Hi there!
My dear friends, i have a serious announcement to make. This is NOT a thread of whinge and sorrow and this is not my style at all but i was told by a moderator to make this public. i thought about it a lot for a very long time and now i guess it's only fair for those who were helping me so much over the last months. i have a few things that really annoy me and i just want to let you know. this is not an angry text or a threat "if you don't... i will..." this is just what i think and i don't want to "discuss", just let you know what's in my head and why i made my dicision.

it is very disappointing when you put so much time and work into a project that is failing no matter what you try and you still try and then the disappointment is getting even worse.

here is my little history of failures:

HATE BOAT:
when i started here in january 2015 i quickly began to build a game called "hate boat". i spent many hours with this game and learned a lot from all the friendly users here. this was my learning piece. it was never finished because the most important thing didn't work. AI characters don't move when they are above ground. this game is based on a ship wich MUST be higher than one floor so i did a lot of workarounds only to find out the work is worthless. CANCELLED. i was told in early 2015 that this issue will be fixed. until today it didn't happen.

FORMICULA:
my next try. i built a very nice game that caused many positive reactions on the forum and i was confident. after many hours of work i got runtime errors all over in standalone plus the main antagonists- the ants- didn't move, didn't attack, were floating over the ground, were not dying when shot etc. it didn't work. CANCELLED, because of unexpected errors and a bad performance. it was not playable. i got professional help from a very skilled forum member here and we both realized it will not work.. at this point i was very close to leaving game guru.

ISLAND HOPPER:
my next try. my biggest project until now. i spent many hours testing, everything was good. everything was working fine but in standalone all i got was errors, runtime errors. all over sudden the main weapons were not working anymore and until today i was not able to fix this problem. the AI behaviour was ridiculus and i had crashes and freezes, so i had to do it again: CANCELLED because i was getting an endless error parade. i put months of work in it. i was disappointed.this was even more painful than the last failure.

PARADISE RAMPAGE:
a second try (actually a fourth try) to rebuild "island hopper". the same. awesome maps, working good in testgame. standalone: does not work at all. runtime errors, weapons missing, entities are black, terrain surfaces are black, performance was bad and more.

SAFE HOUSE:
this was a zombie game i made with a giant city map and lots of enemies. i was so very very proud that i made it through the whole game but when i made the standalone suddenly the zombies were totally deformed and looking like genetic accidents. it was supposed to be a little creepy but the zombies look like cartoon monsters. if they even appear. most scripts are not working and the zombies stand in front of the wall and are stuck all the time.i was told that this problem (deforming bodies while walking) can't be fixed.plus i had new runtime errors, crashes etc. i wrote THIS TEXT HERE but i didn't post it, i wanted to give gameguru one more chance. CANCELLED.

TIMEBENDER:
i spent more than 200 hours to make this new game with cutscene videos, custom characters, video notes etc. the biggest thing i ever did and i was really proud of some of the maps. this was the best thing i made until now. i played the whole game in testgame and it all worked! now i made the standalone and i have strange colorful patterns that go through the whole map, graphic errors and again runtime errors. the medieval weapons have totally messed up textures. i knew that this would happen and i said to myself if i have to cancel this game as well i will leave game guru for good. i had so many errors and the "workarounds" for this sometimes were very adventurous but i always made it. sometimes it was really crazy but somewhen it worked.it was good that it foreced me into learning how to use LUA code. but it is pointless because whatever i do to make it work, in the standalone it crashes again. i have a huge amount of patience and i don't cry around so often but now my patience has ended.

i will stop using game guru for i don't have the "power" to start again.i want to thank you for your support and the help i got from you in the last (almost) two years.
this forum is a great place with generous and very friendly people! you all are great and i don't regret a second i spent here with you! i guess i will still look around here some time because some of the work in progress threads are really amazing and i would like to see them grow on. this includes Acythian, Saviour, Shavra, Kshatriya Challenges, The Cogwheel Chronicles, Into the ice and many more! i'm wondering why these people don't have the problems i have. also some users here are very nice people and i'm interested in what they are doing, so i will come back from time to time to take a look at you and your work.

i don't want to stress around, i have no reason because you always were very very nice to me, a few things were bothering me and now that i'm leaving i can tell you a few things i didn't like, maybe lee and the developers can find this constructive. this whole post here is meant to be constructive, not angry, btw.!

