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[Porpoisepower]

I'd zip tie an always on fan, and see if it made a difference... even the best thermal goop only does so much.

[wierd]

If he can run a full 3D game on full settings and not bork the card, he's right that it probably isn't thermally related.

Next on the mental checklist is the addition of any 3rd party openGL or SDL libraries living in the %systemroot%/system/win32 folder. Those can cause the "dll hell" problem, which might be what is casing the nvidia driver to crash, as per the dxdiag report.

Some games like to treat the computer like it's their little bitch, and do stupid things like that.

[Porpoisepower]

Except the fans are running when full 3D games are going... While playing DF, they are only passively cooling...

You would think his card manufacturer would use temperature thresh holds for determining when to activate fans, but If they were dumb, they could be like... "We only need to run the fans for 3D animation" or "Only turn the fan on if it rises 10 degrees in 2 seconds"

[Kamamura]

I'd bet it's thermal related. More precisely, long ignored thermal problems. Caked thermal paste between the chip and the heatsink, poor circulation in the case, dust, too high clocks without proper cooling hardware.

[Whackjob]

I'd bet it's thermal related. More precisely, long ignored thermal problems. Caked thermal paste between the chip and the heatsink, poor circulation in the case, dust, too high clocks without proper cooling hardware.

I noted in a previous post that I've very recently had the thermal paste reapplied to both CPU and both GPUs.  That's covered.  I have not overclocked.


I'm trying a different concept with my latest fortress. I'm running a minecart track through every level of the fortress and trying to make it so that most everything is simply shipped along this line, rather than tie up haulers.  In example, every flight has a four-way minecart intersection, where north heads up to the next Z level, south leads to the lower Z level, and left and right go to each branch.  At this intersection, I have two piles.  One for stone and ore, and another for refuse.  A refuse cart goes through fairly frequently, and corpses and trash go on the cart.  So and and so on until the cart comes out topside.  There it is dumped on a trash/corpse pile.  When I have a bonesmith area set up, there will be another cart here for pickup.  That same rail also gathers wood topside and delivers it to the wood section of my industrial floor.

Shortly, when my food and booze production area is set up, my farms, butcher station, and fish station will deliver directly to my kitchens, plant processing, and stills.

I've even got a topside thing figured out.  The main issue, I was thinking, was securing the front door, so to speak, when a rail runs through it.  I believe I have a solution.  Since it is a ramp, I can have a drawbridge lowered that can cover the hole of the ramp without actually contacting any rail sections.  I'm going to place a small tower topside as well for crossbowmen.

Should be pretty fun.

[Whackjob]

Ok, now I'm seeing something odd.  For whatever reason, on my current fortress, the game's crashing out if I play more than a few minutes.  This wasn't even happening before.  Is there something buggy about rail lines that cause problems?

#EDIT:  Going to try running it bit and bit and keep saving until it gets past whatever is making it crash out like that.  If it is something with the rail carts.  At the very least it'll give me a better idea of what it is the game is suddenly not liking.

[CognitiveDissonance]

May I chime in again for the IT stuff? I'm a very much so amateur, but I have a few tricks up my sleeve.

This sounds a LOT like driver issues. I have learned everything there is to know with my last ATI card, and my friend's ATI-powered DELL laptop. This is what was happening to him due to driver incompatibility - I installed a newer, better, faster driver from ATI and it would just... die when running anything.

Also, similar stuff happened when my installation for an NVIDIA card was corrupted. I couldn't really get it up to speed, but I was about to replace the computer anyways...

Check your video drivers. Sometimes, an odd release will screw up a random feature. For one, the game uses a strange refresh mechanic. From what I know, the 2D drawing mode actually draws on the video card through the OpenGL, while Standard does NOT use OpenGL. I learned about this recently, while trying to get FRAPS to capture screenshots from DF.
I guess this could also be an OpenGL issue, but I am uncertain as to what this entails.

[Whackjob]

I suppose I can leave it full screen but take it off standard.  See what that does.

#EDIT:  Ok.  Put it on 2D and left it full screen.  Ran it, crashed out again.  It's very sudden.

