1.3.1 BETA patch to address freeze and audio issues

Smiling Panther · Post by **Smiling Panther** » Tue, 24. Jan 06, 01:25

Been playing the Beta patch for about a week now. Definitely better, but still having some issues. Lag is better, but still notable in some sectors. Particularly Seizewell. Fighting there is practically impossible for me due to lag. I've had *ZERO* CTD's with this patch, and I was having them at predictable 13 minute intervals with 1.3 in random areas. Currently I have 1 station with 2 automated Mercury UT's attached, a found Iguana sitting docked at a station, and a new Mercury I'm using to make cash auto protected by my original (but upgraded) Buster. I haven't advanced the storyline as far as in my CTD games (Haven't met the girl in FL yet), but I'm *much* further along in terms of game time: 5-17:04. I left the game running all day today while at work (no SETA) and now the menus are all wonky. The menu windows want to superimpose over one another with a flicker (imposed, not imposed, imposed, etc.) and are unusable with the mouse. If desired, I can post a dxdiag and a save game.

Mark T · Post by **Mark T** » Tue, 24. Jan 06, 01:30

i just got x3 today, ordered it from play.com and they were out of stock for about a month so its been a long wait, finaly got it and installed it, i expected it might take a little bit longer to load than x2 but it took alot longer, far as i remember my spec are alright for it as it does run it just tends to crash alot.... i installed the 1.3 patch and i got as far as cloudbase south west, but i didnt get the msg from the trainees so i assumed they were following me, after noticing they werent i headed back, on the way it crashed, but i got further than before, then i got the 1.3.01 beta patch, seemed like a big improvement from before, loading time was nearly what i get for x2 if not quicker i managed to get to the second mission, took out all the baddies , goner spewed and then it looked like it was loading a sector, it then crashed after a bit, and when the desktop came up it was the annoying supersized rezolution way with bad colors and all the visual prowess of the old bbc computers....with a error report saying my graphics card stoped working, its fine now after a restart but i thought it would be worth letting the people working on the mod know incase it helps at all.

I dont have a list of my exact specs but i know its a Pentium 4, 512mb ram, ATI radeon 9200 graphics card(i think i know its in the 9000s) ive got a 180gb hard drive with about 40gb free, the paging file was set up way higher than normal for another game but i thought that would help if anything, and its xp media centre edition that im running, as far as i know its all compatible with dx 9.0c as i can run all the other new games i amassed over christmas which require the full compatibility, plus the dx diagnostic says its working good.

Julius_Sneezer · Post by **Julius_Sneezer** » Tue, 24. Jan 06, 01:41

Yes it is installed correctly Mr. Rude. It says 1.3.1.

SparkyMahn · Post by **SparkyMahn** » Tue, 24. Jan 06, 03:27

Nice! with the small amount of testing I've had time for there have been exactly 0 crashes... and this is on a saved game that would crash at least twice while trying to cross a sector!!!!

WooHoo!

grbaker · Post by **grbaker** » Tue, 24. Jan 06, 03:56

Has anyone else noticed a PPC weapon causing 'lagging' durring a Xenon Invasion in this beta patch..?

When a friendly race M2 jumps in to help the seems to be extra lag (slow down) when it starts firing its G-PPC's at enemy ships.

Was playing at 1280x1024 - High - High - Glow on - AA-4 AF-4. Have done about 14 XI missions spread over the previous 2 patch levels.

Maybe my 6800 128Mb isn't up to it but I didn't see this kinda lag in previous XI missions unless it was amounst the asteriods in Eighteen Billion.

Tare69 · Post by **Tare69** » Tue, 24. Jan 06, 08:33

Seems to me that sometimes when entering Argon Prime 'You entering, you entering, you entering (or what it was)' stuck but about 10-20 sec later you entering to sector

So loop... And sometimes 'You entering atmosphire' when using some gate.

PCDave666 · Post by **PCDave666** » Tue, 24. Jan 06, 14:18

Will this patch fix force feedback on josticks?? I have to finely position mine as it uses the force feedback to center the joystick otherwise its a bit wobbly!!!

PCDave666 · Post by **PCDave666** » Tue, 24. Jan 06, 14:41

Will this patch fix issues with Force Feedback on josticks as mine use the the FFB to center its self otherwise its finely balanced to keep it central!

apricotslice · Post by **apricotslice** » Tue, 24. Jan 06, 14:52

Update :

Another long session. No casualties to auto-pillok, except my own ship which continues to want to slide into the really big asteroids after it tries to evade them way too late.

