SiS Updater and Installer
Posted: Mon Feb 02, 2015 5:09 pm
Known installer issues:
Features of the Stars in Shadow Updater:
Experimental 64-bit build
Machines with Multiple Video Cards
- When running sis_installer.exe, you see an error that says: "error opening file for writing". This will happen if your account doesn't have write access to c:\Program Files (x86) (or whatever your default install directory is.) Changing the install location to somewhere where you know you have the ability to write files -- like your "My Documents" folder, should resolve the issue.
Update: The default install directory is now "C:\Stars in Shadow". I believe this should make the file writing error far less likely on Windows 8/10. Please let me know if it's still happening for you.
Features of the Stars in Shadow Updater:
- Switch to Stable / Swich to Dev: Use this button to change which version of the distro your install is syncing with. Patches to dev go up quickly, as I'm attempting to post new features / respond to bug reports. Once I'm confident that patches on dev are relatively stable, they'll show up in the stable distro. After clicking the button to switch from one distro to the other, you'll need to hit the "Update" button to download the file diffs.
- Default Port / Alt Port: Firewalls or security software sometimes cause issues on certain ports. If the updater is having trouble connecting, try hitting this button, then hitting "Update" again. If you have any success with this strategy, please write a post about it in this thread -- I'd like to collect more info on just what sorts networking quirks are out there.
- Update: Ideally, the updater will update your game files automatically, without needing to be told explicitly to do so. However, if you see a range of "connection failed" or "connection closed" errors, there's a chance that you're looking at an intermitent networking error of some sort. In that case, restarting the update process by hitting "Update" may be a viable workaround. Again, if this happens to you, please write a post about it in this thread.
- Asset Check: Much of the high-res art is "built" during the initial install process, rather than being downloaded from our servers. If this build process fails during your install, the game should still run, but you will experience pauses or latency the first few times you load certain screens. Hitting the "asset check" button will re-check all the art, which is probably a good idea if your initial install crashed.
Experimental 64-bit build
- You may notice that there are 2 executables in your install directory capable of running the game. 'sis.exe', and 'sis64.exe'. For most people, sis.exe is the build you want to run. It uses a 32-bit binary, and is slightly faster on most machines. However, sis64.exe may be more stable on some computers -- in particular, if you have a laptop with an integrated graphics adapter, I'd suggest running using sis64.exe. Right now, the 64-bit build is still somewhat experimental, so please let me know if you encounter any crashes while testing with it.
Machines with Multiple Video Cards
- When the game starts up, you'll notice that there are 3 important variables listed in the upper-left of the screen. One of these is the name of the video card that's currently rendering the game. On machines with multiple video cards, in particular, on laptops with both an Intel integrated graphics adapter, and an NVIDIA adapter, you may find that your less-capable card is rendering the game. In the case that the card you want to render with is made by NVIDIA, you may be able to configure SiS to run with that card by going into your NVIDIA Control Panel, and adding sis.exe to the list of programs to run with NVIDIA acceleration. If you run into any other issues related to multiple video card setups, please post about them here, so others can benefit from your experience .