Horrible Crash !

[huzman 445]

I woke up this morning with a horrible crash of my SC4D. Launching it got me as far the intro bridge and it just quit. After fooling around trying to fix and loosing the morning, I choose the most radical solution : Move all SC files and folders into a new external hard disk and disconnecting it, and re-install SC4 640 version. Now I have a plain vanilla version. Good. It loads and it looks beautiful if a bit bare.

My question is multiple : What should install (plugins) first and in what sequence. What extra things should I look into. Where do I find the "no-intro" and "CPU=1" things.

All your considerations and tips are, of course, are most welcome.

Thanks

[rsc204 21,805]

Sounds to me like something on your computer has caused this change, most likely the drivers for your videocard being updated. If the game doesn't make it past the intro screen, it's yet to start loading plugins at that point. So it's very unlikely you actually have a problem there.

When you re-installed the game, it may have selected a different rendering mode which avoids it failing to start.

Ideally you want to check your video drivers and if they were updated, roll back to the previous version, see if that fixes things. However, since you've already re-installed the game, that test may not give conclusive results. You shouldn't move installed applications around like files, you should always use the uninstaller application. For now I'd see if simply moving your plugins and regions to the new install works without trouble. But if I had to guess, I'd say your game is likely to have been switched to software rendering.

[matias93 7,535]

BTW, Huzman, are you using SC4 over wine on Linux, true? That would change things respective to the usual windows troubleshooting...

[huzman 445]

15 hours ago, matias93 said:

are you using SC4 over wine on Linux, true?

Nop, I'm a windows XP3 user for a little while longer. I'm hoping get a newer comp in the near future. I long for Linux, but that's another topic.

 

16 hours ago, rsc204 said:

most likely the drivers for your videocard being updated

Not unless it's done on the sly, without me knowing. I didn't upgraded anything between yesterday and today. The only thing I did was to open "Ireader" just to get acquainted with it, I loaded a couple files and changed some options, following orders from their guide, but I didn't alter anything, then quit. Could this have anything to with all this ? Anyway, I'm back into SC4D and trying to figure out to copy back the old Mods/Plugins and assorted things or should they be re-installed from the install files.

  Edited May 5, 2017 by huzman  
grammar

[rsc204 21,805]

I doubt you'd have a driver auto-update as an XP user. Although this is common with Windows 7 and up.

That said, something has gone wrong, if a re-install fixed it, perhaps messing the reader you saved something you did? Just opening the files shouldn't make any difference at all. In which case I'd just copy everything back and it should work fine once more.

Honestly, if you are struggling with basic file/folder elements (copying the contents of Plugins/Regions folders for example) under Windows, avoid Linux. I guarantee you'll hate it and regret installing it. Linux really is for those know who what they are doing.

[huzman 445]

2 hours ago, rsc204 said:

messing the reader you saved something you did?

No, like I said, just opened one or two files just for look-see, I didn't change anything, I just quit the program. Anyway, we (I) are beyond that. I'm into restoring NAM, CAM, SPAM, and all the others. A new install of them, or just a copy back of them ?

 

2 hours ago, rsc204 said:

just copy everything back and it should work fine once more.

I'll try that. I trust you but I hope you're right...

[Handyman 765]

5 hours ago, rsc204 said:

Honestly, if you are struggling with basic file/folder elements (copying the contents of Plugins/Regions folders for example) under Windows, avoid Linux. I guarantee you'll hate it and regret installing it. Linux really is for those know who what they are doing.

I must strongly disagree with this statement. Everyday activities like moving files are no more complicated on Linux than they are on windoze.

[rsc204 21,805]

1 hour ago, Handyman said:

Everyday activities like moving files are no more complicated on Linux than they are on windoze.

I don't have any problem with this statement. But I never said that everyday activities were more complicated.

But if a user is already struggling with such basics, how is changing their OS to one that's totally alien likely to cause anything but problems? I'm not being anti-Linux here, but I've been through this a number of times in the real world. Some helpful person decides the user that knows little should move to Linux and installs it. User gets stuck not long after, if it's anything that requires a command line, that's the end of that. Then someone with a sensible hat on has to spend their evening getting Windows going again, because honestly, it's just the path of least resistance for many. Where would you take a Linux system for professional help if you didn't know someone? The options compared to Windows are very slim pickings.

If you want to use Linux, that's great, enjoy it and be free of Microsoft, I salute you. BUT, there is a reason most of the world uses Windows and it goes deeper than simple familiarity.

[Handyman 765]

9 hours ago, rsc204 said:

Honestly, if you are struggling with basic file/folder elements (copying the contents of Plugins/Regions folders for example) under Windows, avoid Linux.

 

1 hour ago, rsc204 said:

But if a user is already struggling with such basics, how is changing their OS to one that's totally alien likely to cause anything but problems?

If someone is struggling with these basic tasks in any OS, then they still need some work. And if one is just a basic user then there should be no need to use the command line.

 

1 hour ago, rsc204 said:

If you want to use Linux, that's great, enjoy it and be free of Microsoft, I salute you. BUT, there is a reason most of the world uses Windows and it goes deeper than simple familiarity.

I agree, it's called marketing. It was no more difficult to learn Linux than it was to learn windoze.

[huzman 445]

I'm making some if slow progress. Good tips, tho.

The Windoze/Linux dilemma is a little out place here, me thinks. Both sides win. And then you could have both OSs.

14 hours ago, rsc204 said:

Although this is common with Windows 7 and up.

That's frightening !

 

7 hours ago, rsc204 said:

most of the world uses Windows

Yeah, but then WWW is over 55% in English and less than 25% of the world speaks it.

[CorinaMarie 29,568]

3 hours ago, huzman said:

The Windoze/Linux dilemma is a little out place here, me thinks.

Agreed. Let's all keep to the original discussion.

-Cori (As Moderator)

[Handyman 765]

My bad,  sorry.

[huzman 445]

Good and bad news : I got all my "regions" back and all "plugins". SC4 was launched and it crashed, just like yesterday. So, emptied the "plugins" folder again and  I resigned myself to load folders and files one or two at a time and re-launched the game. After several hours of trying, I found the culprit !. It's the "extra extra cheats.dll". after deleting it, everything went peachy right.

Thanks a bunch to all of you.

[matias93 7,535]

Well, that's weird, but in fact it looks reasonable as a cause. I haven't had troubles with the same DLL. If you are interested on troubleshooting that, I would recommend to check if the original Buggi Extra Cheats DLL was on the same directory. I guess that extra extra cheats is depending on Buggi's to be available.

[huzman 445]

Nop. I had both dlls together and everything went wrong. But I don't know if the good "cheats" are Buggi's or whose.