Hello,
first of all, let me say that I am a big fan of MATY - I am so thankful for the lot of bugfixes and hacks published here.
So, I would like to tell you what I found out about the game crashes. Here is a very short summary of the story:
About two months ago or so, I upgraded my computer to an Intel E6850, Core2Dou with 2x3 GHz and 5 GB RAM, and changed the OS to XP 64 bit. The graphics card (is that the rigth word? Iīm not shure, english is not my first language) is still my old one, a nVidia 7600 GS with 256 MB RAM, which will be switched to a 9800 GTX this month (birthday
).
After re-installing the game and installing FT for the first time, I was not able to play more than about an hour without crashing (ACCESS VIOLATION), on some lots (very large ones, full with CC) the game crashes after one or two minutes.
I spent weeks by testing everything, moving and sorting CC - nothing helped. The game crashes even without CC, a bit later, but it crashed. At least, I was very despaired. Then, I installed a new computer for my children, nearly similar to my old system, and copied my neighborhood on this one just to test it - no crashes! *Surprise*. Then I discovered that the graphics settings where not equal to mine. After adjusting them, the game crashed on the new computer immediately. *NextSurprise*
I checked out every single one and found out, that the reason for the problems are the reflections. Turning them off, the game does not crash any more, not on my computer and not on the childrenīs one; all other settings can be turned to max.
After FT, I was using a bit more of the mirrors - especially the wall-high ones for the ballet. Having more than about, lets say, three or four mirrors on a lot and turning reflections on leads to a crash. The crash will appear earlier with CC, but nevertheless also without any CC.
I posted this in a german forum two days ago, because there were many threads about crashes similar to mine, and until today there were a couple of replies from other people who tried a test and have now no more crashes. And the game is extremely faster, more than I would expect on a lot with only three or four mirrors.
So, maybe this is interessting for you, and maybe it could be helful.
Many greetings!
Author