Trouble getting started [SOLVED]
by Chris Morris · in Torque 3D Professional · 05/27/2012 (5:07 am) · 14 replies
Hi All,
I am having some difficulty in getting started with Torque 3D 1.2 - I cannot get past the Toolbox stage!
Toolbox 1.2 runs as expected and I can select the FPS Example project. However, when I select Play Game, the Toolbox minimizes and then nothing happens apart from I get a process called FPS Tutorial.exe soaking up 50% CPU.
There are no error messages displayed. I have tried running the FPS Example from the command line, again no errors.
The Burg, Deathball Desert and Sector T3D all just leave a hanging process.
Pacific is the only demo that works.
I have updated my graphics card drivers, updated my DirectX, joined the nVidia PhysX dev group and downloaded their SDK (I could only find SDK version 3.2 and not the required 2.8.x.x)
My machine is Windows 7 64bit with 8GB RAM and an nVidia 8800-GTX.
I haven't been able to build the Tutorial FPS because I have an incorrect version of the PhysX SDK.
So I'm kind of stuck at the moment.
Any suggestions where I should looking for what might be the cause of my problems?
Regards,
Chris
I am having some difficulty in getting started with Torque 3D 1.2 - I cannot get past the Toolbox stage!
Toolbox 1.2 runs as expected and I can select the FPS Example project. However, when I select Play Game, the Toolbox minimizes and then nothing happens apart from I get a process called FPS Tutorial.exe soaking up 50% CPU.
There are no error messages displayed. I have tried running the FPS Example from the command line, again no errors.
The Burg, Deathball Desert and Sector T3D all just leave a hanging process.
Pacific is the only demo that works.
I have updated my graphics card drivers, updated my DirectX, joined the nVidia PhysX dev group and downloaded their SDK (I could only find SDK version 3.2 and not the required 2.8.x.x)
My machine is Windows 7 64bit with 8GB RAM and an nVidia 8800-GTX.
I haven't been able to build the Tutorial FPS because I have an incorrect version of the PhysX SDK.
So I'm kind of stuck at the moment.
Any suggestions where I should looking for what might be the cause of my problems?
Regards,
Chris
#2
Look for the console.log file within the projectName/game directory, open it up (it's just a text file) and see if it reports any errors there.
05/27/2012 (8:53 am)
What happens if you load any of the projects from it's executable? I rarely, if ever, use the Toolbox so am not familiar with it problems... I do recall reading somewhere that having multiple installs of Torque 3D can cause issues with the Toolbox. Do you have or have had the Demo installed?Look for the console.log file within the projectName/game directory, open it up (it's just a text file) and see if it reports any errors there.
#3
05/27/2012 (9:09 am)
@Michael as a matter of fact i did install another copy of T3D without deleting the old one because i needed the clean source files to track down the changes i had made. And it is the project i had back then that doesn't work now.
#4
@Lukas I have registered for nVidia to get access to the PhysX SDK. I see they have just released version 3.2 which I have yet to try. I am currently using 3.1.
@Michael I have tried running the .exe from an Administrator cmd prompt, also without any success. Interestingly, there was a console.log file of 0 bytes. So I deleted the file and tried the .exe again. The file was not recreated. I did have the Tools Demo installed at the same time as Torque 3D, but I uninstalled it after it also failed to run.
I wonder what the differences are between the Pacific demo (which runs fine) and the Burg, Deathball and Sector demos (which all result in a hanging process)?
I do have another machine to try installing Torque 3D on to which has never had Torque (or any of the demos) installed on to it before. I'll let you know what happens.
Chris
05/27/2012 (12:50 pm)
Thank you for the suggestions. They all produced the same result - a process and no error messages.@Lukas I have registered for nVidia to get access to the PhysX SDK. I see they have just released version 3.2 which I have yet to try. I am currently using 3.1.
@Michael I have tried running the .exe from an Administrator cmd prompt, also without any success. Interestingly, there was a console.log file of 0 bytes. So I deleted the file and tried the .exe again. The file was not recreated. I did have the Tools Demo installed at the same time as Torque 3D, but I uninstalled it after it also failed to run.
I wonder what the differences are between the Pacific demo (which runs fine) and the Burg, Deathball and Sector demos (which all result in a hanging process)?
I do have another machine to try installing Torque 3D on to which has never had Torque (or any of the demos) installed on to it before. I'll let you know what happens.
