help please or i want a refund

[Volker Harun]

Do you get an errormessage with an event-ID? Which one? Check http://eventid.net

[rcallicotte]

This sure sounds like a graphics error, but I don't want to be a broken record.  Nevertheless, this error indicates a Microsoft OS Kernel error, which can be related to third-party software running in the background.

Would you mind finding your NTDLL.DLL and giving us the version number here?

its a fresh xp install with no other programs installed, everything is up to date, drivers, sp2 installed, it will render anything that the demo can do but as soon as i go larger or up the quality or aa it will crash half way through the render with the NTDLL.DLL error, the pc will run a massive render scene in 3ds max no problem, i have never seen this error before with any software that i have used.

[old_blaggard]

it will render anything at the same levels as the demo version but as soon as i up the quality, aa, or screen size it gets about halfway through the render then it crashes with the usual xp box in the middle of the screen, it says the error is in module NTDLL.DLL.

How much are you upping the quality?  If you put quality above 1 and render at quite large sizes (over 1.5 megapixels or so), the renderer does sometimes crash - it's not that good at handling large sizes yet, and increasing the quality dramatically increases the chance of an error.

[cyphyr]

Broken or malfunctioning software can be extremely annoying and I can understand your frustration, however I'm pretty sure this is a graphics driver problem. If your using an nVidia GeForce graphics card try some of the alternate drivers. The latest driver is not always the best. When you look at the background sky texture in the OpenGL preview is it "broken" and "patchy", almost as if every other triangle is missing? If so this may be indicative of a graphics driver issue. It will depend on the specific card your using but there are many tweaked drivers out there that can solve problems like these. Although I dont reccomend it my experience was that the broken texture went away when I upgraded to Vista 64 (don't even consider with less than 2gig ram). Another thing to try is turning off all antivirus, anti spyware background apps and seeing if the same issue still comes up. You could even try rendering in "safe mode" (F8 on reboot).

Lastly remember that Terragen is a work in progress, it has many bugs and unfinished features and isn't in its tin yet so it cant exactly do what it says on said tin ... if you get my drift. So why spend money now? Well it will cost a heck of a lot more to buy when its finished and we get to make suggestions and report bugs to planetside who DO take all this on board.

Second lastly, try posting some screen grabs (print screen) of the error, the text file that xp kindly offers to send to MS for you and possibly a screen grab of your render settings. As Calico said you'll NEVER need to set the quality above 1 and frankly I never go above 0.75 and the default AA.

Hope all this helps and good luck

Richard

[TOPDOG]

I have already installed various versions of the drivers, as i said this is on a fresh install of windows with no other software running, as soon as i increase the resolution of render it will crash during render, it always gets about 75-80% then omes the crash, this is a brand new built pc which has been running various powerfull graphic applications like 3ds max , rhino, flamingo, so i do not expect this sort of error.

it is not overclocked or anything that would increase risk of crashing, this is the only time i have ever had this error after years with xp, the NTDLL.DLL VERSION IS 5.1.2600.2180

[rcallicotte]

Okay, now that we know what version it is (relates to XP SP2 - 5.1.2600.2180), the only thing left is -

Post some screenshots of your error messages.

Post your render settings - all of your Quality tab render settings, including any changes on any of the tabs but the Quality tab. 

We also need your TGD.  I've often heard Oshyan say he can't do much without seeing these things firsthand.

[Oshyan]

I apologize for not being able to get to this message sooner. I was away for the weekend and had a large backlog of messages. I did also get your message to support but wanted to reply publicly here in case it will also help someone else.

First of all it would help to know the specific detail settings you are increasing and what values you are using. If it crashes at detail 1, AA 8 and GI 2/2, with resolution 1280x1024 then that definitely indicates a problem, and an unusual one at that. If you are using significantly higher settings it may simply be outside of reasonable limits.

One possible solution would be to exclude TG2 from the "Data Execution Prevention" function of Windows XP which we have seen to cause trouble in some applications, including TG2, though only under certain unusual circumstances. It seems very strange that it would occur so consistently for you, but it's worth trying in any case. Right-click My Computer, go to Properties then the Advanced tab. Click Settings in the Performance area and go to the Data Execution Prevention tab. Change it to "Turn on Data Execution Prevention for all programs except those I specify". Now add "tgd.exe" in your Terragen 2 Technology Preview install directory to the exceptions list and try rendering again. You don't need to worry that this will compromise your computer as the "protection" is erroneously being triggered in the default state anyway since it is supposed to only act on Windows programs and essential services and you are not turning it off for any of those, thus you are just as safe as before.

Once you get back to us with more info we will hopefully be able to help you.

- Oshyan