Has anyone noticed that if you run in Windowed mode, it doesn't do flakey stuff near as often?

Hi, how did you get it to run in windowed mode? I tried the standard -window flag at the end of the command line and the game started loading and quickly aborted.

Windowed mode is in video options -- most games don't bother with command line switches anymore.

And on reason you wouldn't get a slow-down between turns, is that in windowed mode you can have the game process while in the background

That said, if this is true, it would explain a LOT of the "this game can't run at all" "No it runs fine!" arguements.

There are 10 types of people in the world:

Those that understand binary, and those that don't.

to increase the visual size of your "window" you have to decrease your desktops resolution to something like 1280 X 800. I'm playing around with SEV in window mode to see if I get as many crashes as I use to. I'll post back if this fixes my crashing problem too.

Eventually if this does fix it you can get a freeware program that changes your desktop resolution everytime you open SEV and then puts you back to your old resolution when you close the program it's called Qres. I can't remember where I got it. I tack it onto a couple different programs that I my normal desktop resolution is too high for me to be able to read the writing.

Well the qres tip is still a good one, but I'm still getting craches even in windowed mode.... My computer is stalled at the "Processing after all player turns..."

I'd say Captain Calhoun if your not getting crashes or stalles, concider yourself lucky, and play on... Others are still having a rough time... I still am glad to be able to play, rather that wait until '07...

That appears to be incorrect. I don't see any choce in the video options to select windowed mode. There's Display Driver, Video Mode (resolution), 3D Device, Video Memory Usage, Graphic Detail and Background Detail.

Are you thinking of something else???

NT

Look at video mode -- top option is "windowed"

There are 10 types of people in the world:

Those that understand binary, and those that don't.

Ah-HA!!! Thanks, I guess I failed to see it for all the numbers.

I too run the game in windowed mode at present. It seems a lot more stable (I was haveing a crash every time I rotated the view in the system view screen).

My current problem is hanging AFTER the end of turn processing.

So I tried this Windowed Mode idea. I don't know what it means, but when I run in Windowed Mode, the game uses 110% of the processor just sitting doing nothing. I can't cntl+alt+del or get the PC to respond at all.

I tried to at least get it to process one game turn, but I couldn't even move the mouse! I moved the mouse left, and 10 seconds later (!) the mouse went accross the screen.

Weird.

Oh, it's doing something alright - it's hung in an endless loop. It's doing the equalent of counting to one hundred and is then told to count to one hundred and then to repeat, repeat, repeat... with no where to ever exit that process. And that's sad because that particular kind of problem should be very easy for the programmer to find.

Possible something in the altered AI scripts.

But don't assume anything from the processor being maxed out- SE5, like many 3D games, ALWAYS maxes out the processor, even when you're just sitting on an empty system screen.

This was different though. If I do full screen, SE5 doesn't max out the processor unless its processing a turn. If I do windowed mode, it does MORE than just max out the processor. It maxes it out just sitting looking at a system map with nothing going on and it won't even respond to mouse movement, cntl+alt+del, nothing.

I went back to Full Screen, and the processor is fine.

I prefer Full Screen anyway, but I was trying to find a fix for my current "real" problem, which is hanging after the End of Turn Processing. the EoTP message is gone, and it has saved the game, but it sits at a grey screen and never moves on. If I go to task manager, SE5 is no longer using processor and very little ram.

If I end task and Resume Game, it picks up with my turn after the scheduled Per Turn save, but it means I have to end task and restart the game after every turn.

I just tried switching over to Windowed mode... and it didn't just crash the game, it crashed Windows! Instantly and with extreme prejudice, the moment I pushed "Play". Twice in a row.

While mileage has been known to vary with this sort of thing, yeesh. Needless to say, I've switched back.

If you had a Blue Screen of Death, report the error code! Odds are, its a system and not game issue. I. E. out of date drivers, or damaged hardware. Either way, it should be diagnosed ASAP if possible. Write down the code EXACTLY as it displayed.

(And if your computer automaticly rebooted, you need to turn that option OFF, stupid windows should NOT have it on by default. Right click my comnputer->properties->advanced->startup and recovery->settings->system failure->uncheck automaticly restart)

There are 10 types of people in the world:

Those that understand binary, and those that don't.

Yes, it automatically rebooted, so I didn't get to see the error code. Thanks for the heads-up on how to fix that. I'll let you know what happens, I'm not on my home computer at the moment. (Which *is* admittedly somewhat old.)

You might try memtest86 to check your ram. Every time I've had a BSOD at work, it's because of ram going bad. Granted, it could be something else. However, that's a good place to start when checking hardware.

Download the iso version and burn a cd disk with it, and boot to the cd.

Yup, the CTD experienced by many users when attacking an enemy ship was defiantly connected to the video resolution. Apparently the only video resolution that seem to work without risk of crash (from my observations)is 1024 x 768 (both 16 and 32 bit modes work just fine).

Sincerely,
Kahn