Paging Erich and/or Andy: Occasional Crashes in G-Force...

[JayPro]

The problem has been and remains this: After about fifteen minutes of action, with the occasional skip in frame rate, the app quits, briefly resizes my screen to the lowest res on my iMac (640x480) and returns to my 1440x900 standard.

Erich;

I have downloaded FileBuddy and used it to convert all my .rtf files to .txt as you suggested. The only ones I've left unchanged are the .Map files, which still open up in TextEdit. Is there an OS X Carbon of BBEdit I can use to open them up with instead? I suspect that as long as TE has any part of its grubby mitts in G-Force, it will remain a culprit in these crash problems.

EDIT: I just remembered and am in the process of changing the tags in my Union effects from .rtf to .txt. Also I have taken your advice to bracket out any non-code comments in my config files. I'll try this and see if anything changes.

Andy;

Is it also possible that the new build of iTunes could be casusing this too? To be sure I have disabled my Energy Saver to make sure that this deosn't interfere with things.
Should I also force-quit Classic environment before running the app? I thoroughly checked the Docs and there's nothing that suggests Classic being a problem; but I've been having my share of problems with it.

Aside from that, I'm at a loss.

Thx in Advance;

JwP

EDIT EDIT (attn: Erich as per our running conversations regarding .rtf files): I'm finding out that in some cases, as I'm try to convert from .rtf to .txt, FileBuddy maintains the garbled syntax at the top of the page as if the file were still being construed as an .rtf.
This is evident when I open up the file in SimpleText carb. Am I doing something amiss?

[andy55]

It's essential that the config files are plain text (and not rtf). There's a shareware Mac OS text editor for OS X that's really good called "iText"--look on versiontracker.com for it.

If you still have problems, zip or sit your GF folder and send it to me.

[JayPro]

I'll look into this at my leisure to see what it can do, having just downloaded it now (if it doesn't have this feature already, I'd like to see it have the capability to handle a multitude of files simultaneously...but I'll find out soon enough, eh? ).

The only issue I'm somewhat concerned about right now is whether some files I ran through FileBuddy in order to convert them from .rtf to plain text will work because SimpleText carbon insists on seeing TextEdit code at the head of the document...plus TE's *annoying-as-hell* tendency to hijack things even while ST Carbon is open (To wit, *is* TextEdit itself the issue?)

I might have to look for something that will do away with the code I spoke of earlier--if such a thing exists--so that I can have a clean .txt file.

I employed the following measures (thanks to Erich BTW for guidance), which took about two days of work:

1. I commented out whatever non-code-related stuff I had in all the config files I authored ("//" at the LHS of each comment). This was the tedious part. As you know, BTW, some folks (IIRC) do this > */....../* ...but frankly, I didn't want to spend the time.

2. I changed all the files I could find that had a Vers=261 tag to 260. I was informed by Erich that the former is used for boot/pref files only and could lead to crashes under other circumstances.

3. On the OS side, I disabled my Energy Saver (as per the GF Documentation) and did the same to the Classic environment as a precaution. I also ratcheted down the Sound Enhancer option in the iTunes Prefs, as I see this as an additional, gratuitous strain on the CPU.

The result, at least for tonight, was a good half-hour-plus session of G-Force with no crashes. The occasional frame-rate burp, though, was noticed, particularly with photo-sprite loads and the occasional WaveShape transition (In this regard, I may have to consult Erich's emails to me about Metafile "numerology", i.e. what level of "morphable" is best for smooth WS slideshow transitions...but this is a minor issue).

Once again, thanks for your time in responding.

JwP

EDIT: Erich has also cited that framerate discontinuities can also arise if, to paraphrase, a "true" WaveShape is used as a Particle...so perhaps this explains my previous observations.

Maybe I'm overlooking something (I pored extensively through the Metafile docs in the "Rotating(?) Corridor" file), but if one can configure the Metafiling in such a way that true Particles can be segregated by, say, not assigning them a "Morphable" value, then there ought to be a way...

--and I'll betcha there *is* one and I just haven't looked hard enough--

...to keep "true" Waveshapes from assuming Particle status. Hence the issue Erich pointed out above will essentially have been solved.

To wit (I love that phrase), does there exist an ideal formula vis a vis using Metafiling to achieve something similar to the Particle/Waveshape hierarchy that existed before 2.6?

