Required system specs

[bjg]

The game hangs in full screen and in big window on various orders (clicking on star to send fleet there, exiting research screen after setting the research, etc.). Every time it hangs - it runs into massive memory leaking loop (seems like).
In a small window staff seem fine so far.

[sven]

Didn't help very much though. Here is an easily reproducible one: click "next turn", no new event happen (so you don't need to click anything else), click "next turn" again", game hangs, try clicking and hitting ESC, give up and click Alt-X, get an additional error:

sis_shutdown_error.png

Where there any error message popups inside the game prior to the the Alt-X --> Shutdown Error issue?

A "hang" could be a symptom of an issue with the asset generation step -- if the install crashes while building certain art assets (which I suspect it did during your initial install) the game may pause for long periods as it attempts to recover the missing asset files.

Would you try running Stars in Shadow\update.exe, and hitting the little button that says "verify assets"? (Now that you have recent drivers, I think there's a reasonable chance that it will run correctly -- though be warned that it will take about 30 minutes, assuming all the assets need to be re-created.)

[bjg]

Where there any error message popups inside the game prior to the the Alt-X --> Shutdown Error issue?

No.

Would you try running Stars in Shadow\update.exe, and hitting the little button that says "verify assets"? (Now that you have recent drivers, I think there's a reasonable chance that it will run correctly -- though be warned that it will take about 30 minutes, assuming all the assets need to be re-created.)

It had worked for a while (showing many "verified assets for...", than an error came out:

asset_check_error.png (219.61 KiB) Viewed 17413 times

Now it's idle for a long while and using exactly 25% of CPU (one core) - a bad sign.

[sven]

Now it's idle for a long while and using exactly 25% of CPU (one core) - a bad sign.

Hrm. My hunch would be that we're seeing some kind of memory error. Restarting the updater and hitting "verify assets" again might well get you a bit further along in the generation process, but, that's not really an ideal fix.

When we put together the steam distro, I'll certainly be retiring a lot of "asset generation" step, as it is proving a headache for some players. And in theory, you could just be downloading the 600mb worth of additional art, rather than "building" it as part of the install step.

[bjg]

It did finish generation at the third try.
600 meg isn't that much, specially if you (the uploader) can put it on something fast like a Google Drive. Why don't you make it an option?

[sven]

600 meg isn't that much, specially if you (the uploader) can put it on something fast like a Google Drive. Why don't you make it an option?

No terribly good reason. There's a little bit of technical complexity I'd need to think through involving the way art file versioning is managed -- but basically, the problem is that I haven't gotten around to it yet. Enough people are having trouble with the asset generation step that it is certainly worth retiring. Just a question of finding some time for it. Right now, I think probably makes sense to look at the issue again when we setup for steamworks distribution -- which will likely happen right after the diplomacy features go in.

[bjg]

Assets generation made screens load faster, but the game still hangs into a memory leak relatively soon after the start.

PS: In a smaller window it takes longer, but happens anyway.

[bjg]

I've tried to install it on the wife's laptop. It's a bit newer, has GeForce 9200M GS, but only 256 meg of dedicated video memory.
Generating assets had never finished, kept giving error at the same place. I've copied the ArtCache from the desktop - than checking assets went through.
The driver is the latest offered on geforce.com.
Have uploaded an error report from there already.

[bjg]

Gives (the same?) error every time I start/continue a game. Sending report and "ignoring" it. Should I continue doing that? Is that hardware (specially the laptop) relevant?

[sven]

I've tried to install it on the wife's laptop. It's a bit newer, has GeForce 9200M GS, but only 256 meg of dedicated video memory.
Generating assets had never finished, kept giving error at the same place. I've copied the ArtCache from the desktop - than checking assets went through.
The driver is the latest offered on geforce.com.

This is something I'd like to look into a bit more. I was fairly confident that a GeForce 9200 series would run SiS without trouble -- but I'm seeing a lot of errors in these logs that suggest driver compatibility issues.

Would you navigate to c:\Stars in Shadow on your wife's laptop, and create a zip of the logs directory? Then send that to me (via an email at ashdar.games@gmail.com. might be easiest).

Gives (the same?) error every time I start/continue a game. Sending report and "ignoring" it. Should I continue doing that? Is that hardware (specially the laptop) relevant?

Well, I'm glad it's proving somewhat playable -- as those look like serious errors. It doesn't hurt to keep hitting the upload button, but, until I've pushed a patch, or you've changed machines/drivers, I doubt we're going to learn anything new from additional logs of this bug. (Basically -- we now know that something is going very wrong on the GeForce 9200M GS, and it may be related to the interaction of the graphics driver with multithreaded state switching.)

[bjg]

The logs are sent.
BTW, one of the updater's errors was about multithreading.

[sven]

The logs are sent.
BTW, one of the updater's errors was about multithreading.

Thanks for the logs. I think my current diagnosis is that the problem is essentially just a question of video memory -- I think most of the errors we're seeing, including that multithreading warning, could be attributed your wife's laptop just running out of video memory. I've run SiS successfully on desktop cards with 256mb RAM, but, laptops are a bit different, and I wouldn't be shocked if their memory policies are such that we need to be a bit more careful about asset loading in the case of a 256mb laptop video card.

All of which, taken together, means that I should probably move the "low texture memory" mode feature up a bit on my own priority list.

[bjg]

I think my current diagnosis is that the problem is essentially just a question of video memory -- I think most of the errors we're seeing, including that multithreading warning, could be attributed your wife's laptop just running out of video memory. I've run SiS successfully on desktop cards with 256mb RAM, but, laptops are a bit different, and I wouldn't be shocked if their memory policies are such that we need to be a bit more careful about asset loading in the case of a 256mb laptop video card.

All of which, taken together, means that I should probably move the "low texture memory" mode feature up a bit on my own priority list.

It was actually running out of video memory and crushing while loading (any) game until I've updated the driver - than it became playable (with some errors).

[bjg]

I've decided to give my Carbon X1 (the original) a try. There is no dedicated graphics, but it's i7. Where do I get the latest video driver for Intel?

[sven]

I've decided to give my Carbon X1 (the original) a try. There is no dedicated graphics, but it's i7. Where do I get the latest video driver for Intel?

I usually just try the intel auto-detect feature, which now appears to be here:

https://downloadcenter.intel.com/

Though it looks like for a lenovo, you may need to use this:

http://support.lenovo.com/us/en/GlobalP ... &linkTrack