crash on startup -- mac using parallels

Gratuitous Forum Support
1

hi-- i searched for the answer and there is a solution for their problem but it’s not working here…

  1. I downloaded on steam and opened up in a windowed parallels XP
  2. it stays completely black and then an error pops up (unreadable)
  3. went to full screen and changed prefs file to suggested dimensions from the forum
  4. Reinstalled
  5. still same problem – game goes to a smaller window then xp screen and shows all black
2

anyone ?

3

Any crashes relating to the mac copy need to be posted to redmarblegames, they did the mac port for the game. If this is running in a PC emulator on a mac, then no idea, that could easily be an emulator bug.

4

hi cliff ---- IT’s the windows version of the game

5

No biggie but this is really the only game so far that has had any problem …

Does the error log help? if so, how do I find it?

6

errors and logs are in \my documents\my games\gratuitous space battles\debug

7

-DEBUG FILE----
Windows XP detected
GSB Debug File. App version Full 1.45
Writing default options
Desktop resolution is 1071 x 681
Initialising Sound Engine
Initialised Sound System with 512 channels

Finished Initialising Sound Engine
Initialising Direct3D
releasing D3D engine
D3D released
END DEBUG—

tialising 3D Engine
Driver : prl_vadd.dll
Description : Parallels Video Adapter
DeviceName : \.\DISPLAY1
Checking For Shader Support
NumSimultaneousRTs:4
hal_caps.PixelShaderVersion >= D3DPS_VERSION(2, 0)
About to Create 3D Device with width: 1071 and height : 768
Attempting hardware Vertex Processing
Attempting software Vertex Processing

/2010 - 17::53 - WARNING: Desktop Screen Resolution is below 768 pixels
7/8/2010 - 17::53 - D3DERR_INVALIDCALL
7/8/2010 - 17::53 - CreateDevice
7/8/2010 - 17::53 - D3DERR_INVALIDCALL
7/8/2010 - 17::53 - CreateDevice failed again
7/8/2010 - 17::53 - Failed to initialise 3D Engine:…\src\Game.cpp 306

As stated I deleted the prefs.ini file previous to running

THANKS

8

Is this a laptop with a screen res height below 768? If so, the game will not be able to run properly.

9

thanks for your support…

no — brand new macbook pro ----

10

I’ve had nothing but trouble in getting GSB to run reliably under Parallels. This baffles the hell out of me, as it’s otherwise an excellent Windows virtual machine. I’m presently running it on a Mac Pro tower with much more than enough horsepower to get things done; even complex emulation such as this.

In fact, I finally became so frustrated that I bypassed Parallels completely for gaming and opted to buy Crossover Games instead. I can report that method has worked almost perfectly since 2009. CG has a free time-limited trial that you can use to evaluate its effectiveness on your Mac. The full version’s price seemed a bit steep to me, but in the end I opted to pay it because it provided rock-solid reliability as well as compatibility with other major Windows games.

11

Thanks Arch – it’s just weird that in Parallels 5 — almost everything runs great (5 year old games and older) but not GSB —

Is there really a performance gain using crossover vs. Parallels or just more compatibility/stability