Try to start a game and it crashes!

Democracy 3 support
1

I just downloaded the new windows (and installed it) patch and when i try to start a game it crashes.

It worked perfectly fine before as well…

2

Can you send the files from your
\my documents\my games\democracy 3\debug
folder to me at
cliff AT positech dot co dot uk.

3

I ran into the same problem, when starting my second game since the 1.02 beta upgrade. Differences from my first game after the upgrade:

  • First time playing the USA
  • First time playing with Earthquakes and hurricanes (as those are default in USA, but not in the other countries I’ve played so far)
  • First time playing with the “Political Capital”-setting turned off, other settings still default (Political Honeymoon is on, not sure what that one does?)

After trying out different combinations of those parameters, I’ve found that the problem (for me, at least) occurs when Political Capital is turned off.

The crash, for me, occurs on the loading screen (probably not relevant, but consistently in the middle of the third line of the loading text). The last entries in debug.txt are

**CALCULATING SIM FINANCE [14:39:18:200]- Waiting for render thread [.\src\SIM_PortraitManager.cpp,134]] [14:39:18:217]- Pre-caching minister portraits [14:39:18:554]- Finished pre-caching minister portraits [14:39:18:554]- Thread finish detected by loading screen
and the last few ones in drawdebug.txt are

Initialising Render target of 256 X 256 002821.dds 002821.dds ui_topstrip_bg.dds ui_topstrip_rightmost.dds

As I’m possibly hijacking OP’s thread (seems likely that the crashes are related, but not proven), I’m not sure if I should send the whole files, but would gladly do so if needed.

4

Gah! the political capital thing was something I forgot to fix too…how annoying. Is it confirmed that the game starts and runs fine if you leave political capital on?

5

Yes, just tried this with USA, hurricanes, and earthquakes, with political capital on.

6

Yes for me at least

7

I installed the new version and now i can’t start a new game because it keeps crashing every time on start-up. I have all settings (Political Capital and whatnot) turned on. :frowning:

In my errors.txt i have a very long list of 15/9/2013 - 21::16 - D3DXCreateEffectFromFile failed 15/9/2013 - 21::16 - Untranslated HRESULT 15/9/2013 - 21::16 - D3DXCreateEffectFromFile failed 15/9/2013 - 21::16 - Untranslated HRESULT 15/9/2013 - 21::16 - D3DXCreateEffectFromFile failed

Edit: After about 6-7 tries i managed to start a new game. Yay! Seems like it doesnt always crash on start-up, but it does quite often. And it doesn’t seem to be related to any of the settings because i didn’t change anything in my many tries.

Edit2: Nvm, the game stopped responding as soon as i clicked on the first bubble in game. Oh well, i’ll go play something else until it gets fixed.

8

have you tried hard-rebooting your PC? it sounds suspiciously like your video card has been left in a corrupted ‘state’, as nothing has changed graphics wise at all between the versions, so any errors about loading effects that are new are very unusual indeed.

9

I don’t know, i probably haven’t. But i just forced my computer to used the proper video card instead the integrated one and it seems to be working fine now so i suppose it was a video card problem indeed.

10

Aha, thats good to know. I think my engine just selects the first video card it finds, so if you have two enabled (which is generally a bad idea) then it may have used some rubbishy onboard chip :smiley:

11

Just had the same issue. Error log is full of:

19/9/2013 - 17::31 - D3DXCreateEffectFromFile failed [dissolve.fx]
19/9/2013 - 17::31 - Untranslated HRESULT
19/9/2013 - 17::31 - D3DXCreateEffectFromFile failed [locked_achievement.fx]
19/9/2013 - 17::31 - Untranslated HRESULT
19/9/2013 - 17::31 - D3DXCreateEffectFromFile failed [ministercacher.fx]
19/9/2013 - 17::31 - Untranslated HRESULT

Launching the game results mostly in crashes. Even if i am able to start playing - clicking on any charts results in insta crash.

12

could you post the first few lines of drawdebug.txt too, I’m trying to track down this problem…

13

From my experience the game will crash every time you try to start a new game if you have alt-tabbed/minimized.

14

Initialising 3D Engine in fullscreen mode
Driver : nvd3dum.dll
Description : NVIDIA GeForce GTX 570
DeviceName : \.\DISPLAY1
Getting fullscreen refresh rate
Found 37 adapter modes at 1680 x 1050
Found adapter modes at 1680 x 1050 refresh[60]
Found adapter modes at 1680 x 1050 refresh[72]
Found adapter modes at 1680 x 1050 refresh[75]
Found adapter modes at 1680 x 1050 refresh[59]
Found adapter modes at 1680 x 1050 refresh[59]
Found adapter modes at 1680 x 1050 refresh[60]

Those lines repeat a lot, then it select 75 refresh rate for some reason (should be 60), then it mentions deleting some textures.

This appears to be the issue, i’ve noticed it as well.

15

Have you installed the game into an unusual install path (what folder is the democracy3.exe in, the full path).
I think I’ve found the issue (fixed it for another player, temporarily by copying all the shaders from \data\shaders into the games root directory), and I’m trying to identify why a certain bit of code is failing…

16

Q:\Democracy 3

Ill try that, thx.

17

Also having this same kind of Issue, I attempt to start up, screen goes black, then i get an generic game has failed to work.

