Crash on NAFTA PHASE II map (audio.log info)

[yonglove]

Hi Folks,
Hoping someone can lend me a hand with this awesome map. I have started this map now probably a half dozen times. After I reach a certain level of complexity, around the mid 1880s, the game always crashes. I get to the point where I reload the SAVE game, and then a couple game-days later, it crashes. I enabled logging, and in looking at the logs, I see the following in the audio.log. That third line appears 6570 times. ANY help would be GREATLY appreciated.

[3604.871] ERR: FSharedSoundData::Load: Could not read file SmallClink.
[3604.871] ERR: FAudioManager::LoadContext(): Could not load soundId 3.
[3631.126] ERR: FAudioManager::GetAudioTagIndex(): Could not find string of TagId 5

[karsten]

The audio log errors are normally harmless. What source did you download your copy of NAFTA PHASE II from?

[yonglove]

Hi! Thx for the quick response!

On this webpage, http://smrsimple.com/2010/02/nafta-phase-ii/, used the DL link.

[yonglove]

By the way, I just installed the game on my work laptop, updated to 1.10, copied the 3GB railroads version, started the game, exited, copied the nafta folder into usermaps, copied the save game over there, set up all the required settings (shader=medium, etc). Started the game, it ran for 3 game-days, and then crashed, in the same place as it crashed on my gaming PC. I can get the logfiles, or post other info... any help would be greatly appreciated. Thx!

[karsten]

The map crashes for me too. Not a memory problem, since it is a 20x20 map and my Uganda 21x21 map runs just fine on my computer. Since the last pre-crash entry in my log is "Growcity", I assume one of the buildings added when the first city grows to metropolis is at fault.

This is a pretty tedious error to nail down. Can you check what the last message in your log was?

And what do you mean by "and then crashed, in the same place as it crashed on my gaming PC"?

[yonglove]

A-ha!! Yes, this is exactly what happened! The last pre-crash log entry in my setup is also "Growcity".

What I meant was that I have one savegame file. And I tried to run the game on two separate systems: 1) my gaming PC, and 2) my work laptop. The idea was to see if the savegame would run on one of the two systems. IF it ran on my work laptop, even though I have to dial down the graphics settings I could still play the game and that would be great. BUT, alas, the game crashes on both systems. And the problem on both systems is the same: "Growcity".

[karsten]

Yes, that makes sense, the largest city grows one size more at the same point in time after you start the same savegame.

Unfortunately, it is a bit tedious to figure out just exactly what goes wrong when the city grows.

[yonglove]

I'm willing to learn and do whatever it takes, here. I'm a programmer by trade, so if there's something I can do, for example, deconstruct the savegame file, or something else, just let me know.

I'm proficient in ACCESS, Visual Basic, PERL, regular expressions, but I do not have experience with compiling/running windows based programs. Sounds like I'm looking for a job, doesn't it? Anyway, if I can help, just let me know, or point me to a URL where I can learn what to do to troubleshoot and fix the issue.

Either way, many thanks for taking the time to comment and respond!

[karsten]

OK, I have narrowed the problem down a bit in the city file.

First, I increased city spacing to 180. Then I found a decimal mistake in the InputOutput ratio for gold. But even correcting that did not seem to help, probably because there was no gold production. Finally, setting NumLargeBuildings to zero stopped the crash on city growth.

So it seems that something goes wrong when the game tries to place one of the Large Buildings, though I still have no idea what.

You could try to pinpoint the culprit. Or you can set NumLargeBuildings to 0 for city size 3 and enjoy the map.

[Warll]

Does the xml define the large buildings? Could it be a problem with the model.

@yonglove: SMR is very configurable through the xml files which comprise the maps. Of course as with any powerful tool without proper debug tools small things tend to go broken in weird ways.

If you guys can assemble a working version of the map I would love to update the main map database.

[yonglove]

OK! Crash solved! Here are the 4 items that Karsten mentioned.

1. Changing <NumLargeBuildings> from 3 to 0 solved it! Take a look at this screenshot. The city, St Louis, is on the water. Is it possible the game engine tried to put a large building in this city, but there was no place for the building to be placed?

2. I also changed <InputOutputRatio> from 1.5.000000 to 1.500000 but as you say I do not think this was causing any obvious problems.

3. I changed <NumMediumBuildings> from 15 to 12 as recommended, but this was not the solution to this current crash. Of course who knows it could've caused problems, later.

4. I changed <BuildingSpacing> from 80 to 180 as recommended, but this was not the solution to this current crash. Of course who knows it could've caused problems, later.

Thanks Karsten!

Karsten, WarII, I shall continue onward with this map and savegame. I will post an update in the next couple days.

Again, BIG THANK YOU!

[karsten]

St Louis, is on the water. Is it possible the game engine tried to put a large building in this city, but there was no place for the building to be placed?

Thanks for testing this. I don't think proximity to water is the problem, even though Los Angeles, which I test-grew, is also close to water.

I have a hunch that it could be related to the monuments, which are listed as simple buildings in the City XML. It MAY be that they do not move out of the way when a large building is placed, because in a standard map, there is one monument per city. They do make way for station tracks, mostly...

By the way, if you change the LM on the Washington Monument line to lowercase "lm" in the City XML, you should see it being placed in towns as well.

[yonglove]

With the fixes in place, I played the game to the end. What a great experience! Thanks to Jancsika for creating the map, Karsten for helping me fix it so I could play it, and WarII for moderating this forum. You are all fantastic!

Karsten: I just changed "LM_wash_monument.nif" to "lm_wash_monument.nif", in RRT_Cities.xml. Thx for the tip!

WarII: In case you want to see it, here is my RRT_Cities.xml file, with all the fixes suggested by Karsten.