Crashes on WinNova, but not MacNova?

In the course of testing my Firefly TC, I've heard from several Windows users that the plug crashes Nova frequently----which doesn't happen under Pather, which I'm running.

I've heard that WinNova is a bit more strict than MacNova in certain ways, so I was wondering if someone could elaborate on some of the probable causes of this situation. Most of the crashes seem to occur when landing on certain planets (but not all of them). At least one crash occured when jumping into a system.

Any help?

I've heard that the "Attack enemy spobs" behaviour crashes WinNova to crash. Supposedly this also crashes MacNova under Panther, but I've already proven that to be BS - it may have to do with having 10.3.6 or 10.3.4-. It definitely works in 10.3.5.

That can't be it. There are no other ships in most of these systems-----just landing on a planet in an empty system causes the game to crash in Win, but not Panther.

It should be noted that I used RezConv for Mac to convert to .rez, and then I archived for Windows using DropZip 7.0.3. Could either of those have corrupted something?

This post has been edited by Lindley : 20 November 2004 - 10:36 AM

Apparently bad compression of landing graphics can do that. Import landing graphics as .bmp format to prevent that (can anyone confirm that?)

As well, if it's an 'entering system and crashing' problem, check to make sure your 'message buoy' field reads a valid value- NOT 0, -1 for a system with no message.

Do you recommend a particular utility for importing landing graphics? Until now, I've been using Photoshop to "Save as Pict resource", then copying into the plug using ResEdit.

If your systems have the message bouy string set to 0 it will kill it (see SAE). Set it to -1.

You can use Photoshop to save as various fomats. I'm pretty sure that it can save as .bmp, or, if you're using an earlier version, save a copy as .bmp

^And BMPs can be imported into the mod the same way as Pict resources using ResEdit?

This post has been edited by Lindley : 20 November 2004 - 08:40 PM

Anyone know which size should be used for landing pics? Because, remembering the problem I had with the ďntf resource pic in Arpia (when it was used on PC), a difference of 1 pixel could cause the game to crash. But I didn't get anyone telling me of a problem that happened when landing on Culuria

My landing pics are all 612x287. That's the exact size of the space available for them.

Lindley, on Nov 20 2004, 10:16 PM, said:

Do you recommend a particular utility for importing landing graphics? Until now, I've been using Photoshop to "Save as Pict resource", then copying into the plug using ResEdit.
View Post

All right, let me say this another way. Since my current process doesn't seem to work:

-Save Terragen file as jpeg or tiff
-Use Photoshop to convert to Pict resource
-Copy to plug using ResEdit

Doesn't seem to produce results that work in Windows, can someone detail a process that will? Importing from bmps was mentioned, but what program for Mac can do that? ResEdit certainly can't.

In the event my current images files are hopeless, I can always "clone" them using Snapz Pro....but I hope I don't have to.

This post has been edited by Lindley : 21 November 2004 - 01:09 PM

From Terragen, you can save directly as .bmp
For that, you use the "file" rendering instead of rendering to the screen.

This is what happens when I try to import landing pictures from Terragen into Nova using EVNEW.

Gah

Try converting it to .bmp in Photoshop, then...I guess ask some nice Windows user to import it with EVNEW. They owe us anyways.

Huh. Fires up Virutual PC

Worth a try.

No luck, EVNEW requires Quicktime to be installed, and I can't download it because Virtual PC doesn't want to connect to the 'net, and Win95's network settings are just about the most confusing things ever.

It's supposed to see the Mac as a device connected via ethernet, and connect to the 'net that way, but damned if I know how to tell it that.

There must be a way to import landing pics on a Mac and have them work on Windows 100% of the time. If that isn't the case, someone screwed up bigtime somewhere.

This post has been edited by Lindley : 22 November 2004 - 10:26 AM

Try copying it and pasting it into ResEdit. It'll create a PICT with the clipboard picture.

Yep, there are some things that can crash WinNova while MacNova runs, and I'm beginning a list of them. Conversion with RezConv and Zipping shouldn't be a problem. As for your PICTs, there was a problem indeed in ARPIA, though we don't exactly know which it was. Personally, I save in a PICT file using anything (if the program can't, I save it in something else, then open with Preview and export to PICT), making sure to set the PICT compression settings to none, then implode the PICT into a resource file with the PICT as a PICT resource in it with ResPloder, then copy it to the plug using ResEdit. If you wish to check if your PICT resources in your plug are compressed or not (I think it's better for them to be not), explode your plug using ResPloder or ConText, open the PICT files with QT Player and check the info for the picture.

I gave that a try. Didn't see much difference in the info dialog, though, except for bit-depth. Some Picts used Thousands, some used Millions, and some used Millions+.

I haven't found a correlation yet between what works, and what doesn't.

Oops, I just tested, and I thought QT player would give you compression info for the PICT, but doesn't (it just tells you QuickDraw, which is the format PICT is), I don't know if there is a simple way than opening the resource as hew with ResEdit/open the ResPlodded file with an hex editor and check if there is the text "Photo - JPEG" or something like that which would mean it's compressed.