Hi all,

(also posted to technical forum)

I have been crashing Vue alot, and I mean alot lately.
It never, ever, crashed on me before.
Bought it late July - early Aug, and no problems.

Last night I uninstalled Vue 4.0,
scan disk, defragmented, and reinstalled.
It crashed during one of the first times I used it and has crashed on me at least 3 times today.

History:
IE 5.2(?)had a fit one day a couple weeks back and stuck online while my husband tried to get offline.
He had to do a ctrl - alt - delete to shut down.
When he got out, the Windows wallpaper had changed and the clock was 50 minutes slow!
My brother in law, the computer guru, said no big deal that the same thing had happened to him when he installed IE just a few days before.
Anyway not long after that, I crashed while modeling a small item in not too big a file.
Today I crashed at least 3 times while modeling using boolians in a file with about 245 objects.
Recently finished an image with almost 1000 objects without too much trouble.

Do you think something in the system files got corrupted?
Windows 98. thanks.
Kev

Yowch! Well, first question: are you using 4.03? If you don't have the 4.03, trot over to E-on and pick up the patch. Programs crashing under Windows is about as common as storm clouds on a rainy day. But this: "the Windows wallpaper had changed and the clock was 50 minutes slow!" doesn't sound good at all. Glad you asked in the Tech forum because that's where I'd be wanting to send you. :) Make sure you have the Vue patch, and be sure to keep saving stuff regularly as you work with it (any program). If there is a problem with Windows, it'll make itself clear, I'm sure. So it might also be a good time to do a backup while you have the chance. Good luck!

I'm having some crashes too. Here are my critical system components:

Windows XP Pro, 1 Gig RAM, Vue 4.03

I have a little utility I downloaded from the net called "Memstats" (it's freeware - go to Download.com to get it). Memstats will tell you how much RAM is available and being used in real time.

Using Memstats, I've established that Vue 4.03 doesn't properly clear up memory between renders. I can watch memory go to waste after each preview render.

Once my entire 1 gigabyte of physical RAM is used on my computer, Vue will crash and at times corrupt files. I've had material presets and atmosphere presets become corrupted because there wasn't enough RAM.

Also, I discovered yesterday that pushing Vue's polygon count past approximately 3 million made the program unstable and/or unreliable.

The good news is that when I shut-down Vue, the program frees the memory lost to the rendering procedure. Rebooting is not necessary, you can just start Vue up again without undue memory loss.

Charles

Varian,

I had downloaded the patch 4.03, but had yet to install it.
Saw some folks mentioning problems, and I wasn't having any before without it, so I held off.

One more thing I noticed... now when I open files, the animation timeline pops up sometimes. Never have I used it before.

The program is freezing while I work.
Model with boolians...(moving them) freeze,
switch cameras.... freeze up. I went to the desktop once and it said I had 81% resources free.
Driving me bats. Saving is something I have been doing every few minutes lately.

I did try it's patience lately with a file having 1500 objects and I can't even remember how many polygons....
way, way up there... millions.
That's why I reinstalled the program.

About 2 months ago, I loaded on new Virus software and did in the computer. So it is farely clean. Just did an
f disk and format/recovery late Nov.

Maybe I am in for another reformat... :( kev

Kev, Go ahead and install the 4.03. It's a "safe" patch, and it does help clear up many of the early problems v.4 was giving. The freezing you describe sounds like it might be related to OpenGL. Install the 4.03 first and play around with Vue for a day (or several hours), enough to see for sure if the crash problems are still continuing. If they are, the second thing to try would be to disable OpenGL -- but don't do that until after the 4.03 is installed and only if the problems continue. Interesting about the animation timline coming up. I have that happen (since v.3) with every scene I created with v.2. Even now, after I've re-saved some of 'em several times, with new filenames, etc., if the scene was originally started in v.2, it will open with the animation timline - something I never use. I've always assumed it was a minor bug that came in when they added Mover to v.3. I have not a clue why it would be coming up for you -- unless the files were saved from v.2 originally? (I can't recall if you started with v.2 or not.) So...try the 4.03 and give it a good test drive. See how it goes. :)

P.S. I really do know how to spell "timeline", but not after midnight. ;)

Thanks so much Varian.
I'll give it a go and see what shakes out. ;) Goodnite! kev

Oh btw, I started with the Vue 3 demo (couldn't save files)
in the summer then ordered Vue 4.