for example, there was a big announcement about the stability and performance update but i can't use the resources of my machine at all because game guru still runs awfully slow. i do know how to improve a few things, how to optimize a map and all of this. i am the world champion at workarounds and i still manage to make the game guru games stutter when i do what i want. i am a member for almost 2 years now and things that were promised before i became a member were still not realized. i also think that gameguru is an up and down with disappointment and happiness very close in this software. often we got updates that felt like nobody could use them (multiplayer) but they were dropped again as well. then there were big announcements like EBE that never happened.
also there are always a few bugs that never were repaired. f.e. when i use the blender tool without having the steam app running the GG crashes. also, when i open a few maps, after 5 or 6 maps entities are missing, terrain has failures, entities are black or the HUD is missing. this is happening every day i work with GG and i guess in the last 1.5 years i was actually using it every day. working with game guru requires a lot of patience. so i would suggest to the developers that they should make the software stable and solid before they start digging up new ideas. this all looks like a total chaos to me sometimes. i
hope you get this right, i don't wat to stress you but i hope this is constructive though.
also i think the store, the steam connection, the download of store items and the manegement of the store are still not perfect.

i also must tell you that you can be very proud of this forum community! this is the best i have ever seen and i think i have seen many. i know lee cannot compete with big engines and i guess he doesn't need to. if game guru only would be a little more stable it would be the greatest software ever because it is an easy game maker as in the title. i really like it. i had lots of fun, learned a lot and i don't regret the time but now i must tell you that you have lost me.

i wish good luck to all of you developers here and that your games run stable when finished. i will keep an eye on you!

I'm sorry to hear about all your issues mate, you do some good work.

But .. and there's a but ..

I've watched you over time, i've seen your issues, and tried to help, and the sheer amount of issues you seem to have constantly, most of which nobody else has, and those that others have had, have had simple fixes that you say did not work for you, i'm fairly confident that you either have serious issues at your end with corruption of your files, or you aren't using the simple fixes given to you properly.

It's not that i don't believe you, it's just that the sheer total amount of issues you have (and nobody else has had so many issues hit them all at once on such a constant basis), it just can't be anything other than issues on your end, or user error, either that or you are the unluckiest guy alive.

I realy do hope you can get it all sorted, i really want to play some of the games you've designed, they looks awesome.

I have to agree with Belidos here ...

Your work has been outstanding and I have looked at a couple maps for you over time ... You use a lot of custom work but I could never work out your asset paths when I tested the odd map they totally eluded me which I think added to the issues ...Runtime errors are 99 % " I cant find this " That's not a GG error .. That's GG working and doing its job by informing you there is a problem with something it cannot find or a problem with sound, Script or models ... The crashing is caused by the error so its hard for me to lay the blame on GG .. It could even be a Windows Issue ?

Its a real shame with the AI being worked on next after the EBE that you choose to stop now ( and you would love the EBE ) but hopefully you will return in the near future ...

yes i have recognized that i seem to be the only one to have these problems, yes i did!
but f.e. belidos tells me a very easy and understandable way how to repair a certain problem and i do exactly what he told me and it causes a new runtime error plus it does not work.

when i play my maps in the editor i never have problems. when i export them i have lots of errors. the latest error is that the "beserker AI" is missing completely. i had lots of workarounds but they all didn't work.

i usually have a diversity of software on my machine and after a long time of troubles i have bought a pc that is stable enough to work with software like cubase, blender, cryengine and so on and they all work 100% well. game guru is the only software i have that causes so many crashes.
i mean when i open an empty map with NO entities and i use the smoothen- tool it crashes. when i open 5 maps the 6th is always full of errors. what am i doing wrong there?

@nuncio-I agree with Synchromesh and I think you'd be crazy to give up now. I've seen your work on theWIP forum and looks awesome.
If I can help you technically, let me know. I'll see what issues you've raised on the WIP and see if I can help out. Don't quit now, it'll be a waste of what looks like a lot of hard work and effort that you've put in. Image issues etc are normally becuase the file doesn't exist or the path GG is looking for can't be found.

I would say stick at it

Yeah, it is sad to see you go - as said already you have been doing some awesome work.

It is true Game Guru has some issues, but for the most part it is AI and performance, not multiple errors - at least in my experience with it.

Like you I use this software every day and have clocked up thousands of hours to date, but I rarely see any errors at all - in fact the only one I have experienced is the one you mentioned using the Blend tool, which for me only happens in the editor and always ends in having to restart GG to be able to continue working. The workaround for that is only use the Blend tool in test mode.

I have been working on a map that has all custom models, terrain, and skybox, and uses the tropical trees from BSP that are all animated. At the moment there are only a few custom scripts, as I am concentrating on the models and layout for it. So I just made a standalone for the map to test after reading your issues, and it runs fine - actually much smoother that in test mode.