#EDIT2:  My videocards are a pair of Geforce 280Ms in SLI mode.  As I'm sure you're aware, with alienware laptops, it also has an onboard video system that means I absolutely HAVE to get my drivers through Dell as NVidia's drivers refuse to install on it because of that onboard system.

Dell's drivers are almost three years old.  I contacted their support about that, years ago, and was told, "Those drivers are perfectly fine."  Feh.

So I've been using laptopvideo2go's site, using INF modded drivers.  I haven't had a serious issue.  And I'll stress again that I can run seriously graphic intensive games without issue.

#EDIT3:  NEVER buy alienware, kids!  Michael Dell is the devil.

#EDIT4:  I've saved-advanced-saved-advanced far enough to where the game now crashes out almost as soon as I unpause.  I'll look around and see if I can see anything odd either happening or about to happen.

There's no dumplog.txt or anything I can check?

#EDIT5:  Ok, not seeing anything unusual happening.  I dug around and found an errorlog.txt.  All it's noting, I think, is a double tagged limestone block.

[CognitiveDissonance]

A few quick thoughts:

- Run the game in compatibility mode
- Run the game as administrator

Could you post your init.txt in a [ code ] tag? [ /code ]

EDIT: Also that errorlog.txt. have you done any RAW modifications?

[Whackjob]

Sure.

My init.ini:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

WARNING: Do NOT copy over the init.txt from an earlier version of DF.
Always read the file carefully, including the comments.

In general, you can copy savegames and tilesets from older DF
versions, but you should not copy anything else.  You should not, under any
circumstances, unpack a new DF on top of an older one.


Change this to turn sound off.

[SOUND:YES]

The sound volume runs from 0 (off) to 255 (full).  You can set the volume from the ESC options menu as well.

[VOLUME:255]

Change this to skip the wonderful intro movies.

[INTRO:NO]

This lets you set the starting windowed/fullscreen setting.  Can be YES, NO or PROMPT.

[WINDOWED:NO]

This is the size and font for windowed mode.  Changing to the 800x600 font might make you happier.
If set below 256x256 it specifies the grid size instead, with a minimum of 80x25.

[WINDOWEDX:80]
[WINDOWEDY:25]
[FONT:curses_640x300.png]

You may disable window resizing if you wish.
[RESIZABLE:YES]

Full screen info.  The 0s below mean that the game will choose a resolution for you, but you can set it yourself as well.

[FULLSCREENX:0]
[FULLSCREENY:0]
[FULLFONT:curses_800x600.png]

If this is set to NO, tiles will be stretched to fit the screen if there is a resolution mismatch.
If this is set to YES, the tiles will not be stretched, but rather the game view will be centralized, surrounded by black space.  Tiles that are too large will always be compressed rather than running off the screen.

[BLACK_SPACE:YES]

Graphics info, most of it as above.  Set GRAPHICS to YES to turn it all on.  This will use the "raw/graphics" folder for tile information.  Currently this is limited to whatever creature graphics you have downloaded.  The game comes with a few pictures to demonstrate.  As of May 2012, the Dwarf Fortress Wiki has custom tilesets available at http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/Tileset_repository and creature graphics at http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/Graphics_set_repository.

[GRAPHICS:NO]
[GRAPHICS_WINDOWEDX:0]
[GRAPHICS_WINDOWEDY:0]
[GRAPHICS_FONT:curses_square_16x16.png]
[GRAPHICS_FULLSCREENX:0]
[GRAPHICS_FULLSCREENY:0]
[GRAPHICS_FULLFONT:curses_square_16x16.png]
[GRAPHICS_BLACK_SPACE:YES]

These settings can have a significant impact on frame rate, especially for people that have slow frame rates on the title screen.  Available modes are 2D, 2DSW, 2DASYNC, STANDARD, PARTIAL:<number>, ACCUM_BUFFER, FRAME_BUFFER and VBO. The number after PARTIAL refers to how many frames it will redo a printed tile before skipping it, so you might try increasing it a bit if you have flickering when PARTIAL is set.  Please note that any of these combinations might cause frame rates to drop significantly or cause unpleasant side effects like flickering.

