getting prboom 202 to work

[cycloid]

graz! help! i'm trying to set up prboom 202 to use for demo recording, and i'm fairly certain i've had it running ok before but other versions of prboom kept trashing it's config file. i've discovered the -config switch now (which i use for the prboom walkcam version for example) but after a minute or so of prboom 202 runnning it quits out with a "seqmentation violation" error.

[Donce]

This error usually pops out when there's something wrong with the map. What map do you load? Try it without the -file parameter and see if the same happens.

[cycloid]

doom2.wad, i think it's sound related. e.g. when entering a room with lots of monsters in = lots of wakeup sounds at once?

[Donce]

I don't know how this could cause a segmentation violation error, but maybe you can try to revert to the original config file (right out of the prboom package)? I can't think of anything else at the moment.

[DEMOn]

there is a bug that exists when you use a resolution that it doesn't like. I think Grazza was the one who discovered this.
try loading prboom with -width and height parameters like 800x600 or something.

[cycloid]

1. tried deleting config file and letting it re create it itself

2. tried lots of differrent resolutions

next!

[Donce]

Well if you think it *may* be sound related, try reinstalling the soundcard software (drivers)? I've had Zdoom issues (crashing just after executing) and this solved the problem. This is a very wild suggestion though. Lastly, ugh, try PrBoom 2.2.4, reinstall Windows (though this may sound too drastic)?

Going a bit off the topic, I had a weird problem with win98, when both Internet and Windows explorer crashed after executing them, Netscape crashed on certain pages, and a few dll files constantly used to get corrupted. I updated IE to v6 (even if I never use it), but that even led to bigger probs. I did a clean windows reinstall.
After a month, the same things began to happen. I noticed it started just after installing DrWeb, the antivirus. Yes, that was the reason, though at work there are no problems with Drweb, which is installed on many computers for 2 years.

Conclusion: try to understand when (and possibly why) it happens, see if you can reproduce the crash, and think. I rarely can help when a not-so-standard problem arises on someone else's computer cause I'm not sitting next to it all the time and not seeing what goes on. But I solve nearly all probs (and find out nearly all reasons) on my own comp. Even a problem where I found out that I had to remove HDD's jumper to stop it from turning off randomly.

Ok, I'm getting completely offtopic, so I'll shut up and go to sleep now. Hope you'll fix it.

[Opulent]

? don't know.
You are using version 1.9 of the Iwad, right?
Does DOOM.wad work fine?
try posting your textdump on Prboom's site and see what the developers have to say.
There's always Eternity (or Zdoom/Legacy if you don't wish to have real game support)...

[Grazza]

I keep Prboom 2.02 in a different folder from other versions of prboom. I didn't do this for a specific reason, but just due to a general feeling that the different versions might interfere with each other's config files, etc. It has worked absolutely fine.

Regarding resolution, I haven't had any problems running Prboom 2.02 in a wide range of them. I've used 320x200, 640x480, 800x600 and 1600x1200, and even experimented with some silly ones (such as 320x1200 and 1600x200) - no problems with any of these.

It's more recent versions of Prboom.exe that seem more sensitive to resolution changes (640x480 works well; higher resolutions seem crash-prone during intermissions).

OK, so try putting prboom 2.02 in a separate folder (e.g. c:\prboom202), copy your iwads to that folder (not essential, but it avoids having to use the -iwad parameter and full DOS paths), and let us know how things go.

[Grazza]

DEMOn said:

there is a bug that exists when you use a resolution that it doesn't like. I think Grazza was the one who discovered this.
try loading prboom with -width and height parameters like 800x600 or something.

Oooh, I see what you mean. I started fiddling around with some resolutions I hadn't used before. No, I certainly wasn't the one who pointed out this particular bug. Wow.

It normally only seems to affect the music though, not the other sound effects. Most of this was when watching my Ic10P005.lmp - different music may be affected differently. At 1600x1000 I heard no music. At 1600x950 it was somewhat slowed down. At 1600x900 the intermission music was distorted. At 1600x1100 it refused to start, giving a "CRBRICK not found!" error. At 1600x1075, it was the same story but with "PNAMES not found!" At 1600x1150 and above, everything was normal.

Funny that there's this "island" of weirdness, given that everything is completely normal at 1600x1200 and 1600x200.

The following resolutions are listed in the README.TXT, so presumably were all tested:

  width    x    height
  --------------------
    320    x      200
    320    x      240
    400    x      300
    512    x      384
    640    x      400
    640    x      480
    800    x      600
    960    x      720
   1024    x      768
   1280    x     1024
   1600    x     1200

[cycloid]

well thanks, let's demolish your suggestions one by one

i use glboom (224) prboom (224) prboom+walkcam (230) zdoom (60.cab) legacy (1.40) and skulltag (0.95k) without any issues.

different versions of prboom use the -config command line parameter to specify their config files

my version of doom2.wad is fine and i get the same crash using pwads, noticably if i try to play back my recent fragport demo it crashes when i teleport in, suggesting the monster-wakeup issue i mentioned

my sound card is fine, i was using a bastard of a sound editor/multitracker with it yesterday evening (AFTER messing with prboom)

i've tried different resolutions, though i have noticed that the frame rate is very low at 1024

textdump? it doesnt generate any files (like stdout.txt)



seperate folder: pain in the ass as i have all my exes in the root with demos/wads/newstuff folders coming off it but i'll reorganise it i suppose


edit: seperate folder with just prb202.exe and doom2.wad in forcing it to start from default config = kaboom!

[Quasar]

The early PRBOOM sound code does have some bad bugs in it. I know because Eternity's sound code was based off of it, and I already had to fix them. So there might very well be something to the fact it seems to quit when a lot of sounds happen at once.

Eternity would often crash on the SDL_mixer thread right after the intermission sequence, when it plays all those pistol sounds over and over for the numbers ticking. This was because the code from PRBOOM didn't implement channel wrapping appropriately.

[rpeter]

Now I'm getting interested, too.

I always had crashes with prboom 2.02 now and then. I thought it was directdraw related. Recently picked up its code but it would not crash with a debug build. Bummer.