1.09p beta: Wow this build is stable!

Here here, I've been playing two to three hours now (honestly not sure) with no stability issues.

I've been playing all day, and I've been having plenty of crashes. I don't go more than half an hour without one. Haven't pinned down any causes yet, though.

Here's a couple of stabs in the dark - maybe they will help, maybe not:

Cruxador, are you using any 'old' units at the moment? 

I purged almost my entire Mygames/Elemental/Units folder trying to get 1.09o to work early yesterday, before I downloaded the new patch (1.09p).  In my debug.err file, I saw some 'broken' calls for models and such, which older unit files would be doing. Derek said that you'd have to start a new game with 1.09p to avoid having problems.

Also, another stupid question.  When you open Elemental, it does say 1.09p in the corner (not 1.09o), correct?

Other than that, I'd recommend posting your debug.err file to pastebin and see if the Stardock guys can figure out what's going on in your case.

Can't say the same. While I have been playing the past builds with a single crash, I got crash on turn 7 with 1.09p

Good news about the stability! Downloading the update now, so hearing that people are playing without crashes is very exciting!

Lawl, I am so tempted to youtube this thing crashing. This game crashes like within 5-10 mins. I dunno what people are smoking. Run it on large map with full AI opponents. I am very close to youtubing it and showing a timeline and the number of crashes that occur. Narrate it and all....just so people can see.  I won't do this until after official non beta patch. But my patience is coming to an end.

No crashing, but it seems to slow down (performance wise) really badly towards the end of a game (after 200 turns or so).

In general its improve significantly though, so I am happy!

I have played one game of 650 odd seasons with only 3 crashes, although the third crash caused one of my heroes to duplicate and shortly after it wouldn't let em end my turn effectively bringing my game to a halt. I am very impressed with how much better the game is feeling, they just need to iron out these odd crashes and then I think stardock will have an excellent base for building what will hopefully grow to be a classic.

Just for the record, I always play on the largest map available, with 10 AI opponents (5 Kingdom, 5 Empire).

I'd suggest posting your debug.err file up (via pastebin, etc.) so the Stardock guys can try to figure out what's going on in your case.

Also, do you have any pre 1.09p custom built units in your My Documents/My Games/Elemental/Units folder? Or a pre 1.09p Custom Sovereign or Custom Race?  There have been some changes to units and sovereigns, and using 'legacy' units designed before 1.09p seems to cause problems.  If you do, simply delete these (or move them to a backup folder if you want) and see if this helps your issue.

Finally, Derek has said that old savegames will not work properly under 1.09p.  I'm assuming you've started a new game with the new patch?

Hope this helps!

•   I had the same problem earlier on. In my case it was unecessary programs running on my comp that caused my 5-10 minute crash nightmare. I simply nuked everything and anything not needed to run my os & the game and that fixed it for me.

•   Fine herbs...  

& good luck bro. Hope the people in customer support can help ya once you they get to your debug.err post.

 I, too, have noticed the game being alot more stable. I haven't had a single crash yet. But have only played so far that my city is level 4. Though before starting the new game I did clear out all my old character and unit files. I play on a large map but with only two other AI's and right now I'm only playing on beginner difficulty. I really like the direction this game is heading so far.

Ran into a crash within 20 minutes. And the crash from reloading a game from within a game is still there. If I had to guess, multi-core users are probably seeing more crashes than others.

I'm getting crashes still.  Less frequently then before, but this is not close to being ready on the stability front.

My game is much more stable now too. I was crashing like crazy before this patch but now the game is playable.

Only bug I'm really seeing, atm, is the portraits keep resetting which is annoying.

am still getting the same CTDs on quicksaving, loading and on clicking end turn, as i was since the last beta and with increasing regularity over the course of a game.

running intel quad core @ 2.4ghz, xp, GeForce 9600 GT

This is the most stable beta version of Elemental I've seen, it's even challenging getting your first town up and running, good job!

Unfortunately it crashes quite a lot for me.  Using what used to be a high end PC about a year ago (i.e. AMD 5870, i7 920, Win 7 x64, SSD's etc.) with all the latest drivers so that might be contributing to the issues.  I suspect I'd have better stability with crap hardware, old drivers, ancient O/S's, and less memory...   Well at least the game is a bit more fun, and developers still working on it; maybe it'll be stable eventually.

(however, it seems more stable than when I tried it a few months ago)

It's not 3rd party programs, it's not drivers, it's not my hardware. This kinda of response gets really old because is indicates that there is no understanding of the problems and no ownership of quality assurance by the Devs. Now I am pretty sure this is not the Devs stance on this issue but still when this becomes the standard response you have serious issues with the game.

I have a libray of games that could fill a phonebook that all run flawlessly on my computer. I have the latest drivers, common components for hardware i7 920 and a 4870 1GB. The problems with stability are in the games code. This is nonsense to say otherwise. It insults my intelligence when I hear people say it's my computer when I have been building them for over ten years and have played tons and tons of games over the years. The real problem that I am starting to see is the SAME crashes are occuring STILL. And these new patches (beta as they me be) are not really reassuring me that they will ever fix the orginal memory leak, much less tackle the new crashes that are being introduced.

I am not going to debug this game for them, that is the job of Q/A at Stardock. Let me remind you that they released a beta patch that crashed EVERYTIME you trained a unit at a level 3 city. From this alone we can deduce the amount of play testing that is going on there. I understand Stardock wants another round of BETA....ok, but still there needs to be some internal testing too.

I would love a stable game, and hold some sliver of hope, however when I see posters giving Stardock a full pass it starts to look like many a failed game I have seen when the forums were filled with nothing but the very few fanbois left..all the other people left in disgust. Is this what will happen here? A non crashing game is a minimum for software these days I would assume. what good is sending in debug files if the same memory crashes are still occuring?

Ok, most of the time, from what I've seen, the debug.err is fairly useless. At least for figuring out why it crashed (other than maybe to check to see what version drivers are). The best thing to send them is the dump file. This is located in C:\ProgramData\Stardock\Elemental - War Of Magic\ . The ProgramData folder is hidden (for those that dont see it right away). 

I understand your frustration, but really, everyone is simply trying to help. And I really don't understand what the big deal of sending a dump/debug file is. If you feel you shouldn't have to debug it, don't play the beta and complain about the crashing. No one here is saying the game is perfectly stable, just acknowledging the fact that it's getting better.

I spent $50 on this game, too, like everyone else (some more, some less depending) here. I've never sent in bug reports for any other game, or software for that matter. Why do I for this game? Because I see the potential in it, and because I spent my money on it. I usually don't buy games when they come out, I wait until the bargain bin price hits. And the fact that it's Stardock who's doing it. That may not mean much to you, but for a second drop the frustration of launch, and look at how much has changed in the game since release. How many other games can say they have that much support AFTER release? How many other game development companies interact with the community so often? It shows they care about their product. I appreciate that, and so support them.

As far as the "full pass", what? No one's ignoring issues with the game, no one is saying there aren't problems. In fact there are many many posts on this forum of the issues, and problems people have. So what else are people supposed to do? Go to the head office and leave flaming bags of poop on the front steps?

I've been sending in my dump files, and you know what? Each version that comes out afterwards, runs better on my machine. Funny coincidence.

Pretty surprised to see that it has been stable for some people.  I've been crashing regularly - even when it doesn't appear to be a memory leak issue.