[TUT] Mission crashes!

[AznKei]

Hi everyone,

 

I played quite a lot of missions. Some of them can be completed without crashing, while others cannot be completed because it crashed. It can be really depressing for the player whenever a crash occurs.

 

The type of missions that are more vulnerable to crashes are the long, mixed, extensive missions and the missions that involve a lot of armed actors, chasing cars, objects, etc. in more than one specific location.

 

You may ask why are these missions crash? I can tell you for the most common reason: MEMORY OVERLOAD!

 

Do not forget that whenever you ADD things like enemy actors, ally actors, cars, objects, pickups and so on, a piece of memory will be added for each action you make. After a certain limit and that you still ADD more things, eventually the game is going to crash while playing. Even DEAD enemy actors and DESTROYED cars still count as memory as long it is still visible.

 

There is a way to take out a piece of memory if you don't want this to happen, it is the HIDE options. If you select an actor, do a HIDE actor; select a car, do a HIDE car; select an object, do a HIDE object and so on... It is recommended to use the HIDE options after you completed a specific objective and that they are not longer useful.

 

Here's an example:

 

1) Create and ADD enemy actors. Put at least 15 enemy actors...

2) Add an objective actor. Put the "kill all enemies" ON.

3) Add an checkpoint objective after the objective actor.

4) HIDE all the enemy actors after the checkpoint objective.

5) Add a cutscene. This way the screen will blackout and after this all the enemy actors dissappear, hence saving the memory for latter objectives.

 

There you go. At this point, you might think that now you understand the procedures. But there is still some advice I'm going to tell you.

Here's some advices (work most of the time):

 

- Don't put more than 40 armed ally/enemy actors when there is no or very few traffic/peds

. No more than 15 when the traffic/peds is very high.

- Don't put more than 4 chasing cars when there is no traffic/peds. No more than the 3 when there is very few traffic/peds and no more than 1 when the traffic/peds is very high.

- Don't put more than 40 objects (average size) when there is no or very few traffic/peds. No more than 15 when the traffic/peds is very high.

- Don't bother trying to HIDE dead objective actors as they will stay there forever.

 

If you follow this tutorial, there is a greater chance that your long, extensive, mixed, intense missions will work without crashing .

 

Well then, happy mission designing everyone .

Edited April 2, 2010 by AznKei

[12jango]

Hey, you were thinking the same as I do.

I also thought that the only way to prevent overload is by hiding any cars/objects/actors that is no longer needed.

[Tug66666]

I made a topic like this a loooong time ago

 

 

http://www.gtaforums.com/index.php?showtopic=406446&hl=

[AznKei]

 

I made a topic like this a loooong time ago

 

 

http://www.gtaforums.com/index.php?showtopic=406446&hl=

Sorry for that, I didn't take a look around... besides I wasn't there at that time .

 

I also added about objects and chasing cars, since those things can crash the game too. Not only actors.

 

Thanks for noticing me about this though .

Edited April 2, 2010 by AznKei

[Kratos2000]

i already knew this but thanks anyway

but sometimes there are bugged actors in the mission, then this won't help.

[AznKei]

i already knew this but thanks anyway

but sometimes there are bugged actors in the mission, then this won't help.

Yeah, it's true . It might be not 100% accurate that it will work, but at least it will save you a lot of trouble if you do such procedures .

 

Oh yeah, don't forget to backup the file too .