Savage 2 Troubleshooting (read before submitting issues)

[S2Mercenary]

Table of Contents

• System Requirements
• Mandatory Troubleshooting Steps
  • Latest .NET framework
  • Update video card drivers
  • Install latest C++ Redistributable
  • Install latest DirectX
  • Runtime Errors and Blue Screens with Vista (Important!)
• Windows Vista
  • Install Service Pack 1
  • Turn off UAC
  • Run Savage 2 as an administrator
• Linux
  • Unable to play/update on ATI cards
  • Assistance with updating video drivers
  • Linux system requirements
  • Known issues/workarounds
    • Savage2 - Fatal Error: PNG header and library versions do not match
    • Sound crackles under some configurations using ALSA output.
    • X11 server may stall using an NVIDIA GeForce 8xxx series video card with the 169 series drivers when anti-aliasing is enabled in-game.
    • Cannot select single screen video modes.
    • ./savage2.bin: error while loading shared libraries: libncurses.so.5: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory.
    • Installer issues
    • Manual install steps
    • OpenGL 3 - Savage2 - Fatal Error: OpenGL 2.1 not available
• Steam Issues
  • Being prompted to download maps
  • Vista and Steam
• Common Issues and Solutions/Workarounds
  • Crashing while map is loading and game is minimized
  • Game performs poorly/isn't stable
  • Game crashes after changing game settings (particularly graphics settings) and you're unable to start Savage 2 to revert your settings.
  • Could not find d3dx9_34.dll
  • "Someone is using your account" messages
  • Geom_BuildBlockList: Truncated block
  • Unable to update or play online
  • Where's my account? (Demo account expirations)
  • D3D_Create: CreateDevice() Failed

This thread exists in the interest of having as much troubleshooting information as possible consolidated in a single thread.

If you have any bugs or crashes that you would like to report, please refer to this thread.

[S2Mercenary]

System Requirements

You need to meet at least the minimum system requirements to run Savage 2. Don't assume that the game will run with lesser hardware - it most likely won't. If you're unsure, download the game and fire up practice/the tutorial. That way you can determine whether or not your system can handle Savage 2 before you buy it.

Minimum

This is generally what you need for Savage 2 to run at all. The game may perform run pretty well, but as soon as you get into the game, I'd recommend setting the game settings as low as they go in the options menu for best performance and stability. You may be able to run the game at lower settings, but we're limited in how we can help you unless you can meet at least the minimum requirements.

Processor: 2.2Ghz P4 or faster / AMD 2000+ or faster
RAM: 1 Gb of ram
Video Card: 128Mb fully DirectX 9.0 compliant Geforce or Radeon
Operating System: Windows XP, Win2k, Windows Vista
Internet Connection: Broadband

Recommended

Think of these are the minimum requirements to have the game run well. The game won't necessarily perform at 60FPS with all settings as high as they go at 1600x1200, but you should be able to have an enjoyable experience at medium detail settings with the following or better:

Processor: 2.0ghz Core 2 duo / AMD 3500+ or faster
RAM: 1.5 Gb or higher (strongly recommended)
Video Card: 256Mb Geforce 7800+ or Radeon x1900+
Operating System: Windows XP, Win2k, Windows Vista, Linux
Internet Connection: Broadband

[S2Mercenary]

Mandatory Troubleshooting Steps

These are things that you must do before coming to us to ask for support on or to report an issue. A large portion of issues that pop up are solved by running through the following and installing and updating where necessary. Much of this information is specific to the Windows version of Savage 2, but you'll need to make sure that things like video card drivers are up to date regardless of what operating system you're using.

Thanks goes to Uninvited for posting much of this information in an earlier thread.

1. Before installing Savage 2, you need to make sure that you have that latest .NET framework. The current version as of this writing is 3.5, and can be downloaded from Microsoft's website. Before you can do this, you'll need to have the latest version of the Windows installer. You'll need to have the latest .NET framework to run the game, so even if you're able to install Savage 2, make sure that your .NET framework is up to date.
2. Make your that your Video Card drivers are up to date. You can find Drivers for Nvidia cards here, and Drivers for ATI cards here. You can also try the Omega Drivers which may fix certain issues or improve your performance, but they're not officially supported by the video card manufacturers and could cause more harm than good.
3. Uninstall the 2005 C++ Redistributable package if you have it and install the 2008 C++ Redistributable package available at Microsoft Update. The 2008 C++ redistributable package is available for both 32-Bit Windows and 64-bit Windows
4. Install the latest version of DirectX. The web installer will update you to the latest version. You'll need to validate your version of Windows in order to update your DirectX. There are redistributable packages available which do not require validation and will update your DirectX to a particular version (the linked redistributable is from March 2008.

