I feel ripped off by crash after crash after crash. Where's the "game"?

[bkotler]

1. What, specifically, were you doing when the problem occurred? Include the specific screen you were on when the problem occurred.

I have run into problems over and over again. Usually, the problems occur if the laptop turns off on its own in the middle. The problems begin regardless of a specific screen but it varies from trying to view my roster to trying to view free agents to trying to start a game.

2. What happened? Was there an error message? If so, what was the specific message?

Lately, I've been seeing "OOTP Baseball 10 has stopped working." Prior to that, I would get freeze ups or crashes without any error messages.

3. Were you able to repeat the error with this same game? With another game? If so, what steps did you take?

I have uninstalled and reinstalled the game at least a dozen different times. I have installed to brand new directories (which would solve the problem for a couple hours or less of gameplay) but the errors would begin randomly. It seems that every time there is an error, there is a different cause for it, but the same result -- THE GAME IS UNPLAYABLE.

4. If relevant, what do you think the program should have done?

I have never owned a game that has had so many bugs, even after all the patches (I have the latest patch 10.4.36 I believe.)

5. What is your league configuration (fictional/historical, etc.)

My fictional leagues rarely make it through the first week of the regular season without the league becoming unplayable. I have tried many different configurations and none have worked out for me. Just hours and hours and hours of wasted time. Ideally, I want to run a fictional organization simming through and building an organization from the ground up but this has been impossible. So instead, I tried to replay the 1989 Orioles season, managing game-by-game, but now I am getting the error message whenever I try to play or game or view the roster. The only "success" I have had was running history from 1901 to the present auto-simming all the way through without touching a thing the whole time. But this is not my idea of fun.

6. Are you a PC, Mac, or Linux user?

I use Windows Vista 32-bit on a PC


I have read through the boards and tried so many different suggestions but they have been short-term fixes, at best. In the end, I feel like I have spent dozens of hours (and dollars) for nothing but frustration.

These are not the only errors I have received, by the way. I've also had the game revert to Demo mode, I've had Add-Ons Central become unusable, and many other things that a finished product should not be doing. I would love to recommend this game, but unless I can actually play it myself, I have no choice but to slam it.

Please help me play this game that I preordered back in February or March of 2009. Yes, it's been a year of waiting and frustration. And I have never made it through one season of a fictional career! Please help!

[kq76]

Originally Posted by bkotler

Usually, the problems occur if the laptop turns off on its own in the middle.

Hopefully someone will come along who can help you better than this and I imagine you've probably already tried some of these, but:

1) You do know you can adjust your laptop power saving features, correct? I myself have a few I use at different times. I have to use one particular one every time I burn something. Normally I like to have my laptop's monitor turn off after 10-15 minutes of activity, but for some reason a burn screws up if the monitor shuts off so I turn it to a profile that keeps it on then once it's done I turn it back to the regular profile.

2) I also wonder if it might be a bogging down issue too. Trying some of the things from this post might help.

[bkotler]

Thanks for the tips but I already have my computer set up for best performance (all unnecessary graphics disabled, etc.) My computer is not all that old either and I haven't had trouble with any program other than OOTP. I was so excited looking forward to the release (again, I am a new customer that preordered back in Feb. or March and waited well into June for the release), but I have never been able to actually "play" the game as intended. I've spent more time trying to fix problems than playing, and that's saying alot.

I feel like I just gave away for $30 for constant headaches and frustration -- hence feeling like I got ripped off. I don't know what the company's policy is regarding issues like this, but it can forget about me being a repeat customer unless I have a version that works properly. I hate to do that, as I was a fan of Earl Weaver, Tony LaRussa, Front Page Sports, Eastside Hockey, Strat-O-Matic, etc. and thought I struck gold with OOTP. But quite to the contrary.

I just want a reliable game that works. When I start a fictional league, I want to be able to see how the players develop year-after-year, but after a couple game weeks I'm back on the prowl looking for fixes or uninstalling the game and deleting saves, etc.

[RchW]

Not to belabour the point but you can't have your laptop turn off in the middle of anything and expect it to work.

I have run into problems over and over again. Usually, the problems occur if the laptop turns off on its own in the middle. The problems begin regardless of a specific screen but it varies from trying to view my roster to trying to view free agents to trying to start a game.

However you seemed to say in your next post that you had it set up for best performance. That includes not turning off at all I hope.


I had some problems with Vista in the past so I'll ask a few more questions

What anti-virus do you use? Zone Alarm is a known problem. I can't say it is an absolute but I disable my AV (not Zone alarm) during installation.

Do you defragment your HDD regularly? I can correlate increased instances of crashes when the HDD gets fragmented.

When you re-installed (IMO it's best to a non-default folder) did you right click and run as administrator for the first run?