By and large, 2D should be the most reliable, while STANDARD has a good combination of speed and reliability. However, all 2D modes are normally far slower than even STANDARD, which may be the slowest OpenGL mode.

On a multi-core machine none of this is very likely to matter; stick to 2D.

2DASYNC may be slightly more responsive than 2D on a multi-core machine, but this has recently become doubtful due to improvements to the other modes.

Linux/OS X users may also use PRINT_MODE:TEXT for primitive ncurses output.

[PRINT_MODE:2D]
   Mode examples:
    PRINT_MODE:2D
    PRINT_MODE:TEXT
    PRINT_MODE:FRAME_BUFFER
    PRINT_MODE:PARTIAL:0
[SINGLE_BUFFER:NO]

Switches truetype on whenever the vertical tile size is this many pixels or larger.  You may also use YES/NO to force it on/off.  Turning it off may provide a minor speed boost (using font small enough that it doesn't activate won't).

[TRUETYPE:24]

Change this to YES to keep the DF window on top of your other windows.

[TOPMOST:NO]

Change this to YES if you want to see an FPS counter at the top left.

[FPS:NO]

Use this to set the maximum frame rate during play.  The movies are always capped at 100.  A frame in this case is not graphical but related to the movement speed of a creature.  A healthy, unencumbered dwarven peasant takes one step every 10 frames.

You may set FPS_CAP to 0 to make it uncapped.

[FPS_CAP:100]

Use this to set the maximum graphical frame refresh rate during play.

[G_FPS_CAP:50]

On cards that support the OpenGL ARB_sync extension, turning this on can improve framerates in GPU overload conditions. It defaults to NO, as many cards that claim to support this will crash if asked to do so.

[ARB_SYNC:NO]

This sets the applications vertical synchronization behavior.  Changing this to YES can impact your FPS if your G_FPS is high. ARB_SYNC is a better option, if your system supports it.

[VSYNC:NO]

Change this to NEAREST if you want the texture values to use the nearest pixel without averaging.
Change this to LINEAR if you want the texture values to be averaged over the adjacent pixels.

[TEXTURE_PARAM:LINEAR]

Change this to make the dwarfort.exe process have a different priority.  From highest to lowest, the options are REALTIME, HIGH, ABOVE_NORMAL, NORMAL, BELOW_NORMAL and IDLE.

[PRIORITY:NORMAL]

Use this to set how fast the game zooms.  The default corresponds to
increasing grid size by 10 units each time you zoom.

[ZOOM_SPEED:10]

Change this to NO if you don't want to have the mouse involved at all.

[MOUSE:YES]

Change this to YES if you'd like to use a BMP for the mouse cursor.  The image currently lags when the game is lagging however.

[MOUSE_PICTURE:NO]

This controls the number of milliseconds that must pass before a held key sends an initial repeat press to the game.  You might need to adjust this.

[KEY_HOLD_MS:250]

This controls the number of milliseconds that must pass before a held key sends a repeat press to the game after the repeat process has begun.

[KEY_REPEAT_MS:150]

If you set KEY_REPEAT_ACCEL_LIMIT above one, then after KEY_REPEAT_ACCEL_START repetitions the repetition delay will smoothly decrease until repetition is this number of times faster than at the start.

[KEY_REPEAT_ACCEL_LIMIT:8]
[KEY_REPEAT_ACCEL_START:10]

This controls the number of milliseconds between macro instructions.

[MACRO_MS:15]

This controls the number of milliseconds that must pass before input works again after the view recenters on an event in dwarf mode.

[RECENTER_INTERFACE_SHUTDOWN_MS:0]

Change this to NO if you want to leave save uncompressed (you might want to do this if you are experience save corruption).