[S2Mercenary]

Windows Vista

It's recommended that you do the following in order to resolve certain issues if you're running Windows Vista:

1. Install Service Pack 1. This is extremely important, as it fixes major video card issues, including an particular issue whose hotfix is no longer provided by Nvidia as the update is included in Service Pack 1. There is a hotfix for this issue for ATI cards here.
2. Turn off UAC (User account control). Instructions are below, and you can find a guide for this here as well.
   1. Open the start menu, and then click to open the Control Panel.
   2. In the control panel, click "User Accounts and Family Safety".
   3. Click "User Accounts".
   4. Click the text which reads "Turn User Account on or off".
3. Run Savage 2 as an administrator. A guide with images can be found here. To run the game once as an administrator, right-click the Savage 2 shortcut and click "Run as administrator". To permanently apply it to the shortcut, do the following:
   1. Right-click the Savage 2 shortcut. Click properties.
   2. Click the "Shortcut" tab, and then click the "Advanced" button towards the bottom right.
   3. In the new window click the "Run as Administrator" checkbox".
   4. Click OK in the Advanced Properties window, and OK in the shortcut properties window.

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Runtime Errors and Blue Screens with Vista (Important!)

If you're experiencing runtime errors of blue screens and are using Windows Vista and an ATI or Nvidia video card, you need to have the Windows Vista hotfixes for these cards. It's my understanding that the Nvidia hotfix is no longer available from their site and you must instead install Windows Vista Service Pack 1. There is a hotfix for this issue for ATI cards here.

[S2Mercenary]

Linux

S2Slacker is your best source for help with Linux-specific Savage 2 issues. Much of the information here regarding the Linux client has been provided by him.

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Unable to play and/or update on ATI cards

The ATI Catalyst driver that comes with Ubuntu Hardy Heron is 8.3. At a minimum, you'll need the ATI Catalyst 8.5 drivers in order to update and play Savage 2. Some information on this can be found in this thread.

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Assistance with updating video drivers

You may want to try installing and running the EnvyNG package which may make it easier to install and update the correct video drivers for your card. You can find information on EnvyNG here. I'm not sure if EnvyNG is Ubuntu-only.

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Linux System Requirements

Savage 2 requires an OpenGL 2.1 compliant video card and driver. This means it will not run on Geforce 4 series and below. As well, you'll have to use the binary drivers from NVIDIA or ATI for as far as I know, Mesa's DRI drivers do not yet support it (Does Mesa list what versions of OpenGL each driver implements some where? I couldn't find a list when I looked).

Recommended driver versions if you are using an ATI card are Catalyst 8.5, 8.6, or 8.7.

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Known Issues and Workarounds

The information here originated in this thread.

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Savage2 - Fatal Error: PNG header and library versions do not match

This happens when LD_LIBRARY_PATH points to a location with libpng, overriding the RUNPATH entry in the Savage 2 binaries/libraries which has them use the libpng in Savage2/libs. unset LD_LIBRARY_PATH or run the game with LD_LIBRARY_PATH="libs:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH" ./savage2.bin

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Sound crackles under some configurations using ALSA output.

Changing sound_mixrate to 48000 in ~/.savage2/game/startup.cfg has been reported to solve the issue in some cases.

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X11 server may stall using an NVIDIA GeForce 8xxx series video card with the 169 series drivers when anti-aliasing is enabled in-game.

Upgrade drivers to 173.14.05 or newer.

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Cannot select single screen video modes.

Add single screen meta modes to your xorg.conf.

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./savage2.bin: error while loading shared libraries: libncurses.so.5: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory.

If you are using a distro that has decided not to include it, you can download the 32 bit or 64 bit version and extract it in /path/to/Savage2/lib

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Installer Issues

If you have a problem with the installer first check the md5sum so that you are sure that the download was complete.

Savage2Install-1.3.99-i686.bin 28dadc4fff2ae7941acec839532f09c6
Savage2Install-1.3.99-x86_64.bin 4f9de38643d4bc0d74e25d621d8d47e5

Savage2Install-1.4.7-i686.bin 1ef1ea8dbe25d2c0a1b37b5e1c5df0c4
Savage2Install-1.4.7-x86_64.bin bc6e3abebd7f32667a1ec41ffe6f89de

Ensure that you have write permissions to the directory that you are installing it in and that you have sufficient disk space on the partition you want to install it onto (approximately 750 MB is required).

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If you need to, you can perform a manual install using the following steps:

mkdir Savage2
cd Savage2
unzip /path/to/Savage2Install-*.bin
rm -r meta guis scripts
mv data/* .
rmdir data
./savage2_update.bin --update-runpath

Then you'll be able to run it via ./savage2.bin

OpenGL 3 - Savage2 - Fatal Error: OpenGL 2.1 not available.

Earlier versions (prior to 1.7.9) of Savage 2 will not recognize OpenGL 2.1 support if you have video drivers that support OpenGL 3.

