minidump wtf?

from Stardock Forums
i've had sins since the beginnign never had problems. i get the entrenchment mini-expansion. and i get these minidump messages always in the late game in multiplayer single player doesnt matter. what is going on?  i guess ill add the proper minidump message when it comes up. i do not think it is my computer.


Minimum: Pentium 4 or Athlon XP equivalent
You Have: 2 processors running - Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU T9500 @ 2.6GHz
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CPU Speed
Minimum: 1.7 GHz
You Have: 2.6 GHz Performance Rated at 6.76 GHz
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System RAM
Minimum: 512 MB
You Have: 4.0 GB
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Operating System
Minimum: Windows XP (32-bit version)
You Have: Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium Edition, 64-bit (Build Service Pack 16001)
 PASS  
Video Card
Minimum: 100% DirectX 9 compatible 128MB Direct3D Card (GeForce FX 5700+/Radeon 8500, 9500+)
You Have: NVIDIA GeForce 9700M GT (GeForce 9700M GT)
 PASS  
Video Card Features - Minimum attributes of your Video Card
Video RAM: Required - 128 MB , You have - 2.2 GB
Video Card 3D Acceleration: Required - Yes , You have - Yes
Video HW Transform & Lighting: Required - Yes , You have - Yes
Vertex Shader Ver.: Required - 2.0 , You have - 4.0
Pixel Shader Ver.: Required - 2.0 , You have - 4.0
Video Card Driver Version (DirectX)
Your driver version number is: 7.15.11.8520
   FYI: Your video card driver version is provided for your information, but it is not part of this analysis. But proper video card driver versions are important to the proper operation of your product.  
DirectX Version
Minimum: 9.0 (included)
You Have: 10.0
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Sound Card
Minimum: Yes
You Have: Speakers (Realtek High Definiti
   PASS  
Sound Card Driver Version
Your driver version number is: 6.0
   FYI: Your sound card driver version is provided for your information, but it is not part of this analysis. But proper sound card driver versions are important to the proper operation of your product.  
Free Disk Space
Minimum: 2.3 GB plus space for Windows swap file and save data
You Have: 171.4 GB
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CD
Minimum: 8X speed CD-ROM (This game contains technology intended to prevent copying that may conflict with some CD/DVD-ROM, CD/DVD-RW and virtual drives.)
You Have: Optiarc BD ROM BC-5500S
47,259 views 11 replies
Reply #1 from Stardock Forums Top

Hey mate,

             Can i ask what program you used to get all this info.

Reply #2 from Stardock Forums Top

it really is quite astounding that this problem still exists after all the patches and time since it first presented itself.. How could you not make any progress on a problem so big it prevents people from playing your game while tweaking other smaller things?  I've been playing computer games all my life and I never saw one so unstable that crashes literally every time unless you adhere to certain rules such as putting every graphics effect to minimum and only playing small games.. Even after the last patch, no progress on this problem whatsoever.... The only thing that's come out of it for me is that I would never buy a game from Ironclad or Stardock again.. Any company that would release a product this sloppy clearly has bigger problems to deal with than a minidump :D

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Siege of Centauri
Reply #3 from Stardock Forums Top

it could be any of a number of things causing it.

check your event log the next time it happens.

it should give you an error code you can track down on MS to narrow it down as to the cause.

Reply #4 from Stardock Forums Top

tried playing hte game should i actually go to the minidump on the computer? here is the info:

Saved MiniDump:

 

C:\Users\John\AppData\Local\Temp\Sins Dump\Sins-Entrenchment 

v.102-2009-03-25-23-40-10-1612-3064.dmp

 

 

and to DMC rapier. the site is SRTEST.com its a great site for knowing whether or not your computer can handle the selected game. has 1000's of games you just choose one.

Reply #5 from Stardock Forums Top

The problem may be due to some Beta files not properly removed. You will need to manually remove the game folder, and delete 2 Registry Keys before you'll be able to re-install. Then the install should go better.

Go to C:\Program Files\Stardock Games\Sins of a Solar Empire (or where ever you installed the game) and delete the main folder.

Then launch the System Registry (Start-> run, and type regedit)
Look for and delete the following Keys;

For XP and Vista 32 bit;
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Stardock\Drengin.net\sins
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Stardock\Drengin.net\sinsentrench

For Vista 64 bit;
HKLM>SOFTWARE>Wow6432Node>Stardock>Drengin.net>sins
HKLM>SOFTWARE>Wow6432Node>Stardock>Drengin.net>sinsentrench

Then, reboot your PC and go back to Impulse and try installing the base game. Make sure it installs to 1.16 version, test it out before then
installing entrenchment.

