GoldenEye 007 Nintendo 64 Community, GoldenEye X, Nintendo 64 Games Discussion

[K1lo]

After finally investing the time to get to grips with the Goldeneye Setup Editor (amazing tool but maddening to learn initially) I've started tweaking and modding existing maps. I have run into a snag however, on Bunker 1 a recent change I made results in the game (but not audio) freezing hen the alarm is triggered. I did a bit of digging and discovered the freeze occurs when the commandos spawn by the exit (not actually when the alarm sounds although sometimes both happen at the same time).

The most recent change I made was to add a number if scientists armed with auto shotguns and Natalia as simple guards.

Is there anything obvious I should check? Can post a patch if it would help.

Thanks!

[SubDrag]

I'm glad you've gotten over the hump! I do realize the user friendliness isn't up to par with professional editors, but it should be functional.

As for crashing, many times it's due to a "runaway action block", where it infinite loops, such as no 03 in a 01/02 block, or a Go to that has no target. You can click Check Syntax to do a simple check. As for solving it, you really have to back things out till it works, then put them back till they crash (so can see why). Sometimes it's using too much memory. Sometimes it's an object with a wrong type. If you get truly stuck post your setup.

[K1lo]

Hi SubDrag, thanks for the reply. I'm still new to action blocks but understand the principle. I'll take a look later.

Is there a practical upper limit to the number of guards in a room or level? I added about 15 or so in total to Bunker 1. The only other oddity is bullet holes and the shotgun shell ammo icon look corrupted.

[SubDrag]

Ah, so you are using too much memory. You can try increasing -mt slightly in 21990, but you should lower amount of variety of guards/objects.

[K1lo]

Curious, I'm sure Bunker 2 has more guards. I even added ten more to the standard setup without issue.

I'll try removing guards one at a time until I can stop it crashing. Where do I make the change you suggested?

[SubDrag]

It's the variety of guards, not count. It's a too many textures issue. Tools->21990 for -mt

[K1lo]

Interesting, that's something to keep in mind! I removed all the scientists (I was using both male and female types) bar one and this happened:



Amusing if a little kinky. The textures were cycling every few frames

With all the extra scientists (but not extra soldiers which were the same as the current level entities) gone the problem was solved. No freezes and extra guards spawned and looked correct. I'll try the setting you suggested now with a copy of the crashing project.

[SubDrag]

Just be careful, is a limit when upping -mt, so it will crash if too big. Yep, you have way too much variety!

[K1lo]

Will do. I'm surprised by that, I only added two scientist types, Oddjob and Natalia. I guess the spawned guards are yet another type. And Boris is in the level by default. Including bond and the commandant then that makes five types by default and nine with my modification. Is there a set limit to always aim below?

From my trial and error, removing the scientist types made it run smoothly again, bringing the count to seven.

[SubDrag]

It's the combined total of textures, including level, guns, chars, etc. So it's everything

[K1lo]

Aha, I see. The all guns cheat must have given the original developers some cause for concern then!

Thanks for all the input SubDrag, really appreciated!

[zoinkity]

Special characters use remarkably more textures than ordinary characters.
An ordinary guard will usually have 6 textures of their own (chest f/b, sleeve, hands shared w/ Bond, pants, boots) but special characters will consume many more. Typical are 4 textures for the body, 2-3 for the hands, 2 for arms, 1-2 for pants, and custom shoes consisting of 1-2 textures. Plus, their heads don't count into the random head count, so effectively it adds one additional head to the buffer consisting of 3-4 textures.

Different stages have different memory allocations, and in the case there isn't enough allocated it bumps out the 'static' textures that are always loaded.
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[K1lo]

Ah I see. It would be nice to have a memory bar in the editor somewhere or at least an approximate tally so you know when things are getting precarious

[SubDrag]

There is a way to see loaded textures by saying Filter by Visual in Image Tools, but yeah I don't have a good metric for it. At moment it works until it doesn't, and I always recommend testing your level incrementally to avoid crashes/this kind of thing.

[Rey]

K1lo wrote:

Will do. I'm surprised by that, I only added two scientist types, Oddjob and Natalia. I guess the spawned guards are yet another type. And Boris is in the level by default. Including bond and the commandant then that makes five types by default and nine with my modification. Is there a set limit to always aim below? From my trial and error, removing the scientist types made it run smoothly again, bringing the count to seven.

To me sounds like you did not do level bare bones.
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