Solutions to the ATI crashes

[supermalparit]

Hello,

These are 2 possible ways to solve the ATI crashes.

1) Go to the AMD/ATI website, download and install the lastest drivers.
http://support.amd.com/us/Pages/AMDSupportHub.aspx


If with the updated drivers the game still crashes, try this:

2)

I finally solved my ATI crash issue !

I had been unabled to play since the 0.40 release because of crashes which happened every 10-15 mins after launching the game because of my ATI card.
I tried many times to update my driver using update tools on the AMD.COM official website.
But it appears that AMD doesn't care about updating old graphic cards as mine (ATI mobility 3650 HD).
Moreover, the Catalyst Control Center program that Toshiba driver updating support advice you to download is useless because it cant' update your graphic card driver.
That's why i'd like to share how i finally solved this, this may help some other people.

How to update your ATI driver :
1. Search for your graphic controller on http://www.drivermax.com/driver/search/
2. Select the latest driver update and download their freeware (i first though it was a fake software which would introduce Viruses/Trojans in my computer but i checked on google this is a clean software).
3. Run the program, you have to register first, creating a free account.
4.Click on "Scan for driver updates", this may take a while.
5. Select the ATI driver update in the list, download and install it.
6.Now you really got the latest driver version.

My driver version was 8.634.1.0 ; Date : 29/07/2009.
Now i got version 8.970.0.0 ; Date : 18/04/2012.

I played the game during 3 hours without experiencing any crash so i guess the problem is solved. ¡HURRA!

[liquidaçao]

i had that error to treid the step 1 and 2 didn't worked


try to open towns then open Task Manager
select towns and go to towns process and define the priority to high don't put it to real time it will cause problems

it worked for me

[TheSinisterKid]

I have tried all three of these and it still crashes. What should I do?

[tom k.]

I have tried all three of these and it still crashes. What should I do?

What hardware do you have (what graphics card?) and what is the date on your drivers?

[ysre]

To add some more information, since I got this seemingly interesting new game (which I now can't play for the most part) just yesterday:

Basic setup:
Game: Towns v8a (steam version, last updated today, ie. 2012-11-09)
OS: Windows 7 64bit, up-to-date on patches
Java: JRE 1.6.35 (not sure which architecture it was; probably 32bit), JRE 1.7.9 (32bit), JRE 1.7.9 (64bit)
ATI-GPU-Hardware: "AMD Radeon HD 6700 Series" according to display manager (PCI-ID: 1002:68BA ; hardware id string is: PCI\VEN_1002&DEV_68BA&SUBSYS_E144174B&REV_00 )
ATI-GPU-Drivers: used to be from around 2011 (amd.com) and is now at the most current version (2012-11-08). For the display driver this is 9.2.0.0 (dated on 2012-09-27)

There are several issues which have been tested on both ATI-driver versions and several Java version and all can be reproduced at will:
a) the ATI crash issue in window mode during a manual window-resize (retry a few times if it doesn't instantly happen; also blackens out the viewport completely)
# EXCEPTION_ACCESS_VIOLATION (0xc0000005) at pc=0x000000006171f8d5, pid=4800, tid=4720
#
# JRE version: 7.0_09-b05
# Java VM: Java HotSpot(TM) 64-Bit Server VM (23.5-b02 mixed mode windows-amd64 compressed oops)
# Problematic frame:
# C [atio6axx.dll+0xaff8d5] DrvPresentBuffers+0xabc535

b) the ATI crash issue when going to fullscreen (via options menu or F11): most of the times it only gets you a big black screen within the gameclient's viewport (yet the black-in-black elements seem to be somewhat accessible), but after some switching back and forth it crashes with the usual error message:
# EXCEPTION_ACCESS_VIOLATION (0xc0000005) at pc=0x635d9dea, pid=2028, tid=1832
#
# JRE version: 7.0_09-b05
# Java VM: Java HotSpot(TM) Client VM (23.5-b02 mixed mode, sharing windows-x86 )
# Problematic frame:
# C [atioglxx.dll+0x949dea] DrvPresentBuffers+0x90ce8a

c) the viewport's window size in windowmode doesn't adhere to the values provided by towns.ini / the gameclient in windowmode always creates a viewport that maxes out the full height of the display (which makes the lower scroll area unaccessible since Windows 7 has such a big desktop bar).

Add up issue a+b+c and you get a wonderful game that is not playable at all by any standards; the workaround with the least effort would probably be to use the window-size provided in towns.ini to give the user a means to workaround the issue this way. The ATI crashes themselves are exactly the same no matter what Java version is being used (which, as you so aptly said in this thread, is because it's something external to your java proggy.. still.. very bad IMO).

