Sim Crash Revisited

Stew · 04-01-2002, 11:53 PM

Pentium III 850, 128MB Ram, 8 gigs free, Windows ME, no programs in the background.

I'm 6 seasons into an historical career that started in 1987 and I'm having a problem with the game freezing (listed as not responding under the task manager). It always seems to freeze while simming when it reaches a particular CPU-managed team (Minnesota, go figure). I've been running with injuries off, so that can't be the problem. I did not fill the minors, so it doesn't seem like a problem with a minor league backlog either. I tried disabling the minor leagues, resetting the league, and restoring the league from an earlier backup all to no avail.

The odd thing is that when I sim this team's games individually, they run fine. But as soon as I sim a day, week, month or season, it starts to freeze again.

I just got the game and was running this career (imported from Lahman 4.0) as a kind of test, so I'm not really concerned about saving this particular league. But I hope this problem can be tracked down and eliminated in the future as It seems based on some of the recent posts in the tech support board i am not the only one to have experienced this problem. Otherwise, a fantastic game.

Cheers,

Stew

Killebrew · 04-02-2002, 01:11 AM

Welcome Stew, and don't worry - I won't say the game has never crashed on me

. I will say that I have never lost a league due to a crash since playing OOTP2 and I think crashes are rare for most users. I still back up year-end league files (for post season stats) so if the worst ever happened to me I could always go back to the end of the previous year. I have only had to 'reset' a season twice (restart from opening day) but that is as bad as it has gotten for me. I occasionally run the game on a high-end laptop, but most of the time I run it on a very low-end desktop (333 Cel, 96MB RAM).

Some idea's for your situation:
-Temporarily turn trading off, set all teams to to AI control, and then run the auto-manager from the league setup screen. Now turn trading back on, reset your team to human control, and try to sim again.
- If files got corrupted due to a previous crash then resetting the season should fix whatever problem is occuring. This will restart the season from opening day. You may have to do this once or twice but it should work for any and all season stopping crash cycles.

Tips
- Don't be too impatient with computer programs, by impatient I mean mouse click for the next action when the first has not completed. If you do not have much system memory (128 is not much these days), or your PC is not running efficiently, or if there are background apps open and you get a near system freeze then every extra command (mouseclick) you give the PC will make it tougher for it to finish it's current command.
- The OS is sometimes fooled when there is a period of inaction from an app, and it's fairly normal for OOTP4 to say "Not responding" during some of the most resource heavy periods of the game. This is not a freeze or crash, and I fear many of the worst problems we've seen are not caused by OOTP4 processing info slowly, but by users closing off the app when it is running

. The most resource heavy periods are probably the FA Signing period (auto-simming all 30 days at once), spring training, and after the "proceed to next year" button is pushed.

There are many methods to reduce slow processing problems at various points in the game so if you are low on memory and follow those methods you should be able to avoid the "Not responding" messages. Good luck!

Stew · 04-02-2002, 08:15 AM

Thanks for the suggestions Killebrew.

I was finally able to fix the problem by taking the following steps:

1. Reset the League (2nd time was the charm)
2. Redo the schedule
3. All teams to AI, run computer manager

Just simmed to the All Star break with no problem. In fact, it seems to run almost twice as fast now as it did before I implemented these fixes.

As to the slowndown in the FA and proceed to next year periods, I have noticed that but it was never a big deal. The sim crash I was having seemed to be a distinct problem as it was always the same team and would hang indefinitely (left it on for 10 minutes once, just to check). Anyway,all seems well now.

Cheers,

Stew

Siv · 04-03-2002, 04:47 AM

Stew
This was kind of scary as I started my sim in 1985 with Minnesota and had the same problem. I run Windows 2000 with 512 meg Ram, Pentium 700mhz. I could only sim my games manually. I went to auto lineups to fix it. But now the game totally locked up. My question is what now and how do I "Reset the League".

Stew · 04-03-2002, 08:36 AM

Minnesota again? I wonder if Markus is in league with Bud Selig. . .

You can reset the league by going to the League options menu. The button in on the righthand side of the screen. While you are there, go ahead and create a new schedule. The combination of those two changes, along with running automanager, finally worked for me.

