Crashing issues and "art/pslaunch.zip"

[Calli]

All right, I'm crashing ingame and I'm not entirely sure why. My first idea was to run the updater, see what it had to say... apparently, my "art/pslaunch.zip file fails to check". Sooo... I clicked "yes" to DL it, but every time, it's failed. Assuming this is my issue (and who knows, it may only be part of the problem) what should I do about it?

Thanks in advance for any help! And of course, if there's anything else I can do to be of assistance in making things smoother, please mention. I just want to enjoy the wonderful game. 

[LigH]

Welcome on board...

You did not write any useful details about your installation, so I can only guess:

pslaunch was slightly buggy from version 0.5.2.x, so it is recommendable to download and install the new complete installer version 0.5.3.

If you already did so, then your issue with art/pslaunch.zip is rather new; you could try to answer "No" when you are asked to update next time you start pslaunch, and try to run a "Repair" then.

Unfortunately, crashes in game are not really as rare as we wished. One possible temporary solution might be to delete the file "shadercache" in your personal Application Data folder once (unfortunately you did not tell us which operating system you have, so we can't tell you yet where exactly you can find it, it depends on the OS). But there are still many more bugs to be fixed.

Also it is always useful to know your hardware, at least: CPU (number of cores, speed), GPU (chipset, model), RAM (amount).

[Calli]

Terribly sorry about that. I really ought to know better...  Ah well... live and learn. I have Windows 7, on a Studio 1555 laptop and I literally just installed PS so it's the newest that they have on the DL page.

I'm happy to report, uninstalling, reinstalling, then running a repair fixed the issue with the art/pslaunch.zip, but I'm still crashing. Perhaps someone could tell me where to find this "shadercache" and what exactly to do? And if you need any more information, just bear with the newbie and tell her where to find it - I'll happily provide!

Thanks so much so far!

[Sen]

Hello Calli

The shadercache is in %APPDATA%\PlaneShift\ as far as I know.
But it's a good idea to have a look into irc to get the problem selved, since communication there is easier there (Have a look at www.planeshift.it/irc.html if you don't know irc)
At what point is the client crashing and with what error message if any?

Sen

[Calli]

Lately, it crashes at unpredictable times, but rarely do I get more than a few minutes in. My particular moment right now, is I have a character stuck in the stairs to the arena... I can't get beyond a few seconds before it crashes. It says "psclient.exe has stopped working" and boots me out of there.

And could you be a bit more specific about how to get to where I need to go to delete this "shadercache"? I want to make sure I get the right thing... 

[LigH]

You enter the following text into the address line of your Windows Explorer, or the Start / Run... dialog:

%APPDATA%\PlaneShift [ENTER]

Then you will magically arrive in the folder where PlaneShift stores its data relevant to your user account in Windows.

In this folder you should be able to find a file called "shadercache". Probably several megabytes large. You may delete this file once.

After deleting it, and starting PlaneShift again, you will notice that the game is more choppy for a while. It should get smoother the longer you walk around, though.

That might (with some probability) reduce the amount of crashes. But you will still crash now and then, because the game software still contains lots of bugs. Nothign anyone could suggest you will prevent you from crashing completely. We do not yet even know all possible reasons why the game crashes now and then, and only some of the known reasons are fixed yet, but not yet published (planned for some kind of 0.5.4 or similar release).

Get used to crashes. PlaneShift is in development. It was for several years, and will be for several more years.

[Sen]

Lately, it crashes at unpredictable times, but rarely do I get more than a few minutes in. My particular moment right now, is I have a character stuck in the stairs to the arena... I can't get beyond a few seconds before it crashes. It says "psclient.exe has stopped working" and boots me out of there.

I'd try asking a gm to move that character to another map - that helps sometimes when one char crashes at a particular place. For this is again irc the best place, ideal channel there would be #planeshift-gmtalk

Sen