Hi,
I just noticed 1.3 was released so i dled it, with a bit hope that BZII would finally run on my new PC (its nearly a year old now though ~~ )
But there it was again:
All maps are plain, flat, no single hill nowhrere, everything just 1 altitude (wich i guess is somewhere at z=0, since i fall down a bit on most maps).
Every map, every mode just always.
Specs:
2.8 P4
Ati radeon 9800 128mb Saphire
Win2k SP4
First I would like to mention my old thread about this http://www.bzuniverse.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=239&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0
Cause the problem doesn't seem to have changed at all.
But i can say a few things right now:
1.) I had a friend over here testing BZII on his Comp, he used my CD and had no prblems, so any kind of data problem is no question anymore, he even could play with my files over a network share. (He has a AMD something, Radeon 9700 i think, not sure, and WinXP SP1 )
2.) I installed a lot of different Drivers till today and i always had this problem with any driver / game version combination, and still on all my PCs.
So my final thought are as of before ... i have no f*** idea ><
perhaps some DirectX issue, but i tried quite a few Versions
perhaps Win2k SP4, despite the fact that noone else has problems with it ....
anything else i can think of won't explain, why i have this one problem on all PCs
help wanted badly, I NEED BZII *cry*
Cnegurozka
Now this is just a stab in the general direction of where the dark might be if it wasn't the middle of the afternoon but did you try getting a new BZ2 cd and installing it? I read the link and someone suggested doing this but I don't think you said if you did or not.
I tried with severeal different CDs and images, non worked for me, all worked for my friend :cry:
Have you tried swapping out your video card for his?
Do you have the latest chipset drivers?
Do you have the latest BIOS update?
Post the contents of your Bzone.cfg file.
Also post a *link* to a *zipped* directory listing of your BZ2 install.
I read the old thread.
Same old .TER files missing.
That sounds like the problem, but I have no clue
where they are going.
Download some new maps from www.bz2maps.com,
then check the folders for .TER files. Should be
there and should work,
you have the wierdest problem I ever heard of.
Cne, have you run DXDIAG or any PC diagnostics yet? That will tell you if there are any problems with your video adapter.
Try a different video card,if you can,perhaps there's a slight problem with it.
@Red Devil
Chipset Driver:
Graphic yes, for motherboard im not sure actually, i don't think there is a real own chipset driver for that board, but ill look some more into this.
Bios:
No, the newest version resulst in very unstable system so i use the second newest.
Directory Listing:
Im not sure in what format you'd like to have that, made with what program ....
bzone.cfg:
See end of post
DXDiag:
No, never reported any errors.
@Dirty Rooster
Yeah the thing with the .TER files a very good thoery, but they are all there and all readable, at least as far as i can judge, and as i said before my friend good play with exactly my files, from my hdd over a network share.
@Bull
At the moment i cannot.
By the way:
My Battlezone.log files says the games was started on a Win9x machine, is this correct, or should it detect Win2k?
And what is this Error: Unable to create file '.\data\binData\NULL.msh' ?
http://cnegurozka.bei.t-online.de/private/bz2/BATTLEZONE.log
bzone.cfg:
fresh install from CD, then patched to 1.3
///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
//
// Copyright 1997-98 Activision Studios, Strategy Group
//
// Battlezone II - Core System Configuration File
//
// Configure game file system
ConfigureFileSystem()
{
// Setup base data
ConfigureStream("base")
{
// Look in "addon" first
AddDirRecurse("@rootdir\addon");
// Look at pakfiles next
AddPack("@rootdir\patch13.pak");
AddPack("@rootdir\data.pak");
AddPack("@rootdir\bumps.pak");
// Look in "data" last, and only last.
AddDirRecurse("@rootdir\data");
}
// Make it active
SetActiveStream("base");
}
If everything fails, it may be your CD drive. Perhaps its read speed is too high, or it's just not working properly.
If the entire map is flat && he falls when he starts, it sounds like it is loading it incorrectly, indicates a problem with a missing file, or the OS. Video card drivers, mb drivers, air drivers, no driver's will fix that. First, (although I do not think this will make a difference, it has a chance) since you are running 2k4 SP4, make sure the filesystem is NTFS and not FAT32. Make sure policies or anything else is not in effect that prevent an unauthorized program (like BZ2) access to the hard disk. Did you try installing the game on your friend's computer and copying it across the lan to your computer, verbatim, and try running that copy.
Cnegurozka, looks like your OS is somehow jacked. It can't find the current directory and it is reporting 9x like you say.
To find out, right click the My Computer icon, then click on Properties and see if it is reporting 2K or 9X there. Better yet, use Start/Programs/Accessories/System Tools/System Information (shortcut to msinfo32).
How did you install the OS or did you get it that way? If so, did you upgrade or do a full, clean install? Or perhaps you are really starting up 9x from the boot menu? Do you have a dual boot box? If so, if the timeout value is too low, it may just jump to the first OS in the list which may be 9x.
@OvermindDL1
No, but itried vice versa, i installed and my friend used my version to play, so im 99,9999% sure it's nothing about my CD or the files in general, more likly some real weird OS problem.
@Red Devil
Its saying Windows 2000, Version 5.xxxxx, SP4, like it should
I installed it from a normal boot able CD.
