Hi all-

I haven't played this since Beta 1 cause I got so upset that it was going to be another 2D space game. Anyway, I decided to give Beta 3 another shot, and I gotta say, I like where its going.

It needs LOTS of polishing, so to help out, here is my list of issues I had:

The ship explosions. The model disappears and is replaced with just a ball of flame. Than when thats done, the wreckage re-appears.

Zoom. Random glitches that 'lock' zoom, or spin me all the way the hell around.

Thats about it, but I only played for about two hours.

Cheers!

7900 GTO (OC just a little bit) w/ latest drivers
Pentium 7600 (also OCed just a little bit)
1GB (corsair) RAM
Win XP
Latest Direct X

The explosions are well known... your camera issues might be the camera... but sounds like your unaware of their new 'smart' locking system. The feature can be shut off.

Ok, I've come accross an issue now that is causing my video driver to fail/recover while playing online.
I was in the middle (about an hour and half) into a (3 players vs 3 comps)game when my game locked up - then a beep noise - then game recovered. The third time this happened to me in the game, I was not able to recover the system.
It created a minidump file but my screen locks up (BLACK SCREEN) even though i still hear music. Trying to min. the window did not help. I ended up rebooting only to loose the minidump files.
This is the 2nd time online for me and both games I played did this too my system.
I have yet to complete a full game.

Here are my video specs:
Name NVIDIA GeForce 7900 GS
PNP Device ID PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_0292&SUBSYS_037010DE&REV_A1\4&2B8FBF5A&0&0008
Adapter Type GeForce 7900 GS, NVIDIA compatible
Adapter Description NVIDIA GeForce 7900 GS
Adapter RAM 256.00 MB (268,435,456 bytes)
Installed Drivers nvd3dum.dll,nvwgf2um.dll
Driver Version 7.15.11.6222
INF File oem63.inf (nv_NV3x section)
Color Planes Not Available
Color Table Entries 4294967296
Resolution 1024 x 768 x 70 hertz

Here are my system specs:
OS Name Microsoft® Windows Vista™ Home Premium
Version 6.0.6000 Build 6000
OS Manufacturer Microsoft Corporation
System Manufacturer Dell Inc.
System Model Dell DXP061
System Type X86-based PC
Processor Intel(R) Core(TM)2 CPU 6600 @ 2.40GHz, 2400 Mhz, 2 Core(s), 2 Logical Processor(s)
BIOS Version/Date Dell Inc. 2.3.1, 3/23/2007
SMBIOS Version 2.3
Locale United States
Hardware Abstraction Layer Version = "6.0.6000.20500"
Time Zone Central Daylight Time
Total Physical Memory 2,045.32 MB
Available Physical Memory 1.36 GB
Total Virtual Memory 4.91 GB
Available Virtual Memory 4.15 GB
Page File Space 3.00 GB
Latest Direct X version

Anyone else have this issue???

Try playing in Windowed Mode so you can see what the error is or improve your chances of getting the dump file. You can change IsWindowed in the user.setting file. More detailed instructions are in the FAQ.

how about my video issue any ideas? Afterplaying sins all videos become contrastless... super black with blue bits

Heroine4life,

Yea I have tried uninstalling my card before on the HoMM V issue and installing an older and newer version with the same results.

I was able to do a quick fix through the config file or IronClads version from the FAQ but unfortunately I have to play at 1024 x 768 scaled to my 22" 1680 x 1050 native monitor which looks well "scaled"

I will have to deal with it till Tax season and I will get all the latest and greatest hardware to play games again.

A lot of the problem is that Im running all this on a server board anyways.. *I assume*

ECC Ram throws a fit every now and then although in this case it is graphics related. I wish I knew what was causing it. Possibly my mobo limitations, being that it was designed for 3D cards. Nvidia Pro 2200 and I used the Nvidia 3400 Quadro for 3D Studio Max 9. Thats just speculation though. Other games have never had a problem.

Thanks for the suggestion though.

these with the hotfixxes and the beta drivers?

Also there is a virus that I had that sounds alot like what you have.

During an invasion of my capital planet i tried to build a gauss platform . After the invasion was over i noticed the gauss platform at 0% construction was still auto attacking a single ship.
I now have a new capital and i have moved on as has the game yet this small event in time is still there. ( the gauss platform auto attack on the single ship).

I can take a screen shot if you like ?
love the improvements in beta 3 especially the gas giants and the info on the different planets - makes the systems seem more alive.

BTW im playing singlew player

Stu

Seems that sometimes when typing a in-game chat message, the game interprets the typing as pressing hotkeys. Doesn't happen all the time, though.

in ICO the chat sometimes overlaps, this only happens when a single person takes up more then 1 line of chat (IE typing something long enough to take up 2 lines with a single entry).

I dont know if this is even a bug (and it probably has been reported by now) but when there is debris (little chunks of rock) in a GW they all clump to one side, regardless of if it is a planet, an asteroid, a belt etc. just seems odd compared to the old (better) system where asteroids and planets would have the debris scattered throughout the GW, rather than off to one side.

That doesn't mean much -- when you minimized the game, you cut (much) of the processor needs for it. Checking the usage history might mean something, but not necessarily enough.

