How to stop most of the freezes in JFSW

fmt · 02-14-2007, 08:32 PM

JFSW is undoubtely a good port, but remains with some instability bugs. After 1 month using JFSW, I found a good solution to workaround these bugs.

By paying attention to the crashes, I´ve noticed that about 80% of JFSW crashes occurs in any place with a big number of female warriors. For you get the crash, you must be facing some of them. It freezes mainly when she throws her stick bombs or exactly 3 seconds later, when the stick bomb begins to wait for somebody get close to it. Places most instables are the ship, the red keycard room and the power generator room in the level 18, the cells and the central platform over the water in the level 17, the room where you get the blue key in the level 14, the neighborhood of the end of level 7, and some locations of level 8. All of these places contains lots of female warriors. The crashes also occurs with any external map, if you´re facing female warriors.

In the beginning, I thought it´s caused by the ECHO_SPOT ST1 (reverberation effect), but later I´ve discovered the true cause. Then, I made a little workaround with the Build editor: I´ve change most of the female warriors to other enemies, like ninjas, guardians and rippers, which are not affected by this bug, and works perfectly. If you don´t want to modify JFSW files, you can try simply to do not stay close to a big number of female warriors and kill´em from as far away as you can.

ProAsm · 02-15-2007, 10:21 AM

Interesting theory, although as time passes and you play usermaps like Crates.map and several others you find different reasons as here you crash just for the sake of it

The TC Amazon is another where you crash pretty soon after going over the falls in the beginning.
And as you wade through different levels so the various theories go out the window.
But keep a track and let us know what your findings are as I've played a lot with the Swp code to try and get around this with not much luck

TerminX · 02-15-2007, 10:06 PM

I can't get the game to crash at all against the female ninjas. I was gonna be helpful and just post a patch to fix the issues out of nowhere, but, really, I can't get it to crash at all. I checked out the crash points in level 18 and in level 17 and nothing happened other than the creation of a pile of corpses.

Martin Howe · 02-16-2007, 03:19 AM

I have found that it happens more if you have a lot of them in a confined area, such as just outside the temple in yawa.map; there is another large map with a massive pyramid in a huge open area and it has loads of the female ninjas assisting a serpent-god by chucking sticky-bombs all over the shop, but that didn't crash once.

Phayzon · 02-19-2007, 07:54 PM

Just to state the obvious, that crash issue is only in multiplayer. If one of their stickies goes off in MP, kiss your game goodbye. Not an issue in SP though.

Deuxsonic · 03-16-2007, 11:18 AM

Multiplayer in JFSW is horribly buggy for me. I've found that the 3rd mode of the guardian's head can crash the game almost every single time. I have to avoid using the weapon and avoid the shadow ninjas that use it on you.

Brother Grabbag · 03-19-2007, 08:36 AM

the game tends to crash on me around female ninjas as well. it does not always happen, but when it does, i have noticed that one or more of the ninjas have thrown a sticky bomb. i also have crashes sometimes if I myself throw a sticky bomb. i have had to basically avoid using the sticky bomb (which sucks, cuz it is awesome), and blast the female ninjas mercilessly and quickly to ensure they do not throw any stickies.

@ TerminX: if you want to try to make it crash to find the issue, try throwing sticky bombs and fighting the female ninjas in the level with the giant boat. cannot remember the name, but you start off in a little boat with guns, open a gate, and come up to a very large cargo boat that you eventually go down into. there is a room outside of the boat, right before you get the blue ketcard, where there is a large pile of boxes blocking your way to the next room. but when you jump up to man the "vehicle weapon cannon" thing, about 6 or 7 female ninjas spawn in. my game crashed about 5 times in this one place alone. hope that helps!

JimCamel · 05-01-2007, 07:40 AM

Okay, so I decided I might take a look at this problem myself, so I grabbed the sources for build and SW, and built them in VS2005, and I cannot get any of these crashes to happen. Can someone who has been having them download my build at:
http://www.aeonlegendonline.com/pers...el/swptest.rar
Unrar it to it's own directory, put in the sw.grp file and test the crash conditions? If you can find a place it crashes, could you save it just before the crash, and then send me a copy of the save file?

fmt · 10-11-2007, 08:19 PM

After doing some hacks in the sources trying to fix this bug i noted yet that it´s not issue with the female ninjas themselves, but with their bombs. I changed the following lines in girlninj.c (in GirlNinjaActionSet structure):

{sg_GirlNinjaCrossbow, sg_GirlNinjaSticky},
{800, 1024},
{sg_GirlNinjaCrossbow, sg_GirlNinjaSticky},
{800, 1024},
to:
{sg_GirlNinjaCrossbow},
{1024},
{sg_GirlNinjaCrossbow},
{1024},