[COMPRESSED_SAVES:YES]

And error log:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Impoverished Word Selector
DOUBLE TAGGED ITEM: Store Item in Stockpile, saguaro rib wood logs
loop path fail: <same square> hen,150,148,116 -> 164,130,116: Id #23550:Path Goal Seek Station:Station Owner at 166,129,116
loop path fail: <same square> hen,152,149,114 -> 155,149,114: Id #23548:Path Goal Seek Station:Station Owner at 166,129,116
DOUBLE TAGGED ITEM: Store Item in Stockpile, gabbro
DOUBLE TAGGED ITEM: Store Item in Stockpile, gabbro
DOUBLE TAGGED ITEM: Store Item in Stockpile, gabbro
DOUBLE TAGGED ITEM: Store Item in Stockpile, gabbro
loop path fail: <same square> dwarf,Store Item in Stockpile,152,149,114 -> 158,149,114: Id #548:Path Goal Seek Item for Storage:Station Mill Building at 140,156,114
loop path fail: <same square> dwarf,Drink,139,145,116 -> 139,143,116: Id #8648:Path Goal Seek Drink Item:Station Mill Building at 147,150,114
loop path fail: <same square> dwarf,Store Item in Stockpile,155,149,114 -> 158,149,114: Id #548:Path Goal Seek Item for Storage:Station Mill Building at 137,156,114
loop path fail: <same square> dwarf,151,146,114 -> 140,143,114: Id #8642:Path Goal Seek Station:Station Mill Building at 140,143,114
path fail: dwarf,Return Kill,166,29,102 -> 174,15,98: Id #14926:Path Goal Grab Kill:Station Mill Building at 46,130,96
DOUBLE TAGGED ITEM: Store Item in Stockpile, maple logs
path fail: dwarf,Collect Webs,47,137,96 -> 68,109,68: Id #17751:Path Goal Grab Job Resources:Station Mill Building at 47,137,96
path fail: dwarf,Collect Webs,48,138,96 -> 70,112,68: Id #17751:Path Goal Grab Job Resources:Station Mill Building at 47,137,96
path fail: dwarf,Collect Webs,48,138,96 -> 70,112,68: Id #17751:Path Goal Grab Job Resources:Station Mill Building at 47,137,96
path fail: dwarf,Collect Webs,49,138,96 -> 70,112,68: Id #17751:Path Goal Grab Job Resources:Station Mill Building at 47,137,96
path fail: dwarf,Collect Webs,50,139,96 -> 70,112,68: Id #17751:Path Goal Grab Job Resources:Station Mill Building at 47,137,96
path fail: dwarf,Collect Webs,51,140,96 -> 70,112,68: Id #17751:Path Goal Grab Job Resources:Station Mill Building at 47,137,96
path fail: dwarf,Collect Webs,52,140,96 -> 70,112,68: Id #17751:Path Goal Grab Job Resources:Station Mill Building at 47,137,96
path fail: dwarf,Collect Webs,53,140,96 -> 70,112,68: Id #17751:Path Goal Grab Job Resources:Station Mill Building at 47,137,96
path fail: dwarf,Collect Webs,54,140,96 -> 70,112,68: Id #17751:Path Goal Grab Job Resources:Station Mill Building at 47,137,96
path fail: dwarf,Collect Webs,55,140,96 -> 70,112,68: Id #17751:Path Goal Grab Job Resources:Station Mill Building at 47,137,96
path fail: dwarf,Collect Webs,57,140,96 -> 70,112,68: Id #17751:Path Goal Grab Job Resources:Station Mill Building at 47,137,96
path fail: dwarf,Collect Webs,58,140,96 -> 70,112,68: Id #17751:Path Goal Grab Job Resources:Station Mill Building at 47,137,96
path fail: dwarf,Collect Webs,58,140,96 -> 70,112,68: Id #17751:Path Goal Grab Job Resources:Station Mill Building at 47,137,96
path fail: dwarf,Collect Webs,59,141,96 -> 39,121,68: Id #17751:Path Goal Grab Job Resources:Station Mill Building at 47,137,96
path fail: dwarf,Collect Webs,60,142,96 -> 39,121,68: Id #17751:Path Goal Grab Job Resources:Station Mill Building at 47,137,96
DOUBLE TAGGED ITEM: Store Item in Stockpile, oak logs
DOUBLE TAGGED ITEM: Store Item in Stockpile, willow logs
DOUBLE TAGGED ITEM: Store Item in Stockpile, cedar logs
DOUBLE TAGGED ITEM: Store Item in Stockpile, gypsum
DOUBLE TAGGED ITEM: Store Item in Stockpile, cedar logs
DOUBLE TAGGED ITEM: Store Item in Stockpile, pine logs
DOUBLE TAGGED ITEM: Store Item in Stockpile, cedar logs
DOUBLE TAGGED ITEM: Store Item in Stockpile, larch logs
DOUBLE TAGGED ITEM: Store Item in Stockpile, willow logs
DOUBLE TAGGED ITEM: Store Item in Stockpile, pine logs
DOUBLE TAGGED ITEM: Store Item in Stockpile, willow logs
loop path fail: <invalid goal> honey badger,143,44,142 -> 144,44,142: Id #29042:Path Goal Flee from Opponent:Station None at 107,25,142
loop path fail: <invalid goal> buck rabbit,43,143,140 -> 62,159,141: Id #33594:Path Goal Seek Station:Station None at 64,156,141
DOUBLE TAGGED ITEM: Store Item in Stockpile, limestone
DOUBLE TAGGED ITEM: Store Item in Stockpile, limestone
DOUBLE TAGGED ITEM: Store Item in Stockpile, limestone
DOUBLE TAGGED ITEM: Store Item in Stockpile, limestone