Exploit: If you assign enemy ships to a group you retain the ability to see their stats even when they are in an area you don't have vision of.

Can you try and see if this happens if you play in windowed mode? Change IsWindowed to TRUE in the user.setting file. Detailed instructions are in the Beta 3 FAQ.

Bug.

eek!

any progress on the mouse scroller one or are you continuing to play half blind?

a preliminary report from my side.

technical stuff:

Vaio VGN S3XP
Windows SP2
Intel M 2 Ghz
1 GB RAM
Nvidia GeForce Go 6200

I set the game details on high on most of the stuff and picked the wide screen 1280*768 resolution. it was a game on a small random map standard AI settings (well, it is, I didn't quite finish it after 1:15) and performance so far was flawless. truth be told there was only one rather big, long fight over a planet of mine with about 100 - 150 ships involved but didn't really slow it down even when I dropped in for a closer look.

ah, yes the first two times I launched the game, the music in the menu was like distored, you know the kind of sound it makes you alt tab in and out of a running game. didn't happen again.

and the first time I launched a game, the loading took way more time than the bar suggested. it had long since finished on the bar, but it took several more minutes to hear some music again and then a bit more for the game to launch. from then on though no problems, it might be an issue with map creation, I would have to check it more, so expect either confirmations or denials on that one.

oh, and good job, even in spite of this little mouse issue, I have trouble quitting the game.

theres a problem with pirate warnings not being sent to one player, it doesnt appear ANYWHERE including on hte top of hte screen and in diplo logs.

PoorManDSO, try the http://www.nvidia.com/object/winvista_x86_163.69.html driver. See if it makes a difference. Remember to uninstall the previous driver first.




I got the same problem during the second online game I played. It doesn't appear to happen if you de-select everything, and I've seen it happen more often if I have a ship/planet selected. But ultimately couldn't reproduce it, maybe related to lag?
I believe I shuttled my flagship accidentally without noticing, by typing in chat while having it selected.

I had sound effect issues, I turned off "Stop Sound when lose focus" this returned all the sound effects

Cosmetic Technical issues

The exit Ironclad Online screen goes to "Network Error" Ironclad disconnected. Would be worth changing this, as it is not really an error and could confuse a little.

Quit game on the first menu screen would be good to have a check box.

Account logins seem to only save when you are still in the same game session. If you quit and load back up it loses your account details. There should be an option to save them, possibly even a drop down to select multiple accounts.

Need a Ironclad lobby/Game lobby switch so you can swap to either lobby, while waiting for game.

Lobby screen needs to be full screen so chat window is bigger, if there is a lot of traffic eventually it will fill up too quick.

Should be able to add friends from the lobby.

First game menu on load up would be useful to have a skirmish option.

Some more playing around in lobby :-

Adding friends should be mutual, you can add a friend, but you are not added to their list. And you also cannot refuse someone making you a friend.

Private messaging function would be useful.

If you type in a long string of chars, the first line against your name is blank like a carriage return. Sometimes a char goes missing off the end of the chat box, I only saw this once with the F char. I tried to replicate it with numerics but it didn't happen, so might be something funny.

Changing channel and selecting the same channel you are in clears the chat log for that channel. Not really a big deal.

If you right click and hold and spin around a while, then let go on an option it selects that option. Might be worth disabling that?

Really good so far though, have been logging in and out and under different char names and it is all very stable so far for me.

Thanx Novaburst - I didn't even know new drivers were out   

Hmm won't let me edit.



To explain this further I mean that you can right click on their name and get a context sensitive menu to add them or something. Typing in on a seperate screen can be a little painful.

Well, I guess I spoke too soon about ctd's. About 25% into a game, I exited and went away for a while, when I tried to load the game where I left off, it gave me a wire frame phase lane screen, the error ding and dumped me to the desktop right away. At least it asked me to save the minidump, so I don't think it's the same ctd from B2. Kind of frustrating to lose all my progress to then, but I'll save everything and start a new game. I did send the dump and save game to support. If you need any of the other stuff that gets created let me know

pek

I would like to see more widescreen resolutions. It should be easy to add them to the menu for selection. The game works and looks great when I edit the config file to use 1280 x 720 resolution. There is no reason this should not be one of the choices available.

Also, the first time I started the game, I had a GPU reset on my Radeon 1900XTX. I exited the game and went back in, I can't get it to happen again. Sorry, no minidump, except the one that goes to ATI. (This was using the default resolution immediately after install)

Well, the game crashed and produced a dialog, the funny thing is if I focused the game it continued. I alt-tabbed to the dialog and then put the dump and the last autosave together. I really have no idea why it crashed though.

You can get the dump and the previous autosave here.

And I really had that Sova Carrier getting nasty very early on... 4 squadrons of bombers plus a 20% damage bonus. At least I still have the autosave!

Huh? I need to pay more attention I guess.

There's a reason I love Sovas

Okay, I reloaded the savegame and it is completely reproducible. Here's what you do:

First, move the carrier and the light frigates back under the range of the gauss cannon and build a second next to it. A Kol Cruiser will warp in after ~25 seconds. It will easily be defeated and retreat -- follow it south and shortly after warp it will crash.

And I had a really good start too!