So it seams clear you are having issues others don't see - just wish there was some way to help you out tracing those errors.

After watching the latest twitch from lee, the next update will have some nice improvements. It is disappointing that the EBE is taking so long, especially for those of us who don't particularly want it anyway, but hopefully it is out soon, so that Lee can work on far more important things, like AI.

Unfortunately the very slow progress of GG this year has resulted in a lot of discontent, and few great devs have either left already or are seriously thinking of doing so, and it is sad to see you going the same way.

I wish you well in your efforts to find another engine (if that is your intention) to help you in your game making endeavors.

Hopefully you return soon.

EDIT: In fact as BOR says don't go! Lets see if the issues can be solved for you.

Kind Regards
Reliquia....

U open 5 maps at the same time?
Maybe the standalone exporter has a problem with your firewall/anti virus software or a general access right...

you people are great. i know why i love this community here
btw.: does anybody remember the "save the hostages" script? this was the reason why i had to cancel "island hopper". i almost forgot about that! that was a very very annoying piece of work that didn't work in the end.


no, i open one map, then i open another one, and another one and so on and the 7th or 6th is full of errors. looks like a memory problem.


i don't know. i have avira. but i never had a problem with this before.

Maybe turn off avira for a day, verify your files. Start GG , load your map, save as standalone...

First of all, i agree with you about the community, you all are very gifted and talented, my jaws are sometimes at the floor when i see the work of Wolf and other artists on this forum.
As a beginner i am pleased to have found this community which already has helped me a lot.

As for the issues on your part, how is your system running? do you sometimes have a freese out of nowhere which means you have to restart your system?
Are the settings stock or is there an overclock on memory and or cpu?

The reason that i ask this is because much of the problems i've encountered as an pc mecanic were do to unsupported memory or overclocking.
This can be very subtile, the pc seems to run fine but with installations of software or converting, sometimes an error comes up with the most strange messages.
mem-ok does run smootly and gives no error, yet the memory is causing problems because it is not supported on the mainboard.
Hence when i help to assemble a system for costumers, i always point to the support list of vendors for the memory choice.
Good memory is vital because it corrupts files during installations if it is not the right and supported memory.

After reading this thread, what comes to mind is sharing and testing of maps and scripts in order to find any errors and correct them, or it can be a lead to a solution of a bug within GG, such as the work around which Belidos shared during the twitch.
So i hope you'll listen to Bored of the Rings and do not quit


Of course you could try to run mem-ok, see if any errors come up after a few hours, than it is glaringly obvious.

@nuncio and @all:

Hi there,



You are not alone!

I share with you the same feelings of frustration and disappointment regarding the GameGuru engine product at this moment.

The fact that people are not bringing out their problems with GameGuru to this forum, does not mean, at all, that they are not having a hard time with it.

It's like trying to beat an invincible foe, as it says in the song 'Impossible dream'.

It's enough to me, and I am done! I cannot wait any longer.

I wish to everyone the best of luck.

Thank you very much.
Northern

usually my pc is running quite well. i'm very happy with the performance. also when i play... demanding games the cpu cooler gets kinda loud but i can't remember one time that i had a notable crash. well, when i don't use game guru. when i use game guru it is not unusual that GG crashes up to 6 times an evening. very very often a well known bug is: "edit/undo" -> runtime error. end. when i forgot to save it can be devastating.

i never had the need to change this. i have no knowledge about these things. is there a software / windows application that i can run to test this?
@northern: sorry to hear that

As a new GG user, I can empathize with @nuncio.

I am scared/sad about what @nuncio says. Investing time in software is always a risk and the industry changes on a nickel not a dime with this stuff. I see how this can/is happening to me.

Some of the problem IS GG software bugs. (Don't need to point them out people seriously working with it know.)

Some is coding error: USER - It happened to me - wrong menu sound path and bang your stand alone crashes your system. (Big time) A sound folder not ported over that (should have been by the engine) in the Standalone and bang crash. LUA syntax error bang crash.

Files do get corrupted. "Mobzombie.dbo" seen it thus far - thanks for the help. I have only been working with Zombie AI so far and I have had a world of problems.

Things put in then taken out/changed. Yes, you can argue the future development path - Sometimes. (Menu screens first JPG - Now PNG, but watermarks JPG not changed to PNG) seems kind of arbitrary. Scratch your head? Then you notice why screens don't load anymore.

