#system hang
16 messages in this thread
Jonas,
I've installed the more recent Vibrant drivers and the same problems
continue. With a clean boot, and no mouse driver, 3D studio will not
even load now and gives the error message
Initialising Autodesk 3D Studio
ERROR: 3ds.set error in line 8
VIBRANT-MAIN-FONT="VGA14"
I am using 3D studio release 4c1.
What else can it be?
Alan Bond
Hi Alan,
<< 3D studio will not even load now and gives the error message Initialising
Autodesk 3D Studio ERROR: 3ds.set error in line 8 >>
hmm.. do you get this error while initializing 3DS with "3ds vibcfg"? Also,
after choosing your video choices in "3ds vibcfg", make sure to test your
setting in "3ds vibcfg" for success. Please post your progress… (which video
card are you using?)
Jonas,
I am using a Genoa 8500 board. The problem occurs when I do
3ds or
3ds vibcfg
and in the latter case, it happens after I've exited from the setup.
During the setup of the video drivers I test the set up at each stage
and it is successful.
It is of course a clean boot with no mouse driver and the 3D Studio
system is release 4c1.
I would like to verify what settings of Vibrant Graphics are OK for
my Genoa 8500 board and for 3D studio. According to Vibrant,
it should work fine with any of the settings it offers but I'm not so sure.
I've tried pretty minimal settings like VGA etc but I still get the error.
Alan Bond
Hi Alan,
<< I would like to verify what settings of Vibrant Graphics are OK for
my Genoa 8500 board and for 3D studio. >>
My Vibrant driver expert, Nik Grant, is out sick. Unless someone else in the
forum jumps in, who has a Genoa 8500 board, we'll have to wait for Nik to
return to work.
I don't remember any cases where the vibcfg tests work and then 3DS fails..
I'm sorry that I can't help more. 🙁
jonas[adesk]
"I am using a Genoa 8500 board"
The Genoa 8500 board that we have works fine, so it may be that you have a
different monitor or graphics card revision.
One thing (more!) to try:
Boot plain (i.e. Hit F5 during the "Starting MSDOS…" bootup prompt.
Run the mouse driver.
Back up your 3DS.SET.
Create a fresh 3DS.SET file as follows:
COPY CON 3DS.SET <enter>
MAT-PATH = "MATLIBS"
END
F6 (this should put a ^Z on your screen) <enter>
Then start 3DS VIBCFG and configure properly for your Genoa.
Check out the FAX we have on 415/507-5595, document 917. It includes hints
like checking with MSD.EXE.
It looks as though you've already done what would have been my next suggestion,
reinstall 3DS4 into a new directory. Did you see any disk errors during the
install?
The upgrade diskettes are complete – the difference is that darn hardware lock
thingie. The full version 4 includes a hardware lock, the upgrade doesn't.
Dear Nik,
Thanks for your reply. I did what you suggested but it didn't solve
the problem, however I have a lot more information now.
I tried the clean boot method you suggested using F5 and also changing
the 3DS.SET file, and I initialized the Vibrant driver to vibrant and
Genoa 8500, but I got the same error message and 3D studio
would not load. I called the man who built the computer for me
18 months ago and he verified that I do have a Genoa 8500 board.
He offered to lend me a Tseng board to try.
I also at your suggestion faxed document 917 concerning troubleshooting
displays for 3D studio, I read it but I have already
don everything they suggest. I also faxed various other documents such as 823
on clean booting 3D Studio.
This document suggested using msd to look at my hardware and this
yielded the following:
The Video information from msd after a clean boot is:
Video Adapter Type : VGA
Manufacturer: Cirrus
Model: SVGA
Display Type: VGA Color
Video Mode: 3
Number of columns: 80
Number of rows: 25
Video BIOS Version: CL-GD540x/542x VGA BIOS Version 1.10 Windows
VGA 24 BIOS Version 1.4
Video BIOS date: 11/20/92
VESA support installed: yes
Vesa version: 1.02
VESA OEM Name: Cirrus Logic GD-54xx VGA
Secondary Adapter: None
The TSR Programs shown by msd after clean boot are:
Address Size
System Data 0B8A 12704
File handles 0B8C 2080
FCBS 0C0F 256
BUFFERS 0C20 7984
Directories 0E14 448
Default Handlers 0E31 1856
COMMAND.COM 0EA5 4704
COMMAND.COM 0FCC 256
MSD.EXE 0FDD 64
MSD.EXE 0FE2 345120
MSD.EXE 6425 8192
MSD.EXE 6626 10032
Free Memory 689A 226896
Device Drivers shown by msd after clean boot:
NULL,CON,AUX,PRN,CLOCK$,Block Device(3 units), COM1,LPT1,
LPT2,LPT3,COM2,COM3,COM4
I also noted the following information from the normal startup boot
since 3D studio will load under a normal boot, but of course
it hangs during rendering usually.
At the beginning:
BIOS Version 1.4 Windows VGA 24
Later on after loading drivers for sound blaster CD-ROM etc.:
DLD-VGA 256 Color V2.09B – ADI 4.0 Display List Driver
Copyright (C) 1989-1992 Panacea Inc., Londonderry NH, All rights reserved.