The updated installers on our website are free of this issue:

32-bit - http://www.savage2.com/en/downloads/...2.1.0-i686.bin
64-bit - http://www.savage2.com/en/downloads/...1.0-x86_64.bin

Previously, the workaround for this issue was to run dedicated_server.sh from the Savage 2 directory and type "checkforupdates" (no quotes) in the console. Wait at least 10 minutes for the update to download and install the updates. The console will be unresponsive and not produce any status messages while updating. You can type "version" (no quotes) in the console to check your current version/to verify that the update has completed.

[S2Mercenary]

Steam Issues

Being prompted to download maps

This is a known issue and one that we're currently working on. Currently, the best solution is to download the non-steam client from our website until we release a version of Savage 2 which fixes this issue.

Vista users running the Steam version of Savage 2

You'll need to run Steam as an administrator, along with Savage 2. You'll need to create a desktop shortcut to your Steam version of Savage 2 and run that as an administrator in order to run the Steam version of Savage 2 as an administrator.

[S2Mercenary]

Common Issues and Solutions/Workarounds

These are the most commonly encountered issues that players have experienced. Make sure that you read through this information before asking for further help. If you're aware of other issues and solutions/workarounds, please let us know and we'll add them to this list.

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Crashing while map is loading and game is minimized

Savage 2 tends to crash while minimized and a map is being loaded. This is a known issue. The current workarounds are as follows:

• Don't minimize the game until the map finishes loading.
• Run Savage 2 in windowed mode.
• Set d3d_exclusive to false. In order to do this, open the console while in-game (ctrl+f8), type "d3d_exclusive false" (without the quotes), and then hit enter to apply the setting.

Game performs poorly/isn't stable

Make sure you follow the mandatory steps as listed above (including the steps for Windows Vista if you have that installed). Also, go into the options menu and set your graphics settings as low as they go (this will reduce the amount of memory required, lower the hardware requirements, and generally improve stability and performance).

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Game crashes after changing game settings (particularly graphics settings) and you're unable to start Savage 2 to revert your settings.

Delete your startup.cfg to reset to the default Savage 2 settings. In order to do so, you'll need to navigate to "C:\Documents and Settings\[windows username]\My Documents\Savage 2 - A Tortured Soul\game\" in Windows or "~/.savage2/game/" in Linux. Delete the file, and a new startup.cfg with the default settings will be created when you next load Savage 2.

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Could not find d3dx9_34.dll

In this case, and if you receive similar errors regarding being unable to find a particular d3d dll file, you'll need to update your DirectX. The web installer can be found here.. A thread with information on this issue can be found here.

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"Someone is using your account" messages

If you're abruptly disconnected from a server (usually if you're having connection problems and lose your connection to a server), your session on that server may not end properly and our servers will continue to think that you're logged in and connected to that server. Usually this problem will clear up on its own (just wait 5-10 minutes for the session to time out). Occasionally this problem persists for more than 30 minutes and can affect more than one player. Usually when that happens, many players will have the same issue and it can be linked to a particular server. Let us know if this problem persists for more than 30 minutes.

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Geom_BuildBlockList: Truncated block

Update your video card drivers. Links to these drivers can be found in the "Mandatory Steps to Follow" list at the top of this thread.

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Unable to update or play online

Completely exit out of any firewall or anti-virus software you have running, as some anti-virus software will conflict with Savage 2. Disabling or "turning off" the software will not resolve all issues caused by firewall and anti-virus software; you must instead completely end the process (sometimes this can be achieved by choosing the exit/quit/close option when right-clicking the icon in the system tray, but other times you need to close the process in the task manager).

We'll continue to do what we can to make sure that these programs are compatible with Savage 2, but for the time being, completely exiting the software is the best work-around for anyone experiencing issues caused by anti-virus or firewall software.

Please remember that many anti-virus programs either include firewall-like components or are packaged with a software firewall. Just because you don't appear to have a firewall installed on your computer doesn't mean that Savage 2 isn't being blocked by a program that is attempting to keep your connection secure.

You can discuss this issue in this thread.

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Where's my account? (Demo account expirations)

If you have a DEMO account and are having troubles logging in, your account may have expired. After 30 days of inactivity (forum activity does not count) we are freeing up nicknames and removing all account privileges. This applies to the game, forums and Savage 2 related web sites.

You can always re-register. Or better yet, purchase your account to secure your nickname and avoid this issue in the future. You can inquire about and discuss demo account expirations in this thread.

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D3D_Create: CreateDevice() Failed

If you receive this error, it is of extreme importance that you let us know what video card you're using when you inquire about this error. Savage 2 will NOT run on anything less than a Geforce 5900. Please see the system requirements listed at the top of this thread for more information. Discussion for this issue can be found in this thread.