Debug.txt

[9:14:17:123]- ----DEBUG FILE---- [9:14:17:124]- Windows Vista detected [9:14:17:124]- Command Line: "C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Democracy 3\Democracy3.exe" [9:14:17:124]- Command Line argument:[] [9:14:17:125]- Desktop resolution is 1920 x 1080 [9:14:17:129]- Initialising Sound Engine [9:14:17:202]- Attempting to initialise steam [9:14:17:324]- Steam initialisation success [9:14:17:325]- Requesting steam stats... [9:14:17:325]- ...Steam stats requested [9:14:17:325]- Initialising Direct3D [9:14:17:542]- Initialising global vertex buffer [9:14:17:564]- GBufferedFile failed to open file [C:\Users\rrodinson\Documents/My Games/democracy3/stats.ini] [9:14:17:564]- GBufferedFile failed to open file [C:\Users\rrodinson\Documents/My Games/democracy3/stats.ini] [9:14:17:579]- GBufferedFile failed to open file [C:\Users\rrodinson\Documents/My Games/democracy3/tut_seen.ini]

Drawdebug.txt

Initialising 3D Engine in fullscreen mode Driver : nvd3dum.dll Description : NVIDIA GeForce GTS 450 DeviceName : \\.\DISPLAY1 Getting fullscreen refresh rate Found 44 adapter modes at 1920 x 1080 Found adapter modes at 1920 x 1080 refresh[60] Found adapter modes at 1920 x 1080 refresh[59] Found adapter modes at 1920 x 1080 refresh[75] Found adapter modes at 1920 x 1080 refresh[60] Found adapter modes at 1920 x 1080 refresh[59] Found adapter modes at 1920 x 1080 refresh[56] Found adapter modes at 1920 x 1080 refresh[75] Found adapter modes at 1920 x 1080 refresh[60] Found adapter modes at 1920 x 1080 refresh[59] Found adapter modes at 1920 x 1080 refresh[56] Found adapter modes at 1920 x 1080 refresh[75] Found adapter modes at 1920 x 1080 refresh[60] Found adapter modes at 1920 x 1080 refresh[59] Found adapter modes at 1920 x 1080 refresh[56] Found adapter modes at 1920 x 1080 refresh[75] Found adapter modes at 1920 x 1080 refresh[60] Found adapter modes at 1920 x 1080 refresh[59] Found adapter modes at 1920 x 1080 refresh[75] Found adapter modes at 1920 x 1080 refresh[60] Found adapter modes at 1920 x 1080 refresh[59] Found adapter modes at 1920 x 1080 refresh[75] Found adapter modes at 1920 x 1080 refresh[60] Found adapter modes at 1920 x 1080 refresh[59] Found adapter modes at 1920 x 1080 refresh[60] Found adapter modes at 1920 x 1080 refresh[59] Found adapter modes at 1920 x 1080 refresh[60] Found adapter modes at 1920 x 1080 refresh[59] Found adapter modes at 1920 x 1080 refresh[60] Found adapter modes at 1920 x 1080 refresh[59] Found adapter modes at 1920 x 1080 refresh[60] Found adapter modes at 1920 x 1080 refresh[59] Found adapter modes at 1920 x 1080 refresh[75] Found adapter modes at 1920 x 1080 refresh[60] Found adapter modes at 1920 x 1080 refresh[59] Found adapter modes at 1920 x 1080 refresh[60] Found adapter modes at 1920 x 1080 refresh[59] Found adapter modes at 1920 x 1080 refresh[60] Found adapter modes at 1920 x 1080 refresh[59] Found adapter modes at 1920 x 1080 refresh[60] Found adapter modes at 1920 x 1080 refresh[59] Found adapter modes at 1920 x 1080 refresh[60] Found adapter modes at 1920 x 1080 refresh[59] Found adapter modes at 1920 x 1080 refresh[60] Found adapter modes at 1920 x 1080 refresh[59] Using 75 as refresh rate Checking For Shader Support NumSimultaneousRTs:4 hal_caps.PixelShaderVersion >= D3DPS_VERSION(2, 0) About to Create 3D Device with width: 1920 and height : 1080 Attempting hardware Vertex Processing Finished initialising 3D Engine Initialising Render target of 512 X 256 rt_minister_compositor rt_minister_compositor Creating shader from file:[data/shaders/dissolve.fx] Creating shader from file:[data/shaders/locked_achievement.fx] Creating shader from file:[data/shaders/ministercacher.fx] window_background.dds 19px_highlight.dds 19px_grey.dds ui_general_textbutton.dds Initialising Render target of 2048 X 2048 rt_transition rt_transition spark_red.dds spark2.dds spark.dds Open Sans Semibold_24.dds Open Sans ExtraBold_36.dds Open Sans Bold_24.dds Open Sans ExtraBold_32.dds Positech-Logo2013_1024.jpg

18

Hmmm… everything seems to be working fine there until it tries to load in that jpg file, which suggests a video driver issue. is your driver up to date? any other software running in the background that might be causing video issues?

19

I had a very similar problem…

what fixed it for me was to open the “prefs.ini”
and set the with and height to my moniters actual values…

And now I am able to play.
Hope this works for you guys

Good Luck,

Michael

20

I got the black screen of death when I tried to start the game on my laptop. Posting error log as follows. I’m running Windows Vista 64 and have updated all of my drivers.

18/10/2013 - 3::26 - WARNING: Desktop Screen Resolution is below MinScreenHeight
18/10/2013 - 3::26 - D3DERR_INVALIDCALL
18/10/2013 - 3::26 - CreateDevice
18/10/2013 - 3::26 - D3DERR_INVALIDCALL
18/10/2013 - 3::26 - CreateDevice failed again
18/10/2013 - 3::26 - Failed to initialise 3D Engine:.\src\app_game.cpp 203
18/10/2013 - 3::29 - WARNING: Desktop Screen Resolution is below MinScreenHei

Could I get detailed instructions on a fix for this?

P.S. I hope you guys crank out a permanent fix for this with your next patch.