Reply #6 from Stardock Forums Top

You know I was having this same issue before the last patch that came down the pipe. since then been smooth sailing and no issues whatsoever with the expection of some game play issues but nothing technical. do you have the latest patch?

Reply #7 from Stardock Forums Top

 

 

 

 

 

 

   
CPU
Recommended: 2.2 GHz dual-core processor
You Have: 4 processors running - AMD Phenom(tm) 9550 Quad-Core Processor
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System RAM
Recommended: 1 GB RAM (2 GB for Vista)
You Have: 4.0 GB
 PASS  
Operating System
Recommended: Windows XP / Vista
You Have: Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium Edition, 64-bit (Build Service Pack 16001)
 PASS  
Video Card
Recommended: 256 MB video card (GeForce 7800+ / Radeon x1600+)
You Have: NVIDIA GeForce 8600 GT (NVxx)
 PASS  
  Video Card Features - Minimum attributes of your Video Card
 
Video RAM: Required - 256 MB , You have - 2.0 GB
Video Card 3D Acceleration: Required - Yes , You have - Yes
Video HW Transform & Lighting: Required - Yes , You have - Yes
Vertex Shader Ver.: Required - 3.0 , You have - 4.0
Pixel Shader Ver.: Required - 3.0 , You have - 4.0
 
Video Card Driver Version (DirectX)
Your driver version number is: 7.15.11.8208
   FYI: Your video card driver version is provided for your information, but it is not part of this analysis. But proper video card driver versions are important to the proper operation of your product.
DirectX Version
Recommended: 9.0c
You Have: 10.0
   PASS  
Sound Card
Recommended: Yes
You Have: Speakers (Realtek High Definiti
   PASS  
Sound Card Driver Version
Your driver version number is: 6.0
   FYI: Your sound card driver version is provided for your information, but it is not part of this analysis. But proper sound card driver versions are important to the proper operation of your product.  
Free Disk Space
Recommended: 3 GB
You Have: 91.5 GB
 PASS  
DVD
Recommended: Yes
You Have: HL-DT-ST BDDVDRW GGC-H20L SCSI CdRom Device
   PASS, but the Speed could NOT be analyzed.  

Can I run it...Yes I can! Please don't take this the wrong way but if one more person says uninstall and remove registry key I am going to go on a virtual shooting spree. Bahhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!! X(

Reply #8 from Stardock Forums Top

if one more person says uninstall and remove registry key
End of quote

ok...

but highlanders fix has helped a lot of people.  maybe it will help in this case.

you may also want to run a belarc report.  it will give a nice catalog of whats on the computer.  get it from download.com.

Reply #9 from Stardock Forums Top

Just curious, what if I never had the beta... btw I didn't. I waited to quite sometime afterwards. Would these beta files still have found their way into the final release?

Reply #10 from Stardock Forums Top

absolutly true this game was good but still no progress on the bugs and crashes tell you the truth under us law you can file a class action lawsuit or sue for selling defective software specially since they havent fixed it yet afte a year and a half

Reply #11 from Stardock Forums Top

Quoting drb44, reply 2
it really is quite astounding that this problem still exists after all the patches and time since it first presented itself.. How could you not make any progress on a problem so big it prevents people from playing your game while tweaking other smaller things?  I've been playing computer games all my life and I never saw one so unstable that crashes literally every time unless you adhere to certain rules such as putting every graphics effect to minimum and only playing small games.. Even after the last patch, no progress on this problem whatsoever.... The only thing that's come out of it for me is that I would never buy a game from Ironclad or Stardock again.. Any company that would release a product this sloppy clearly has bigger problems to deal with than a minidump
End of drb44's quote

Its clear you have no clue about how complex the coding for a computer game is. Stardock can't just click their finger or bash there faces across the keyboard and poof the problem is fixed.

For a start there is no way to tell how a game is going to react to the thousands of different computers and their unique hardware configs. Something might cause a massive crash for someone but not another person. The classic case is sins itself a lot of the early dumps were being caused by a Nvidia graphics card driver conflicting with sins. Nvidia updated their drivers and it fixed the problem for quite a lot of people.

Then there are acutal bugs. A game like sins has thousands of lines of codes it takes both time and skill to fix bugs and there is a chance that changing one part of the code can cause more bugs.

 

If you think stardock have big issues with their games its clear you have never played anything from Sony online entertainment. 5 year old bugs are common in their games.

Stardock do a amazing job its a pity you are too much of a child to see it.