Varian, I have the same problem with images from Vue 2 or 3 opened in Vue 4.03. Timeline comes up and many objects are animated. I never use it eithet. When you uncheck then (in a long work) all "standard" animations and save your image, il will be animated again when you re-open it. It"s to become crazy. Guitta

Guitta, I don't know any way to get around it. Saving the scene to a new file doesn't help at all either. So I just keep clicking off the timeline whenever it sprouts up. I haven't had it come up with scenes made in v.3 though, just ones made in v.2. According to what Kev is running into, the bug can be triggered by other reasons, too, apparently. I just keep hoping E-on will get it fixed. :)

Varian, I also have the problem with my image GREECE. It was created in the very first Vue 4 version. It always comes with a timeline. Knowing the numerous objects I have in this image I did it twice (to be sure, LOL) and opened every object, every object from every group and unchecked STANDART animated. Then saved it. Closed Vue. Re-opened Vue, called the pic : TIMELINE (grrrr!!!). The best is, that I have reported this to e-on with insistance, but Nicholas did not believe me. He was sure I animated things "by accident". (not LOL at all). Guitta

Varian and Guitta,

Today, I installed the update. No good.
I blew dust out of the case, and ran Vue with the side off. It crashed 3 times within 3 or 4 manipulations within the program to a file.

When I placed the cd into the tray to see if there was an uninstall program on the cd (to pull of all traces that may be corrupted), it wouldn't even play the slideshow.exe file.

Uninstalled with add/remove again, rebooted,
shut down all the background progs, put in the cd and the slide show started. Installed Vue - rebooted - installed the patch for 4.03.
So far so good. No timeline yet either...(waiting...)
Hope this is the end of those problems.

Thanks for all your help,
Kev

Deerpath, Do the ultimate test...on a different partition or a second drive in your system, install a fresh, second copy of Windows (just rename the directory it prompts you to store Windows in - ie. "Windows2"). I say again, "onto a DIFFERENT partition or a 2nd drive". Then install Vue onto that second copy of windows. Nothing else. Patch it with Update 3. Test it out without using OpenGL. Then with OpenGL. If it still crashes under OpenGL, then OpenGL is the problem. If it crashes when NOT in OpenGL, then Windows98 install is the problem. If it works fine, except in OpenGL, then your original install of Windows98 is corrupted, and you need to rebuild your system (ie. "c:format.com" & re-install all your apps). Sittingblue, You don't need that MemStat application, "NT Task Manager" will do the same thing, even show you the graphs. Under XP, right click on the task bar, or do "Ctrl-Alt-Del", and select "Task Manager". Happy Tinkering... JoeK

JoeK,
Thanks for the info.
I copied this in case I start crashing again.
Hopefully not....
Kev

Good info, Joe. I too hope that Kev won't need it. And Kev, glad to hear it's running now. It still troubles me what you described about the Windows behavior earlier, and also the way Windows refused to play the slideshow -- see, that's not a Vue thing; it's a whole separate EXE and Windows should have just played it without a complaint. So, something may still be not quite right. Keep your eye on all your apps, any unusual behavior. Do backups while you can. And along with that, enjoy a working Vue! :)

Varian,

Hmmmmmm... Thanks. I will keep an eye on it.
I have been backing up every night before shutdown and will continue to do so.

My daughter got a Harry Potter game for the PC for Christmas. I hate to put games on the PC, but Nintendo didn't make one for its N64 format.
It has Direct X 8.0 in it and our computer has originally been installed with 6 or 7.
I wonder if that has changed anything that Vue uses.
These computers always keep life so interesting : kev

Yeah, I'd guess Direct X could be instigating the problem -- or it could be contributing along with something else. And the part about Windows that makes it so much fun is that you may never learn what caused all this commotion, and it might never be a problem ever again! ;D