[Kodotai]

mr. jaypro, always having trouble are you not?

admittedly, i have never witnessed g-force crash ever since its inception, until version 2.6.2 gold. however, i found the crash actually was related to an image particle effect i created. the effect, begins by introducing a jpeg from the bottom of the screen [ essentially pops up ], then bounces it around the screen finishing with it rotating fully about its axis and then disappears to the bottom of the screen again. now while this effect [ amongst many ] perform flawlessly in other builds, it promptly crashes g-force gold once it enters its 'bouncing' phase. i have yet to track down the cause, although i feel it is most determinate on my math, which must be changed to suite the compiler.

in short, jay, the crashing is most likely due to errant math or simple type error [ like a missing comma, et al ]. before the crash, be cognizant of the configs which were in operation at the time of the crash, to help better isolate the anomaly. if need be, send me your entire waveshape library and i will sort through it and make sure everything is tip-top.

the map files opening in textedit is okay, as long as these files are not really rtf [ get info on them and make sure the extension is not ' colour.map.rtf ' ]. bbedit is available as a carbon application [ i use it extensively ].

while itunes is a bit daft, it certainly is not the problem. energy saver is not the problem either *unless* you set it to produce a screensaver, which may lead to confusion causing a crash. the sound enhancer feature of itunes is not an issue. i personally use the enhancer, plus crossfade in addition to custom sound aggrandizers via audio hijack pro....all the while g-force operates for days [ !!!! ] at a time [ i leave the music/visuals on in the background while i work, et cetera ].

the framerate burps you witness most likely are due to your processor, as i occasionally see this on the powerbook G4 and not the G5. in regards to the G5, g-force literally functions stellar under those processors, as g-force cooks up 84 plus frames per second.....although still only an acceptable 42 frames in 32-bit mode.

EDIT: per your file buddy issue, it seems that file buddy only converts the actual extension and not the contents of the file. this is why you see the rtf headers still in simpletext. you may then, want to batch process the files in bbedit, which will indeed save them as real txt files.

[JayPro]

mr. jaypro, always having trouble are you not?

back atcha.... Actually, I also had encountered very little problems using the app until G-Force 2.6, what with the Metafile issue that had been bandied about quite strenuously between you me and Andy.

admittedly, i have never witnessed g-force crash ever since its inception, until version 2.6.2 gold. however, i found the crash actually was related to an image particle effect i created. the effect, begins by introducing a jpeg from the bottom of the screen [ essentially pops up ], then bounces it around the screen finishing with it rotating fully about its axis and then disappears to the bottom of the screen again. now while this effect [ amongst many ] perform flawlessly in other builds, it promptly crashes g-force gold once it enters its 'bouncing' phase. i have yet to track down the cause, although i feel it is most determinate on my math, which must be changed to suite the compiler.

For me the primary jpeg/bmp-particle question was raised by me in another thread quite recently: to wit, can one install either too many jpeg/bmp particles or could installing one that exceeds a certain size cause the occasional crap-out? I don't noodle around with how the pics bounce around or not; I just take a pic I like and drop it in the folder.

in short, jay, the crashing is most likely due to errant math or simple type error [ like a missing comma, et al ]. before the crash, be cognizant of the configs which were in operation at the time of the crash, to help better isolate the anomaly. if need be, send me your entire waveshape library and i will sort through it and make sure everything is tip-top.

Not that I don't cop to the sporadic mistake or two (or three...or ten), but one of the things I do look for before anything else is code syntax. Your suggestion of commenting out any and all non-code in the config file was duly noted and extensively dealt with. I also followed your advice in the following regard (see my comments a few posts back): I isolated all configs that had a Vers number of 261 and changed them to 260...interestingly enough, all of them were found in the Flowfied Union folder; this made things easier. I also as per your BBEdit commentary plan on running all my waveshape files through to see which ones have the TextEdit code yet affixed. Hopefully BBEdit can expose this code so I don't have to open up ST carb. Matter o' fact, I just may have to run *all my files throu BB to change things to true .txt.[/quote]

the map files opening in textedit is okay, as long as these files are not really rtf [ get info on them and make sure the extension is not ' colour.map.rtf ' ]. bbedit is available as a carbon application [ i use it extensively ]

.

You may refer to my previous comments, as no elaboration is necessary here.

while itunes is a bit daft, it certainly is not the problem. energy saver is not the problem either *unless* you set it to produce a screensaver, which may lead to confusion causing a crash. the sound enhancer feature of itunes is not an issue. i personally use the enhancer, plus crossfade in addition to custom sound aggrandizers via audio hijack pro....all the while g-force operates for days [ !!!! ] at a time [ i leave the music/visuals on in the background while i work, et cetera ].

I was using this measure to hedge against any further chances of CPU usage kocking the app out of commission. I also use the enhancer/crossfade options, but would you not suppose (as I experimented with before resetting it to the default level) that setting the enhancer control too high might be a tad CPU-intensive?

the framerate burps you witness most likely are due to your processor, as i occasionally see this on the powerbook G4 and not the G5. in regards to the G5, g-force literally functions stellar under those processors, as g-force cooks up 84 plus frames per second.....although still only an acceptable 42 frames in 32-bit mode.

My suspicions exactly. One of my frequent observations in retrospect is that the conspicuousness of these "burps" is directly proportional to the size of the image. Most likely I'll have to re-dimensionalize a few.

EDIT: per your file buddy issue, it seems that file buddy only converts the actual extension and not the contents of the file. this is why you see the rtf headers still in simpletext. you may then, want to batch process the files in bbedit, which will indeed save them as real txt files.

*Now* he tells me... Plus, it seems that this app can work with a severely limited number of files at once. I don't believe it suits my purpose, although I do appreciate the product namedropping, as it were.