I did this to girl ninjas do not throw the crappy sticky bombs anymore but after that i cant get the game to crash around them once (of course they only throw crossbows now). I´m now taking a look at some functions in weapon.c related to stickies and their states. Perhaps this would be helpful to ProAsm

ProAsm · 10-12-2007, 10:31 AM

I have never had any crashes within the game at all, not the female ninjas, or sticky bombs nothing.
I used to have crashes with some user maps, like Crates.map for instance where there are big open spaces but since Swp37 even those have dissapeared.
Actually I have not heard of anyone crashing for a long time.
What I have found over time with installing the game on different PC's its very hardware dependant and that can play a big part in your crashes and hangs.

Another Duke Fan · 10-16-2007, 02:07 PM

Not a single crash on my end so far. It plays just great.

Deuxsonic · 10-20-2007, 10:54 PM

You're exactly right about the sticky bombs. It will crash every single time that they throw a bomb and it sticks to you. Luckily, SWP doesn't have this problem.

simsklok · 11-04-2007, 03:51 PM

not only does it crash at random times for me, it's caused all my build games to crash now =/ the video driver crashes.. any reason?

Mr.Fibbles · 11-04-2007, 10:28 PM

try updating your video driver. . .
If it is up to date, try rolling it back.

simsklok · 11-06-2007, 11:30 PM

^^^ yeah it's a new computer dude.. weird thing is I have a shitload of buildgames and they would never crash, then i install the sw port and it always crashes now ?

02-14-2007, 08:32 PM	#1
fmt	How to stop most of the freezes in JFSW JFSW is undoubtely a good port, but remains with some instability bugs. After 1 month using JFSW, I found a good solution to workaround these bugs. By paying attention to the crashes, I´ve noticed that about 80% of JFSW crashes occurs in any place with a big number of female warriors. For you get the crash, you must be facing some of them. It freezes mainly when she throws her stick bombs or exactly 3 seconds later, when the stick bomb begins to wait for somebody get close to it. Places most instables are the ship, the red keycard room and the power generator room in the level 18, the cells and the central platform over the water in the level 17, the room where you get the blue key in the level 14, the neighborhood of the end of level 7, and some locations of level 8. All of these places contains lots of female warriors. The crashes also occurs with any external map, if you´re facing female warriors. In the beginning, I thought it´s caused by the ECHO_SPOT ST1 (reverberation effect), but later I´ve discovered the true cause. Then, I made a little workaround with the Build editor: I´ve change most of the female warriors to other enemies, like ninjas, guardians and rippers, which are not affected by this bug, and works perfectly. If you don´t want to modify JFSW files, you can try simply to do not stay close to a big number of female warriors and kill´em from as far away as you can.

02-15-2007, 10:21 AM	#2
ProAsm	Re: How to stop most of the freezes in JFSW Interesting theory, although as time passes and you play usermaps like Crates.map and several others you find different reasons as here you crash just for the sake of it The TC Amazon is another where you crash pretty soon after going over the falls in the beginning. And as you wade through different levels so the various theories go out the window. But keep a track and let us know what your findings are as I've played a lot with the Swp code to try and get around this with not much luck __________________ http://www.proasm.com

02-15-2007, 10:06 PM	#3
TerminX	Re: How to stop most of the freezes in JFSW I can't get the game to crash at all against the female ninjas. I was gonna be helpful and just post a patch to fix the issues out of nowhere, but, really, I can't get it to crash at all. I checked out the crash points in level 18 and in level 17 and nothing happened other than the creation of a pile of corpses. __________________ EDuke32 \| Duke4.net forums, the largest Duke Nukem 3D community on the Internet Visit #eduke32 on irc.freenode.net!

02-16-2007, 03:19 AM	#4
Martin Howe	Re: How to stop most of the freezes in JFSW I have found that it happens more if you have a lot of them in a confined area, such as just outside the temple in yawa.map; there is another large map with a massive pyramid in a huge open area and it has loads of the female ninjas assisting a serpent-god by chucking sticky-bombs all over the shop, but that didn't crash once.

