Marines campaign crashing?

[donnieitaly]

I found the saved games in "Program files" and deleted them all.

Hmm, now the game runs. I can save games and the first say ten minutes I had no crash.

If this has, gulp, cured it, can games I save in the future become corrupted?

Fingers crossed.

Oh btw, I ran Battle for Normandy without problem. (Don't like it though <g>)

[donnieitaly]

Going to bed now.

Cheers.

[donnieitaly]

Well it's still crashing.

I can open the saved games and make saves. I have played the first Marine scenario (again!) and completed it (Total Victory <g>)

I have gone into program files 86 and deleted all the saved games but the last two in the theory if one of them is corrupt I'll be killing it. (Yes, I know little about computers and nothing about programming , nor do I care.)

I'll carry on playing it this week.

[donnieitaly]

I've given up.

The game now crashes almost every turn.

I've deleted EVERYTHING from Battlefront, including Normandy.

I have the CD I originally bought. When that loads the "Install" option does not light up. There is no request for a licence key nor can I find it anyway.

[Schrullenhaft]

CMSF uses eLicense, while CMBN uses the current 'Online Activation System'. eLicense needs to have its license key UNLICENSED if you want to preserve that activation (each license key comes with two activations). If you uninstall it and do NOT unlicense it, then the activation is still in effect. That would be why when you reinstall it you are not prompted to activate the license key again. The 'Online Activation System' on the other hand does NOT have an 'unlicense' function and the activation remains in effect when you uninstall the game. The activation only 'invalidates' once significant changes are performed on the computer.

I'm not sure what you mean by the "install option does not light up". Are you saying that you don't automatically have the installer launch when you insert the CD ? If so, then you may need to launch it manually (opening up the File Manager/Explorer and browsing the CD for the installer executable to launch).

I don't know why CMSF + Marines at 1.10/1.11 would be more stable than 1.32. There were some LOS/LOF changes that were a bit more CPU intensive, if I recall correctly. There were a few graphical changes that shouldn't cause stress to a system though (bug fixes for lighting, etc.).

You may want to find what video card/chip and driver you have installed. Go to the Start Menu > Control Panel > Device Manager. Open up the 'Display adapters' section and it should tell you the model/family of the video card/chip. Double-click on this entry and it should open the 'Properties' for the video card/chip. Go to the 'Driver' tab and near the top you should see some text for 'Driver Date' and 'Driver Version'. The 'Driver Version' may not easily correspond with the manufacturer's driver versions (Nvidia usually has the last several numbers match - AMD is a bit harder to match to a Catalyst version).

There was a bug with the ATI/AMD Catalysts from version 9.4 to 9.9 that caused CMSF to crash within 5 - 20 minutes of playing it. This issue was finally corrected in the 9.10 Catalyst, though we saw occasional issues with some Catalysts after that. If your computer is a laptop, then it may be a bit hard to update the driver since a number of name-brand manufacturers require you to use the drivers that THEY provide rather than the video chipset manufacturer (Intel, AMD, Nvidia, etc.).

Regarding save games and crashes. If there is a corrupt saved game, then clicking on 'Saved Games' will crash CMSF (and CMBN and CMFI). Removing the corrupt file will allow you to access the 'Saved Games'. Why you are generating so many corrupt saved games is the issue that I don't know why it is happening. Do you have a RAID (multiple hard drives being written to and read from simultaneously for performance enhancement) ? Are you using any particular chipset/storage driver (Nvidia, etc.) rather that what is provided by Microsoft ? Something seems to be corrupting the writes and I have no idea why this is happening so consistently for you. Some Nvidia RAID drivers would have issues, but this would affect almost any hard drive writes and not just those of CMSF. Perhaps your security software may be interfering (though that is pretty severe interference). You may want to set exceptions for CMSF and its executables within your security software and possibly exempt the directory that the files get saved to from scans (or, especially, whatever active protection system is running).

If you just let CMSF sit (no interacting with it once it has launched to a 3D screen), does it crash or crash once you try to do something after letting it sit for awhile ?

[donnieitaly]

First I uninstalled EVERTYHING from Battle front.

Then I re-downloaded and installed the Marines and CMSF bundle.

I ran a three D screen for about an hour without crashed. Then I played the first scenario for about 40 minutes of game time. Without crashes.

I downloaded the first patch and did the above.

I downloaded all the other patches repeating the exercise of leaving the screen alone and then playing the game.

With all the patches installed the first crash came with 20 minutes to go in the first scenario. Interestingly enough the computer reported “Insufficient memory. I went to C drive 86 saved games and deleted all but the last one.

