Same game-box: Vista works, XP doesn't

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Bill Barrett
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Post by Bill Barrett »

Well it's certainly a bit of a puzzle, but trying to run graphics heavy gameboxes with only 1GB of RAM is not going to help matters :wink:

I assume that you've played around with the display settings on your XP machine to reduce the load?

I'm certain that it was the interlaced graphics that crashed my computer - I haven't had a hint of a problem since...

Regards, Bill.
Woody8297
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Post by Woody8297 »

It is indeed a puzzle. And for me, without another XP machine to test against, it will have to remain so. I'm glad changing the files to non-interlaced worked for you. And I thank you for introducing me to the wonderful IrfanView program. I will definitely make good use of it. So for now, I'll give up on my XP and continue work with my wife's little Celeron Vista machine which seems to run everything.
Thanks, Bill, for your time, your ideas, for downloading my gameboxes and checking my files and basically for hanging in there. You're a gem.
Frank
Woody8297
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Post by Woody8297 »

So, many weeks later I've finished my Anzio-Italia game box. And it seems to run fine on the several machines I've tested it with. For anyone interested in the Italian campaign you can download it here: http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?3q8qzg9q13pc8cj

I never did find out what the problem was with the earlier versions. A friend of mine experienced the same crashes with his XP machine. If it was due to interlaced graphics, this latest version has none of them. I'd appreciate any feedback if anyone downloads this game-box and has any problems.

Thanks to all.
Frank
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Bill Barrett
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Post by Bill Barrett »

Hi Frank,

That's a very impressive gamebox and it's nice to see my D-Day air support markers getting reused ;-)

It's also nice to see someone else doing counters at 600dpi and using terrains to full effect.

However, I did get a couple of errors when I added it to my library - two of your scenarios (Sicily and Standard OOB) were reported as having "non-empty private hand content". I presume that you had the good idea that players might want to start with some counters or charts already loaded; unfortunately this doesn't work, because only the player who puts something in their "hand" can access it, and of course in this case that player would be you and you alone ;-)

Also, I was initially puzzled by your inclusion of terrain overlays for some of the charts until I realised that you'd made them at a higher resolution than the map for increased clarity - clever. Personally I wouldn't have been able to resist doing everything at 300dpi, but I know that might overload lower-spec machines. That said, because the low-rez charts on the map are always covered by your overlays, there's no need to have them there at all. I experimented by blanking them out with blue boxes and saved around 650k...

Regards, Bill.
Woody8297
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Joined: 21 Feb 2012, 00:57
Location: CT

Post by Woody8297 »

Hi Bill,

Thanks for the compliments and critiques. I knew I should have run it by you before I put it out for downloading but I didn't want to impose. Thank you for checking it out.
...it's nice to see my D-Day air support markers getting reused.
Yep, I sure do like your Air Support markers!
However, I did get a couple of errors when I added it to my library - two of your scenarios (Sicily and Standard OOB) were reported as having "non-empty private hand content".
Darn! I thought I double-checked everything but I missed the stuff that was "in hand" when the "Terrain trowel" was on. If I had removed the game-box from my library after I made changes and then added it back again I would have seen that ZunTzu had picked up the errors. The next game-box I do I'll make sure to make that my final check.
Personally I wouldn't have been able to resist doing everything at 300dpi
I wanted to do it at 300dpi but I didn't have the actual map, only the map file that was scanned at 72dpi. And I soon found out that any image/chart that I put on the map itself was rendered at that same low resolution. I don't know why that is but it forced me to use terrain overlays to keep my charts legible. I think once I had the low-rez charts covered over I forgot about them. You're right, they're unnecessary, I should have caught that.

So I learned quite a bit and even had some fun doing it. I don't know if I'll ever play this game. (The guy that wanted me to do it has never gotten back to me.) But it was all very interesting and I think I will do another--after I get caught up on all the work I let slide.

Best to you Bill.
Frank
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