In any case, whatever this function call "DrvPresentBuffers" does, is not what's happening.. or is it the call itself that is failing? Something that might be of help.

And to add insult to injury, yet another thing, which is purely because I got the game via steam: I can't even play the game on my CentOS Linux-Client, since Steam for Linux is still in beta and I'm not part of it

Have a great day nevertheless. Maybe someday I can actually play this game


edit: On second thought, do you guys have Trac or some other kind of bug tracker? It would probably be prudent to create an actual bug report rather than letting me type this one up in the mishymashy way that it is.


edit 2: SOLVED!

To quote the other post:

Trying to roll back to the point where the bug shows up again, this showed up:

Under the heading "SMOOTHVISION HD:Anti-Aliasing" removing the check on "Use application settings" triggers the crash on window resizing or fullscreen.

In the catalyst control center / AMD VISION Engine Control Center in the section "Gaming" / "3D Application Settings", under the heading "SMOOTHVISION HD:Anti-Aliasing", make sure to have the box on "Use application settings" ticked, or the crash on window resizing or fullscreen could (and probably will) rear its ugly head.

[Kletian999]

So my Smoothvision AntiAliasing is checked to use Application settings; my crashes usually aren't during the act of Fullscreening, but usually within 5 to 15 minutes of startup. When I get lucky (and it seems to be luckier to run the .cmd for towns instead of the .exe) I can get almost 60 mins before a crash. Any suggestions on what other settings to change- or since Towns is the only application having a problem with the ATI driver, is there something being done to let these two play nicer?

[ysre]

The problems I had were due to the Antialiasing being set to some fixed value (don't remember which it was anymore); since then Towns has been running smoothly on Java 1.6.35 (32bit) and Java 1.7.4 (32bit) on my Windows 7 (64bit)

[Dymetreus]

I have ever since buying the game have been getting crashes. There is nothing notable, and there is no signs of when it will crash. Sometimes I can play for an hour with no crash, other times I can't play for five minutes before it crashes. I haven't noticed anything that I do which would trigger it, it is completely different about each time. I'm new to this reporting problems deal, so if you want me to do something you'd best to tell me how you do it before hand, as likely I will not know how to do it. I have done everything the above has recommended, and nothing has worked. I have the most recent version of Java, deleted all other Java versions available, I have updated my driver through the method as presented above. I have tried messing with the Catalyst Center, I have tried putting it on, "High" priority. Nothing seems to stop it, thus far. For all I know, there has been literally no effect. What was in the error message, came along with this so I figured it may help.

OS: Windows Vista , 64 bit Build 6000

CPU:total 8 (4 cores per cpu, 2 threads per core) family 6 model 26 stepping 4, cmov, cx8, fxsr, mmx, sse, sse2, sse3, ssse3, sse4.1, sse4.2, popcnt, ht, tsc, tscinvbit, tscinv

Memory: 4k page, physical 6282424k(2898076k free), swap 12563000k(7721808k free)

vm_info: Java HotSpot(TM) 64-Bit Server VM (23.6-b04) for windows-amd64 JRE (1.7.0_10-b18), built on Nov 28 2012 05:00:40 by "java_re" with unknown MS VC++:1600

-------

# EXCEPTION_ACCESS_VIOLATION (0xc0000005) at pc=0x0000000016a7fec0, pid=2856, tid=7768
#
# JRE version: 7.0_10-b18
# Java VM: Java HotSpot(TM) 64-Bit Server VM (23.6-b04 mixed mode windows-amd64 compressed oops)
# Problematic frame:
# C [atio6axx.dll+0x1cfec0] DrvPresentBuffers+0x16db50

--------

This seems to be all of it, although there is plenty on the page, it seems this is what part everyone posts.

[Praedon]

I continued to have crashes after I updated my ATI drivers completely (ATI Radeon HD 4550), however once I turned off Overdrive, it has worked like a charm.

[ggggggg]

Hello guys. Just registered here to say that I would no one recommend the second option with "Drivermax". I just have to fight with these crashes too and tried this methode and the outcome shocked me pretty hard. I installed the latest driver for graphic card (ATI Mobilitly Radeon HD 5470) which was Version 9.200.0.0 if I remember right. So, while it was continue installing shortly later a blue crash screen appeared. After the forced reset, my laptop is now loading things much slower then usuall. No matter what google is saying, don't give this program your trust. You really shouldn't since it's looking like trash anyways. And now you and I officialy know what benefits we can have of this oppoturnity. Absolutely none ! If you can't find any solution of fixing your crashes then it's still better to live with that instead of destroying your graphic cards or computers. Just warning! Thanks for reading and sorry for my bad english. I hope it was understandable though.