Problem when starting up the game

[Henhog]

Hi, I saw your game on steam and i'm really interested, it looks awesome. Sadly when I start the game, it tell me that it could not initialize directx and it gives me this message:

----------------------------------CurrentDomain_UnhandledException-----------------------------------System.NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object.
   at SlimDX.Direct3D9.Font.Build(Device device, Int32 height, Int32 width, FontWeight weight, Int32 mipLevels, Boolean italic, CharacterSet characterSet, Precision outputPrecision, FontQuality quality, PitchAndFamily pitchAndFamily, String faceName)
   at SlimDX.Direct3D9.Font..ctor(Device device, Int32 height, Int32 width, FontWeight weight, Int32 mipLevels, Boolean italic, CharacterSet characterSet, Precision outputPrecision, FontQuality quality, PitchAndFamily pitchAndFamily, String faceName)
   at AIWar.Direct3DRenderer.InitFont(Boolean IsForLobby, Font F) in C:\vcprojs\AIWar\Framework\Direct3DRenderer.cs:line 316
   at AIWar.Direct3DRenderer.InitFonts(Boolean IsForFamilyOnly) in C:\vcprojs\AIWar\Framework\Direct3DRenderer.cs:line 271
   at AIWar.GameForm..ctor() in C:\vcprojs\AIWar\GameForm.cs:line 510
   at AIWar.Program.Main() in C:\vcprojs\AIWar\Program.cs:line 20

[x4000]

Hmm,

That's a pretty unusual error, I've not seen that exact one before.  From the look of it, perhaps it is having trouble with a corrupt font file, but I'm not really sure on that.  There are several fonts that we include with the game, and it seems to be failing to load them.  They are in the Fonts folder under AI War, you can see if they seem to open correctly or if they look corrupt in the windows font viewer when you open them.

If the fonts seem okay, then I'm suspecting this is either a SlimDX or a DirectX9 issue.  It most looks like some sort of internal SlimDX error to me, honestly -- that line "SlimDX.Direct3D9.Font.Build" is part of the internal SlimDX library.  The SlimDX library doesn't have any known bugs there, to my knowledge, so that could mean it is actually a wrapper around an error in DirectX9.  Simply reinstalling the latest DirectX9.0c redistributable from Microsoft would usually fix any such error if that's what it is.

Hope that helps!

[Henhog]

I downloaded and installed directx and slimdx from the prerequisites thread but i still get the same error. Any thoughts on why that might be?

Also, the font seemed to work fine. Although I did see something under my graphics adapter info. It says the DAC type is 8bit, is that too low?

[eRe4s3r]

Whats your Operating System / Hardware / Language setting?

That error looks like a Windows Problem to be honest...
Particularly What OS you have is vital to know.

[Henhog]

By OS you mean windows 7, right?
1.6 GHz processor
1.5 GB of RAM
124 mb graphics card

[eRe4s3r]

indeed... But that won't help further i fear.. that error message is pretty odd - so odd that i don't think it can be the right error message. /meaning the application doesn't report the real error, only a symptom.

Maybe x4000 has some other ideas, but apart from reinstalling DirectX 9 and using the installer from from this link

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyID=2da43d38-db71-4c1b-bc6a-9b6652cd92a3

I don't know.

It surely looks like a weird error though...

[Henhog]

reinstalled directx, but still get the same error =/