This game CONSTANTLY crashes!

[Malfiros]

I'm so glad it autosaves *almost* every move I make, but restarting the game every second move gets pretty f*cking old. "DLL too old"? Please fix this. I'm fed up.

[AMX]

Can you provide more information?
What does the error message say, exactly?
Details of your system?
Which troubleshooting steps have you tried already?
(Windowed mode? Simplified Graphics?)

[Malfiros]

This is a stupidly simple game, graphically speaking. But sure, here ya go:

CPU: AMD Phenom II X2 550 Processor
RAM: 8192 MB (8 GB)
GPU: AMD Radeon HD 7700 Series
GPU RAM: 999 MB (1 GB)
OS: Windows 7 Service Pack 1 64-bit
Threads: 2 logical processors

I'll get the exact wording of the crash for you in about 5 minutes, but like I said before, something along the lines of "DLL too old"

[Malfiros]

As promised, here was the next crash... 17 minutes from last I posted. I even used the first ten minutes to make an oven pizza. NOM!

It said "SiS Crash Handler" in the title, followed by:
DBGHELP.DLL too old
(click OK)

SO SICK OF THIS!

[sven4669]

Originally posted by Malfiros:

As promised, here was the next crash... 17 minutes from last I posted. I even used the first ten minutes to make an oven pizza. NOM!

It said "SiS Crash Handler" in the title, followed by:
DBGHELP.DLL too old
(click OK)

SO SICK OF THIS!

Would you try going into the Options pane, and (in the bottom right) clicking 'Simplified Graphics'? That might well fix it. Also, of course, you can try updating your AMD drivers.

However, we know (thanks to Alamar's careful testing), that the best AMD driver for the HD 7700 is probably not the most recent crimson driver (which is a bit buggy with the 7700-7900 cards), but rather the older 16.12.2 driver, which you can get here:

http://support.amd.com/en-us/kb-articles/Pages/Radeon-Software-Crimson-ReLive-Edition-16.12.2-Release-Notes.aspx

[Danath]

I'm having very frequent crashes with the same error message, and my GPU is not old (RX 470)

[sven4669]

Originally posted by Danath:

I'm having very frequent crashes with the same error message, and my GPU is not old (RX 470)

Which driver version are you on? If you open up your Radeon Settings, and go to System->Software, it will give you all sorts of detailed info. The most important, for our purposes, is probably the Drivers Packaging version. Though if you want to be thorough, you can hit "Copy All" inside the Software Setting pane, and paste the whole data dump into a reply.

For example, I'm on an R7 250, running with CrimsonReLive 17.30.1041. But my complete specs are:

Radeon Settings Version - 2017.0720.1902.32426
Driver Packaging Version - 17.30.1041-170720a-316467C-CrimsonReLive
Provider - Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.
2D Driver Version - 8.1.1.1614
Direct3D® Version - 9.14.10.01292
OpenGL® Version - 6.14.10.13491
OpenCL™ Version - 22.19.662.4
AMD Mantle Version - 9.1.10.0220
AMD Mantle API Version - 102400
AMD Audio Driver Version - 10.0.1.1
Vulkan™ Driver Version - 1.6.0
Vulkan™ API Version - 1.0.51

If you're on an older AMD driver, that's likely the issue. AMD driver updates can be found here:

http://support.amd.com/en-us/download/auto-detect-tool

[Danath]

Radeon Settings Version - 2017.0815.1452.24946
Driver Packaging Version - 17.30.1051.1011-170815a2-317202C-CrimsonReLive
Provider - Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.
2D Driver Version - 8.1.1.1614
Direct3D® Version - 9.14.10.01292
OpenGL® Version - 6.14.10.13492
OpenCL™ Version - 22.19.666.1
AMD Mantle Version - 9.1.10.0220
AMD Mantle API Version - 102400
AMD Audio Driver Version - 7.12.0.7725
Vulkan™ Driver Version - 1.6.0
Vulkan™ API Version - 1.0.51

17.8.1 installed, 17.9.1 currently available... might give it a try

[sven4669]

Originally posted by Danath:

17.8.1 installed, 17.9.1 currently available... might give it a try

Well, your driver is actually newer than mine, which suggests that the bug you're seeing may be introduced by some new optimization in AMDs OpenGL driver. Let me know if you have any luck with the latest available RX driver. (My own R7 doesn't appear to want to update to the 17.30.1051.1011 build.)

If that doesn't work, the short term fix is almost certainly to turn on the 'Simplified Graphics' option inside SiS. Then wait for either me or AMD's driver team to figure out just what's going wrong; one or the other of us will probably track down the issue eventually. But until that happens, 'Simplified Graphics' should keep you out of the parts of the game code most likely to cause driver bugs.

[Danath]

Nope, still crashing after 3-4 turns. With last Crimsom update :<
Little note: I don't know if that update made my turn screen to load faster or AI turns are shorter (like half the time it used to) because I've blockaded most of their planets
Edit: simple graphics made turns happen even faster.

[sven4669]

Originally posted by Danath:

Nope, still crashing after 3-4 turns. With last Crimsom update :<

Ok. I've sent an email to AMD's technical support people, maybe they can help me track down the issue. In the meantime, would you try playing with 'Simplified Graphics' turned on, and let me know if that fixes the crashes?

[Malfiros]

Originally posted by sven4669:

Originally posted by Malfiros:

As promised, here was the next crash... 17 minutes from last I posted. I even used the first ten minutes to make an oven pizza. NOM!

It said "SiS Crash Handler" in the title, followed by:
DBGHELP.DLL too old
(click OK)

SO SICK OF THIS!

Would you try going into the Options pane, and (in the bottom right) clicking 'Simplified Graphics'? That might well fix it. Also, of course, you can try updating your AMD drivers.

However, we know (thanks to Alamar's careful testing), that the best AMD driver for the HD 7700 is probably not the most recent crimson driver (which is a bit buggy with the 7700-7900 cards), but rather the older 16.12.2 driver, which you can get here:

http://support.amd.com/en-us/kb-articles/Pages/Radeon-Software-Crimson-ReLive-Edition-16.12.2-Release-Notes.aspx

Hey! Did the simplified graphics thing, and so far so good! THANK YOU!

[Danath]

Can confirm, simplified graphics fixes the issue.