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Why do all the Pirate games keep crashing?

Eddie

Landlubber
Hello, I am new here so excuse the noobiness

Iv got the games Pirates of the Caribbean and AoP CoAS (as you all seem to refer to it on here) and they crash literally all the time. PotC is worse, crashing whenever you just try going from land to sea I recall, but CoAS has just crashed 5 times in the last 3 hours. It seems to have the worst game engine ever, this crappy storm engine which decides the game is over if you minimize it too. The hardest part of this game is getting anywhere without it crashing. Are there any new patches or anything to stop this, or is this just a crappy reality because of the shit russian developer?
 
:ahoy

Are you playing the stock versions of these games, or are you playing the mods?
 
The stock versions. Not only does the game engine crash, but there are also places on key quest lines where dialogue is missing from the box and you cannot close it, forcing you to restart the game
 
Ahoy Eddie, welcome aboard mate.

First of all, there are many different reasons that these games will crash, most of which are not the fault of the Russian developers. Yes there are issues with the Storm engine, but there are many issues with Windows and some computer hardware that will cause these crashes as well. If you would like our assistance in trying to help you figure them out, you will need to provide more information than simply "the game crashed". Perhaps next time before you start placing blame, you should get the whole story first. You might want to start by actually reading the FAQ!

What is your operating system? Windows XP, Vista or 7? 32 bit or 64?

What are your computer specs? Video card? Ram? DirectX version?

What error was the crash giving you?

We are not mind readers, if you want our help you will need to provide that information. Also, please keep in mind that we are here as volunteers, we don't get paid to support these games. We do what we do because the big publishers refuse to support their customers properly, and because we love pirates and pirate games. In other words, we are under absolutely no obligation to help you at all.
 
Ahoy Eddie, welcome aboard mate.

First of all, there are many different reasons that these games will crash, most of which are not the fault of the Russian developers. Yes there are issues with the Storm engine, but there are many issues with Windows and some computer hardware that will cause these crashes as well. If you would like our assistance in trying to help you figure them out, you will need to provide more information than simply "the game crashed". Perhaps next time before you start placing blame, you should get the whole story first. You might want to start by actually reading the FAQ!

What is your operating system? Windows XP, Vista or 7? 32 bit or 64?

What are your computer specs? Video card? Ram? DirectX version?

What error was the crash giving you?

We are not mind readers, if you want our help you will need to provide that information. Also, please keep in mind that we are here as volunteers, we don't get paid to support these games. We do what we do because the big publishers refuse to support their customers properly, and because we love pirates and pirate games. In other words, we are under absolutely no obligation to help you at all.

Ahoy to you too! I never knew there was such a big fan base for these games, I thought I was the only one! I'm sorry for not providing enough information - whenever Iv spoken to anyone else about these games crashing Iv always been met with an outpouring of empathy and the wistful recall of many similar episodes of years gone!

I am using a windows 7 32bit OS on a Pentium DC CPU and I have 3 GB of RAM. I have Direct X 11. The video card is Mobile Intel 4 Series - I have played the games on other systems, however, and always have the same problems.

The crashes in question basically consist of - 1) playing the game normally, when for no reason whatsoever the game minimizes to desktop but with the sound still running. Then, click back on the game tab causes the computer to briefly freeze and the message "ENGINE has stopped working" comes up. 2) The second way the game crashes is whilst loading certain things - ie going from land to sea, going from world view to sea, about to board a ship - and in this instance it doesnt just minimize it totally shuts down altogether without warning.

The blame I put on the developer comes from every review I have ever read about the game where it is described as an ongoing problem, I wasnt trying to cause offense! Sorry if that was the case. Thanks for your help man.

Oh - and the other glitch/crash in the game I mentioned specifically was on the ENchanted City quest, after landing at (i think) the shores of Mosquito, a man comes up to you on the beach for a conversation. You cant get round him or escape back to the boat you have to talk to him. When you do, the conversation text isnt there theres just the outline of the text box. You cannot get out of this situation or progress through either the rest of the quest or the rest of the game. I have tried this many times and I always get the same result.
 
No worries mate, I apologize if my post was a bit terse, we have had a lot of people lately thinking that we should be able to solve all their problems without them giving us even the slightest bit of useful information. I have been here so long that sometimes I forget the fact that not everyone knows the complete story. I won't go in to all the details about the reviews that you have read, but I will say that there were several western publishers that did everything they possibly could to keep Akella from making inroads into the western game market. That included Bethesda forcing Akella into their agreement with Disney to change a game that was originally supposed to be Sea Dogs 2 into a movie tie in for Pirates of the Caribbean. That resulted in rushed development and incomplete testing.

Unfortunately, your biggest problem is your Intel graphics chipset, when Intel designed them, they didn't bother to properly implement shaders, the Storm engine uses a LOT of shaders for the sea effects. That is the single biggest problem with this game, and it is mostly Intel's fault for trying to make software do what hardware should have been doing all along!

There are two solutions you can try, the first is called Swiftshader, it will handle all the shader stuff that a good video card is normally supposed too. Unfortunately that means that it puts all the load on to your CPU, white it does work, it really slows the game down quite a bit, and on some systems makes it almost unplayable. The second option is one that we have just come across recently, and is only for POTC at the moment. You can read more about that one HERE!

Some of the other suggestions are to make sure that you do not install the game to the default Program Files directory, Windows 7 "security feature" won't allow the game to run properly. Install it to C:\Games\ or something. Also, you mention that the game tended to crash with a sound still playing, that could very well be due to a badly written sound codec. Video codecs can cause different problems as well, such as the transitions that you mentioned. These may be caused by other problems as well, but I would recommended starting there.