Let me finally summarise the problem again. Under a clean boot, the
system will not load, it gives an error message
Initialising Autodesk 3D studio
ERROR: 3ds.set error in line 8
VIBRANT-MAIN-FONT="VGA14"
Under a normal boot, the system will load and function, but during
rendering it will often hang or will exit to the DOS prompt with
the error message
Abnormal program termination:Memory protection fault
CS:EIP=000Fh:0011305Eh
This tends not to occur with flat shading and to occur almost
always with Phong shading. It doesn't seem to depend on anything
else like display setting, resolution of image, model size etc.
I also find that rendering to an FLC file gives a "marbled" image,
whereas the same rendering done to the display only is correct.
This occurs even for small standard library file such as the X29
model included in 3D studio.
So, this it the current state of characterization of the problem.
I would like an experienced 3DS studio software guru to cast an eye over this
information, there has to be something relatively elementary
that I am doing wrong.
I am choosing Vibrant drivers and Genoa 8500
when I do 3ds vibcfg, although I have tried many other settings also.
Alan Bond
Copyright (C) 1989-1992 Panacea Inc., Londonderry NH. All Rights Reserved.
>>DLD-VGA 256 Color V2.09B – ADI 4.0 Display List Driver
>>Copyright (C) 1989-1992 Panacea Inc., Londonderry NH, All rights reserved.
It's possible that this ADI driver is messing with the graphics card. You
probably need it for AutoCAD, but won't need it for 3DS.
– Dave
Alan,
I wonder if the new Vibrant driver will help you on this – it should be
available tomorrow or so: VIB3DS.ZIP. It's version 1.0.7.p1.
I am thinking there's something related to hardware, since a clean boot usually
gets immediate results and it becomes a matter of diagnosing the culprit by a
number of reboots with different CONFIG/AUTOEXEC files.
Check the CMOS setup, and remove caches maybe? I'm sorry I'm not of more help.
PMJI guys, but I've encountered this problem before and it was defintely the
driver. I remember fixing it by switching the Flic-Playing driver to VESA. Try
this out and let us know what happens…
Jh
Nik,
I found my message to you that I thought was lost, it is message
number 177101. It seems that messages come and go
on Compuserve!
Alan Bond
Dear Nik,
It seems to me that we have reached a point where it is clear that
there are probably more than one thing wrong with my system. I think
there may be small things wrong with the way the video driver
is set up, there may be memory problems, there may be problems
with my model, some of which was obtained via DXF files from
Autocad. I am beginning to appreciate how sensitive the system
is to seemingly small mistakes.
One problem we should be able to make progress on:
It is clear that, with a newly installed system, and with a clean
boot as prescribed by Autodesk, I am getting an error message from
3D studio, namely, (sorry to keep repeating this):
Initialising Autodesk 3D Studio
ERROR:3ds.set error in line 8
VIBRANT-MAIN-FONT = "VGA14"
Is it possible for someone to look in the 3D studio code or
in a system manual and read off under what conditions this
error message is generated?
Alan Bond
Where are you located anyhow?
LAM
Larry,
I'm located at Santa Monica, California. I'm working on visualising
a simulated 3D world of monkeys which runs in Prolog on a Unix
system at UCLA. From this I'm generating 3D studio keyscripts automatically
from the simulation program. I call this animation planning.
I've hit this problem that after upgrading my PC and upgrading
3D studio from 3 to 4, my 3D studio system on my PC refuses to work, so
I'm trying to educate myself about PCs, DOS, memory management,
video drivers etc. I've also joined Compuserve and discovered that
world! I have always previously used the Internet, and have communicated mainly
with university people.
I'm interested in applications of AI and logic programming to
animation and multimedia in general.
Alan Bond
Dear Jonas,
I have some more observations, but still the same problem.
I tried the .OLD idea suggested by Bob, but it had no effect,
which is not surprising since the Vibrant read.me file says rename
the files to anything, e.g. x.OLD.
There is one new phenomenon which is that when I render a library
mesh, namely X29, to the screen only with Phong Medium No-antialiasing, it
produces a nice image, whereas if I do the exactly the
same thing with it writing the image to disk, it gives a "marbled"
image. I verified this by doing each from a hard boot separately.
Maybe there are some Autodesk gurus who know the code well who
could pick up on some of these phenomena.
The other thing I've been thinking is about the origins of the system
I have. I originally had a 3DS version3 and then I bought an update
kit to 3DS version4. I installed it as an upgrade over the old version 3
system, and I had at about the same time an extra 8Mbytes of RAM added.
I had some problems with Autocad after this and I reinstalled it and
the problems went away. I then had problems with 3D studio, and
when I reinstalled it I did not do it as an upgrade but as a completely
new system in a different directory, thinking this would be safest.
I got 10 disks for the upgrade and they I assume are a complete
3D studio system. I am wondering if there is some issue here, maybe
upgrade disks are not quite the same as regular system disks?
They certainly look like a complete system. I cannot go back to the
original upgraded system because I was getting low on file space
at one time and deleted it, i.e. the 3DS.EXE file. I've gone through
the process of reinstalling 4 or 5 times in the last couple of days
and it seems to install a complete system. These systems,
as I remarked in an earlier email, will not load under a clean boot
configuration but they will under a normal configuration and
will do most things OK. However rendering is hanging and this
is a major roadblock for my work.
Any further ideas?
Alan
Alan, PMJI, but it sounds like you've got your renderer configured to output 24
bit.
– No banding or marbling as you called it in the output images. When saving to
disk you're most likely outputting to a .flc or .gif or something, which are 8
bit formats. In these you're going to see banding. Is this the problem? You
weren't specific as to what formats etc. you're using but this is my best
guess. Leave more info if that's not it. Good luck.
DM