The gerbil has windows and glasses, but seems to be blind to really big roids.

Problem is definitely when a large roid is precisely between you and the target at the moment you turn the auto-pilot on. If the way is clear and subsequently the minor avoidance brings one into the line, it will successfuly avoid everything, even though at one point it did a complete 180 and was heading back the way I came for 30 seconds or so to get round a nasty group. The 1.3 roids make this very difficult at times.

It can do it properly, its just seeming to be that one inconsistency when the auto-pilot is turned on that kills you.

D_Zorro · Post by **D_Zorro** » Tue, 24. Jan 06, 17:27

Looks like i been away for too long now. Just got back from my vacation and what do you have here a new beta patch.

Anyway just tried it out a bit. I must say this really improved my game 200%
Really fast now. Even Orebelt is relative ok now.

I did make a backup of my current game so no problem with testing it out with this beta patch.

The only problem i encountered so far is A.I. I have a fairly big fleet at the moment Have 1 collausus fully kitted out with about 60 ships onboard. Anyway wen't out to test this this and defeated the xenon fleet in Xenon sector 347, everything was ok till we have attacked the xenon station Then all of a sudden all my ships kept crashing and destroying itself against the station.

Even though that xenon fleet was dangerous i really think that station is even more deadly then that xenon fleet combined. I haven't lost that manny ships against the xenon it self but more against the station.

Well that's my 2 cents for now. If i find anything out of the ordinary i will report back here. ( DZorro out )

DZorro,

The_Silent_One · Post by **The_Silent_One** » Tue, 24. Jan 06, 22:40

I have had a lot of stability problems with this game. I finally installed a dedicated drive for it on a second computer. i Installed Windows XP SP2, latest, N-Force 4 Drivers, LatestATI Catalyst Drivers, Latest Build of Directx9.0c and latest build of Windows Media Player 10. I then installed the game and patched it to 1.3. It was still unstable. I learned to save a lot because it would freeze a lot.

Since installing the beta patch, I have been able to run time acceleration for hours without a crash. Twice, I have come back to find it at the main menu, ??? since I was travelling way outside normal sector boundaries...
Anyways, the game is finally stable for me.

Gigabyte K8NXP-SLI
AMD Thlon64 3500+
Powercolor Radeon X800-XL 256MB PCI-E
2048MB PC3200 Value DDR RAM
Maxtor 300Gb SATA D-Max 10 16MB
N-Vidia Onboard Audio

apricotslice · Post by **apricotslice** » Tue, 24. Jan 06, 23:49

D_Zorro wrote:The only problem i encountered so far is A.I. I have a fairly big fleet at the moment Have 1 collausus fully kitted out with about 60 ships onboard. Anyway wen't out to test this this and defeated the xenon fleet in Xenon sector 347, everything was ok till we have attacked the xenon station Then all of a sudden all my ships kept crashing and destroying itself against the station.

Suggestion : Can you uninstall the 1.3.1 patch, then reinstall it, then rerun that senaria. I'm interested to know if you lose any ships to crashing into the station after the reinstall.

The_Silent_One · Post by **The_Silent_One** » Wed, 25. Jan 06, 07:23

I spoke too soon. Game is a lot more stable, but 2 crashes today. one to desktop and one repeating the ships computer talking about astroidswhile frozen.

The_Silent_One · Post by **The_Silent_One** » Wed, 25. Jan 06, 07:38

OK, the game is alot more stable on time acceleration. When playing... I have locked up in Montalaar 3-4 times in 15 mintues...

apricotslice · Post by **apricotslice** » Wed, 25. Jan 06, 08:20

Spoke to soon too. Experienced the unable to undock freeze for the first time. And slid into a roid sideways on auto-pillok. And watched my mammoth ram a roid it shouldnt have been anywhere near. And had my new complex self-destruct on me. *sigh* Been a bad day. Next play, reload and do it all again, only with out the catastrophees this time.