02-19-2007, 07:54 PM	#5
Phayzon	Re: How to stop most of the freezes in JFSW Just to state the obvious, that crash issue is only in multiplayer. If one of their stickies goes off in MP, kiss your game goodbye. Not an issue in SP though. __________________ I made the first post on the VB! "So I guess the news here is that not only is Australia the last to get anything new in regard to videogames, they're also the first to get them taken away." - LeadBullet "We're part-time internet superheros." - Hudson

03-16-2007, 11:18 AM	#6
Deuxsonic	Re: How to stop most of the freezes in JFSW Multiplayer in JFSW is horribly buggy for me. I've found that the 3rd mode of the guardian's head can crash the game almost every single time. I have to avoid using the weapon and avoid the shadow ninjas that use it on you. __________________ Good job everyone! Keep up the great work! Let me know if I can be of service to you.

03-19-2007, 08:36 AM	#7
Brother Grabbag	Re: How to stop most of the freezes in JFSW the game tends to crash on me around female ninjas as well. it does not always happen, but when it does, i have noticed that one or more of the ninjas have thrown a sticky bomb. i also have crashes sometimes if I myself throw a sticky bomb. i have had to basically avoid using the sticky bomb (which sucks, cuz it is awesome), and blast the female ninjas mercilessly and quickly to ensure they do not throw any stickies. @ TerminX: if you want to try to make it crash to find the issue, try throwing sticky bombs and fighting the female ninjas in the level with the giant boat. cannot remember the name, but you start off in a little boat with guns, open a gate, and come up to a very large cargo boat that you eventually go down into. there is a room outside of the boat, right before you get the blue ketcard, where there is a large pile of boxes blocking your way to the next room. but when you jump up to man the "vehicle weapon cannon" thing, about 6 or 7 female ninjas spawn in. my game crashed about 5 times in this one place alone. hope that helps! __________________ Read the Zombie Survival Guide by Max Brooks and prepare yourself for the coming darkness

05-01-2007, 07:40 AM	#8
JimCamel	Re: How to stop most of the freezes in JFSW Okay, so I decided I might take a look at this problem myself, so I grabbed the sources for build and SW, and built them in VS2005, and I cannot get any of these crashes to happen. Can someone who has been having them download my build at: http://www.aeonlegendonline.com/pers...el/swptest.rar Unrar it to it's own directory, put in the sw.grp file and test the crash conditions? If you can find a place it crashes, could you save it just before the crash, and then send me a copy of the save file?

10-11-2007, 08:19 PM	#9
fmt	Re: How to stop most of the freezes in JFSW After doing some hacks in the sources trying to fix this bug i noted yet that it´s not issue with the female ninjas themselves, but with their bombs. I changed the following lines in girlninj.c (in GirlNinjaActionSet structure): {sg_GirlNinjaCrossbow, sg_GirlNinjaSticky}, {800, 1024}, {sg_GirlNinjaCrossbow, sg_GirlNinjaSticky}, {800, 1024}, to: {sg_GirlNinjaCrossbow}, {1024}, {sg_GirlNinjaCrossbow}, {1024}, I did this to girl ninjas do not throw the crappy sticky bombs anymore but after that i cant get the game to crash around them once (of course they only throw crossbows now). I´m now taking a look at some functions in weapon.c related to stickies and their states. Perhaps this would be helpful to ProAsm

10-12-2007, 10:31 AM	#10
ProAsm	Re: How to stop most of the freezes in JFSW I have never had any crashes within the game at all, not the female ninjas, or sticky bombs nothing. I used to have crashes with some user maps, like Crates.map for instance where there are big open spaces but since Swp37 even those have dissapeared. Actually I have not heard of anyone crashing for a long time. What I have found over time with installing the game on different PC's its very hardware dependant and that can play a big part in your crashes and hangs. __________________ http://www.proasm.com

10-16-2007, 02:07 PM	#11
Another Duke Fan	Re: How to stop most of the freezes in JFSW Not a single crash on my end so far. It plays just great. __________________ アーティスト

10-20-2007, 10:54 PM	#12
Deuxsonic	Re: How to stop most of the freezes in JFSW You're exactly right about the sticky bombs. It will crash every single time that they throw a bomb and it sticks to you. Luckily, SWP doesn't have this problem. __________________ Good job everyone! Keep up the great work! Let me know if I can be of service to you.

11-04-2007, 03:51 PM	#13
simsklok	Re: How to stop most of the freezes in JFSW not only does it crash at random times for me, it's caused all my build games to crash now =/ the video driver crashes.. any reason?

11-04-2007, 10:28 PM	#14
Mr.Fibbles	Re: How to stop most of the freezes in JFSW try updating your video driver. . . If it is up to date, try rolling it back. __________________ http://thaunandshad.com

11-06-2007, 11:30 PM	#15
simsklok	Re: How to stop most of the freezes in JFSW ^^^ yeah it's a new computer dude.. weird thing is I have a shitload of buildgames and they would never crash, then i install the sw port and it always crashes now ?