Some stuff seems hopelessly old. (Some have pointed out Direct X should have been updated...tend to agree. 32bit/64bit thoughts)

*** However, I must say I really like the GG engine and the community. The direction seems solid given most recent posts. You can learn a hell of a lot from this software. You can prototype a 3D concept in hours/ days not months/years. Assets to test/scrips to try/AI to study. Shaders...ect. All overall positive.

Try something else 2d game dev. Construct/Scratch/Stencel/GameMaker/Animate - 3D Unity/Unreal/HTML 5 all have problems.

Bugs with Windows....we should be more upset with them injecting fix after fix after fix many of them not even updating right. They don't even really care about giving people a quality OS. Then a developer is treated like trash because they control the core language/GUI.

Frankly, I don't know how Lee does it. The guy is so patient with all the "CRA.." - I think he is some kind of British MONK.

All the best...

I can understand the frustration, I have felt it myself many times. However certain aspects you mention can be avoided with careful use. It can be a pain and you can forget and end up losing stuff with the occasional crash but here is how I tend to operate when making a game.

Build a map. Rough at first normally just the terrain if I am using it and getting it looking as good as I can, before moving on to adding any entity at all.

While doing this I will also restart GG on occasion. I know it's memory leaks can cause issues after so long, so I always restart GG every hour or 2 on average. This avoids crashes pretty much all the time for me.

Once I have the terrain pretty much done I start adding objects. Again following the same pattern of saving and reloading every hour or so. I actually save more often than that generally and often as a new name each time in case of issues so I can easily revert back to an earlier version.

At this point I am normally in optimise mode, where I try to keep the game running at 60 fps or as close as I can get. This can involve standard GG graphics options, altered media and simplification of parts of the map causing slow down. Sometimes I have to completely rip a lot of stuff out and re-think the layout. Then I will tend to stress test the map, check for any floating or out of place items, make sure I can't get OUT of the level etc.

Once I have a map running fairly well and I am reasonably happy with it, I try a standalone. If it runs ok at this point I would move onto either more optimisation, added tweaks to the map or if I am 90% happy with the map begin scripting. I will not start this unless the map runs fine in a standalone, with no issues beyond silly ones like missing textures. Those are easy to fix generally and I can normally look at that as a last thing to fix.

Then and only then do I start making the scene into a game. I test each new thing at each stage. In test runs and in standalone. I can sometimes be a bit lazy with standalone's, but have found although it seems a pain to test so often, it pays dividends in general. Fixing errors when you have several elements in can be much more difficult to pin down.

At this point, before starting scripting, I can easily have spent 60 hours on the map. I think my current projects level has taken me way longer and I'm still at it! No gameplay or anything, simply the map design has took me some time to get done. Admittedly down to some issues I have been experiencing (speed mainly).

It gets far more convoluted when you start having more levels. As you then you not only have to test each map separately, but also test the standalone with every level. If you make the mistake of just testing each standalone, you can often miss issues that only occur when moving through the levels. You also if, like me you rename new revisions, have to step through each level to adjust new level names to progress to for new standalone's.

My point here is that you have to test regularly and save regularly. In both test and standalone's. Many issues can be avoided or spotted early if you do this. It may seem too much work, and I can agree some things I do as a ritual now are only because of GG's problems, and do end up making me spend a lot more time than I would like at times with things. This is better than going hell for leather on a game idea, then trying a standalone to find nothing working as expected. Slow and steady wins the race so they say, or at least lets you finish ;p

The update at the moment is looking good. It's not going to fix all the issues mentioned here, but it's a step in the right direction. I hope both yourself and Northern come back at some point to check out any more updates that come along. I know GG has had issues forever and we have been promised a lot that hasn't materialised, but I think things are starting to look a bit better now and once as mentioned, the EBE is released (I don't think it is that far away now) and work on AI begins in earnest, we should see a significant gains in that department. I've been here since the start of Reloaded and have seen this a few times, where a few people lose interest and leave. We've lost some creative and friendly people to other engines over the years because of their frustrations. I don't suppose that will change until GG is a more finished product.

I'm fairly positive about GG at the minute, it's getting there, slowly.

