instant crash (on Intel 12th Gen?)

[flyanfc]

Hello everyone, I am new to this forum. I have just today found out that the BOTF2/Supremacy project came back to life! I had seen it first in 2009 when the first release came out and was amazed. I am so unbelievable thankful to learn that the project continues!

You guys are awesome and I want to thank you all. If you ever need any help, to move apartments or something like that, I'll gladly help out!

Here's my problem with the game. I tried the
SupremacyTest_20210113 standalone and with patch_20220830

It works fine on my laptop (AMD Ryzen 3500H, GTX1060, Win11 Home 64Bit), however when I fire it up on my Intel i7-12700k (RTX 2060, Win 11 Pro 64 Bit), the game crashes 1-2 seconds after loading the in-game screen with the galaxy map. For testing, I deactivated the E-Cores, which didn't change anything.
-debug option doesn't give me a lot of output in the Log.txt:

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17:48:55.565 [1] INFO  Supremacy.Utility.GameLogManager - Log Initialized.
17:49:04.297 [7] DEBUG General - Serialized 661,889 bytes of data in 00:00:00.1574339
17:49:04.487 [ClientEventLoop] DEBUG General - Deserialized 661,889 bytes of data in 00:00:00.1920885

Obviously, I would prefer to enjoy the game on my desktop machine. What can I do to investigate that problem? Is there a way to enable better logging?

[Iceman]

Hi flyanfc, welcome to the forums!

Speaking of moving apartments, I could use... j/k

In the same folder you found the Log.txt file, did the Error.txt log file have any content? I'm assuming not, but if so, could you attach it here please?
I'm also assuming you installed XNA on the desktop, as the game warns you about that otherwise.

If you save a game in the laptop and then try to load it in the desktop, what happens? Probably the same, but doesn't hurt to try.

Does the desktop meet all the pre-reqs for the game to run?

[flyanfc]

1. The error.txt is empty
2. I ran the prerequisites several times now. My .net:

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(Get-ItemProperty "HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\NET Framework Setup\NDP\v4\Full").Release -ge 394802

results in

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394802

which according to https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet ... -installed is 4.6.2

XNA is 3.1 (I additionally installed the latest 4)

I'm a little uncertain about directX. I ran the install program from https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/downloa ... aspx?id=35 but then I also added https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/downloa ... px?id=8109 because it was specifically dx9.

3. The savegame from the computer loads, but after again 2 seconds, the game just crashes and I am back on the desktop.

[Iceman]

If you do nothing (open any screens, click anywhere) it crashes anyway, right?

Could it be gfx related?
In those 2 seconds, do you see anything weird (vs the laptop) in the galaxy screen, gfx related?

[flyanfc]

Good morning!
I only intended to come back with actual new information, so I didn't respond yesterday anymore.
Removing the dGPU and relying on the built-in iGPU of the Intel processor did not change the behavior.

Observations:
- when I stay in the "summary" screen that opens first when opening the savegame, the game does not crash yet, only after I acknowledge the summary screen
- the planet anmiation on the desktop is much less refined (see picture) although I did not modify any settings.

laptop.png (135.3 KiB) Viewed 2020 times

desktop.png (170.4 KiB) Viewed 2020 times

- based on that, I tried something else. When I quickly click out of the star system into an empty system (no planet), the game does not crash. I can even enter the planetary menus and modify production, start building and so on. Just when I come back to the galaxy screen and select a star system, the game crashes reliably
- deactivating planet animations in video settings does not change the behavior

[Iceman]

I'd say it's definitely your graphics card. Maybe related to Pixel Shader and/or Vertex Shader?
The planet textures are missing in that image (only the atmospheres are displayed). Are you able to see any asteroid belts in your desktop?

[flyanfc]

It sure looks GPU related, but it needs to be another layer than the physical one, since it is the exact same behavior regardless of using the
1. RTX 2060 or the
2. Intel UHD 770
(I actually removed the dGPU just to be sure)
I'll reinstall all graphics-related drivers but that takes a while. If it works then, I'll update here.

Regarding your question, the asteroids get displayed normally even on desktop. Actually I looked at this animation and realized it stopped half a second before the game crashed. I wanted to rule out mouse movements as the crashing factor.

[Danijel]

You can always try dxcpl (from start-run, or winkey+r), force lover dx version.

And some other options you might want to check here.

Also, be sure that you have all libraries installed, or all those tests are in vain!

[flyanfc]

Reinstalling clean intel gfx drivers did not help.

Then I started to uninstall all remotely GPU-related programs. After I had removed Riva Tuner, the game did not crash anymore! However, the planet animations are still not right.

I take it for now.

[Iceman]

Did you try removing XNA 4.0?
It is not needed/used.

BTW, the rotating 3D ship models in the colony screen / shipyard, do they show properly?

[flyanfc]

Yes, I had also uninstalled XNA4, but that hadn't affected the game's crashes. I had also reinstalled/repaired XNA3.1 afterwards.

Yes, the rotating ship animations show correctly.

[Iceman]

What about the planet animations in the system assault screen?
Sorry about all the questions, but the issue seems to be with the planet textures, though the game seems to load them just fine (it doesn't crash).