MAV on new computer
Blitz3D Forums/Blitz3D Programming/MAV on new computer
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| I recently got a new computer, and I've been noticing something really odd. Some blitz executables that ran fine on my old computer aren't working on my new computer. They're crashing out with a MAV, sometimes immediately but sometimes after going through the games' intro menu. For example, I have the demo of tigerz's game Surviving; the intro menu comes up, but when I hit the button to start the game it gets a MAV. In the case of executables I compiled (and thus have the code to,) they run fine if I recompile on my new computer. Does anyone have any thoughts on why this is happening? I realize I haven't given much information so I'm not too hopeful that this problem is actually going to get diagnosed, but I'm wondering if this is a problem anyone else has experienced. |
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| I hate to say this but I've never had a problem like this ... every Blitz3D compiled exe that I've written has worked fine on every machine I've tried. If there was ever a bug then it appeared on all. The only differences I came across were the obvious: machine B was twice as fast as A so animation/rendering ran faster etc. My condolences. This is definitely a 'worst nightmare' scenario. |
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| Joe, There was an issue a while back with SP2 and executables not working in 1.88 or lower (I think) if you remember - do you have the very latest update of B3d? Oh hold on that was they didnt work at all - ever , not half way through sorry! Ipete2. |
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| I didn't know about that; I'll have to look for the bug report. do you have the very latest update of B3d? Yes, now. As I said, executables work fine after I recompile them; I'm wondering why old executables (in particular other people's games) aren't working. |
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| Is this a DEP issue? |
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| I hope this isn't an obvious question... Have you installed Blitz updates? If you're running programs written in v1.88 they may not run on a fresh installation of v1.84. |
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| He's only got a problem with exe files. You don't need any version of blitz installed to run them. ;) This is why I thought it might be a DEP problem because the games may have been compiled with an earlier version of blitz that doesn't have the DEP fix. |
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| " I'm wondering why old executables (in particular other people's games) aren't working." - That's scary. |
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| "Is this a DEP issue?" That's exactly what I was referring to in my original post - I just could not remember the name of the damn thing. DEP problem exists with older executables on XP SP2 machines because the executables were not made with a version of Blitz 1.88 or highter (cant remember which one version it actually was this is a guess - but it will be listed on the history around that release). Fully functional programmes suddenly stopped working due to the installation of SP2. DEP is a security upgrade of some sort to do with memory useage as I recall. It had not been accounted for in earlier versions of Blitz3D (as it didn't exist before SP2) - so when you made the exectuable it was not DEP proof, thus they MAV'd. This means these executables will work on pc's pre XP-SP2 but not on XP with SP2. Simply update the Blitz version to the most recent update as I originally suggested before you recompile. Older stuff and other peoples stuff won't work - and the only way around it is to recompile under the upgraded Blitz with DEP support. I hope thats the issue - and you can solve it easily. IPete2. |
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| I'm curious about the details of the DEP issue. Not all old executables are having problems. |
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| Must be ones accesing, or using certain computer resources. |
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| I believe you can turn off DEP to get older stuff to run. Not sure how you do this as I don't have XP. |
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| thanks for that info about DEP IPete2. Btw, versions.txt reads this for the "V1.88" release. Changed exe code malloc for DEP (Data execution prevention). |
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| Hey Muk, Nice one! I didnt have time to check it out - but I would think that the DEP issue is what Joe is suffering from... IPete2. |
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| I also get this problem now that I rebuilt and reinstalled and then updated to 1.90. About 50% of my old collected jems and fun games from many different peoples here back in the blitcoder.com days are MAV'in. My question is I have XP but SP1, BUT I did go with an Athlon 64 and all the goodies that go with it, like Express PCI Vid card, and 1gig of dual channel memory. Would the 64 Bit thingy be an issue to cause this..? Again this is compiled exe's and actually some recent stuff posted here that I've downloaded and tried, only to get instant MAV or get thru a menu into the actual loading and poof MAV time. |
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| No its your processor that does have the NX Bit extension. Pre 1.88 Blitz did some "mean" stuff out of todays security meanings which lets them break with "secure" processors. |
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| It could also be your video card, after I upgraded from a Geforce FX 5700 to a 6600, I have been getting the same errors on older exe's that was complied with pre 1.88 Blitz. I have never had any problems with DEP on my system when running Blitz exe's. |
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| I have the same problem as James. TreeMagik, for example, worked just fine with SP2 on my old PC ( with Radeon 9700 Pro ) but does not work at all on my new PC ( with GF6600 GT ) I recall the old CopyEntity bug, but I didn't know there was a MAV bug. Kinda makes you worry about starting on a B3D project with all these niggling problems lying around. Particuarly since we've no idea who long we might be left waiting if a new problem cropped up. |
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| I have both an Athlon 64 and a GeForce 6600. @gabriel: I wouldn't worry about starting a b3d project because of this, but it is something to be aware of. As I've mentioned multiple times, once I recompile the executables work fine. ADDITION: This doesn't make much sense to me, but it seems like the new drivers from nVidia may be the culprit. ADDITION 2: Alright, is there anyone who can save me the time of searching through the bug forum by telling me this is a known problem? ADDITION 3: I still have to check this myself when I get home, but the problem seems to be with non-standard texture sizes. That's odd; blitz always resized the textures on older cards, and the latest versions of blitz are doing this on the new card, but apparently old versions of blitz won't resize the texture on new vid cards. |
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| heh Actually, it may well be an ImageCollide problem. with newer GFX cards (GF 6800!) this command fails sometimes. Not sure if it was fixed, but i dont use the command anymoer anyhow. Had to work around it quite a few times :) |
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| Well that's good to know about I guess (I don't know, maybe I'll do a 2D game sometime. Or not.) but definitely not the case here. The problematic executables I was referring to are all 3D games, and thus don't use that command. Anyway, I was able to confirm last night that the problem is due to non-standard image sizes for the textures. Basically I took one old exe that was working and changed one of the textures; bang, it no longer worked. So remember kids, powers of 2! |
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| I'd forgotten about that ImagesCollide bug. versions.txt does say: ***** V1.86 ***** Fixed: Evil, ancient ImagesCollide bug. But I *thought* I'd heard more about problems with ImagesCollide since v1.86 - I hope I'm wrong. :) |
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| No, you arent wrong, big10p :( I think a similar problem stayed until recently. At least, b3d 1.89 was crashing on my machine and an imagescollide function was the culprit. The exe worked on another machine however. And yeah, the 6800s also got an update i beleive with certain sized textures. |
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