Bug report

[BReilley]

Hi all - I just bought the game last night and eagerly installed it, only to find out there were two patches to download. I downloaded and ran both, then ran the game.

 

Well, the launcher comes up with an error when I run it. "Application crashed: access violation reading from address 0x00000004!

SystemInit search path: C:\games\UFO Aftermath

atiPPHSN at line ??? addr: 0x6914e8a6

StackWalk: 6"

 

I've searched this board and the official board, but can't seem to find anyone else with the same problem.

 

Ever hopeful, I ran the actual game and had no problems until I began the tutorial mission and moved Malcolm around. He announced that he'd spotted an enemy, the game hung, and spat me back to Windows with a generic error-caught box.

 

Just to be sure that this is the correct trigger, I began another game without the tutorial missoon, and soon found myself searching out a transgenant. When the characters spotted an enemy, again the game crashed, and again I was back in Windows.

 

My CPU is an AMD XP2200.

Vidcard is an ATI Radeon 7500(until the RMA'd 9800 gets back)

RAM is 1GB.

Soundcard is a Hercules Gamesurround XL.

Mainboard is an ECS K7S5A.

Monitor is a 17" ViewSonic good for 75Hz(IIRC) at 1024x768.

OS is Windows XP Pro, all service packs and updates installed as of today.

 

Video drivers are current as of today, sound and mainboard driver sets current as of three weeks ago. The game's version is English, 1.3.

 

Has anyone else had/overcome this problem?

 

Thanks for any and all input!

- Ben Reilley

[Jonaleth Irenicus]

Enter options and disable the thing that's called "Director's cut". Maybe this will help (director's cut is the thingy that makes the camera go down and circle around the enemy when you spot it, fun in the beginning, annoying later)

[Slaughter]

Also test out the options in the launcher. Try without shadows, the compatibility mode and so on. You have the latest DirectX as well?

[BReilley]

Thanks for the pointers! I disabled the Director's Cut option and that didn't change things, so I then disabled shadows and enabled the Compatibility Mode for VAs. The game now runs just fine. Later tonight I will figure out which option is causing the problem.

 

Thank you all again, it's nice to be able to enjoy the game

 

- Ben

[Slaughter]

Glad to hear that! Would be helpful if you reported back here what caused the error...

[Jonaleth Irenicus]

My advice is to leave the director's cut off even if it is not causing the problem. It surely creates some speed problems with me (especially after a long time of playing, because of low RAM I guess) and there's really nothing special about it (if it showed you the alien's death animations, it would be cool).

[Slaughter]

Agreed Jonaleth. You get tired of it fairly quickly...

[BReilley]

Hello - just confirmed compatibility mode needs to be enabled, and the game runs just fine. Thank you all again!

 

- Ben

[Slaughter]

Thanks for the heads up!

[Wrath]

Wow thank god I saw this post.

I played UFO Aftermath before and uninstalled it, but of course that only lasted a few months before the urge to play it again set in. So I reinstalled, patched up, and got the exact same error down to the letter that Reilley got.

Before seeing this post, I was trying everything. Reinstall, rollback drivers, disable openGL settings, disable hardware acceleration altogether, rollback patches, etc.

But thanks to this post, I have seen the light again!

 

The thing is, the error was also happening in the launcher, so I couldn't change any settings in there besides monitor size.

 

Luckily I saw it generated a config file, so I opened that up and changed the:

KEY "force_old_va_mode" BOOL FALSE

to TRUE instead.

Loaded up the launcher again and it worked fine, I could change all the settings now.

 

Now to get back to business.

[Slaughter]

Glad to hear that. Enjoy!

[^SiggeN^]

Luckily I saw it generated a config file, so I opened that up and changed the:

    KEY "force_old_va_mode" BOOL FALSE

to TRUE instead.

Loaded up the launcher again and it worked fine, I could change all the settings now.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

I had the same prob,but couldn`t seem to find the config file - you have to push OK in the launcher menu - and then it gets written and you can alter the KEY "force_old_va_mode" BOOL FALSE. Thanx for the solution Wrath.

 

I hope UFO:Aftershock will support mobile ATI-cards better

[Slaughter]

I hope UFO:Aftershock will support mobile ATI-cards better

Yeah, so do I. In fact, I hope they will support most cards better. Aftermath was a little rushed, and was thus not tested properly. Don't think they'll make that mistake again.