Computer reboot issue

Hi!

I've made a game as a school project using VB and DirectX 8. The game is a side-scrolling platform game and it has some very confusing (for me) problems. When I tested the game on some of the computers at my school, they rebooted (instantly) at a particular point of the game. This problem occurs only on some computers.

A similar problem came up a while ago, but that time the similarity was all computers with the problem had ATI graphic cards, and the computer didn’t reboot, the graphic driver just crashed. I solved this by creating the device with software vertex processing, not hardware.

Another question: When you’re using DirectX 8 to draw 2d graphics, is there any way to set the z-index I want some of the objects to be in front of the characters and some to be behind them. When I set the z-value to something but 0 they just disappear.

Please help! : /

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Computer reboot issue

Giant_Panda

Without any idea of what version of VB you're using (VB6 VB8 ), which DX SDK, what hardware you're running on, what OS you're using, etc., we're pretty constrained as to how we can help you.

Generally speaking, spontaneous reboots when running a game are the result of naughty graphics drivers. Considering you were able to run the game using the reference rasterizer, I'd darn near say with 100% confidence it's a graphics driver problem (by the way, it can also be aggravated by you invoking a capability on the graphics card that is unsupported).

Regarding DirectX8. We strongly recommend you upgrade to DirectX 9. Take a look at the "Simple 2D" sample in the latest DirectX SDK to see how to handle Z ordering.
checkit
Thank you for answering!

I am using VB6, which doesn’t support DX9. Am I wrong And won’t it be _a lot_ of work to upgrade to DX9 I would really prefer having fixed this problem in less than a week. Isn’t there any way solving the problem without upgrading =/

Regarding the reboots, sorry I didn’t give you all the facts. But since this problem, and similar problems (like the ATI driver’s crash), occurred on so many different computers, I thought I must have made something terrible wrong. I don’t really know their specifications, but they were all running Win XP.

Can a computer reboot just because I invoke a capability it doesn’t support When the computers rebooted the game created four vertices in the map editor for the terrain.

Once again, thank you for answering! Sorry for being so inquisitive, hope you’ll have patience. =)
GSL

If the machines are running Windows XP with service pack 2, they already have the DirectX 9.0c runtime installed.

Regaring VB6. Yes, you can do DX9 apps with VB6 by using a COM interface library. My advice: Stop using VB6. Mainstream support has ended for VB6, and any game/graphics programming advice you find that uses VB6 is most likely outdated. This can result in a lot of pain for you as you attempt to learn graphics programming. It is wiser to move to C#, C++, or even VB8. I'm aware that for some people, they must stick to VB6. But if you have any choice in the matter: stop using it.

And yes, it's possible for computers to reboot if they have bad drivers. To stop the automatic reboot, open the system properties, click on the "Advanced" tab, click on "Startup and Recovery", then uncheck the "Automatically Restart" checkbox. That might help you isolate the problem.
Computer reboot issue

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