Alien Vendetta.exe (av.exe) crashes

[Joe Todd]

When I run av.exe, it asks me to calibrate my joystick, and after that, it crashes with Z_malloc: failed on allocation. Anyone know what is causing this? Note: this happens to me also when it doesn't ask me to calibrate, so consider that as an extra detail.

[myk]

av.exe is the same as doom2.exe except that the automap level names and intermission texts are changed. Does this also happen to you using doom2.exe? Have you been using doom2 to play DOOM or do you normally use doom95 or a source engine?

It seems by what you say that you don't... Alien Vendetta works with any engine, though if you want to see the correct map names and texts you need to use av.exe or a source engine or "port" with av.deh (doom95 does not support DeHackEd patches.)

You can get av.deh here:

ftp://3darchives.in-span.net/pub/idgames/utils/exe_edit/patches/avdeh.zip

[Grazza]

myk said:

Alien Vendetta works with any engine

Just one small point: IIRC, Zdoom crashes at one point in Map30 (you can use IDCLIP to get through the problematic area and then resume playing as normal - so make a savegame at the start of Map30). I don't recall whether other source ports have the same problem.

[Biffy]

Grazza said:

Just one small point: IIRC, Zdoom crashes at one point in Map30 (you can use IDCLIP to get through the problematic area and then resume playing as normal - so make a savegame at the start of Map30). I don't recall whether other source ports have the same problem.

Has this bug been figured out, to determine if it's a map error or a zdoom bug? If zdoom is suspected, has anyone posted a bug report in the zdoom forums? I'll try a search for it....

[NiGHTMARE]

It's because the creator of the level forgot to/didn't realize you could/was too lazy to clean up the level, so there are unused sectors with tags (which ZDoom and some other ports don't like).

[Biffy]

I just played map30 of AV with zdoom. No problems at all. I wonder where the "problem area" is supposed to be, where icdlip would help???

[Biffy]

NiGHTMARE said:

It's because the creator of the level forgot to/didn't realize you could/was too lazy to clean up the level, so there are unused sectors with tags (which ZDoom and some other ports don't like).

Man, you ain't kidding! I just ran a DeePsea error check on map30 and there were many errors, all apparently non-fatal. Plenty of sectors not closed, one sector with an unused tag, other stuff. I've never seen a sector with an unused tag be a problem with zdoom, going back to version 1.17. Perhaps a line with a tag which no sector shares?

Anyhow, there is no bug report on zdoom forums but none appears to be warranted.

[999cop]

well, I heard av map24 has a problem running in coop mode, as my cousin and my bro were trying to play it on zone

[Grazza]

Biffy said:

I just played map30 of AV with zdoom. No problems at all. I wonder where the "problem area" is supposed to be, where icdlip would help???

It crashed with the version of Zdoom that was the latest one when AV came out (I've just tried it with beta 28a, and it well and truly crashed). As you say though, beta 33 doesn't object to it, so no need for a bug report.

[Biffy]

Thanks for verifying, Grazza.

[Andy Johnsen]

Unfortunately some AV maps had a few last minute tweaks w/o proper cleanup done. This shouldn't lead to any problems running regular doom2, but some ports are more sensitive to this. Map30 was the last map I did for av, and belive me Nick, lazyness had less to do with it than lack of time since we wanted to break a trend and keep our announced date of releas. We spent around 12 h a day the last week to get it out. It was primarily intended for 1.9 and it works there, so I couldn't care less really if theres a few leftovers here and there :)

[Andy Johnsen]

btw cop, any idea what the problem with map24 was? afaik it was the most coop tested map in av, heh

[Woolie Wool]

Andy Johnsen said:

Unfortunately some AV maps had a few last minute tweaks w/o proper cleanup done. This shouldn't lead to any problems running regular doom2, but some ports are more sensitive to this. Map30 was the last map I did for av, and belive me Nick, lazyness had less to do with it than lack of time since we wanted to break a trend and keep our announced date of releas. We spent around 12 h a day the last week to get it out. It was primarily intended for 1.9 and it works there, so I couldn't care less really if theres a few leftovers here and there :)

Never announce a release date. A PWAD should be released "when it's done."

[Andy Johnsen]

"When its done"...hmm. well yes, because we all know stuff with that sorta drive behind it is always released too. Right.

Right? :)

[999cop]

Andy Johnsen said:

btw cop, any idea what the problem with map24 was? afaik it was the most coop tested map in av, heh

not sure, it was when my little brother nightfall and my cousin chewy were trying to run that map but then both comps were gone frozen once the program performed

it was on zone, btw

also, andy, it is okay to re-release a fixed version of it if there is still any errors with it, imo

[Andy Johnsen]

cop, ok...thnx for mentioning. I'll ask vincent if he have any idea about map24.

About releasing a fix, I suppose most people wouldn't mind, except the ones who spent hours playing the levels for demo recording =P

[NiGHTMARE]

Andy Johnsen said:

lazyness had less to do with it than lack of time since we wanted to break a trend and keep our announced date of releas.

Laziness was only one of three possible options I listed :) Besides, it hardly takes any time at all just to remove unused sectors.

[Ichor]

I learned that lesson the hard way. I announced that Carnage Galore 3 would be finished by around the end of March (or was it April?). When it wasn't, I felt like so many others who have continually delayed and pushed back their deadlines to the point where no one believed them anymore. I didn't want to rush to beat the deadline and sacrifice a lot of quality, so I just continued working on it until I finished the first of four or five episodes...in early August. With no deadline looming over me, I could concentrate more on making a better game than finishing it on time.