VOGONS


First post, by TuomasT

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When an ethereal battleship attacks one of my bases and just when the tactical part should start, dosbox crashes and prints the following:

"CPU:GRP5:Illegal Call 7"

This is with normal core on x86-84.

The bug can be reproduced by loading the second (2) savegame slot from the following ufo1 installation and letting the ufo reach the base. Unless the base defences manage to blast the ufo out of the sky before it lands, the game will crash.

[removed link: upload savegames ONLY next time!]

Edit: This is actually Dosbox CVS because dosbox 0.7 would crash ingame after about 30 minutes because of known problem on x86-64 and some other non-x86 platforms.

Edit2: The ethereals have sent total of 3 battleships in couple of game days to that base. I guess this is what "Superhuman" difficulty means (this version of xcom 1.2 has the difficulty reset bug fixed).

Edit3: They sent total of no less than 13 battleships at the base until one got through. This time the game didn't crash so this might be a game bug. By the way, the ethereals slaughtered half of the personnel, but were succesfully repelled. Luckily they seem to have lost the base location after succesful tactical battle. Phew.

Reply 1 of 5, by bz-mof

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This sounds like a X-Com-problem, because I had this too, but without DosBox. Btw: Wy do you use DosBox? There is a patch fo video so that it runs under windows without problems, see www .xcomufo.com/x1dl.html.

Also you could try to read across the Strategy Guide, it should mention this problem, too.
Du you have got an old savegame?

-mof

Reply 2 of 5, by wd

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so that it runs under windows without problems

Not that helpful for linux/mac guys then.

Reply 3 of 5, by bz-mof

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wd wrote:

Not that helpful for linux/mac guys then.

That's a good point (-: But it was just my idea to test if it is a problem with DosBox or a problem with X-Com generally.

But it seems to be the second possibility:
Just tested TuomasTs savegame (Taistelu) twice (native DOS):
1) Unfortunately I cannot start your game because the codes it want's to have are neither the ones I have got in my manual nor those I found in the net. Patch 1.4 fixes the problem, because it also removes the copy protection. I see that you have come very far in the game, but, after the UFO attacks the your base and it fires back, the game crashes with the error you described above. Some under WinXP.
2) Tried to load the game in my own X-Com (eng. CD-Version with all patches), but the same happens.

I also tried to find a fault in your savegame via xcomedit (cwe 1.52), but found nothing suspicious.

Are the savegames included in the gzip file all you have? Otherwise you should test a game saved a little before the UFO starts the attack on your base (2-3 days earlier).

And, very important: Do you know that there are several bugs that can crash the game? I see that you have only a medic left in your containment chambers. There are huge bugs in the research tree that can force the game to crash later when you have done some things in the early game (i.e. researching a Tasloth commander).

At least I am sorry because I cannot help...

Reply 4 of 5, by wd

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Wait for the next version, it seems to load the base battle fine for me
(all cores), so chances are a bit higher that it doesn't crash for you as well.

Reply 5 of 5, by bz-mof

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bz-mof wrote:

Description of game crashing

Doh! It took very long, but at least I found out the right codes not from the manual (00...)...
Ok, seems that the crashes in my posting above were created by my patching to version 1.4...

For me, your savegame #2 loads and works correctly, too (with your version of the game with&without dosbox 0.7, also tried on macosx 10.4).

As you described, a Ethereal Battleship comes and attacks your base. Try it, sometimes your defense shoots it down (without intercepting), sometimes not. And then a base mission starts without crashing the game...

But I can remember (played xcom1 copious again half a year ago) that I had some kind of the same problem (sometimes crashing when the game switched to the equipment screen before the battlescape), so i started to save the game before every mission.

So, once again: I believe that this is no fault of dosbox.