I suspect that error log isn't for just this round alone, as I've hit no gabbro at all.  Limestone, yes.  I have no mill station up yet.

#EDIT:  Games' already being run as administrator.  I've done compat mode before but aren't now.  Will do that real quick.

#EDIT2: Compat mode also crashes out with two different settings.

[CognitiveDissonance]

Sure.

A few thoughts:

Code: [Select]

These settings can have a significant impact on frame rate, especially for people that have slow frame rates on the title screen.  Available modes are 2D,
2DSW, 2DASYNC, STANDARD, PARTIAL:<number>, ACCUM_BUFFER, FRAME_BUFFER and VBO. The number after PARTIAL refers to how many frames it will redo
a printed tile before skipping it, so you might try increasing it a bit if you have flickering when PARTIAL is set.  Please note that any of these combinations might
cause frame rates to drop significantly or cause unpleasant side effects like flickering.

Try 2DSW. I assume this means software, and your CPU should be able to handle that nicely. I don't know what 2DASYNC is, maybe try that too.

Decrease FPS to 50, see if that helps. I've had really odd glitches with FPS in other games.

Along with my previous suggestions, try running windows update and check the optional page.

EDIT: On a hunch... try generating a new world and playing there.

Lastly, try a clean install in a separate folder and see if that makes a difference.

[Whackjob]

Done all except redownloading DF.  Doing that now.  Still crashes up to this point.

#EDIT:  Downloaded DF into a new folder.  Copied save over.  Changed INI to make it full screen as the other.  Still crashes out in the exact same spot.

#EDIT2:  Interestingly, this second run through and crash out doesn't generate an errorlog.txt.

[CognitiveDissonance]

Done all except redownloading DF.  Doing that now.  Still crashes up to this point.

If a clean install fails...

Check Windows Update history. There's a decent chance Microsoft has given you a graphic card update, and that screwed things up. If that's so, you can download the driver from Dell again.

Actually, maybe just download the driver again and install it. For good measure.

[Whackjob]

Nope.  Last windows updates done were four days ago.  And last night I was playing hours on end with no issue.  I don't think this crash out is graphics related.  I think it's something with the game itself.  I bet I could, in example, kill the save on copy 2 of DF and run in adventure mode with no trouble.

#EDIT: Any way I can attach a zip of my world and save and see if anyone here can replicate my crash?

[CognitiveDissonance]

Nope.  Last windows updates done were four days ago.  And last night I was playing hours on end with no issue.  I don't think this crash out is graphics related.  I think it's something with the game itself.  I bet I could, in example, kill the save on copy 2 of DF and run in adventure mode with no trouble.

#EDIT: Any way I can attach a zip of my world and save and see if anyone here can replicate my crash?

Sure is. Go to data > save > find your world (same name as in game)

zip it

Upload to
http://dffd.wimbli.com/