Build Terrain Crashes PC

[llfalcon]

Finally jumped into terrain, and I am getting nowhere fast. I built my house without a terrain perimeter. When I add the perimeter, then click Build Terrain, my PC totally freezes up, every time. Thinking there might be something wrong with my design file, I started a new design, added only a terrain perimeter, clicked Build Terrain and KAPOW - frozen again.

So, I copied my downloaded program file to another PC, installed it, transferred my design and I could work on Terrain just fine. That PC is much older and not as good as the one that crashes.

On the PC that crashes, I can generate Full Overview of a fully furnished house without any problem - it goes smoothly and quite quickly. I do recall that a couple of times when I tried to load a sample design the PC froze then too, but not every time.

I know nothing about video cards and their issues, and fear opening that can of worms again (searched the forum and the dirt on video cards is deep!), but in my blissful ignorance I would think (ha!) that if I can do a Full Overview, I should be able to Build Terrain! But what do I know...

Obviously my download is not corrupt, but I wonder about my installation? I have put in a support ticket, but meanwhile wondered if you guys have any ideas?

Thanks,

[Dan Park]

It sounds like the problem is related to the PC since it works on one and not the other.

I would look at the PC's memory, try a good memory checker. A bad sector of ram might cause this to happen during more intense calculations.

If you copied the plan it was crashing on over to the other computer it seems like it should crash there if it was corrupt.

Also if this happens only when creating 3D it could be related to the video card. Sometime lowering the render video quality in defaults can make a weak video card work. But as you stated it renders a complex structure with no difficulty.

When you stated the PC totall freezes, I take it to mean nothing works at all. This generally indicates a hardware problem.

[Larry]

If you don't have any other software causing the same crash I would try re-installing the copy to the "bad" machine. Overwriting a bad copy of a particular file could correct the problem.

If that doesn't work you may need to take it to somebody that understands hardware and make sure your drivers have all installed properly. This software may just tax your system enough to make some problem rear it's ugly head whereas other software may not trigger that specific problem.

If your right click on "My Computer" and select "manage" and then "viewer", you can examine the history of your computer and it will show things reporting errors before the crash.

Haven't heard the old "bad bit" problem for decades. It used to fairly common in the good ole' days. About 15 years ago memory became so reliable that IBM dropped their parity bit for memory checks. (and lowers the cost)

[Baylink]

I would look at the PC's memory, try a good memory checker. A bad sector of ram might cause this to happen during more intense calculations.

And the one I'd recommend is Memtest+, which you can get here. Get the ISO version, burn a CD from it, and boot it.

[llfalcon]

Thanks for all the suggestions. I too fear a hardware problem that I am not personally qualified to track down, and I am all too familiar with the merry-go-round of hardware vs. software support.

I downloaded the memtest thing but am having trouble getting my PC to boot from the CD. I don't want to bog down this forum with all that, and I'll be able to figure that out tonight when I get home from work. I do wish they had a word or two on that site about how to run the software. I even tried the USB version, but I don't really know from where to run it.

I'm going to be so disappointed if I don't get to do the terrain stuff. The primary reason I bought AHD over Suite was the additional terrain tools. My 100-year-old landscaping is in bad need of a redo.

If I learn something of interest I'll post it.

As an afterthought, attached are some screenshots of my system specs. To those techies out there who truly understand what this stuff means, does this look good enough? I run some other memory and graphic intensive software without problem, but none quite so resource hungry as AHD.

Thanks,

[Larry]

The two video adapters raises an problem for me.
I would disable one (r.click on it and select disable) and then try it again.

The name "Hell" raises another. They like to customize the O/s and may not be compatible with some upgrades.

BTW: ***LINDA*** Your name is encoded on the "Hell" screen, published by you, and you may not want it known publicly on the Internet for all to see!

[llfalcon]

Aw, Larry, I saw my name on there - I don't care. I am an insider with a publicly traded company, so I'm used to having my name on the Internet.

My other Hell box lists two similar video adaptors, and I had no issues with it, although it's older. I'll give it a try, though.

Thanks,

[Baylink]

I don't see anything on there that shouldn't be good enough.

On the memory tester, make sure you're using the "Burn an ISO image to a Disc" function of your burner software, not merely creating a Data CD-ROM with the ISO file *on* it.

Additionally, if the machine has not been cleaned in a year, shut it down, open it up, and go at it with a can of air. If you're comfortable doing it, you might reseat the memory and PCI cards as well.

[llfalcon]

Well, that explains it. I just created the data CD, all the while wondering how that made it bootable. I appreciate the tip.

I did add 2G of memory earlier this year, but felt like I got them well-seated. And cleaned like a white tornado while I was in there. I'll repeat. At this point I will stand on my head and gargle peanut butter if I can just do terrain!

[Baylink]

It is worth reinstalling, too, I suspect.

We had to reinstall twice to get a stable installation, but then we're using the not officially support Windows 2000 underneath it.

If you do reinstall, *shut down* after you do the uninstall, and the reboot to reinstall it.

[Dan Park]

...

I did add 2G of memory earlier this year, but felt like I got them well-seated. And cleaned like a white tornado while I was in there. I'll repeat. At this point I will stand on my head and gargle peanut butter if I can just do terrain!

In your previous post of the system properties it shows 3 gig of ram. This is typical if you have 32 bit Windows.

I am curious if you started with 2 and upgraded to 4. If so it would be worthwhile to remove the new ram and run without it as a test.

[Larry]

Good catch, Dan!

Been there, done that one.

[llfalcon]

I'm not sure I understand what you're saying, but I do truly have 3G. I started with 1G, configured as two strips of 512k, and two vacant slots. My PC requires matched pairs. Rather than throw out 2 512k-strips for the sake of installing the 4G max, I simply added two 1G strips, for a total of 3G.

That was March 1 or thereabouts, and no signs of trouble until the dang
Terrain thing. I use other graphic applications without issue, every day, but they probably aren't the hog that AHD is.

I'm going to try to do the memory check tonight, make sure I have the latest video driver, etc. I realize it must be something peculiar to this PC since everything works fine on others, but I was just hoping that someone had seen this issue and could say it's this or that. Guess not.

If I can get the memory checked and it does come back as ok, and I do all the other troubleshooting I can think of, I will remove the new memory to see if it works. While slow, I did get AHD to run on a PC with only 1G, so I should be able to test it.

Thanks for the help.

[Baylink]

If I can get the memory checked and it does come back as ok, and I do all the other troubleshooting I can think of, I will remove the new memory to see if it works. While slow, I did get AHD to run on a PC with only 1G, so I should be able to test it.

For what it's worth, my sister and I are running HDS8 on probably the most unsupported configuration in the world: P3-933, 512MB, Win2k. Even the dollhouse renders aren't really all that bad, and everything else runs quite nicely.

[Larry]

Sometimes memory is not compatible with each other. Different size memory chips/boards can have different address line interlacing and not work with each other.

I have had motherboards that demand the largest memory be in the lowest or highest ram slot.

Some take timing from the first placed Ram stick and it is too slow or too fast for the other one.

Perhaps your applications have never utilized memory that high on the address bus?

Who knows but having both to experiment with is a definite plus for troubleshooting. Try only one and then only the other, then try switching the configuration. Clean the edge connectors dwon with good alcohol (rubbing alcohol contains oil or water to dilute it for humans...don't use).

The problem may go away after playing with the memory physically. Then you will know what it is, just not how to cure it and it may come back later.

Best of luck. You'll get it.