Can confirm - regular freezes in Dune2k Gruntmods on Win 10

[Eregos]

Dune 2000 Gruntmods v 1.6.2.2 does indeed regularly freeze on Windows 10 64bit (Pro N). As others have reported, the freezes vary in proximity from 1-15 minutes of gametime usually. On a few lucky occasions, I've been able to play as much as 1 hour without a freeze. The freezes are normally accompanied by stuttering of the most recent sound, but not always. The work Gruntlord & Funkyfresh did is excellent, no doubt an astounding number of things had to be fixed to get it working as well as it does in Win 10. I'm still enjoying the singleplayer, but I have to save constantly and it does get frustrating at times to redo segments especially since clicking the save/load button often triggers a freeze. But I'm unusually determined (wouldn't be here otherwise) and I consider the game playable enough. Everything else works wonderfully, HD resolution is awesome and the cutscenes work. I just had to choose the right settings. (In my case it was Videobackbuffer, FPS limiter, Single processor affinity, disable max windowed mode, cutscene change resolution, disable high DPI scaling, and Enable DxWnd)

I played C&C95 vanilla on WinXP years ago, and it was even more unstable but I somehow managed to complete it. Since the freezing in Dune 2000 Gruntmod is similar in nature, I have a theory the cause is also the same. The cause for C&C95 was something like the game executable being programmed to attempt to write to memory sectors that are now reserved for the modern OS (resulting in a segmentation fault). The biggest similarity I see in these crashes/freezes is that in both cases, the sound stutters repeatedly at the time of the freeze (it's possible some of the C&C95 freezes might have been sound related) and the freezes happen more frequently on larger maps where there is more going on, which logically increases the likelihood the game will attempt to write to protected memory sectors. I'm kinda assuming Gruntlord/Funkyfresh decompiled the Dune 2000 executable and fixed the vast majority of this protected-memory-sector-read-writing, otherwise I would be shocked the game is as stable as it is and that people were ever able to manage to use the mod for multiplayer stably. Another reason I suspect protected read/writing is the problem is the half the freezes happen when I click save/load in the menu, which maybe causes the game to run some kind of check on the current memory usage, triggering a protected read/write. So in effect, it seems Dune 2000 Gruntmod is effectively running in a doomed state in the seconds prior to these freezes, with the player unable to save their progress. 

I tried all the suggestions I could find in this forum before posting, the only one I haven't done which seemed to work for someone with a different problem was installing an older version of Gruntmod. I run a number of unusual programs on my system but I already tried shutting down everything that semiregularly causes problems (except maybe nod32, hmm. Maybe I'll try safemode just to eliminate even more implausible possibilities). Also made sure all drivers were up to date, double checked I followed the install instructions. None of it had any impact on the crashes. The crashes used to be even worse (requiring me to create a new desktop to close the application like another person reported) but when I switched to my current exact video options, this stopped and I can now simply alt+esc and forceclose. I started playing Dune 2000 a couple weeks ago.

One unrelated apparent bug in Dune 2000 Gruntmod seems to be related to the mechanism Gruntmod uses to limit CPU cycles. Most programs on my system run normally, but I've noticed that after several rounds of freezing & force termination, a few (windows photo viewer, paint.net, even the blizzard entertainment app) run extremely slowly as though the Dune 2000 CPU cycles limitation is somehow being applied to them. I'm 99% sure this is somehow connected to Gruntmod as it never happens otherwise, goes away after PC restarts. I suspect this has to do with some secondary process (maybe a system service?) Gruntmods uses not shutting down properly (I wish I knew what one it was! very hard to pick out from a huge list), but as with all my speculation I could be totally wrong.

I have pretty solid system (mostly I play modern games): i7-6700k, 32GB ddr4 ram, Nvidia GTX 1080, SSD's

Ok! I just wanted to share my experience so far and speculation in case it might help anyone. 

 

[Pherim]

Very good post, it describes my own experience with it very well. As I wrote in another thread, starting it in Windows 8 compatibility mode (of all things) makes it freeze less often for me, and I also read that from someone else somewhere. If I run the compatibility assistant on it Windows even suggests this setting by itself, although it may just be guessing.

[FunkyFr3sh]

I've been playing a bunch of long online games (1hour+) on windows 10 64bit, never froze a single time.

No one found out yet why some are freezing.