Hi there Nuncio ,
Im NOT very good at this engine at all.
I make sucky little maps using mostly stock material.
Im NOT a good scripter at all but sometimes I make small
adjustments to the scripts till it works and I get it a bit more
like I want it to be.
I have hardly ever in a very long time, had a crash using Game Guru.
I have made lot of crappy little maps and made standalones of them
and they always function as I designed them no crashes or errors.
As has been stated here so many times by those MUCH MORE QUALIFIED than me....
the MAJORITY of errors in standalone games can almost always be accounted for
by files of one sort or another that for some reason or another have not been transferred over to the
standalone game file folder...usually....because they were additional files to the basic game guru ones....
such as.....imported .x files or textures or additional scripts or things like that..
When you got the errors , did you trace the meaning of the error codes and then try to solve
WHY the error was happening ?
Why not try that on any one of your standalone games and see the # of the error...then if its a missing file
try to locate it and add it to the standalone file folder and then try it again,,,,until you eliminate all the errors.
That way you will finally be able to differentiate between Game Guru errors and your own.
I too was ready to leave until recently and then said,.....nope.....gonna give it another try and wow..
did you see the Twitch.tv broadcast Lee did this week...it was fun and super encouraging with whats coming this week and more soon after.
Its so close and better and better.....give it one more college try.....we need talented people here to help guys like me..and to encourage guys like me and to inspire guys like me.........
Onward and upward to better and better....Think about it at least.

Thx

UNIRD12B

@Nuncio-I recommend (if you can) is to try installing/running your standalones on another persons PC (a friend/family member) who might have higher specs than your PC. See if you get same issues.

I'm not happy with GG but I'm NOT going to give up ! Having AI Bots that can't go up and down floor levels has been a non starter for me . So I keep waiting and waiting .... I know the bot problem is coming after the EBE so I'll just wait . Lee should have gotten Stab In the Dark to help get the Physics up to speed also .. I like waiting , NOT !

Now , I'll go back into my cave and wait some more ...

Lance

I certainly am no expert on this but...
DVader is absolutely correct GG, needs to be constantly tested and saved. It is very time consuming, but the key is to find the first error and then tackle it, not wait until problems accumulate. Your post indicates most of your maps (after some struggles) work to your satisfaction. Problems seem to appear in the stand alone process. Intermittent testing the levels is the key. I myself have found that it is never a good idea to load a map, work on it for some time, exit and save the map then load an other previously developed map (your reference to 4, or five) with out exiting GG complete and or reboot the system occasionally. I never save the level as stand alone during testing of a map. I almost always test the working level, save it, exit GG, shut down the computer, let it resolve any internal issues that may have occurred, have a cup of coffee then come back, come back and load a fresh GG session, load my map, then do the stand alone. It seems that the longer one works on a level in one session the more memory problems seem to exist.

Absolutely. Most issues arise from not at least restarting GG every so often. I also run a level once before saving as standalone, as in the past creating it without first running the game could cause the settings (grass, shaders, light) to default.

A good rule of thumb is to keep an eye on that green memory bar. Once it gets significantly higher than when you started your session, time to save and restart. You will nearly always see the bar much lower upon reloading and your safe to continue.

This little program is quite handy to see which hardware is present and on which settings it is running.
It is a portable program so no need to install.

Make a sceenshot like the one in the attachments and i'll check if everything is compatible and running on normal settings.

Personally i haven't really done much until now with GG because of its limitations.
But i'm going to run some tests like opening maps, undo and redo, place and delete, make some maps with scripts to test it as stand alone files and see if i get the same errors.

GG need some way to capture and deal with errors, that's the only way to avoid crashes.
A lot of " try,/throw/ catch/end try" maybe necessary, but you can avoid headaches.
Perhaps using defaults might help, ie: the textura path is wrong, so load default.dds file instead, and informe to the user about the issues; since you've tha item textured as default, you easily can find the guilty.
Sound path is wrong, so the same, default sound being played, and prompting you about the error, and so on when possible. this might avoid many crashes; GG should be capable to deal with well know errors, and avoid the crashes.

Memory handle still is not enough developed, memory fragmentation, memory leaks, should be fixed; realocating data in memory blocks, avoiding empty mem blocks in between, can avoid fragmentation and help to get data faster.

And the guys who want to go, I'll tell them to give the last update a chance; Christmas is a time to return home, not to abandon it.

Install GG from scratch, do not add any model, script, sound or anything, just working with GG as is, start a new level and work with it, doing all you usually do, but using stock ones, just stock ones, and see what happens ; If all work ok, add one custom entity, and try, all is ok, repeat till you get (if any) the bad item causing troubbles, or maybe some script, or some sound, or whatever is causing issues. Yes, a very hard work, but a good step to be sure, and eliminate possibles.

3com

Hi all, it would be a real shame to see anybody leave this forum including using GG.

