer it works,any way of fixing it on Nvidia 8800GT so that it Can work? (Talking about CoaS BTW ) and it only happens for the storm duration,i played till the storm stopped on ATI then transfered the save back to Nvidia whilst it wasnt raining / storm and it worked just fine,and then as soon as the final storm came *puf* crashes started hapening on nvidia and on ati everything was fine. :/ this sucks balls

 

[kptblood]

Ahoy piwates
sorry for bumping such an old topic but i am having the same problem. I am running GTX 460 and it seems like a hardware conflict since Cuco said his ATI card was fine and nVidia was not. I tried the fix by `toxic-nova` but without success. I replaced that file and went and loaded my save when i was in world scene, then go to COAS. But the storm is still there and of couse i crash shortly afterward.

I am running the vanila 1.3.0 version of the game atm. I probably won't mind getting 1 of the mod to fix it. But i would like to know if the save from 1.3 will still be compatable with the modded version, Since i don't want to start all over again.
Can someone shed some light on how to solve this please.

Many thx

Edit: Made a copy of the entier game from vanila and applied CMV 3.2 and it still crash in COAS (i want to play that storyline!!!

 

[Cutthroat]

Someone should try and find a way to disable the storm particles rather than the storm itself I think..

Lots of particles can overload even the best systems.

Also, I noticed that the game only runs on one of my cores. Would there be a way to make it run on all cores, and could this fix this particular bug?

 

[piratesjunkie]

I´m using a ASUS - MATRIX 5870 PLATINUM graphic card now and haven´t had such problems anymore with CoAS on Win7-64bit since 3 Years. Member "Wataru" was my solution and hero

 

[modernknight1]

I also prefer AMD/ATI cards for Storm games. I do have NVIDIA working on one computer really well though with the correct profile selected(MTWII), latest downloads/drivers, PhysX cards tweaked, and all version partitioned on desktop folders. The main problem with NVIDIA cards is the storms. It is possible with some config work to get NVIDIA to work w COAS, but AMD/ATI cards work way better out of the box for this game.

MK