And yes i already reinstalled it 2 times on this Computer and i always had this problems.
System is on a 4 GB Partition of my 240 gb Array, installed on a clean just formated Files System (preformated so it gets 523k cluster).
And no im not starting Win9x accidently, i haven't installed any other OS on this PC, and i would have seen the difference, beleve me :P
My problem is the realtivly low time i have to test this, and i can't risk my PC being unuseable cause i need to do some programming for my computer science study ....
And i checked the NTFS security policies again, there all allowed for all, on the whole BZII Directory and all Subfolders.
Perhaps BZII tried to write any Data to a global Temp Folder, that isn't there on my System, or blocked cause to some very weird System Configuration by me?
Ps.: I know now, why it said Win9x, the default shortcut created by the BZ2 installation was configured to run in compability layer win98, disabled it, but no change.
I uploaded a new .log File, no FileNotFound Errors anymore and it detects Win2k now.
http://cnegurozka.bei.t-online.de/private/bz2/BATTLEZONE.log
Grrr... accidentally closed my browser just as I was about to finish responding...
Anyways, since DXdiag runs okay and you are able to run other games and display 3D images, that narrows it down to BZ itself.
Not sure if this would affect it this way, but do you have Bumps = 1 in your Render.cfg file? (in BZ root folder)
Also, a nice utility for ATI cards is Rage3D Tweak. Just makes sure you read each tweak before you use it.
http://www.majorgeeks.com/download.php?det=391
Edit: Good catch on the 9x thing. Wish I'd thought of that! :-}
"Bumps = 1" has a ";" in front of the line, so i guess its commented out.
Why on earth is your 4 gb partition formatted to 523kb cluster's, ntfs is not capable of that size (nor would you want that size), even if you meant 523bytes, that is still a nonstandard size. If it is indeed formatted as that, that is horribly incorrect. I am not sure if this would be harming BZ2, but it would probobly be best in any case to format using NTFS default cluster size, which on a 2gb or larger partition, is 4k (4,096 bytes). Try that, does anything change with bz2?
I agree, plus you'll gain a lot more drive space. Very inefficient the way it is now. 4K is best.
And yes, uncomment Bumps = 1 and see if that helps.
wild guess - something with the vid card...
Just another shot, is anything else on your system linked to *.TER files? Something that might keep them from loading?
Yet another shot...
I have two 256MB and one 512MB sticks of ram. If I run either the 2 or the 1 for a total of 512MB everything's hunky dory on my system. If I try mixing them many games AV out on me. I've run Memtest86 for days and it's reported no problems...
IOW start troubleshooting by stripping down to just an HD and the lowest memory config you can. See what happens...
-Av-
I had troubles just installing BZ2 on Win2k sp4 just a few weeks ago. Found this link:
http://bzscrap.com/downloads/Utilities/bz2_setup_fix.zip
Made by "Sonic". Reinstalling using the instructions included ... well ... may help, but the symptom doesn't match the problem that this fix cures. But, you may want to give it a try. Hell, i couldn't even install it before w/o using this fix, but now i'm up and running (on 1.3).
Good luck ...
To the 523byte CLuster thing:
Yes my mistake, i meant 512 of corse and i don't see why it's bad, i use this since i use Win NT and its the best way to stop your system from wasting drive space when you have very many little files ....
And btw, i don't believe it has anything to do with this problem, since this is low lvl system logic and its miles away from anything that could touch BZII.
@Ungodly
I never had problems installing, it just says "Windows NT is not supported" but it will install fine, or at least it always installed fine on my PCs before i got my new one.
But i will try it thx.
Ok, wow this is great, why i didn't see this ever before?
Now the patches etc. know my BZII Directory, the old installer didn't seem to write the registry keys correct.
Didn't changed my maps problem anyway. :(.
@Avatar
2 512MB Blocks of RAM, i don't see where this could help, but i will try it, ill post results later.
To the Disk: I tried all the time with just "one" Disk (in fact 2 disk in a Raid 0 Array) and just recently got one more, so we can exclude this as the problem.
Another thing: When i want to install a map, where should i put it? in data/mission/multiplayer it doesn't show u in map listing.
And most maps that are there already only consist of .inf and a .bzn, so can anyone clear me up about BZII map files again? i never understood it 100% and now i have forgotten everything i guess ^^
Or can you just tell me if everything is fine?
Never put anything in data, ever. Very bad an unstable misconception by many and I wish it to not spread. Place it in the addon directory, delete the data directory (make backups first just in case something ended up there that it should not of).
yes, I made that mistake... It screwed up FE (none of the maps showed up in multiplayer). I had to change the directory and dump all the FE maps into my stock bz2 multiplayer map directory. That's why you see fe maps on my servers in stock 1.2.
I think a problem arises because of the search order: Addon is searched first, and data is dead last.
With a stock install, it's not noticeable because there isn't that many assets (if any) to search through in Addon. Once Addon starts filling up with more assets from, well, addons, more and more assets have to be checked and kept track of before it gets to the needed files in the data folder. That bogs down the engine and probably contributes to resynchs. Think of it as searching through multiple file cabinets to find something in the last cabinet. If it were in the first cabinet, we'd find it a lot faster without having to dig so much.