Understanding bmps

[Boo Radley]

This has to do with installing mods. Some mods I've installed with no problems at all and yet other cause all sorts of glitches.

I downloaded some bldg mods into CMBO a few months ago that caused the game to crash to the desktop during the movie segment in certain pbems if I clicked on any unit on the map.

I got rid of the bmp files and everything turned back to normal.

Just a little while ago, I installed JuJu's new flag mods and this time, the game crashed when I typed in my password for a pbem and hit "Enter".

Why would a simple bmp do this?

Would it have anything to do with the name of the bmp? The ones for the flags were replacing 420 and 440 and the new numbers were 420a and 440a. Would adding the "a" after the name do that? How?

I'm just so confused.

[Tanks a Lot]

Both games never crash for me and It's hard to believe that BMPs could be the cause of your crashing. I can see graphical glitches but not crashing. The game would just ignore bmps like 420a and 440a since they are not used, so that shouldn't be the problem.

I noticed both crashes occured during pbems. Maybe try playing against the ai with Juju's flag mod and see what happens.

[WWB]

The game will crash if a BMP is missing. Did you delete or rename any files you did not replace?

WWB

[Boo Radley]

Originally posted by wwb_99:

The game will crash if a BMP is missing. Did you delete or rename any files you did not replace?

WWB

No. All I did was remove the original bmps and then install the new ones. I did that instead of just letting them overwrite the originals because of the other issues I've had with mods in the past.

And I thought about trying just playing against the AI and see if the game would still crash, but even if it didn't, most of the playing I do is pbem, so I'd still be screwed.

I thought about renaming the two offending bmps, just getting rid of the "a" and see if that would work. Maybe I'll try that, but it still doesn't make sense! Why would a single bmp cause a game crash?

I have to tell you that it really makes me leery of installing mods.

[Pine59]

It may be that since those bmps are used by the interface panel or are used dynamically in the case of the victory flags the game is more likely to crash. The letters after the bmp # are simply optional choices for that particular bmp, you must remove the letters before putting them in the bmp folder or they won't exist as far as the game engine is concerned.

[Boo Radley]

Originally posted by highlife:

It may be that since those bmps are used by the interface panel or are used dynamically in the case of the victory flags the game is more likely to crash. The letters after the bmp # are simply optional choices for that particular bmp, you must remove the letters before putting them in the bmp folder or they won't exist as far as the game engine is concerned.

A-HA!!! See, I didn't remove the letters. I thought that might have something to do with it!

Thank you Highlife, I'd name my first kid after you, if I was planning on having kids. And if your name was "Bob" or "Doug" or somefink.

[Pine59]

I'm flattered. My first name is actually Miller which I wouldn't recommend you name your child either but that's where the highlife part comes from.

The only time you wouldn't remove any letter extensions on CM bitmaps is for CMMOS type mod programs which remove them when they are installed.