Crashes to Desktop when starting campaign

[Bjartr]

I bought The Ball in the Steam Sale. My computer specs are as follows:

• OS: Windows 7 x64
• CPU: Intel E6600
• RAM: 4GB
• GFX: Nvidia 8800 GTX

The game starts up fine up to the menus. I choose campaign and click play. 'The Ball' appears on the screen and then the game crashes. Oddly, survival mode does work.

[Hourences]

There is a log file in My Documents\My Games\The Ball\UDKGame\Logs. It is called Launch.log. Can you paste its contents here?

[Bjartr]

Sure, I've uploaded a copy to pastebin

[balla]

i have the same problem: survival starts but campaign does not.. any helps?

[Hourences]

Yes it seems a few people have a problem with this. The log files don't say anything, they just cut off, which indicates a very deep problem, or a problem outside the game (Windows/hardware).

This is what I advised someone else, but I doubt it will work in this case:

In My Documents\My Games\The Ball\UDKGame\Config, open UDkEngine.ini, find the section [SystemSettings], and set Fullscreen=False to force the game to start windowed, in case that helps. There is also a AllowD3D10=False right below, you may want to try setting that to True. We don't officially support D3D10 but it will be interesting to see if it makes any difference for you.

We estimated about 0.2 to 0.3% of the people experience this crash, so we think it might be something very specific. A specific program that runs in the background for example. It does not seem to be related to what version of Windows, or 3D card. So it may be something else.

What kind of virus scanner do you have? Do you run a firewall, or any other form of security program? Do you run anything on standard that might interfere?

[Hourences]

We want to try something, anyone wants to be the guinea pig? Please email me at sjoerd@teotlstudios.com

[grimwold]

I have already tried in windowed mode before I came to these forums, so in the config file fullscreen is already set to false.

Regarding the other queries...
I am running "AVG Free 2011" anti-virus, and "Tiny Personal Firewall" as a software firewall. I have a hardware firewall as part of my ADSL router and it is set to block ports unless I specifically open them. I also have "Spybot S&D Resident" running, which, amongst other things, prevents changes to the windows registry without my consent.

I have added theball.exe, from the binaries/win32 directory within steamapps to my Software Firewall, but have not been able to figure out if any ports need opening on the router, because the game crashes before I see anything in the router log file.
When running in windowed mode, I was not aware of any dialogue boxes from either my firewall, or from Spybot.

[Zetsumei]

what is your soundcard? and your motherboard?

What happens if you fully delete the the ball folder in my documents/my games and then verify the cache within steam?

[=GG= Mr Moe]

Its not your display driver crashing to the desktop (and resetting) is it? I have experienced this with Windows 7 occasionally because of some timeout delay gobblygook something or other with several games. I can go a few weeks no problem, then I might get it several times a day.

I have read this happens with both NVidia and ATI. Everything running super smooth, then for some reason the system thinks your drivers hang and it restarts them.

[grimwold]

Originally Posted by Zetsumei

what is your soundcard? and your motherboard?

My mobo is an Asus P5Q Pro... and I'm using onboard sound.
And if it's relevant, the graphics card is an ATI Radeon HD 4600 series and I have the latest drivers.

Originally Posted by Zetsumei

What happens if you fully delete the the ball folder in my documents/my games and then verify the cache within steam?

Ok I tried deleting The Ball folder in My Games and was able to play the game for a bit longer... long enough to start manipulating the ball and "solve" the puzzle in the first room with the extending planks... I was just getting into the game when it froze again and I had to hit the reset switch.

I'm not sure this was my graphics driver crashing and resetting either, as I've had that happen before and the system always recovered with a message saying the graphics driver had been reset (it might not have been with this version of the graphics driver though).

[grimwold]

Originally Posted by grimwold

My mobo is an Asus P5Q Pro... and I'm using onboard sound.
And if it's relevant, the graphics card is an ATI Radeon HD 4600 series and I have the latest drivers.

Looks like I am sorted. I decided to try rolling-back my graphics drivers to the previously installed ones, and "hey-presto" I am able to play... I also checked the launch.log file, and it doesn't cut off as it used to... in fact it's quite detailed now.

[Hourences]

Hm, can you tell me which ones you had and which one you got now?

For the others, the offer is still open to email me, so I can hook you up with another build, to see how that runs.