#AAP Protection Fault
6 messages in this thread
First off I want to say that I am in no way blaming nor criticizing those
running and/or operating this forum. However I think that a company is only
as good as its service department and, that being the case, I am starting
to wonder about Autodesk and at least one of its dealers. I am suffering
the same problem that several others have posted in these boards… the
sudden crashing of AAPro with a memory protection fault. I see that this
has also affected at least one 3DS user. I called Autodesk which refused to
speak with me, saying I would have to talk to my dealer. I called my dealer
(120 miles away) and explained the whole problem; the error message, what I
had tried including booting from a simple disk with system files only
installed and all cacheing and shadow ram turned off. He called Adesk and a
day later called me back saying that Adesk had said to try booting up with
no TSR's… apparently the dealer was not listening when I called him the
first time. I explained once more that I had tried that and he more than
insinuated that Adesk had no idea how to correct it and would be no further
help but he would call them and then call me back. That was 4 days ago and
no call back yet. I called PharLap and the tech right away knew of the
problem and said that Adesk was also well aware of it and that it was,
indeed, a software problem… he had no fix nor suggestions. So, here I am
with a $700 program that has served well for over a year, until I upgraded
to a 486 board and now it is basically useless to me. I can get no help
from the manufacturer yet am expected to pay $200 for an upgrade that may
or may not work. I think the money will be better spent purchasing a copy
of Playmation.o
Mike:
If you had no problem until you upgraded the board, then guess where the
problem is… geeeze.
C#
If PharLap says the problem is a software problem and that Adesk is well
awar of it, YOU guess where the problem is! Shheeesh!
I really don't want to get into this, because the Phar Lap code is totally
out of my hands, and pointing fingers is NOT an activity that I like to
engage in. However, I want to point out that there are a LOT of different
versions of Phar Lap out there, and Autodesk products use many of them.
Right now, AA Pro 1.0 uses version 2.2, 3DS 2.0 uses 2.6, AA Pro 1.3 uses
4.0, and AutoCAD R12 uses 4.2. Each one of these versions has its own
peculiarities and the 2.x versions ESPECIALLY aren't compatible with a
certain number of obscure bios' and controller cards. Phar Lap,
unfortunately, doesn't support previous versions, so we've got to always be
keeping up with them. I wanted to use 4.2 with 3DS 2.0, but I couldn't
because it wasn't finished at the time we release 3DSr2 (it completely
broke the ADI-driver code). That's just one of my many little Phar Lap
frustrations. (On the plus side, however, I've got to say that the reason
why AAP and 3DS run so quickly is due to the incredible efficiency of the
Phar Lap kernal. It runs rings around Windows.)
So please don't jump to conclusions about what's going on here. The first
thing you ought to do is try to get a copy of AA Pro 1.3 from your dealer
so you can see if the new version of Phar Lap in it solves the problem.
It's and incredibly complicated issue, and I'm sure that if you can't run
AA Pro on your new motherboard, Autodesk will at least give you your money
back.
– G
Mike:
There are numerous persons running 3DS and AniPro on 486 platforms. You,
and maybe a few others, have had sporatic difficulties that I can't put a
finger on… and the explanation has never been the same. Since most of
those with the problem don't post their config.sys and autoexec.bat files,
plus any batch files that set 3DS switches, plus tell me if they have
modified the pharlap extender with newdx, it is VERY difficult for me to
help them. There is only minimal difference between a 486 and a 386 as far
as I know when it comes to PharLap… and the major difference is in
peripheral/bus timing. Upgrading a mother board only with old peripherals
leaves many unknowns. The BIOS on the motherboard may be buggy and may have
been updated. These kinds of issues are not nearly as complicated and
esoteric with manufacturers like IBM, Compaq, and Everex.
Since I'm the MemTM I will do my best to help you out, but you have to give
me something to work with. In addition, it is pretty obvious to me that if
you get a mylex motherboard with an AMI bios, you won't be here shooting
arrows in the dark. That is why I said that you need to concentrate on the
motherboard manufacturer and the bios on the motherboard.
C#
Mike, do you have any kind of Hardware or software caching? If so turn them
off, you should also turn off Video Shadow and Shadow Ram. This will help
eliminate any possible conflicts. When does the error occur? Does it happen
when you try to bring it up? As to what Phar Lap said about us knowing
about the problem, I am not aware of that. I do Tech support here at
Autodesk for AA pro and 3d Studio and we do run into the problem
occasionally. Most often it is caused by a TSR or bad driver. I know you
said that you've already taken out any TSR, I am just telling you what my
experiences have been. In some cases it is a bad motherboard or a bad BIOS
version. Unfortunately we do not have a list of which BIOSes work and which
don't, there are way too many out there.
Can you give the exact error message?
Yann Bertaud – Product Support, Autodesk.