The beta typhoon.exe has fixed ALL my game freeze problems. Many thanks to Steve and the Guys.

My problem now is that whenever I load one of my Saved games I ALWAYS crash with the
good old:

Fatal Error in 3Dream C:\cvsmil\3dream-win\hvmats\matmk.c(1265):Fatal Error:Failed to create material 'CPT bkgrd01_1'

This alas means I must restart the campaign.

So for Steve here are some things I've noticed about this crash... maybe irrelevant... maybe not.

First as previously noted by many this crash ALWAYS occurs when clicking on the 'pilot pre-flighting aircraft' icon on the pilot bar.

Secondly in my case I ALWAYS get the crash when I load a saved game WHERE AT THE TIME OF THE SAVE NONE OF MY PILOTS ARE IN THE AIR.
Unluckily for me.. being a tidy soul all my current campaign saves are of this type! Hence I have to restart the campaign.

Thirdly It seems to me when a saved game is loaded the game engine usually (always?) attempts to place the player in the cockpit of one of the FLYING pilots (starting with the one the pilot was flying at the time of the save?). In my case I have NO flying pilots. Is this why I crash? (The crash message looks like something to do with loading Cockpit background textures perhaps? Im just guessing!)

Does anyone else have further info on this type of crash that may help the programming team (God Bless 'em)

Andre

You know it's quite possible that since the invasion part of the game has been removed from this beta patch, that loading pre-patch old saves might just cause problems.

I think it's best to wait till the full patch comes out and test it then. The fact that it's fixed ALL your old problems is a good sign.

Good thinking!

One slightly confusing thing tho....
I DID start a new campaign when I applied the Beta Patch.... and the Russians still Invaded! Wierd or what!

You are right tho... I'll wait for the Real patch.

Andre

Andre,

The end of this thread should allay your fears:

http://www.simhq.com/simhq3/sims/boards/bbs/Forum48/HTML/000361.html

Never fear...Steve Hunt is here

The test exe which everyone seems to have now was never really meant to be made available to everyone. It ONLY contains new code to solve the hang problem with 3DFX cards. Steve mentioned to me in email that the materials bug has been fixed...just not in the version I (and lots of others now) have.

The 3dfx exe as it's known is NO DIFFERENT from the original except for the HUD drawing routines. AND the campaign won't work properly too...the invasion will never happen. This was to stop it being distributed.

Andre,

Hi - the CTD with cut scenes is caused by a 512x512 texture in a format that a 3DFX card can't handle. We've fixed this in our version and a full patch will be up early next week.

As far as I know, these 2 fixes should (I hope) result in a 100% playable version of Typhoon for 3fdx owners.

And yes, I've crippled the test patch so the campaign stops working past the Hovercraft mission (This is an internal Rage requirement during testing).

Cheers,

Steve

Many Thanks Steve (And the rest of the ET team).

Lets hope Rage give you some extra time off to compensate for your loused up bank holiday weekend.

God luck when you hit the States with ET.

Andre