Need Advice on Game Crash

Krotos · #1 April 18th, 2006, 09:06 PM

I just downloaded WinSPMBT and am eager to play it. Unfortunately, the game crashes to desktop after being in a battle for only a few mins. It happens every time. I have the latest patches to v2.51 and my computer's drivers etc are all up to date. Sometimes it even crashes when I am trying to set up a campaign. I uninstalled the game twice and reinstalled it on a defraged drive...can anyone offer an opinion on what is going wrong. I loved the old DOS version of the game, and am willing to buy the CD version...but needless to say, I won't if I can't get it to work.

Thanks in advance

narwan · #2 April 18th, 2006, 11:14 PM

Did you turn the screensaver off?

Pyros · #3 April 19th, 2006, 12:56 AM

Hi,

You may try to play the game by turning off the sound (from preferences menu) and in windowed mode.

But, first read these threads:

http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/thr...b=5&o=&fpart=1

http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/thr...b=5&o=&fpart=1

cheers,

Mobhack · #4 April 19th, 2006, 06:10 AM

As Pyros says by following those threads, you should be able to figure out where your problem lies.

But my best guess is a sound card that cannot handle multiple MP3 streams, or a CODEC that is messing with MP3.

First:
Turn off the game mouse click sound, on the game Options misc tab (Mouse interface click to OFF).
Now enter the main game screen and go to the PREFERENCES screen and deselect BOTH sound options (battle FX and sound FX).

Now, if your problems have gone away, your problem is sound related. Either a sound card that cannot hack multiple MP3 sound streams at once, or a CODEC problem.

If this is so - there is a link to a set of the battle sounds in WAV format somewhere on this site, and also Don's instructions as to how to convert the MP3 to WAV format using goldwave. Using WAV format helps some people whose sound card has these problems (at the expense of larger disk footprint for the WAV files).

After the conversion, you will need to convert the sounds.ini file (our game does not use embedded code, so changing sound files is a matter of editing an INI file only). There may be a copy of sounds.ini for WAV, but all you really need do is open sounds.ini in a text editor and replace all .mp3 items in the INI with .wav, basically.

I think the messages for that process are in one of those threads Pyros mentioned.

(And of course - if your problems have not gone away - it may be something else, like not having a graphics card that is powerful enough, or having out of date drivers etc).

Cheers
Andy

Mobhack · #5 April 19th, 2006, 06:13 AM

Yes - a search on "goldwave" found Don's article on that.

Goldwave Link

Cheers
Andy

Krotos · #6 April 19th, 2006, 08:53 AM

Thanks for all of the advice. I found the problem. In my case, the crashes to desktop were caused by a 3rd party video codex pack I had installed on my machine in order to be able to view a wider range of avi and mpg videos. After I removed that video codex pack, the game became stable and runs properly now.

Thanks ever so much for the help.

scout32 · #7 May 13th, 2006, 07:42 PM

When I download game and click the Play SPMBT button the introductory screen pops up upside down.then when scenario screen comes up theres a delay before theres any response to what i select.Finally when i hit the start button to begin scenario,nothing happens except for a sound loop of battle sounds.The game worked fine on my Windows 98 OS but i have been having this problem since i upgraded to Windows XP OS.Any help would be appreciated as i really love this game.Thanks

DRG · #8 May 13th, 2006, 09:06 PM

If you upgraded to XP after installing the game try re-installing the game

Don

scout32 · #9 May 16th, 2006, 06:34 AM

I did reinstall the game after i changed to xp several times in fact. the same thing happens every time.i hit the start button to begin scenario and nothing happens.

Nox · #10 May 16th, 2006, 10:12 AM

Quote:

scout32 said:
When I download game and click the Play SPMBT button the introductory screen pops up upside down.then when scenario screen comes up theres a delay before theres any response to what i select.Finally when i hit the start button to begin scenario,nothing happens except for a sound loop of battle sounds.The game worked fine on my Windows 98 OS but i have been having this problem since i upgraded to Windows XP OS.Any help would be appreciated as i really love this game.Thanks

1st: Do you have the latest DirectX version and WinXP service Pack 2? Are your hardware drivers up to date and correct? Have you installed any third party video or sound codecs?

2nd: Did you install WinXP ontop the old Win98 installation? If so that may be part of your problem. Although upgrade is possible from a 98 windows, it is strongly recomended to install XP on a clean formated hard drive.