can CTD be fixed by driver & direct x updates?

from Stardock Forums
Yesterday, Gal Civ crashed to desktop x 3. The message was "Ddhelp has caused an error in unknown. Ddhelp will now close."

I looked up Ddhelp and it is a directX helper application. I am currently running directX 8.1 but Microsoft has a 9.0b availabe. My video card is a nVidia GeForce4 Ti4600 and nVidia has a new driver that came out this month that I could download. My OS is Windows ME and my chip is an Athlon XP 1900+. The mobo is a nForce MSI K7N415 Pro and I have 512 Mb DDR 2100 RAM.

Have others had this CTD problem? Will adding the new video drivers and directX make this problem better or worse? The Gal Civ readme recommends directX 8.1 so I am reluctant to add things which might make make the game more unstable. I run Gal Civ 1.05. Right now I just use autosave every 2 turns and reboot when I crash. I also have the option with Windows ME to enter a "pre-driver update" set point and restore if all goes sour but I was hoping I was not the first Gal Civ player to experience this and so I seek advice. If this is "normal" for Gal Civ 1.05 then I don't want to add the new drivers. Thanks in advance.

Rick
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245 views 12 replies
Reply #1 from Stardock Forums Top
Upgrade the Directx It won't eliminate the problem but it did reduce my ctd's by about 50% when I upgraded.

Of course I have a genuine intel machine so your mileage my differ.


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Reply #2 from Stardock Forums Top
PBP

Thanks for sharing your experience. I will update directX like the folks at Microsoft recommend.

BTW, I have had a half dozen or more genuine Intel machines and have played computer games on the Apple II+ and PCs for > 23 years. This unit from Falcon Northwest is as stable as the Intel rigs I owned although I can't say Windows ME is as stable as Windows 98SE was.

I would really like to see competition in the PC chip business because I think it would be good for the consumer so I support AMD's Athlon efforts - at least until they put out a real lemon, LOL. Ideally, the CPU competition could be more like the video card competition where ATI and nVidia leapfrog each other regularly.

Anyone else have a recommendation on the video driver update? Stick with the old or plunge into the new?

Rick

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Curtains - Customize Windows with additional styles
Reply #3 from Stardock Forums Top
The OS I think is a biggie as far as stability goes. Mellenium (although my favorite interfacewise) isn't too crash hot for pro applications, so we swapped over to NT2000 pro and its a rock!

Also security these days is paramonut (there's some sick stuff out there that takes down premo anti-virus software quite easily). So service packs are essencial, I hope ME is still being well supported by MS. Last time I checked thier support was fadding somewhat. INfact After this year they aren't obliged to support it at all by law (like 98 and 95) and probably won't.

NT2003 is due to be out sometimesoon (so I've read) might be worth holding out for that?

I'm not sure what the prime calculation part of the computer is for GC, I'd assume the CPU moreso than the graphics card, because the program takes advantage of the multi thread architecture in the newer CPU's (or again so I've read) . . .


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Reply #4 from Stardock Forums Top
I would really like to see competition in the PC chip business because I think it would be good for the consumer so I support AMD's Athlon efforts - at least until they put out a real lemon, . Ideally, the CPU competition could be more like the video card competition where ATI and nVidia leapfrog each other regularly.
End of quote


AMD made a huge mistake. In trying to catch up to the intel product essentially throwing everything it had into research (and it still couldn't match intel's budget) it lost its price point. Athlon machines (which now aren't quite as fast) are actually just as expensive. Intel upgraded the celeron to essentially a p3 and yanked amd's bottom end rug out from under it as well.

And apple, well they just keep doing stupid things to insure that their puters will never be more than a niche product. Everyone else is marketing games graphics, speed. Blazing puter. Then Apple. Look at our pretty new purple screen!! It only looks cheap!!! Look at this cute lil cube!!!! Oh hey look at our new operating system!!!! Oh pay no attention to the fact that the producer of the most popular piece of apple software running won't have a version out that can use it for 9 friggin months. Oooops look at our sales tank!!!

