Involuntary Replay and Switching Sides

[Philippeatbay]

I've been having my BA games plagued with involuntary side switching, to the point that the game has become almost unplayable.

The problem usually starts when I hit the Q key to rotate the map. This results in some cryptic red numbers and letters in the upper left hand corner of the screen that I think have something to do with a debug program.

I thought at first that there might be something wrong with my keyboard, that the shift key was registered as depressed, and that this was triggering the debug program. But last night I tried three different keyboards from two different manufacturers, and although when I tried a keyboard from a different manufacturer at first things seem to improve, the replays soon started once I hit end turn (which heralded the side switch).

In Pike and Shot and BA2 the problem is usually confined to the annoying red text, and can be eliminated by pressing the shift key and hitting the Q key. The Shift/Q combination in BA1 makes the red text go away, but doesn't do anything about the side switch.

I'm currently using the Steam version of BA and don't have the non-steam version installed, so it might be a Steam issue. I could try playing offline to see if that makes any difference. The next step would be to install the non-Steam version again, but I'm not sure where my set-up file is (shouldn't be too much of an issue since the game is registered).

In the meantime I've noticed that the problem is less pronounced when I first boot up my computer (i.e. don't have the debug program stuck in memory). So I'm wondering if perhaps the issue comes from how the older version of the engine handles memory.

I don't recall having anything like this happen on my older XP computer. My current computer is a desktop and runs on 64-bit Windows 7 Professional with 8 gigs of RAM.

If it can be done, would disabling the debug program do any good?

This is rapidly making Battle Academy unplayable. (And I've tried uninstalling BA, cleaning the registry, and re-installing, but to no avail).

[pipfromslitherine]

That is definitely very odd. Are you playing with debug mode on (via the setting in USER.TXT)? Are you using a regional keyboard?

You could workaround it by not using Q to rotate, but the LR cursor keys?

It is definitely very odd.

Cheers

Pip

[Philippeatbay]

Never looked into the keyboard question before, but I'm in North America and I've bought all my keyboards in North America.

I don't think that's the issue.

I've just managed to play more than a turn by not touching the Q and E buttons but using the cursors instead. That seems to help, but I'm getting paranoid and am not sure how long it will last.

What exactly is the path to the user text? If I look in My Documents/My Games the USER.TXT under BBCBA (or whatever it's called) is blank. If I go inside the game in the Steam folder there's a config folder with a file that mentions debugging, and it seems to be set to 1 rather than 0. If I turn all of the lines that mention debugging to 0 will that turn it off? My gut tells me that just turning it off will probably do the trick.

I don't need to have debug enabled, and have no idea why it is. I'm just not sure where to look to turn it off.

[Philippeatbay]

From the top section of the sytem text file inside the configuration folder:

quote

AUTODOCS 1
//DebugMode 1
//DebugDisplay 1
//NOBLOOM 0
//DEBUGTEST 1
//QUICKSTART 1
//SCREENCAPTURE 1
//RECORDING 1
//HIDEFEEDBACK 1
//NOSHADERS 1
MOVIEMODE 1
DYNAMICENV 1
HEIGHTSTEP 16
AITEST 1

unquote

There seem to be several places where I could turn a 1 into a 0. Not sure if this is the file I should start changing things in.

[Philippeatbay]

Just tried again only using the cursor buttons, and the game switched sides. So using the cursor isn't the solution.

[Philippeatbay]

Still trying to get a handle on what's going on.

I've noticed an error text file inside My Documents/My Games/BBCBA.

Never looked at this before, but I have a feeling it's significant (of what is anyone's guess). So I'll quote it in its entirety:

quote

PLATFORM: WINDOWS
CPU String: GenuineIntel
Stepping ID = 3
Model = 12
Family = 6
Extended model = 3
CLFLUSH cache line size = 64
APIC Physical ID = 7
CPU Brand String: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-4790 CPU @ 3.60GHz
Cache Size = 256K
UNKNOWN TAGS IN: CONFIG/SYSTEM.TXT
Unknown Tag: MOVIEMODE
Unknown Tag: DYNAMICENV
Unknown Tag: LAYOUTKILLSENEMYX,
END: CONFIG/SYSTEM.TXT
Found DirectX Version Number: 4.09.00.0904
Creating Device.....
MonkeyInitStart
MIS: Found DD
MIS: IsHW
MIS: SetCoop
MIS: Setting Disp Mode
MIS: Done Init 3D Device
MIS: Tex Enum
MIS: SDRS
MIS: Init Decal Render
INITIAL LOAD 716
Still refed: C:/Program Files (x86)/Steam/steamapps/common/Battle Academy/CORE/UI/OPTIONSADVANCED.BSF
Still refed: C:/Program Files (x86)/Steam/steamapps/common/Battle Academy/CORE/UI/OPTIONSADVANCED.BSF
Still refed: C:/Program Files (x86)/Steam/steamapps/common/Battle Academy/CORE/UI/OPTIONSADVANCED.BSF
Still refed: C:/Program Files (x86)/Steam/steamapps/common/Battle Academy/CORE/UI/OPTIONSADVANCED.BSF
Still refed: C:/Program Files (x86)/Steam/steamapps/common/Battle Academy/CORE/UI/OPTIONSADVANCED.BSF
Still refed: C:/Program Files (x86)/Steam/steamapps/common/Battle Academy/CORE/UI/OPTIONSADVANCED.BSF
Still refed: C:/Program Files (x86)/Steam/steamapps/common/Battle Academy/CORE/UI/OPTIONSADVANCED.BSF
Still refed: C:/Program Files (x86)/Steam/steamapps/common/Battle Academy/CORE/UI/OPTIONSADVANCED.BSF
Still refed: C:/Program Files (x86)/Steam/steamapps/common/Battle Academy/CORE/UI/OPTIONSADVANCED.BSF
Still refed: C:/Program Files (x86)/Steam/steamapps/common/Battle Academy/CORE/UI/OPTIONSADVANCED.BSF
Still refed: C:/Program Files (x86)/Steam/steamapps/common/Battle Academy/CORE/UI/OPTIONSADVANCED.BSF
Playing as: 0
WARNING: Trigger frame is outside the actual frames of the animation in DATA/BATTLE/UNITS/SDKFZ251_2_MORTAR.TXT (21, BOMBARD00)
SIDE 0
SIDE 0
Still refed: C:/Program Files (x86)/Steam/steamapps/common/Battle Academy/CORE/UI/OPTIONSADVANCED.BSF
Still refed: C:/Program Files (x86)/Steam/steamapps/common/Battle Academy/DATA/UI/UNITINFOPOPUP.BSF
Still refed: C:/Program Files (x86)/Steam/steamapps/common/Battle Academy/DATA/OBJECTS/METZ/OBJECTS.BSF
Still refed: C:/Program Files (x86)/Steam/steamapps/common/Battle Academy/DATA/OBJECTS/SICILY/OBJECTS.BSF
KERNEL MEMORY CHECKING IS **OFF**