One really handy program that I have found for dealing with codecs is called InstalledCodec, it will allow you to see all the codecs currently installed on your system, and easily turn them on and off without having to uninstall them and the reinstall them individually. The program is freeware, and you can download it from HERE!

Try those options Eddie, and let us know if any of those solutions were helpful, if not, we will try more! Fair winds mate!
 
Go into programs = Engine.ini and look for the following code, change it from 1 to 0. Now you can minimise the game without it crashing.
Code:
full_screen = 1

Further down in the same file look for the following code and change to a 0 aswell. This fixces the sound issue on windows 7 so it doesn't keep breaking up.
Code:
UseMM = 1
 
Hi Guys,

Firstly sorry for my bad english.
I have searched the whole internet for my ENGINE problem. I have tried many things like, SwiftShader 3.0, windowsize, change the game options.
My PC Setup

-Presario CQ56 notebook PC
-RAM - 3G
-64 Bits
-proccesor -Pentium (r) Duel core CPU T4500

It's always crashing when i click New game, i hope someone can help me :(
 
Hi I am new to the Forum and site. Not sure if this post is stil active but I will give it a try.
I have been playing AoP CoAS on and off since it came out in 2009. And I love the game. Haven´t had to much time before to try an fix the problem, but i recently blew the dust of my old computer and started playing again and decided to try and fix the problem.
I have had the same problem with the game crashing. some times it crashes after 30 minutes, sometimes after 3 hours, but I never get any crash report from Windows... And it only crashes when sailing in Map mode.
I run on Windows 7 64 bit. Direct X 11
i5-750 Processor.
XFX Radeon HD 5770 1GB GDDR5 video card.
Corsair XMS3 DDR3 1600MHz 8GB CL9 RAM.
 
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This is as good a place to post as any. At least we know you've read some of the previous posts about crashes. :)

I'm assuming you are not using any of the COAS mods. Let us know if you are.

What happens when it crashes? Is it a crash to desktop? Or does the game simply lock up? Does it seem to happen at midnight game time? There are a lot of updates to things in the game that happen at that time and some of them might not work right.

In the Windows start menu input box, enter Event Viewer. Choose custom views, administrative events. Near the top there will be an item marked Error that mentions Start.exe. It should also mention a dll file, but may only mention Start.exe. The dll file is where the game crashed. We might not be able to help, but at least it's a step in the right direction.

For what it's worth, I played 200 hours of COAS without problems, although I avoided the world map.

Hook
 
I have tried a few MODS, but it is the exact same problem no mater what. The game just closes and it just comes up that Storm Engine has stopped working and Windows is looking for a solution, But it never comes up with anything...

How can you sail from island to island without entering the World map? Just set a course and sail for hours on end? Or have I missed something important here? :)

The Event Viewer says Application Error, but start.exe like you mentioned... At the time the game crashes....
 
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So the Event Viewer only has start.exe, but no mention of a .dll file? Sometimes that happens.

Only the Eras mod has the ability to sail between two islands without going to the world map, but I've never tested that. The stock game and the GOF mods do not have this feature. If you have a "direct sail" feature, it works like you said: sail in the direction of the destination for several game hours, and the game will reload when you get to the right spot. It really doesn't take that long in real time and it's much faster than using the world map. I play the game as a sailing simulator anyway. :)

The way I do it is to sail on the deck of my ship to the point where the island regions change, then go to the world map to change regions, then back to my ship spending as little time on the world map as possible. This is easier of you have a graphics mod that has the island region boundaries marked. You should be able to find a link to that graphics mod here on Pirates Ahoy, or it might have been included in one of the mods you already have.

Hook
 
Hi! I'm new here and I hope this page is still active!

I play AOP2 CoAS with the GOF v2 and beta 1.5 patch and I face the same issue... crashing when im telporting, landing, battle. However, this issue only came about when I installed the GOF modv2....before that it was really smooth with not a single crash at all.

Also, since I'm a newbie, could you guys tell me how to start a new thread, and gain privileges to reply to certain threads? Thank you!
 
There should be a "Post New Thread" button at the top of the forum.

There may be a few existing threads that are locked.
But mostly everything you should be able to respond to.
Which one is giving you trouble?
 
There should be a "Post New Thread" button at the top of the forum.

There may be a few existing threads that are locked.
But mostly everything you should be able to respond to.
Which one is giving you trouble?
Hello Pieter Boelen, thanks for checking in...do you have any other suggestions for the bug I commented about above? Oh, and I could not find the ''Post New Thread button:oops:

also, when you said "which one is giving you trouble" I meant this thread: Need Help - French or British Quest-line so perhaps I could relay the question here:

Apparently... I had troubles doing the English questline due to the Spanish Invasion at Port Royal and since I have started anew and want to do either the French or the English questline, which both have you fight against a spanish fleet, I wanted to know how to accomplish this as I found the English battle too hard even with 2 Battleships, Cinco Lliagas (frigate) and a Ship of the Line...thank you
 
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do you have any other suggestions for the bug I commented about above?
I never played CoAS, so I'm afraid not...

Oh, and I could not find the ''Post New Thread button:oops:
Does this link work for you then at all?
http://piratesahoy.net/forums/technical-help.67/create-thread

also, when you said "which one is giving you trouble" I meant this thread: Need Help - French or British Quest-line
Turns out, even I don't have rights to post there.
That's because it's just an archive of old stuff.

Not entirely sure why posting is blocked.
But it's nothing to do with you, at least. :doff
 
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