Chris
#5
05/27/2012 (3:11 pm)
Quote:Try deleting all prefs and cached procedural shaders. There were quite a few 'gotchas' like that in the 1.1 release Demos that didn't get cleaned/caught beforehand.
I wonder what the differences are between the Pacific demo (which runs fine) and the Burg, Deathball and Sector demos (which all result in a hanging process)?
#6
I do recall some people having issues with the stock Anti-aliasing settings in one or two of those demos. You'd have to look those threads up for the particulars as I don't remember much more than that the issue has happened for others.
05/27/2012 (3:19 pm)
It's been a while since I've looked at any of those 1.1 demos, but I would think that if you're running Pacific, which probably has the most complex environment out of all of them, that you should be able to run the less taxing demos. I do recall some people having issues with the stock Anti-aliasing settings in one or two of those demos. You'd have to look those threads up for the particulars as I don't remember much more than that the issue has happened for others.
#7
I then installed the Burg demo application without installing anything else.
I still do not have a working Torque 3D. The result is still a hanging process soaking up 50% CPU.
I did try the Burg demo on my other machine, which has never had Torque installed on it before, and it worked fine.
I am at a loss as to why I am having so much trouble with my actual development machine.
Chris
05/28/2012 (11:39 am)
I have uninstalled all Torque applications and deleted all the Torque folders I could find.I then installed the Burg demo application without installing anything else.
I still do not have a working Torque 3D. The result is still a hanging process soaking up 50% CPU.
I did try the Burg demo on my other machine, which has never had Torque installed on it before, and it worked fine.
I am at a loss as to why I am having so much trouble with my actual development machine.
Chris
#8
05/28/2012 (11:42 am)
Did you try working around the toolbox and simply double click the exe file?
#9
05/28/2012 (12:19 pm)
I have tried running from the Desktop icon and from the command line.
#10
You can usually find it at:
C:\Torque\Torque 3D 1.2\My Projects\(Your project name)\game
05/28/2012 (12:32 pm)
Hmm try navigating to your torque folder and double click the .exe file itself, not the shortcur on the desktop.You can usually find it at:
C:\Torque\Torque 3D 1.2\My Projects\(Your project name)\game
#11
However, I have now managed to get the Burg demo working!!
I discovered that by attaching the MSVC debugger to the "FPS Tutorial" process after it had crashed I could then see the call stack.
The call stack showed me that it was somewhere in the OpenAL32.dll
So, just for kicks I downloaded the latest OpenAL from oalinst and now the Burg demo runs without problem.
I shall try installing the Torque SDK tomorrow and will report back!
05/28/2012 (1:02 pm)
I tried the .exe from explorer and that didn't work.However, I have now managed to get the Burg demo working!!
I discovered that by attaching the MSVC debugger to the "FPS Tutorial" process after it had crashed I could then see the call stack.
The call stack showed me that it was somewhere in the OpenAL32.dll
So, just for kicks I downloaded the latest OpenAL from oalinst and now the Burg demo runs without problem.
I shall try installing the Torque SDK tomorrow and will report back!
#12
IIRC: If you simply delete the included openal32.dll from your "project/game" directory it should work, as I have no OpenAL32.dll in my game files and Torque works fine.
05/28/2012 (4:52 pm)
Good Catch, I'm pretty sure that was a known issue a while back, the included OpenAL32.dll was creating errors with multiple versions of Torque 3D...IIRC: If you simply delete the included openal32.dll from your "project/game" directory it should work, as I have no OpenAL32.dll in my game files and Torque works fine.
#13
Thank you all for your help & suggestions.
Chris
05/29/2012 (10:52 am)
I have now re-installed the Torque 3D 1.2 SDK and everything is working just great!Thank you all for your help & suggestions.
Chris
#14
05/29/2012 (11:41 am)
Hmm, never considered the possibility of a problem with OpenAl, yet that was something that suddenly plagued me with TGE on Vista years ago! I did actually get around to installing the Demos again and comparing Pacific with the others, and noticed that Pacific has some extra defaults that safeguard some issues when using DirectSound. 
Torque Owner Lukas Joergensen
WinterLeaf Entertainment
Click world editor or GUI editor instead and it will load properly, just exit the editor when it has loaded.
--or--
Open the exe manually
--or--
Run it from Visual studio, or torsion or w/e
Edit: oh btw that nvidia physx sdk, you have to register at their website and download it from there.
http://developer.nvidia.com/physx-sdk-v31
Edit edit:
Btw if you don't use the physX system you don't need the sdk. Just pick a template without physX