Unquote

There's also an error file inside the game in Steam which I'll quote in its entirety, though it seems less illuminating:

quote

ERROR
Steam Startup Error
(0) : Failed
ERROR

######## EXCEPTION: 0x80000003 at address: 0x00488800
C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\SteamApps\common\Battle Academy;C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\SteamApps\common\Battle Academy;C:\windows
0: SymGetSymFromAddr64(): GetLastError = 487
0: SymGetSymFromAddr64(): GetLastError = 487
0: SymGetSymFromAddr64(): GetLastError = 487
0: SymGetSymFromAddr64(): GetLastError = 487
0: SymGetSymFromAddr64(): GetLastError = 487
BaseThreadInitThunk
RtlInitializeExceptionChain
RtlInitializeExceptionChain


unquote


And almost the first thing I did when I started having problems was to verify the integrity of the game cache, so that's not it.

I don't know how to read these files, but my impression is that one set of files is saying that debug is on, and another set is saying that it is off. And if I had to lay a bet on it, I'd say that something is getting messed up with how things handle or are handled by memory. Is the 64-bit aspect of Windows 7 Professional causing the problem ?

[pipfromslitherine]

The items in system.txt are all commented out, so should have no effect.

Try adding

DEBUGMODE 0

to the USER.TXT file. In theory pressing V (when in debug mode in single player) allows side switching (for testing). But none of this should be happening randomly as you are seeing. It's certainly a very odd (and unique) set of issues.

Are you running any kind of keyboard utility programs?

The error logs are pretty much what I would expect, nothing odd.

Cheers

Pip

[Philippeatbay]

Thanks for getting back to me.

As far as I know I am running nothing in the background (apart from an anti-virus program) to conserve memory. But I'm always surprised when I look closely on a modern computer and discover that 'nothing' is a very cluttered word.

Could you give me the path to the USER.TXT you have in mind so I can be sure we're talking about the same file?

[Philippeatbay]

There's good news and there's bad news.

The good news is that by some miracle I managed to find my non-Steam setup files and installed the non-Steam version of the game.

And I am pleased to report that the non-Steam version of the game works perfectly.

That's also the bad news, because it strongly suggests that there is something coming through from Steam that is causing problems.

Steam has had several big updates to its system lately, and I haven't experienced this but several games that didn't adjust have been suffering the consequences (usually in the form of crashes on start-up).

So until you get the problem sorted out with the Valve people I will play the non-Steam version.

I also had a few minor issues with the Q key in BA2 and Pike and Shot, and this is probably the reason.

I still have both the Steam and non-Steam versions of BA2 installed. I hope I can find my non-Steam P&S setup file.

[Philippeatbay]

I'm not 100% sure, but I think I've identified the source of the problem.

It's the Steam overlay.

There are a bunch of simple tests that would need to be run, but if you go into your Steam game library, right-click on the game entry, and then make sure that there isn't a check mark in the overlay box, the problem I was describing doesn't seem to happen.

It's even possible that you can run the game with the overlay, provided that you don't do something that I always do automatically whenever I start Steam.

So with the overlay enabled, do not shift-tab and then click on the make the overlay go away line.

But I haven't tested this last one.

The reason you haven't had a horde of people in here complaining about this is that the procedure that triggers the problem is part of a small subset of Steam users.

[My preliminary tests indicate that the problem I was describing is probably caused by shift-tabbing and clicking on the overlay line after the game starts. So if you plan on using the overlay, just wait for the overlay to fade away rather than summoning it up and cancelling it (which you would do if you're worried about having enough memory and want to be sure that it's off].

If you don't realize that that's what your dealing with, Steam problems can be weird.

[pipfromslitherine]

Thanks for the info. Their new overlay versions do seem to be causing some odd issues.

Cheers

Pip