Cheers,

Stew

04-01-2002, 11:53 PM	#1
Stew Bat Boy Join Date: Apr 2002 Location: Oakland, CA Posts: 4	Sim Crash Revisited Pentium III 850, 128MB Ram, 8 gigs free, Windows ME, no programs in the background. I'm 6 seasons into an historical career that started in 1987 and I'm having a problem with the game freezing (listed as not responding under the task manager). It always seems to freeze while simming when it reaches a particular CPU-managed team (Minnesota, go figure). I've been running with injuries off, so that can't be the problem. I did not fill the minors, so it doesn't seem like a problem with a minor league backlog either. I tried disabling the minor leagues, resetting the league, and restoring the league from an earlier backup all to no avail. The odd thing is that when I sim this team's games individually, they run fine. But as soon as I sim a day, week, month or season, it starts to freeze again. I just got the game and was running this career (imported from Lahman 4.0) as a kind of test, so I'm not really concerned about saving this particular league. But I hope this problem can be tracked down and eliminated in the future as It seems based on some of the recent posts in the tech support board i am not the only one to have experienced this problem. Otherwise, a fantastic game. Cheers, Stew

04-02-2002, 01:11 AM	#2
Killebrew Hall Of Famer Join Date: Dec 2001 Posts: 3,326	Welcome Stew, and don't worry - I won't say the game has never crashed on me . I will say that I have never lost a league due to a crash since playing OOTP2 and I think crashes are rare for most users. I still back up year-end league files (for post season stats) so if the worst ever happened to me I could always go back to the end of the previous year. I have only had to 'reset' a season twice (restart from opening day) but that is as bad as it has gotten for me. I occasionally run the game on a high-end laptop, but most of the time I run it on a very low-end desktop (333 Cel, 96MB RAM). Some idea's for your situation: -Temporarily turn trading off, set all teams to to AI control, and then run the auto-manager from the league setup screen. Now turn trading back on, reset your team to human control, and try to sim again. - If files got corrupted due to a previous crash then resetting the season should fix whatever problem is occuring. This will restart the season from opening day. You may have to do this once or twice but it should work for any and all season stopping crash cycles. Tips - Don't be too impatient with computer programs, by impatient I mean mouse click for the next action when the first has not completed. If you do not have much system memory (128 is not much these days), or your PC is not running efficiently, or if there are background apps open and you get a near system freeze then every extra command (mouseclick) you give the PC will make it tougher for it to finish it's current command. - The OS is sometimes fooled when there is a period of inaction from an app, and it's fairly normal for OOTP4 to say "Not responding" during some of the most resource heavy periods of the game. This is not a freeze or crash, and I fear many of the worst problems we've seen are not caused by OOTP4 processing info slowly, but by users closing off the app when it is running . The most resource heavy periods are probably the FA Signing period (auto-simming all 30 days at once), spring training, and after the "proceed to next year" button is pushed. There are many methods to reduce slow processing problems at various points in the game so if you are low on memory and follow those methods you should be able to avoid the "Not responding" messages. Good luck! __________________ FOBL Capital City Metropolitans CDL Minnesota Twins

04-02-2002, 08:15 AM	#3
Stew Bat Boy Join Date: Apr 2002 Location: Oakland, CA Posts: 4	Thanks for the suggestions Killebrew. I was finally able to fix the problem by taking the following steps: 1. Reset the League (2nd time was the charm) 2. Redo the schedule 3. All teams to AI, run computer manager Just simmed to the All Star break with no problem. In fact, it seems to run almost twice as fast now as it did before I implemented these fixes. As to the slowndown in the FA and proceed to next year periods, I have noticed that but it was never a big deal. The sim crash I was having seemed to be a distinct problem as it was always the same team and would hang indefinitely (left it on for 10 minutes once, just to check). Anyway,all seems well now. Cheers, Stew

04-03-2002, 04:47 AM	#4
Siv Major Leagues Join Date: Feb 2002 Location: Minnesota Posts: 365	Stew This was kind of scary as I started my sim in 1985 with Minnesota and had the same problem. I run Windows 2000 with 512 meg Ram, Pentium 700mhz. I could only sim my games manually. I went to auto lineups to fix it. But now the game totally locked up. My question is what now and how do I "Reset the League".

04-03-2002, 08:36 AM	#5
Stew Bat Boy Join Date: Apr 2002 Location: Oakland, CA Posts: 4	Minnesota again? I wonder if Markus is in league with Bud Selig. . . You can reset the league by going to the League options menu. The button in on the righthand side of the screen. While you are there, go ahead and create a new schedule. The combination of those two changes, along with running automanager, finally worked for me. Cheers, Stew