How much RAM do you have installed?

How much HDD free space do you have?

What is the size (MB GB) of the league you are trying to run?


I'm no expert, but I'll try to help.

[bkotler]

Thanks for the replies. As far as your questions, I have disabed Anti-Virus and firewall upon downloading, installing, and using. I have 2 GB RAM and a 1.90 GHz processor speed. There is 115 GB of 185 GB available Hard Disk space so those aren't issues. I have the latest sound and video drivers as well. I had the problem with OOTP before & after downloading & installing the latest drivers. Every other program I have works fine (and has survived the computer shutting down unexpectedly). I do occasionally defrag the hard drive but I can't imagine that that is causing the problem.

I have manually gone into advanced system properties and increased virtual memory and disabled all the bells and whistles that are standard with Vista. For example, instead of having transparent window bars, they are solid blue and gray now. Much less attractive, but it does boost performance. I have also disabled all the unnecessary startup programs in the background.

Trust me, the problems I am having with OOTP aren't performance related (though I am no computer expert), they seem to be stability issues with the program itself. Like I said, OOTP is the only one I ever have trouble with and it is ALL THE TIME.

I have reinstalled in default folders and half a dozen non-default folders. The ideal league that I want to set up is 20 teams plus AAA, AA, A, with College and High School Feeder leagues based on a 1980's National Hockey League setup. I'm not editing players or anything complex, just naming teams like the Quebec Nordiques, Minnesota North Stars, and Winnipeg Jets. I don't think that is asking too much. But I have tried smaller setups as well.

They work for a short time (especially after I install to a new non-default folder) but then I get hit by the same issues. There are times I can't even make it to the first regular season when I have to uninstall. Just a bit different every time so I can't say it's one certain thing that is causing it or one certain that is affecting it. Al I know is that the leagues become completely unplayable.

Thanks for the suggestions, though.

[kq76]

Originally Posted by bkotler

Trust me, the problems I am having with OOTP aren't performance related (though I am no computer expert), they seem to be stability issues with the program itself. Like I said, OOTP is the only one I ever have trouble with and it is ALL THE TIME.

Well, by the sounds of it your laptop is twice as good as mine, we both use Vista, and while you've apparently had constant problems, I haven't had a single one with any version of OOTP since I got mine some 3 years ago and I run the game at least once every 2 days. That doesn't mean it's not an issue with OOTP, but I wouldn't rule anything out yet.

Something is telling me it might be a video card incompatibility. A version or two ago there were a number of cards that OOTP had issue with and while I haven't heard it brought up in awhile I wonder if that's not it. Could you tell us what yours is? Typing dxdiag into the search field above your start button and then clicking on the display tab should tell you your card name.

[SMFXR01]

Please be warned (from experience).
The laptop/PC turning off/dyeing whilst playing a league will, in all honesty corrupt that league. (most of the time.)
It would happen to most programs if it were writing data when turned off....It's not just OOTP.
It should not affect the main game itself (not in my experience anyway).
All I can say is...back-up....back-up....back-up.
And not just just on your hard drive. back-up externally.
(Lets face it, flash drives are as cheap as chips, even for the large ones).
You may be lucky sometimes and be able to play a league after a cut to
the power....but the corruption may not surface for a while!
I would scrap it and go for the back-up everytime....
As you say the hours and hours we pour into the game it can get very frustrating.
I know there is a built in back-up process which automatically updates it if it finds corruption on Loading.....but I would still go for my own personal back-up.

[bkotler]

My video card is an ATI Radeon X1200

I guess I'll try to start backing up the leagues. Should I use in the in-game backup option? And will a backup fit on a standard CD? Money is too tight to be going out buying flash drives right now.

Also, I'm not 100% certain that the problem begins only when the computer shuts off. It's just been the past couple times but I can't specifically recall every prior time -- there have been so many.

[kq76]

Originally Posted by bkotler

My video card is an ATI Radeon X1200

It's not on the list, but the 1400 and 1600 are.

Apparently the video card problem was only to do with facegen though and it was 3 years ago so any problems with video cards have probably been worked out by now.

Battists's call for video cards thread - http://www.ootpdevelopments.com/boar...deo-cards.html

EDIT: It might be worth making sure you have the latest drivers for your video card just in case it is a problem with your card. I know when other games of mine have problems freezing that it's usually due to my poor video card because a little error msg pops up about it.

[snnort]

The computer going into a screen saver OR low power usage state of any kind will KILL ootp. Most laptops are setup to go to a low power state quickly to conserve the fact that you are running (a lot of the time) on a battery. Vista setting control some of this... but I bet that some of these settings (in your case) could even be set in the BIOS of the motherboard. They are settings that CAN be changed by you, but it requires you to hit a series of buttons rather quickly from power on... well before the "windows" splash screen comes on to tell you that the computer is loading windows.

