Alpha 9 released

looking very good guys

Great! Time for testing!!!

Hit a little problem with Alpha 9, it quits when starting a new game with this error

"GL_ARB_point_sprite: Yes

glError: invalid operation caught at ..\..\src\WorldView.cpp:339

glError: invalid operation caught at ..\..\src\WorldView.cpp:339

glError: invalid operation caught at ..\..\src\WorldView.cpp:339"

Alpha 8 works just fine though.

Thats debugging output and is normal operation. The crash of course is not. A few people have reported this. I will follow it up with John when I next see him. There's not much I can do as I don't have a Windows system to test with.

Just to make sure we've got all the facts, can you please list your OS version (including 32/64 bit) and graphics card.

Hmm. A very crashy one, guys. As in 'not-playable for anything more than a minute'. Tried it from all three start positions and nothing lasts.

Windows 7 (64)

Radeon 5800

Catalyst 11.2

Athlon64 2 GHz, Windows XP SP2 32-bit, Geforce 6100 (nForce 405)...

Sure thing robn, I am running it on XP service pack 3, 32 bit, with a GeForce 9500 GT. Vid drivers fully up to date (done yesterday just in case this was the cause) with a Pentium(R) D CPU 2.81 GHz and 2 gigs of ram. Also have Avast and Zone Alarm installed too, but I set both of these to gaming mode just in case. The crash happens seconds after showing the docking port wall when using any of the start positions. Also tried loading an Alpha 8 save game, but no luck there either.

Whoohoo! Testing! 😀

I have the same problem, the game crashes very often.

Running the game in Windows XP SP3 compatibility mode works well for me.

And there I was thinking it was running so nice and stable on my win7x64 rig.

Good one revetoty! Using compatibility mode set to Windows 2000 and turning off advanced text services helped a little. Now it just crashes a few moments after take off. I could try it on Vista and see if that helps.

Ok, setting it to Win XP compatibility mode helped. The game has become playable. However, I don't think the shaders are working. I can't see any of the atmospheric effects or any of the shiny surfaces on ships. A step forwards, though. 🙂

Theres a lot of changes with this release, so just bear with us and we'll surely get to the bottom of this.

Just to be sure, have you guys experiencing trouble tried changing settings in the options menu, like shaders off, shaders on ect... try with different planet quality too.

I'm experiencing the same issue, it crashes just after game starts (inside the station) i'm running on the minimum quality settings on XP SP3, 1.6ghz pentium, 1Gb ram, onboard intel 915 graphics chipset .it seems that this is a pretty universal problem with windows boxes. it is the same when runnning a savegame or from a starting point, it always crashes on the first go and usually runs fine on the second attempt.

Also, The starmap tends to occasionally go ape, occilating wildly and after a few seconds it ends up the other side of the galaxy! it then resets back to your original position.

Other than that i'm really impressed! I've started messing with custom systems, it would be really cool to create a little empire of my own! well done guys, great job!

Here is what I do that crashes alpha9 each time.

Start at Epsilon Eridani.

Get launch permission, then don't touch keyboard and mouse anymore. You take off automatically, reach the top then start descending.

As soon as you touch the ground again, game crashes.

Tested with the same behavior on the following systems:

1. Win7x64/i7-2600/H67/8GB/geforce 9600GT

2. (laptop) Win7x64/Turion x2 TL-62/4GB/ATI HD3200

3. XP SP3 (32bit)/ Athlon64 X2-4400/2GB/geforce 8800GT

Thanks everyone for the reports and your patience. We will get this figured out.

I take back what I said about it being stable, I hadn't actually tried the release version, only my own build of alpha9 which seems fine.

So here's a possible work-around, a re-build of alpha 9 that doesn't crash for me, give it a try and let me know how it works.

http://pioneerspacesim.net/sites/default/files/pioneer-ALPHA9%20RE-BUILD.7z

If it still crashes then there could be some problem with the data files, as thats the only possible difference between my working windows copy and the release version.

We think it was just a bad build the first time. We're preparing a 9.01 download and an updated exe which should be posted shortly.

Ok, go fetch: http://pioneerspacesim.net/download

There's a full package and a replacement executable. Hopefully this one goes better. Thanks again for the feedback, and now post pictures of pretty things 🙂

Same situation, old config deleted:

Which cards are supported?? I have GeForce 6100 and alpha8 works without problems even with shaders!

That's much better, guys, thank you. Game still crashes but it's always done that for me in every alpha so far. Am back to 'normal'. 🙂

Just taken her for a couple of quick test flights. The new navigation is brilliant - what a superb idea and implementation, although I'd still like hot buttons for every planet as well, not just Starports. On the other hand I can see why it's been made this way.

I'm still not completely sold on the HDR lighting. Distant stars look so much better without it, and it tends to make planetary surfaces a few shades too bright, garish in some cases.It does do some wonderful things for the atmospheric shaders, though, which is nice. But this is something that can be tweaked until perfect so I'm not going to complain too loudly just now. 😉

The new autopilot...wow, just wow. SOOO much better. Thank you! From start, If you leave from Earth and then select Mars High as your destination you are treated to a fabulous solar sunrise while the autopilot guides you around the Earth. Leaving Mars High headed for Io Base, however, it did crash me unceremoniously into Io, so perhaps there's still some tweaking to do here as well. Overall, though, this is a great improvement.

Will keep playing and reporting. Keep up the awesome work, guys!

That particular test has been in the code since September 2010 so I'm not entirely sure what might have changed - maybe something in GLEW. I'll check with the more knowledgeable folk in #pioneer soon and let you know (unless someone chimes in here first).

loading of all save games causes a crash but im guessing work arounds being worked on so il wait for a alpha 10