Recommendations on how to debug this graphics crash
by Christopher Lohman · in Torque Game Engine · 06/02/2003 (6:42 pm) · 2 replies
I would appreciate it if any of you experienced developers could help me track down this bug. I have no idea how to even begin debugging it. Here's the problem...
Only on my Athlon 1.1.3
In both Windows XP and Win2K3 Server
Only with nVidia Quadro FX cards (1000 and 500 gfx, any driver I have ever tried)
If I launch the torqueDemo_DEBUG.exe I immediately blue screen. It writes a memory.dmp then reboots; herein referred to as the "crash".
I was able to launch the Tennis Critters demo and run in the native 800x600 full screen; but if I attempt to change the resultion it immediately crashes.
ThinkTanks will run and will switch to full screen mode; but when I exit the game to jump back to the desktop; it crashes.
It seems to be that whenever the Torque engine changes the screen resolution; that the crash occurs (like 98% of the time)
I tried running in Debug but that didn't do anything. It can't catch exceptions or anything else it seems because the OS just vomits whenever I use anything Torque.
So I'm working on trying to narrow down the factors IE; try older nVidia drivers...play with the troubleshooting tab...vga mode...opengl settings...all of the OS switches that I can flip essentially...
Oh and, on WinXP; sometimes instead of crashing it dumps to the screen but the display is seriously hosed. I have double mice pointes; windows popup in the wrong locations; nothing repaints; it's just hosed: I haven't been able to catch anything in debug when this happens.
I want to say that this is a driver issue but I can't for certain. This card in a P4/2ghz running Torque is fine. This box with a non-quadro card is fine; and it's such an isolated setup that I'd like to have -something- to goto nVidia with if it truly is a driver so that they don't just label it "unreproducible".
Aside from just poking at it; or once I poke enough that I have narrowed down the combination that causes the crash; what's next? How do I go about debugging this when the system crashes?
Only on my Athlon 1.1.3
In both Windows XP and Win2K3 Server
Only with nVidia Quadro FX cards (1000 and 500 gfx, any driver I have ever tried)
If I launch the torqueDemo_DEBUG.exe I immediately blue screen. It writes a memory.dmp then reboots; herein referred to as the "crash".
I was able to launch the Tennis Critters demo and run in the native 800x600 full screen; but if I attempt to change the resultion it immediately crashes.
ThinkTanks will run and will switch to full screen mode; but when I exit the game to jump back to the desktop; it crashes.
It seems to be that whenever the Torque engine changes the screen resolution; that the crash occurs (like 98% of the time)
I tried running in Debug but that didn't do anything. It can't catch exceptions or anything else it seems because the OS just vomits whenever I use anything Torque.
So I'm working on trying to narrow down the factors IE; try older nVidia drivers...play with the troubleshooting tab...vga mode...opengl settings...all of the OS switches that I can flip essentially...
Oh and, on WinXP; sometimes instead of crashing it dumps to the screen but the display is seriously hosed. I have double mice pointes; windows popup in the wrong locations; nothing repaints; it's just hosed: I haven't been able to catch anything in debug when this happens.
I want to say that this is a driver issue but I can't for certain. This card in a P4/2ghz running Torque is fine. This box with a non-quadro card is fine; and it's such an isolated setup that I'd like to have -something- to goto nVidia with if it truly is a driver so that they don't just label it "unreproducible".
Aside from just poking at it; or once I poke enough that I have narrowed down the combination that causes the crash; what's next? How do I go about debugging this when the system crashes?
Torque Owner Mz
First things first, have you tried this with more than one Quadro FX in more than one system? You might have a bad board. Also try swapping the Quadro into a clean system if you can.
If you're sure it's software and if you can narrow down the code that's doing it, I would suggest that you try to put together a minimal (non-Torque) application that displays the problem, and send it off to nVidia's developer relations. They'll figure out if it's their bug or not and let you know what's up.