With out seeing the issue in front of me, I'm not saying that this is the case... but it fits your descriptions thus far. AND it's always been an issue with lots of games in the past. SOME games can bounce back after a computer goes into a low power state, but many do not... and OOTP has been one of those that never has be... throughout all the earlier versions. It's locks up like a 14 year old wearing a chastity belt every time the program is running and it's computer reaches a power down state... often it can be wither the screen ... but sometimes even the HDD powering down to "sleep mode" will be enough to kill the program and when things come back to life... everything else works file (browser windows that were left open and such) but OOTP never wakes back up and killing the program corrupts the hell out of not only the league files that were open prior to the power down, but also the OOTP program files... and at that point the game has to be uninstalled and reinstalled.

I lived it with a number of previous versions of OOTP and any new computer I get automatically the first thing I do is go into BIOS and disable ALL power saving modes. AND I mean ALL of them. And then do the same in windows as well. The power saving modes in BIOS and Windows are independent of one another and BOTH require fixing.

[bkotler]

Originally Posted by snnort

The computer going into a screen saver OR low power usage state of any kind will KILL ootp. Most laptops are setup to go to a low power state quickly to conserve the fact that you are running (a lot of the time) on a battery. Vista setting control some of this... but I bet that some of these settings (in your case) could even be set in the BIOS of the motherboard. They are settings that CAN be changed by you, but it requires you to hit a series of buttons rather quickly from power on... well before the "windows" splash screen comes on to tell you that the computer is loading windows.

With out seeing the issue in front of me, I'm not saying that this is the case... but it fits your descriptions thus far. AND it's always been an issue with lots of games in the past. SOME games can bounce back after a computer goes into a low power state, but many do not... and OOTP has been one of those that never has be... throughout all the earlier versions. It's locks up like a 14 year old wearing a chastity belt every time the program is running and it's computer reaches a power down state... often it can be wither the screen ... but sometimes even the HDD powering down to "sleep mode" will be enough to kill the program and when things come back to life... everything else works file (browser windows that were left open and such) but OOTP never wakes back up and killing the program corrupts the hell out of not only the league files that were open prior to the power down, but also the OOTP program files... and at that point the game has to be uninstalled and reinstalled.

I lived it with a number of previous versions of OOTP and any new computer I get automatically the first thing I do is go into BIOS and disable ALL power saving modes. AND I mean ALL of them. And then do the same in windows as well. The power saving modes in BIOS and Windows are independent of one another and BOTH require fixing.

I never run the game off the battery. I always have my laptop plugged into a wall outlet. Thanks for the suggestion though.

[snnort]

Originally Posted by bkotler

I never run the game off the battery. I always have my laptop plugged into a wall outlet. Thanks for the suggestion though.

That doesn't necessarily mean your BIOS and OS power saving settings are correct.

The question is... as soon as that monitor clicks off OR the HDD powers down OR the screen saver kicks on... it's going to kill OOTP every time. Does not matter if you are running off the battery or wall adapter. Does not matter if its OOTP 4 or OOTP 10.

IF that is the situation, it will kill OOTP every time.

[TribeFanInNC]

I will concur with the others that the problem likely stems from the computer shutting off mid-game. OOTP will not stand up to that. If you can't correct it, then you will repeatedly have problems.

Now when you say 'turns off', do you mean the power turns completely off (i.e. you overheated or ran out of battery) or just hibernates or goes to screen saver? It could be you just need to provide some better cooling.

[SMFXR01]

Originally Posted by snnort

That doesn't necessarily mean your BIOS and OS power saving settings are correct.

The question is... as soon as that monitor clicks off OR the HDD powers down OR the screen saver kicks on... it's going to kill OOTP every time. Does not matter if you are running off the battery or wall adapter. Does not matter if its OOTP 4 or OOTP 10.

IF that is the situation, it will kill OOTP every time.

Good point as even "mains" power settings could kick in if not set correctly.

[battists]

Just to throw an "official" voice into the mix, I will agree with a few things here:

1. First off, you SHOULD be able to play OOTP without these sorts of issues. By and large, most people are able to do this. (Although admittedly, we see the largest # of problems with Vista.)

2. Any time your computer shuts down while OOTP is open, there is the risk of data corruption, as files in use are not properly closed, etc. This is especially true if your machine shuts down in the middle of a save action. I highly recommend you shut down OOTP when you're not actively using it, to reduce the risk of this happening.

Since we haven't heard from the original poster in a few weeks, I'm going to go ahead and close out this thread. However, if you continue to experience problems, please submit a ticket via our new support site, and we'll do everything we can to get you a stable gaming experience.

Thanks!