Nuncio, may I ask have you freshly installed GG as others have said?
If I'm getting any issues with major apps I will make a fresh copy of the app and in some cases reinstall windows to another drive. This will speed up the process. I also use a drive image for windows. Keep all my files / assets on a spare drive to easily copied back one at a time.
Basically I design on a clean drive and all extra docs, files, music are on other drive(s). I check all my drivers for updates, etc and run that latest software on apps, etc. This saves me loads of time and money.

Nuncio when your game level designing, what process do you follow?

For me I work out every possibility I can think that I may want to bring into the game first. Then work on the scripting with minimal map design or entities. Test for all bugs with scripting in test mode and then stand-alone. Next I start on the models / entities one at a time, looking for any errors following the same process as above. Add any new AI scripting if needed and recheck. Lastly, I then work on my level design once all the others have been covered. This process will then flags any issues with my coding, models or GG. I also change my file structure to one folder for any new asserts I bring into GG. This way I can find them easily, edit, update or deleted any problem models.

I also make many saves of my levels at different stages just in-case GG adds any errors while it saves due to memory issues. Sometimes you can pick up bugs from errors saving. This can happen when GG has restarted due to lack of memory while your in another app. Then you save this bad level over the good last saved level. This is a big NO NO! I would rather spend time updating the last map then carry on from the GG reset.

The process - The basic first, then the fluffy stuff.

Maybe you can check the following things.

- no special characters in the filenames + empty space (äö%$§ §"$$"§ .jpg) better use sound1_001.wav not sound$ 01.wav
- check if the sound, music, videos are in the correct format
- save your maps always in the main map save folder, not in a subfolder
- close all apps you don't need, also antivirus software
- create a new empty map, insert all your custom/freeware models inside from your game. create a standalone and see if it crashes.

I remember I had one model which crashed one of my games, so I kicked it out and voila... game was running.

I don't receive these problems. But did receive a lot back when I used to run anti-virus and GG simultaneously. Ever since I stopped using the anti-virus a few years ago I have not received even half of the problems you are mentioning. Anti-virus software talks up unnecessary resources and is constantly scanning your software. at times it can even lock media causing errors to pop-up when GG isn't able to read/write to specific files.

I highly recommend looking into a way of disabling your anti-virus firewall protection. For my self I completely uninstalled it and just use a light application instead. It solved all my problems that used to be related to crashes, freezes and odd errors.

Most of the crashes you are receiving seem to be related to memory and file access issues. A part from things like the AI issues which we all experience. Also make sure not to work on custom assets in other applications that are in your GG game, at the same time. This will cause read/write issues causing errors.

That's my bit of advice. I've been around here over a decade and have seen it all. I honestly dont get much crashes or errors with GG to date. If I get errors its usually my own doing with an incorrectly written LUA script or mismatched linked media.

Some extra bit of a advice:

- Make sure that you are always running the latest version of GG
- Also keep in mind that there is a poly limit per entity
- Avoid running heavy software (Adobe/Blender) while running GG
- don't use symbols or spaces in your filenames. Only underscore (EDIT: as MooKai mentions)
- always make sure your LUA script "function" headers have your LUA script name in them
- limit your Game-Guru sessions to less than 3 hours (save, close and reopen after 3 hours) (EDIT: as Dvader mentions)

Well, so far i didn't manage to crash GG, opened the demo maps several times, afterwards i did start mountain stroll and pressed f4, played a little without a crash.
I did however found a little work around in the editor, if you keep the right mouse button pressed, zooming in and out goes smoothly, animations play smoothly.

I really like DVader's methodology. Approaching a project that thoroughly really simplifies the troubleshooting process. When something goes wrong, you probably have a pretty good idea of what caused it. Sure it takes time, but isolating an issue one step away from a working level is a lot faster than trying it ten objects, five scripts, and 6 audio files after the last working level! Hate to see anyone leave here, especially someone who has been so prolific in their work! I understand the frustration, though. I just step away for a while. That can be months at times. Lately I just simply haven't had any time available to even dabble, and that's been months as well.

Bro game making is a very tough and heart breaking job. There is only 1% of chance that every thing will go smoothly. Haha if i share my experiences then you might say what just i read. Soon i will share my game project "Calm Passenger" I am working on it for almost 2 years. Opening cinematic are almost done. But the point is that brother, Never give up. Come back and help the new comers and share your experience... Look what i made lol

Failure is the measure by which we determine our worth, I think. How you keep failing forward is how you learn and grow. You've given us a great lesson here and thank you for that.

Read up on the lesson/life of Milton Hershey. You'll see you can fail a thousand times but only need to succeed once.

Indeed, mistakes, failures are pointing us in the right direction.