 

Here are my settings (I don't use any compatibility modes) https://imgur.com/a/0OCy6

 

The game is doing a "timebeginperiod" winapi call, this one can indeed affect other programs too. Normally the game does a "timeEndPeriod" call on exit to revert the timing changes, but I guess this doesn't happen cause your game is freezing and you force exit. Other programs are doing the same btw (e.g. google chrome)

 

https://msdn.microsoft.com/de-de/library/windows/desktop/dd757624(v=vs.85).aspx

 

Try to disable the "Use improved FPS Limiter", it changes things a bit.

 

Edited June 8, 2017 by FunkyFr3sh

[Eregos]

Thanks for the replies. I've been borrowing your settings for the past couple weeks, and recording the length of time I've been able to play the game without crashes. In my psychology class I once learned about the situations in which rewards in experiments were the most likely to generate superstitious behavior. When delivery of a treat was delayed by a long time after a specific behavior was performed by the mouse, or was simply random, the mouse would engage in all kinds of superstitious, absurd behaviors in its cage to try and get the treat. In this analogy, I'm the mouse, as I have no real idea what is causing these crashes, so I'm doing a whole bunch of things to get as much stable playtime as possible (the treat). I do think applying FunkyFresh's settings made a major difference (relative to my settings, the game feels 'fluider' and just kinda feels more stable) as delays between crashes increased. Getting an hour of playtime used to be rare; with Funkyfresh's settings it became fairly common. I don't think applying Windows 8 compatibility really matters, but based on the crash times it's hard to tell, would need a bigger sample size. If I weren't so lazy about it, I'd install visual studio or another programming suite, run the Dune 2000 with an attached debugger, and try to isolate the crash like in my programming days. As is, I've just wrapped up the last of the 3 campaigns on hard, next will be the alternate missions & custom maps. Final Ordos mission was cool, fighting the Atreides, Harkonnen and Emperor with Mercenaries helping, had just enough units to take out the Atreides base, expand and stop myself getting spice starved. Greetings to Germany, sorry to hear about Helmut Kohl!

Funkyfresh settings but with cutscene resolution change, 1280X720 resolution: 8:15
Funkyfresh settings but with 1280x720: 19:18
Funkyfresh settings pure (forgot to write time, but it wasn't longer than 25:00)
(from here on, clip cursor and modal style also disabled but shouldnt matter b/c RunInWindow already disabled)
Funkyfresh settings pure 4:07
Funkyfresh 1280X720 Win 8 compatibility: 1:03:06 (clicking on loadgame menu crash. But it was 1 second after loading another game, might not've happened if I'd waited an extra second for the load to settle)
Funkyfresh 1280X720 Win 8 compatibility Cutscene res change: 1:03:34 (at least, shut down early)
Funkyfresh 1280X720 Win 8 compatibility Cutscene res change: 0:00:56 (clicking savegame menu crash)
(around here I start closing the dune launcher after each launch, because it sometimes seems to help)
Funkyfresh 1280X720 Win 8 compatibility Cutscene res change: 15:25 (Click save crash again)
Funkyfresh 1280X720 Win 8 compatibility Cutscene res change: 1:13:00 (Normal crash)
Funkyfresh 1280X720 Win 8 compatibility Cutscene res change: 26:46 (Normal crash)
Funkyfresh 1280X720 Win 8 compatibility Cutscene res change: 35:27 (Normal crash)
Funkyfresh 1280X720 Win 8 compatibility Cutscene res change: 25:35 (Normal crash)
Funkyfresh 1280X720 Win 8 compatibility Cutscene res change: 00:57 (Normal crash)
Funkyfresh 1280X720 Win 8 compatibility Cutscene res change: 18:26 (Normal crash)
Funkyfresh 1280X720 Win 8 compatibility Cutscene res change: 16:50 (Normal crash)
Funkyfresh 1280X720 Win 8 compatibility Cutscene res change: 26:22 (Savegame crash)
Funkyfresh 1280X720 Cutscene res change: 28:32 (Immediately after game save)
Funkyfresh 1280X720 Cutscene res change: 18:00
Funkyfresh 1280X720 Cutscene res change: 1:01:08
Funkyfresh 1280X720 Cutscene res change: 0:03:18 (didn't close dune launcher before this launch)
Funkyfresh 1280X720 Cutscene res change: 2:35:00 (much of the time was with the menu opened, which appears to make the game more stable. When I returned 10 hours later, it had crashed in the menu.) 
Funkyfresh 1280X720 Cutscene res change: 2:00:00 (some of it in menus)
Funkyfresh 1280X720 Cutscene res change: 15:00
Funkyfresh 1280X720 Cutscene res change: 23:22
Funkyfresh 1280X720 Win 8 compatibility Cutscene res change: 03:32
Funkyfresh 1280X720 Win 8 compatibility Cutscene res change: 32:00 (ended session by winning Ordos campaign)