Reply #5 from Stardock Forums Top
Note that wasn't a comment on the quality of apple puters which, if you favor certain applications, are quite good. It was a comment on their not so genius marketing.
Reply #6 from Stardock Forums Top
Thanks for replies. I updated to directX 9.0b and a nVidia driver that Microsoft recommended on the Update Windows Tools part of MS Internet Explorer. It only CTD with the Ddhelp message twice today so maybe it is better? LOL Actually with the save every 2 turns it is not so bad to reboot but among all the games I have played on this machine (last 3 years), Gal Civ has the most CTD and lock-ups. But, I am not complaining because Gal Civ is a lot of fun. :)

Rick
Reply #7 from Stardock Forums Top
help somebody please
i loaded unloaded loaded and unloaded to c drive,d drive(two hard drives) and keeps locking up system.
downloded every patch, audio codec, or anything else mentioned here or anywhere else i could find.
im running win2k with most current ms patches,
256k ram, nvidia geforce mx440,800duron processor,asus k7v mb,direct x 9 installed and all latest drivers for system.
disabled all virus software,disabled all system services i could get away with,even downloaded msconfig
and turned off everything i could but still crashes after opening movie.i tried going to stardock central to register and it keeps giving me failed to update account error message so i cant even download the network version. so if anyone has an idea to try pls,pls help or i will return game and start an anti galciv webpage because this game should not be this difficult to get working. i thought microsoft games were bad but this one takes the cake. :sniff!:
Reply #8 from Stardock Forums Top
Mike, your problem may be directx 9. Is there a letter extention on your directx version. If not, It's flawed. Go back to microsoft and download the current version. I think the current version is 9b.


so i cant even download the network version. so if anyone has an idea to try pls,pls help or i will return game and start an anti galciv webpage because this game should not be this difficult to get working. i thought microsoft games were bad but this one
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I wouldn't recommend wasting your time on such a fruitless, endevour such as creating anti-webpages.

There should be a file in your galciv folder called debug. Open it using notepad (it should be short enough since you didn't get past the movie) and send it into Stardock. Or you can post it here and they might be able to see the source of the crash. Or if it's something someone here can spot, we might be able to (but note that we aren't techs) Don't expect a reply till monday or so from tech.

If none of that works, then you'll have to download smartexception from stardock. It's a program that helps them pinpoint exactly what is creating your conflicts. And why.

Also if you can access chat via stardock central or via irc at #stardock or #galciv due to power outages, it wasn't up last I checked (a few hours ago)

Hope that helps.



Reply #9 from Stardock Forums Top
figured it out after disabling the opening screens and starting directly at the start game screen everything works fine.info off of another website helped.
by the way downloaded dx 9 twice but didnt help (cable modem) but just kidding about anti web page .this is good game just has lots of bugs that will get resolved.i also like all the mods that can be added but one has serious flaw.one anomaly upped my defense and attack to over 500 pts with one visit(new game started).dont know which one yet will isolate and report back. keep up the good work and pls get bug out of opening screens

also still cant register on stardock still keeps saying acct info cant be updated. if im doing something wrong pls let me know.
downloaded stardock files couple times with same result
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Reply #10 from Stardock Forums Top

Mike Dull: you may need to install the bink tools from http://www.radgametools.com/bnkdown.htm if you're having crashes before GC loads when you still have the opening screens.  Generally that's caused by something taking over the bik file assocations (like windvd or quicktime) and installing the bink tools should recapture the associations.

Did you buy the game used? If someone else owned your copy before you did, and registered it, that could be blocking you from registering.

Reply #11 from Stardock Forums Top
I installed directX 9.0b and a new nVidia driver both from the Microsoft website using Internet Explorer under Tools and Windows Update. I am not sure it helpd my CTD but I found one thing that did help. If I hit the return key while the tech tree or planet screen are open I get more CTD then if I close all screens before ending the turn. If I close screens and then use the mouse pointer to click on turn instead of hitting return or if I use the space bar to end the turn, I seem to get less CTD. I noticed this yesterday on the three games I submitted so this is still preliminary. But, others who get CTD might try closing all screens before ending the turn and avoiding the return/enter key and see if it helps. So far, I have been able to reload and get through the place where the CTD happened and finish the game. Good luck.

I bought my disk new from amazon.com but have installed all the patch updates. I didn't seem to have as many crashes before upgrading to 1.05 but then I didn't play as many games either so maybe some versions are more stable than others. Hope this helps.

Rick
Reply #12 from Stardock Forums Top
sorry guys didnt find out about everyone losing power in northeast til the next day. thats what kept me from registering with stardock.seems eveything is a go now.but i will download those tools from radgame and see if that helps with the stalling at the begining of game.thanks mike