Race 07 Custom Skin On Line Game Crashes

[Carl Gianetti]

Race 07 GTR EVO
You probably seen this type of post more than once
I downloaded "Custom Skins " Put them in "C:\Documents and Settings\Carl\My Documents\SimBin\RACE 07\CustomSkins.
They always work Off line
BUT They do not always work On Line.
The online game loads but when I select the mod with the custom skin it's a crap shoot. It may or may not work.
The standard skins always work.

I get the Error "RACE_Steam 1.2.1.5 has crashed"
Please submit the file" Etc...

Sometimes they work sometimes they don't
I only have a couple of Customer Skins so quantity isn't the problem
I could really use some help
Thought it might be a bad skin, So I had a known working skin sent to me and the same problem.

I hope I not the only one with this issue

Any good advise will be helpful
Thank You

 

[Dave Flower]

I can't offer a solution or an explanation of why it happens here, more maybe a possible work around based on my own observations.

You mention that the custom skins work offline but 'sometimes' work online. Ok?

Well when they work online what I think you might find is that you join a server and the car with the custom skin is the first car you choose and when you get a crash is when you choose one car and then another, and its at that point that the game crashes.

I have noticed this strange quirk a few times, if I'm right the answer is to join server and click on only one car, don't ask me why, maybe someone can shed light on this, but thats what I have noticed. Of course some skins will always cause a CTD (I think that can be connected to the resolution of the skin and its file size been too big), but in this case you say you have tried a known working skin, so this shouldn't apply.

I would be very interested to know if you try this and find I am right, so please have a go, and post back with an update.

 

[Carl Gianetti]

Last night I put all the Mods in a temp file. and it worked. I hate to get too excited, but 6 out of 6 times, I went on line and the Skin loaded no problems.
Now I just need to figure out if it was a MOD or lack of memory. I have 2 gig plus 1 gig on the Video card.

I'm happy for now

 

[Daniel Higgins]

I have the exact same problem, maybe 1 in 10 times it happens

 

[J-F Chardon]

Sometimes, skinners deliver high-resolution skins, with a "boosted" size of the .dds used.

If the default liveries shipped with the game and expansions are of that size, the reason is simply to avoid memory overloads and suffocate GMotor.

Maybe you were having that kind of issue.

 

[Daniel Higgins]

2mb...maybe it is.

 

[Günthar Rowe]

It's a mod issue.

The Lamborghini, Atom, V8 Escort and some other mods cause it.

 

[J-F Chardon]

If it happens with stock SimBin cars (not mods) that make your game crash when going online, please make sure to send us your .dmp file (zip it first, the size becomes a lot smaller).

You can send it in an attachment to a bug report in the RaceRoom.net helpdesk.

http://www.raceroom.net/helpdesk/

 

[Carl Gianetti]

I'm starting to add them back one at a time. Fotunately I only have 13 . The V8 Escort did cause a problem. I should be done Friday. Its a little slow and I don't have a lot of time in the evening.
Thanks for the advise

I'll let you know when Im done

 

[Kennett Ylitalo]

Quickest way to test them is to divide them in half. Put the other half somewhere safe and start the game. Divide the faulty half again by two and continue. Even big customskin folders can be ested in fewer steps. In your case it's 4 steps max. Takes about ½ hour..

 

[Carl Gianetti]

Looks like I found the problem. I have two MODS ATTC & Escort V8 Challenge V1.3. Once I removed them no more crashes.

Thank you all for your help

 

[Yves Larose]

here's a little trick i use to avoid the game to crash when selecting a custom skin, i always make sure that when i click on the class button and the car model button that it will go on a default liverie car then i select a few car and move then around in the render window and then select the custom skin car. i noticed that if i do it that way the game don't tend to crash.

 

[Juergen]

i got the same problem with custom skins (minidump...) as i posted here. The dds files for the skin have all together 3.3 MB. Could this too big??? On the pc where i got this problem with the skin are 16 gb ram available running with w7 x64....

 

[Simon Gardner]

There is a suggested skin size guide (for touring cars) and how to save them in Photoshop which is used by admin for for league skinpacks to lower the chances of minidumps

Body 1363 Kb DXT 1 with 6 Mip maps
Int Driver 683 Kb DXT 1 with 6 mip maps
Windows Int 513 Kb DXT 5 with no Mip Maps
Windows Ext 342 Kb DXT 5 with 6 Mip Maps
Helmet 171 Kb DXT 5 with 6 Mip Maps
Ext Driver 43 Kb DXT 1 with 6 mip maps

Some templates need to be resized before saving- the exterior windows, for example, should be 512x512 pixels. Some of the expansion templates such as both STCC and WTCC 2010 are 1024x1024 by default.
I think but am not 100% this applies to GT cars too.

 

[Juergen]

Hmmmm.....the original BMW M3 GT2 template supplied by simbin have 2048x1024 pixel (psd file/chassis)

 

[Jim Cole]

Generally speaking, saving the files in the same size as they were originally will result in no problems. I always make my skins with the body file the original size, which means 2048 X 1024 for the most part. There are times though that I think the nVidia plugin creates flawed saves and that is the reason for the CTD's when using custom skins. Unfortunately I have no way to test this as I have yet to get a CTD with the use of custom skins.

 

[Juergen]

It's a mod issue.

The Lamborghini, Atom, V8 Escort and some other mods cause it.

After deleting the Lambo-Mod no more problems...thanks a lot @ Günthar

 

[Günthar Rowe]

If it happens with stock SimBin cars (not mods) that make your game crash when going online, please make sure to send us your .dmp file (zip it first, the size becomes a lot smaller).

You can send it in an attachment to a bug report in the RaceRoom.net helpdesk.

http://www.raceroom.net/helpdesk/

It happens with Stock cars (the crashing) but as I stated, it is caused by mods that I listed above. Well known issue...