You should ALWAYS do stuff like that, no matter what software you use, whether it's new, old, being developed, or abandoned, you should ALWAYS be highly paranoid about your project work.

Some years back, i was working for Kodak in the Motion Picture Imaging field (working support for film stock), and I spent six months working with Pixar at one of their studios.

I was quite surprised at how paranoid they were with their work, they would be keeping multiple backups on multiple media of each single frame individually of animation, every time they made the tiniest adjustment their work would be backed up first, the changes made, rendered, and tested, it took them days just for a short animation.

A couple of months later i was working with Lucas alongside some animators from Dreamworks while they were post editing Star Wars Ep1 CGI, and they were doing the exact same thing, it was taking them weeks just to animate a scene that days later could get cut from the final film.

It's actually fairly industry standard (at least in the CGI/animation industry) to never trust the software you are using, to be extremely paranoid about every single change and addition, and to literally backup and test everything continuously.

Belidos is spot on .....

Always back up your work .... Externally as well is recommended... Never trust windows or even your HDD.
Windows is software ... If it gets corrupted you can lose the integrity of files at any time that may never load in again
Your HDD can die at any moment .... I see this on a daily basis with customers losing everything ...

It happens more that most realise unless your in the business of fixing laptops and PC's

Well said. Some time (infact Mostly) windows get corrupt and other software start functioning strangely. For example. Story zone was not working. I thought they forget to fix this problem. I was really sad. But then i reinstall the software and its working like a charm. So inshort its not always the gameguru or specific software problem. Some time data becomes corrupt (like politicians).

To be honest I don't have this kind of issue with GG .... I haven't had a crash in ages and I do use it every day ..
12 months ago was a different scenario but this last year its been really stable for me ?

Even so ... I still backup ..File / Save / Map1...Do some work ....File / save Map2 ... Just like I would with a word document.
Its no real hardship..

Let me just clarify. I NEVER once said reboot your computer. Somehow you have introduced that your self. Restarting Game Guru, yes, every few hours or so, but not the entire computer!

Also, Commercial DNC, CNC, Cad/Cam programs are going to be way more stable, efficient programs than Game Guru. They are for industry use, any that crashed regularly would simply have gone out of business. Comparison is not a fair one. They also tend to have people using it that are trained to do so, unlike Game Guru.

Game Guru is mostly made by one man, aimed at mainly hobbyists for making games for fun. There's a big difference. The fact that many want to use it to make commercial games is their issue and as such they will have to do what they can to get any game to the standard required.

I think my work so far shows my methods work well in general. If you want to do things your way, fine and dandy go on ahead. I never said DO THIS in my post. I just said how I work around GG's little quirks. I've been here since day one and have developed that system over years of working with GG. Believe me, it avoids most of the bugs people moan about all the time. Memory leaks? Never notice em, haven't for years. I've put in almost 2000 hours with GG since it's release on Steam. Amazingly, I haven't dropped my dummy and gone wailing that GG is no good and I'm off to Unity or Unreal yet. That's because I enjoy it and have fun. I want to make a game I can release of course, but it isn't the priority as such. I often complain about missing features, speed etc, but that is to get the point across to the dev that these things are important!

I have to admit ... Although I have GG on a lot of the day I do tend to shut it down once I have finished what I'm doing to start something else or even adding a new model, script etc Just because I feel a fresh restart of GG clears the Cache ready for testing so perhaps that's why I avoid some of the issues users report ...

Leaving isn't an option for me .... I have tried the others and found although they can work wonders its just not fun .... The time also comes you need to know a lot more than what you first realise and it gets less fun and more of a task .... I can do my accounts if I want tasks to do

I'm usually runing Gimp+3ds max+GG when modeling, and I have not problem with GG, I remember times ago having issues with GG when minimized in systray, but lately does not.

Anyway I've issues if I run bandicam while GG is running, I should close GG, open Bandicam>open GG, and then there is not problem.

Backup often with different maps, is a good practice. I do even with 3ds max, I've many versions of the same model, so I can back if needed.

