MP Game Stability

[norb]

That portrait error I believe was my fault in that I released some files in a beta release that required additional support. I have since removed those files and you should no longer get that error.

I'm not sure how to explain this any better. We ship certain files with our releases. Rarely someone will have a bad download and those files will be wrong, this would cause a mismatch error. More likely a mod is installed that overwrites our files and that can cause these issues. This is the fallout that happens when you allow so much modding of your game. We create our own headaches by allowing people to mess with the game files. If the modder knows how everything interacts, it's possible to play with modded files, but there's a big list of files that cannot be modded in MP play and sometimes the rules are broken and mismatches happen.

Sometimes the files are overwritten by the mod and sometimes it's just enabling the mod that causes the problems. You really have to be careful of what you install. When you install a new mod, you should look in your log and make sure that there are no errors. Also try MP play and make sure there are no log errors there.

In the case of OOBs, they are hard to create properly. There are a lot of rules. So when you first run them, check your logs. The game is written to try and recover and not crash. But it does give out lots of warnings if things are not 100% right. In these cases, something that would work in Single player could cause problems in MP play. I highly recommend that you only play MP with a warning and error free log. Although you may be able to play initially, it could cause problems in the future.

[Blaugrana]

Thanks again, Norb, for trying to explain it to 'lay-people' such as myself. I do think it will help us understand what we should and should not be doing to help identify problems.

I highly recommend that you only play MP with a warning and error free log. Although you may be able to play initially, it could cause problems in the future.

Do you mean the MP log we now get having put the flag in our ini files or the normal sowgb.log?

[Martin James]

Such as: Error texture C:\MYCW\BASE\GRAPHICS\TOOLBAR\US_PORTRAITS_LVL5.DDS not big enough for defined frames.

on CoB4thTexas' and Martin's machines.

Is there something specific CoB and myself should be doing to rectify this please?

Martin

[Leffe7]

That portrait error I believe was my fault in that I released some files in a beta release that required additional support. I have since removed those files and you should no longer get that error.

I'm not sure how to explain this any better. We ship certain files with our releases. Rarely someone will have a bad download and those files will be wrong, this would cause a mismatch error. More likely a mod is installed that overwrites our files and that can cause these issues. This is the fallout that happens when you allow so much modding of your game. We create our own headaches by allowing people to mess with the game files. If the modder knows how everything interacts, it's possible to play with modded files, but there's a big list of files that cannot be modded in MP play and sometimes the rules are broken and mismatches happen.

Sometimes the files are overwritten by the mod and sometimes it's just enabling the mod that causes the problems. You really have to be careful of what you install. When you install a new mod, you should look in your log and make sure that there are no errors. Also try MP play and make sure there are no log errors there.

In the case of OOBs, they are hard to create properly. There are a lot of rules. So when you first run them, check your logs. The game is written to try and recover and not crash. But it does give out lots of warnings if things are not 100% right. In these cases, something that would work in Single player could cause problems in MP play. I highly recommend that you only play MP with a warning and error free log. Although you may be able to play initially, it could cause problems in the future.

I can confirm that the portrait error lines in the logfile are gone after using the latest beta patch (1.4026).
I got two portrait errors before when playing on a vanilla installation, no mods and a stock MP scenario.

[Olszowy]

We played our standard Thursday night MP with 6 players tonight. All of us were using the latest Beta and using a mod that gives corps commanders ability to march entire corps via column. OOB is modified from the 30 June OOB so that each corps is close to 10000 men. We fought entire ANV AI with the ANV reorganized into 7 divisions of about 10000 each. Battle lasted two hours before severe weather took down the host. However in that time all six humans players were engaged by at least 5 of the ANV units. Very little lag, no errors, using couriers. No errors in log file. So far so good with the new beta patch. We will try a new map next week other than Antietam. Will try to get it to fail. Will try an all CSA fight, then add in a coprs from the Western Theater and mix players between both sides.