spaceproby · Post by **spaceproby** » Wed, 25. Jan 06, 15:46

I followed Sticky's tutorial on how to diagnose DShow. Its very complicated and I can't claim to fully understand it. My problem is freezes and crashes during gameplay, I get a few minutes before it all falls down. Using the Dshow viewer and manager I think I isolated the problem to WMSpeech Decoder DMO,,,wmspod.dll This file was not being caught by X3 yet it is in Sticky's Dshow box? I have no idea what it is or how to get it into X3 but maybe you chaps can figure it out. As to the "unexpected files detected in use by X3" My game has 21 red fields?? many of these files are in c:\Windows\system32 or IME? No good asking me, I just wanted to play X3. The Dshow viewer says "a problem with your configuration prevented a direct show graph from being built. Rendering error detected in SPEEC. If you have made some changes go back and undo them" I wouldn't know where to start, I have reinstalled too often, sick of it and very dissappointed. PC specs in brief: XP service pack2 most recent updates. PCI-E ATI X850xt pe, Audigy 2 zs all up to date, giga-byte motherboard drivers up to date inc. bios. I am going to try the Beta Patch now ( I have tried ver1 ver1.3 with no luck) If this patch doesn't work I finished with X3, its meant to be fun and on a high spec system like mine I don't expect so many problems. If anyone knows what all this means then please let me know, especially STICKY. I am most grateful for any suggestions.

H.F._Mudd · Post by **H.F._Mudd** » Wed, 25. Jan 06, 18:32

apricotslice wrote:
D_Zorro wrote:The only problem i encountered so far is A.I. I have a fairly big fleet at the moment Have 1 collausus fully kitted out with about 60 ships onboard. Anyway wen't out to test this this and defeated the xenon fleet in Xenon sector 347, everything was ok till we have attacked the xenon station Then all of a sudden all my ships kept crashing and destroying itself against the station.
Suggestion : Can you uninstall the 1.3.1 patch, then reinstall it, then rerun that senaria. I'm interested to know if you lose any ships to crashing into the station after the reinstall.

I started having that problem with 1.3 and 1.3.1b DID NOT fix it... If you need to destroy a station, I'd advise doing it with 1 PLAYER CONTROLLED Cap Ship.

MadBoris · Post by **MadBoris** » Wed, 25. Jan 06, 18:51

spaceproby wrote: I followed Sticky's tutorial on how to diagnose DShow. Its very complicated and I can't claim to fully understand it. My problem is freezes and crashes during gameplay, I get a few minutes before it all falls down. Using the Dshow viewer and manager I think I isolated the problem to WMSpeech Decoder DMO,,,wmspod.dll This file was not being caught by X3 yet it is in Sticky's Dshow box? I have no idea what it is or how to get it into X3 but maybe you chaps can figure it out. As to the "unexpected files detected in use by X3" My game has 21 red fields?? many of these files are in c:\Windows\system32 or IME? No good asking me, I just wanted to play X3. The Dshow viewer says "a problem with your configuration prevented a direct show graph from being built. Rendering error detected in SPEEC. If you have made some changes go back and undo them" I wouldn't know where to start, I have reinstalled too often, sick of it and very dissappointed. PC specs in brief: XP service pack2 most recent updates. PCI-E ATI X850xt pe, Audigy 2 zs all up to date, giga-byte motherboard drivers up to date inc. bios. I am going to try the Beta Patch now ( I have tried ver1 ver1.3 with no luck) If this patch doesn't work I finished with X3, its meant to be fun and on a high spec system like mine I don't expect so many problems. If anyone knows what all this means then please let me know, especially STICKY. I am most grateful for any suggestions.

Not many fully understand it, so don't be suprised

. I replied to you in the wmfdist thread, see my reply there.
BTW, it's possible a save has gotten corrupted and you can find out for sure by testing with a brand new game for a while. If it's a save you can only go back to an older one, there is no way to fix the save.

dtm17 · Post by **dtm17** » Wed, 25. Jan 06, 20:48

just to say sorry for some of my earlier posts moaning about codec problems even after a fresh install of windows, it turns out my codecs were fine, and i hadnt pushed my graphics card back in hard enough after id finished pissin round with my pc

1.3 & the beta work fine for me all round!
i love you guys at egosoft really! xxx

HavocDadelous · Post by **HavocDadelous** » Wed, 25. Jan 06, 20:59

The Beta patch seemed to be working but after 3hrs+ play it started again, I still get frequent lockups during SETA and the occasional hang with the sound looping. I have also noticed reduced performance, especially during combat. I look forward to a patch that actually fixes the problems many of us seem to experience.

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P4 2.6GHz HT Enabled
1GB RAM
Aopen AX4C Max II
Aopen Aelous 6800GT
SB Audigy 2 ZS
WD 74Gb Raptor
DX 9.0c
WinXP SP2
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1.3.1 BETA patch to address freeze and audio issues

X3 crashes after a few minutes no matter what I do. Followed Sticky's advice.