Full screen mode crashes

from Sins Forums
Hi all,

Can anyone shed any light on why Sins crashes in Full Screen mode but is absolutely fine in full screen windowed mode?

Everytime I try to run the game in Full Screen I can't get passed the Ironclad intro, except once when it played the Sins intro. Sometimes the Stardock intro will play then loop and crash most times it crashes on the Ironclad intro and the one time it did play the Sins intro it looped and crashed. Only way to fix was to power the computer off and on.

I had to set the VideoIsWindowed TRUE in the user.settings file before I could run the game. Been a poor experience with the game so far
https://forums.sinsofasolarempire.com/?forumid=408&aid=178031#1468695
but hopefully things are looking up, I'd prefer to run Full Screen but full screen windowed will have to do. For now!

Maybe this'll help some folks at least get into the game.

the user.settings file can be found in:
C:\Documents and Settings\%username%\Local Settings\Application Data\Ironclad Games\Sins of a Solar Empire\Setting

Open the file in Notepad and look for VideoIsWindowed FALSE (13 lines down) and change FALSE to TRUE, save and restart the game.

Running XP Pro SP 64-bit
AMD AthlonX2 6000
Nvidia 7800 GS (AGP version) Driver 169.21
ASROCK AM2NF3-VSTA
4GB RAM

Hope this helps.

Cheers,
technical
7,475 views 10 replies
Reply #1 from Sins Forums Top
Hi all,

Another strange thing, stange since no-one can offer an explanation, is that I can switch to Full Screen within the game and it runs fine.

Have to edit the settings file to set the TRUE flag again or remember to switch it back to windowed within the game before exiting though.

Say, is there a way to bypass the intros? A command line switch perhaps?

Cheers,
Reply #2 from Sins Forums Top
Indeed there is. Actually in the settings file, that ironclad puts into a difficult place.

Check the tech FAQ post for directions where it is and how to disable intro movies.
https://forums.sinsofasolarempire.com/?forumid=410&aid=174432

I have actually the same problem. Raised a ticket with stardock (IWL-534036), but can't send my dxdiag dump file because their spam filter nukes it!

Very likely the problem is with the BINK player they use to show the intro with company logos and nothing else. Somehow makes my card/driver barf on fullscreen and leaves unhelpful empty crash dump file behind it.

Works quite OK windowed.
Object Desktop - Get all of our enhancement utilities in one suite
Reply #3 from Sins Forums Top
but can't send my dxdiag dump file because their spam filter nukes it!
End of quote


Try zipping it.
Reply #4 from Sins Forums Top
but can't send my dxdiag dump file because their spam filter nukes it!Try zipping it.
End of quote


I'm going to be difficult and RAR it.
Reply #5 from Sins Forums Top
Thanks Barleyman,

Funny you should say that about BINK.

I have SOTS as well and the intros stutter all over the place.

However, I downloaded the Bink tools a while back and running the intros with the player, outside SOTS, they play just fine.

Weird huh?

Must try this with the SOASE intros.

Cheers,


Edit : Success!

I set ShowIntroMovies and ShowOpeningCinematic both to FALSE and the game starts perfectly in Full Screen mode. You still get static images, Stardock and Ironclad logos, but it starts and is, so far, fine.

Reply #6 from Sins Forums Top
I only removed the "intromovies" bit myself.

I think introcinematic refers to the in-game stuff that works OK. In any case you can view the darn things in windowed mode so you see them once.

Bink has caused lots of grief with lots of games. I wish the developers would use DivX for example..
Reply #7 from Sins Forums Top
I got email from the totalgaming.net support which suggested to install the AMD cpu driver. Nice, but I already had it installed.

totalgaming.net spam filter has gone completely loco, thought. I can't send even plaintext email to them now with no links, no nothing.
Reply #8 from Sins Forums Top
Krylexian, you have made it possible for me to play this game. It crashes full screen every time, and I hadn't even thought to run it windowed. It's not a perfect solution, but I can actually play a full game now. My thanks.
Reply #9 from Sins Forums Top
Guys, I may have a solution here.

No, not to the bloody obnoxious stardock spam filter (have to submit support replies on web or they get killed) but on the full-screen mode kaput -

I have had actually problems with BINK player before and then it helped when I nuked codec packs from my system. Now I have not installed any packs and even went on a cleaning rampage recently killing NERO and other malware packs.

Still crash if intro movie is enabled, thought.

I was writing a reply to tech support "well I do not have any codec packs installed and something like ffdshow should not interfere with BINK because it's not a supported codec.."

So I tried adding
Sins of a Solar Empire.exe
to the ffdshow exception list.

And lo and behold, the cheesy stardock logo video plays now. Granted the darn thing loops over and over which is not probably intentional but I can just hit enter and go on.

So if you have ffdshow installed or have a codec pack that installs it (most do) try adding SoaSE to the exception list in DirectShow control-page.

Sorry I can't help you where to find ffdshow video decoder configuration because every codec pack puts it in a different place and I actually got it separately.
Reply #10 from Sins Forums Top
Too hasty. That was just a fluke - After reboot SoaSE intro movie still kills the display driver even with ffdshow disabled.

I spent some additional time trying anything I could think of such as getting latest nvidia driver (169.44) but result was the same every time - Have to perform hard reset and reboot.

I'll just keep the intro movie disabled and that's that. Not like the animated stardock/ironclad logo is vital. You can always get the RAD video tools and watch the intro movie from movie-folder and/or run game windowed.