[Fey]

I've been getting weird stuttering too Same stats, nearly, I'm running Windows 7 64 bit with 32 gb ram with an Nvidia card. Been bothering me 'cause I've been trying to record some games lol
 

On 6/17/2017 at 2:46 PM, Eregos said:

As is, I've just wrapped up the last of the 3 campaigns on hard, next will be the alternate missions & custom maps.

Hey! Make sure you check out my Smugglers campaign then It's done in the same format as the original - levels 1, 2, 3, 6, and 9 have two versions, making a fourteen-map campaign. Since you're a fairly neutral faction, you'll see lots of allies and enemies. There's also a bonus mission, but it's not in the zip on the thread yet, although it should be. I'll add it when I update the campaign with some minor fixes.

Here's the release thread: https://forum.dune2k.com/topic/27508-release-smugglers-campaign/
And if you want to check out the very short bonus mission, it's on this page of the development thread, somewhere near the bottom, in a Mediafire link because I didn't bother to attach. You can ignore the mod included in the Mediafire link if you install the one in the Smugglers Campaign release thread! Here: https://forum.dune2k.com/topic/27473-playing-around-with-the-d2k-campaign/?page=2

Have fun :3

[TEDIUM]

Just wanted to say, I was also experiencing this freezing every 15 minutes or so, until I updated my sound and video drivers; not sure which one was causing the issue, but it is now resolved and I've been playing 3-4hr matches with no problems.

[Pherim]

Something's changed... it still freezes from time to time, but Alt-Tab still works correctly when it does. Until recently, I was not able to bring any other windows into the foreground in case of the game freezing, so I had to log off completely to close it, until someone in this forum told me to use a second desktop. Now it seems this is no longer necessary.

[GrimToadstool]

I'm experienceing the same problem. However, if my memory serves me right, it's actually a copy protection. The game can detect certain no-cd cracks and then randomly freeze, making it seem the crack works, but it actually doesn't. Similar to the smithies producing pigs in Settlers 3. I remember having these freezes back in the 90s and only having them when I no-cd cracked the game.

I did or do own a legitimate copy (dunno where the cd is).

[Eregos]

After a long hiatus, I finally finished all alternate missions and the 2 mercenary missions on hard. Didn't find FPS limiter to matter. I wanted to wait until I had A LOT of playtime to confirm the following: Setting CPU affinity to one core (I used core 0) for Dune2000.exe in task manager in windows 10 majorly increases the game stability. But this must be applied each time the game is run. Like Pherim, I noticed later in 2017 I could at least alt-tab out of the crashes without logging off, but I was still getting the freezes every 5-30 minutes or so like in my above log, always accompanied with the most recent couple seconds of game sounds repeating in an endless loop.

After trying the CPU affinity change as a random guess there was no going back, I was using the funkyfresh settings still, there were still occasional crashes about once every 5 hours, but the game was so stable it really wasn't a problem. I tried not doing the affinity change one last time as I was finishing Mercenaries 2 (very intense holding the heavy factory till the end on hard!) and it crashed again with repeating sound like usual. Separately from that, I always did get a unique crash with an error message, Enemy house not valid gCampaignTable[][].enemy = 7968236 [gGameTicks = 90050 ]. Maybe CPU affinity was mentioned as a possibility in some setup guide I never quite noticed? Also Mercenaries 2 misspelled Atreides as 'Atredies', nitpick. But a nice challenge on the whole, coda to my campaign. 

I will disclose that NONE of this was with the 'Windows 10 hotfix' made available on Gruntmods Nov 2017, unless I installed without remembering, I only just installed that today after finishing the campaign. Used Gruntmods version 1.6.2.2.

I'll try out Fedaykin's Mercenary campaign sometime! Ok probably heading back to Starcraft II for my competitive RTS fix.

Edited May 18, 2018 by Eregos

[Blob]

Same shit.

[a1rcart]

Good evening. If you are reading this and still experiencing some issues you might want check the solution presented by Septamis!
Septamis is telling steps to make gruntmods dune 2k run on Win 10 64 bit
I had freezes (had to restart my pc) and now i don't. Everything smooth.
Works for version 1.6.2.4