Bug -crash on launch

Gratuitous Forum Support
1

Trying to speak of the virtues of GSB, I convinced a friend of mine to try it out, but the demo crashes on opening.

I get the following in the /debugdata/errors.txt

24/10/2009 - 17::31 - Ship Hull not found ->Imperial Legion Cruiser hull:…\src\SIM_ShipHull.cpp 488
24/10/2009 - 17::31 - Ship Hull not found ->Imperial Legion Cruiser hull:…\src\SIM_ShipHull.cpp 488
24/10/2009 - 17::33 - Ship Hull not found ->Imperial Legion Cruiser hull:…\src\SIM_ShipHull.cpp 488
7/1/2010 - 0::23 - WARNING: Desktop Screen Resolution is below 768 pixels
7/1/2010 - 0::23 - D3DERR_INVALIDCALL
7/1/2010 - 0::23 - CreateDevice
7/1/2010 - 0::23 - D3DERR_INVALIDCALL
7/1/2010 - 0::23 - software vertex processing failed
7/1/2010 - 0::26 - D3DERR_INVALIDCALL
7/1/2010 - 0::26 - CreateDevice
7/1/2010 - 0::26 - D3DERR_INVALIDCALL
7/1/2010 - 0::26 - software vertex processing failed

However, the screen resolution is set to 1280x800
and the prefs.ini has the following:
[prefs]
width = 1026
height = 768
windowed = 0
sound_channels = 512

2

have you copied over existing files, or was this a fresh and clean demo install? Also, what video card is involved?

3

Fresh and completely new clean install of the demo.
I’ve uninstalled and reinstalled again with the same problem.

I’ve managed to get it to work a little by altering prefs.ini and setting windowed = 1, but the buttons don’t display
and the menus are offset from the mouse position.

Video card is
NVIDIA GeForce 9400M:
Chipset Model: NVIDIA GeForce 9400M
Type: GPU
Bus: PCI
VRAM (Total): 256 MB
Vendor: NVIDIA (0x10de)
Device ID: 0x0863
Revision ID: 0x00b1
ROM Revision: 3427
Displays:
Color LCD:
Resolution: 1280 x 800
Pixel Depth: 32-Bit Color (ARGB8888)
Main Display: Yes
Mirror: Off
Online: Yes
Built-In: Yes

4

Update
I fixed the problem by playing with the settings for windowed and screen size in prefs.ini aswell as the screen display resolution, until I got something that worked. Now I need a beer.

I’m assuming you have some sort of autodetect function that sets the default screensize on first boot. I think that may not work on all machines, especially notebooks/netbooks.
May I suggest a tool to set different screensizes (or a default minimum one) ? Whilst us hackers are happy to play around with config files, most people want point and click solutions.

cheers
Xenu