3com

I'm going to agree with Bod here, making backups is quite common practice and is not really the issue, the real issue is stability.
I also have seen GG locked from time to time after a crash and have to close it and restart it.
For sure it is quite annoying if the created levels work in GG but are full of problems after a stand alone is created.
Yes one can test after each change, but it should also be possible to see any conflict in the editor during a test of a particular game level.
An integrity test maybe, that will check all the files and scripts.

hi there!
thank you for your massive feedback and your encouraging words! this is very nice!

in the last few days i was trying everything that was suggested here. i paused avira, i updated and changed my nvidia driver, i even uninstalled and reinstalled game guru and i changed the share of the volume several times but it all does not work. i didn't even manage to get the stock weapons back. so for me game guru is completely useless at the moment. i can't even use enemies because they use the colt or the shotgut to attack me but they don't do it anymore because the stock weapons don't work. also not with enemy AI.

when i built my levels i made copies unter a new name everytime i added something new. this is not my problem. all my maps are working in editor. not a single error box. i learned from the past and made MANY backups. i have 20 versions of every map i made. what does it help me when they still crash in standalone?

i guess it's hopeless. for me the "timebender" project is officially cancelled and over. when i manage to upload the 2 hour video to youtube you can see "timebender" as a movie at last because playing the whole game and filming was no problem. in editor.

that's real shame, maybe (unless you already have), contact Lee directly and vent your issues/frustrations. He should be able to help (I would have thought).

Well as i said before, the sheer amount of issues you are having is hugely disproportionate to the number of issues everyone else is having, many of them are only being experienced by you, and those that are being experienced by others have known fixes. If you have tried everything people have suggested, exactly how they have told you to do it, then i'm stumped. It has to be either user error or something on your end.

Have you tried installing GameGuru on a different PC/Laptop to see if you get the same issues?

I'm really sorry to see you go mate, i wish i could do something else to help you.

I really would try using someone else's PC to see if you get same issues, if not, it's your PC setup that has the issues. If you've done a fresh install of GameGur, how did you do it? Did you completely remove the steam/steamapps/common/GameGuru folder? If not, I recommend doing a complete deletion of that folder and re-installing it. Maybe graphics card driver is conflicting somewhere? Are you running on Windows 10 32bit/64 bit or another OS?

^i usually uninstall via steam. and i use windows 7, 64bit.


i already did this, also about 2 weeks ago, mainly about the missing weapons. he answered in the thread but the answer was already in the thread before. i found the result disappointing but maybe i will get a better answer later.


i mean, i'm not completely stupid and i have been working with game guru for the last 2 years. when i am totally new and i get nothing to work i could understand. i do what people suggest me to solve a problem but it does not have an effect. i can not change this. all the software on my PC is running well. i usually have no crashes at all, not even with my outdated cubase VST 32 i also have unreal and cryengine on my pc and they also run well. it's only game guru. and what shall i do in a SHOOTER game when i don't have weapons?
i will try to run the game on my wifes laptop but i will need some time to get a distance to this failure befor i can work with it again.

We're not saying you're stupid mate, it's just that everything you have reported an issue with has been either something that nobody else has an issue with, or something that have known fixes that have worked for everybody but you. This leads us to think that there is either something you're not doing right, or something wrong on your PC. It could be something as simple as a missing or incorrect .dll file, or driver, we really can't tell without looking at your system ourselves, and yes, you can have issues on a pc (especially on Winblows) and everything seems to run perfectly except one or two pieces of software, that's the nature of software vs hardware, strange stuff happens.

I have very few issues but one I did get last week was missing weapons and I just could not fathom why. Some were there as normal and some weren't. It turned out to be nvidia control panel settings for 3D. Would never have connected that to some weapons going missing in GG. Everything else was fine in GG and other software. Some strange stuff can happen!

Hope you return to this at some point nuncio. Your level design is amazing.

Cheers.

@nuncio-as Belidos says, we know your not stupid, but we can't get to your PC and see what's going on, the only way would be to use something like Teamviewer or another remote desktop app to connect to your PC to investigate properly but that's another thing.

oh, sorry if you got me wrong. i didn't say that anybody said i am stoopid. i said that myself it's all good.
thanks for the nice words

I remember having a problem when importing a lot of weapons they started disappearing after so many were successfully inmproted. I think there seems to be a limit on the number of weapons you can import. If you have a lot, I would make a backup of your gamecore and remove any weapons you don't currently need for your projects to get number of weapons down. Not sure if that's the issue you have.

@Nuncio,
I've some question, and sorry if it was anwsered before or does not:

Do you make fresh install with the last update and try GG as is?
I mean JUST with the stock items and settings, without change/add NOTHING?

Really sorry what you are getting with GG, I know you've many time with this issues, I also know you do fine levels, people like you deserve best times with GG, you put a lot of effort in the work you do.

I've notice something odd with GG, when you are in the last or most advance stage of you work, GG start failing tll get you into another new project for scrach, so GG relax and all back fine, till the next time.


GG having issues to manage a lot of weapons, or perhaps customer ones.?

3com