With 16 minutes to go the computer crashed and locked me out of everything. I cannot even access the other options like Quick battles.

I deleted the final save but am still locked out.

I have not had time to sort out the other suggestions in your e-mail but will try to do some of it later today.

……………….

When I load the CD a graphic of the front of the “box” appears on the screen with four options. (I think they are Run, Play, Install or something like that.) The Install Option is greyed out and cannot be used.

[donnieitaly]

The driver is an ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3400 dated 17/08/2009.

I clicked on update but the computer assures me it is the latest :-(

(If this wasn't such a good game I'd have given up weeks ago!!!)

[donnieitaly]

Well I discovered by accident that I had not deleted the final save. So I did so and can now get into the games. But both the US army and Marine campaign first scenario crash and even if I have saved it means re-doing the turn all over again.

[Schrullenhaft]

The date on your ATI/AMD Radeon Catalyst driver suggests that it may be a version 9.8 or 9.9. Both of those had crashing problems with CMSF, though it is interesting that you are only seeing problems with the latest patch. I can't remember if those particular Catalysts could cause an 'insufficient memory' error. However it is also possible to get that error regardless of the video driver that is installed. The texture memory management problem of the 9.4 - 9.9 Catalysts would usually crash CMSF without an error dialog box (if I recall correctly); usually within 5 -20 minutes of play.

Assuming you have a 64-bit version of Windows 7, you may want to try the following utility to determine if your laptop can use the AMD-provided Catalyst driver (many laptops cannot):

Windows Vista/7/8 64-bit Catalyst 13.1 Utility

If this utility determines that your laptop can use the AMD-provided 13.1 Catalyst it will download it and you can install it.

When you were testing each upgrade step, were you replaying the same battle/campaign (and mission if it was a campaign) or were you 'progressing' through and these were different actions with each upgrade ? In other words were you testing the exact same thing each time before you got your 'insufficient memory' error ?

I think another thing that somewhat minimizes the 'insufficient memory' error is using a lower '3D Texture Quality' and '3D Model Quality' setting. Typically 'Balanced' should be a good setting. I'm not sure if there are benefits to going to an even lower video quality or not. These settings don't resolve most of the 'insufficient memory' errors, but they are worth trying.

[donnieitaly]

The date on your ATI/AMD Radeon Catalyst driver suggests that it may be a version 9.8 or 9.9. Both of those had crashing problems with CMSF, though it is interesting that you are only seeing problems with the latest patch. I can't remember if those particular Catalysts could cause an 'insufficient memory' error. However it is also possible to get that error regardless of the video driver that is installed. The texture memory management problem of the 9.4 - 9.9 Catalysts would usually crash CMSF without an error dialog box (if I recall correctly); usually within 5 -20 minutes of play.

Assuming you have a 64-bit version of Windows 7, you may want to try the following utility to determine if your laptop can use the AMD-provided Catalyst driver (many laptops cannot):

Windows Vista/7/8 64-bit Catalyst 13.1 Utility

If this utility determines that your laptop can use the AMD-provided 13.1 Catalyst it will download it and you can install it.

>>> I have done so thanks.

When you were testing each upgrade step, were you replaying the same battle/campaign (and mission if it was a campaign) or were you 'progressing' through and these were different actions with each upgrade ? In other words were you testing the exact same thing each time before you got your 'insufficient memory' error ?

>>> I was playing the same mission from the two campaigns. I never got far enough to move on to the respective second missions.

I think another thing that somewhat minimizes the 'insufficient memory' error is using a lower '3D Texture Quality' and '3D Model Quality' setting. Typically 'Balanced' should be a good setting. I'm not sure if there are benefits to going to an even lower video quality or not. These settings don't resolve most of the 'insufficient memory' errors, but they are worth trying.

>>> I don't think I have much time free this week but I will try the game again and then if I have problems, change the 3D settings and try again, again!

>>> Many thanks.

[donnieitaly]

I did the download.

I have completed the first scenario without crashes. Later this week I will run the second and third.

Fingers crossed.

[donnieitaly]

I hesitate to say that the problem is fixed, but I have now played the first two scenarios of the Marine campaign with some saves but without ANY crashes.

I am set on "Balanced" but I think what cracked it was the download you suggested. I am at a loss to understand why I can have played this game to fruition many times and yet suddenly I need a new download. It doesn't make sense to me, but then again I don't claim to be any kind of computer expert.

Anyway my thanks again, to those of you who puzzled this one. I wonder how many other customers have bought a game that requires Parches to make it current and have then found their hardware to be deficient?

But it works, many thanks :-)