Windows XP Users Beware

[D.Edwards]

Well I will not be posting any new textures until I can figure out how to do everything under Photoshop. Gimp has crashed on me for the last time.
At first I took the occational lockups and system freezes as just a cute little quirks with the Windows version of Gimp. But now Its gotten serious. While working on a texture it locked up again. I usualy half to wait about 2-3 minutes and then everythings ok and I can go with my work. This time was different. The system never recovered. I had to hard boot the system and guess what I got. After checkdisk finished running and told me I had a whole s---t load of truncated and crosslinled files Of coarse XP does its best to try and fix things. What a mess. Once inside Windows I found that all the graphics files I was working on were ruined. Now I have to start all over. I even lost the my HD 28185 version 2 zip file. I then did a system restore hoping that maybe some of this mess would get cleared up. I had damaged system files too. Well to make a long story short I had to do a dirty install of XP to fix the system errors. The graphics are still lost. The Zip file is zapped and Gimp is comming off my system. I will stick with Photoshop and just have to learn how to do all my work with it.
Please no Linux people telling me try linux. I have in the past and its not for me. I think I will pull my iMac out of the closet and get OS X loaded up on that and see if the OS X version of Gimp is more stable being that it will be workin in nearly its native enviroment.
I am not saying anyone shouldn't use Gimp. But I think Windows XP users should work with it very carefully or they end up with a similar problem.
I will keep everyone posted on my progress learning how to make specular maps under Photoshop. I know it can be done and at least Photoshop has very been the cause of a system wide crash for me.

[Rassilon]

Install on a seperate HD win98SE and problem fixed...Just remember to keep backups of your files...but I know what its like to lose everything...

Remember to switch your boot drive in the bios so as to not interfere with XP when you do a fresh install of 98...if you can that is...

[t00fri]

Well I will not be posting any new textures until I can figure out how to do everything under Photoshop. Gimp has crashed on me for the last time.

Well on the Win-GIMP page it is said that GIMP for Windows does not have the same high degree of stability it has under Linux/Unix where it was developed.

So some measures of care are always advisable (backups etc)

On the other hand, I use it on WinME and so far did not have a single freeze up. And I use it quite extensively, if I use it...

But I also hear quite a few other instability reports related to Win XP somehow. Something that is highly unusual under Linux;-)

Bye Fridger

[Axel]

Hi,

Gimp has crashed on me for the last time.

I'm using 'The GIMP' on W2k for about 2years now and seldom had instabilities. There are a few releases which do have their probs, though.

If you still want to try you might shift to an earlier version. If not you're perfectly ok and koscher to shift to anything you like as long as the needed features are there.

However, since a large part of the Celestians do use one or another GIMP flavor, your milage may vary then =)

Take care and may the Scandisk be with you,
Axel

[steve.wray]

Have you tried the compatibility modes?
Sometimes you have to try them all out to see.

I've usually found the win2k compatibility mode
works well.

To use it, right click the executable in and go to properties,
there will be a 'compatibility mode' tab.

I've had great success getting programs to run that
crash by default!
:-)

[D.Edwards]

Actualy I have. Gimp loads extremly slowly and then any image I try to open won't.
I have tried settings for Win95, Win98-ME, Win2000. All compatibility modes are slow and keep Gimp from operating properly. When It tends to crash is when I am creating the alpha chanel for specular textures if I accidently click in the new windows it brings up the select by color window and everything locks up. Most of the time if I wait long enough the system unfreezes and I can go back to work. But every once and a while after a lockup has freed the system it locks up again and again and again. It won't even let me ctrl-alt-del to bring up the taskmanager and kill the program. When it gets caught in one of these loops is when I am forced to hard start the machine. This was the case for the major crash. I have decided to uninstall and reinstall to see if that might help. As you can see I am gluten for punishment here. I realy don't want to give on Gimp.
Also can someone tell my the best settings for Gimp when it comes to the tile cache. I did change the size from 32 to 64meg. I don't know if that would cause any instabilities with the program.
If any of this helps I an running a Pentium III 1GHz 512MB of PC 133 SDRAM, 2 20GIG Drives and a NVidia GeForce2 MX 200 with 32 MB of SDRAM. Not the fastes video card but its going to get upgraded very soon to an NVidia GeForce4 4200 with 128 MB of DDRAM. Does anyone know of any driver issues with NVidia cards. I always run the newest Detonators as soon as they come out. I am at a lose for ideas. I really lothe the idea of having to go back to using Win9x. I may try setting up Win2000 on the other hard disk and see if it behaves better in there. At least I will have the stability of the NT kernel over the Win9x one.
All input is welcome folks.

[t00fri]

When It tends to crash is when I am creating the alpha chanel for specular textures if I accidently click in the new windows it brings up the select by color window and everything locks up. Most of the time if I wait long enough the system unfreezes and I can go back to work.

What you describe here sounds almost like a normal operation in case of /large/ files (8k for example). Except you own a real super computer, yes, GIMP does "retreat" for a while and works extremely hard. During that time it does not want to be disturbed (i.e. does not react at all). It will come back when it has done its work.

That's life;-)

I have never heard of real crashes that are "healing" after a while

Bye Fridger

[Thilo]

Even if gimp crashes, windows XP should stay up without any major flaws ... i thought after using the windows NT kernel microsoft had done some things considering stability (in regards of the OS) but apparently it is not so. Another example for microsoft's incompetence.

[steve.wray]

Though it hurts me to say it, having been a long term
Linux geek (10 years!!!) XP is the best thing to have
come out of MS *ever*!
I know, its not hard for them to improve
;)
But I've no problems with XP stability.

One prob I have tho is having to run Celestia in
win98/Me compatibility mode.

But at least XP *has* compatibility modes!!
8)

Even if gimp crashes, windows XP should stay up without any major flaws ... i thought after using the windows NT kernel microsoft had done some things considering stability (in regards of the OS) but apparently it is not so. Another example for microsoft's incompetence.

[Sum0]

I haven't had any problems with Gimp in XP, and I don't need to use the compatibility mode. But if you are thinking of getting XP, run away quickly, and get a quality OS like Win2k or, of course, linux. XP does, admittedly, have lots of nice bells and whistles, but as an OS it will horribly mangle your PC, and internet connection especially. And I can't even play my old DOS games.

[D.Edwards]

I have been using Windows XP since last summer when I was Beta testing it. I have had little trouble with many programs eccept maybe Easy CD Creator from time to time. As for Dos Games. I haven't played one in at least 2 years or more. I did experimant with a few Dos games while beta testing XP and managed to get Duke Nuken Gold to run quite well on it. But alas I think Microsoft changed something in the Dos emulation layer and I haven't been able to recreate that success again. As for Gimp locking up. What I discribed earlyer does happen. Even though you are supposed to be able to kill a trouble causing program with the taskmanager. If you can't get the taskmanager to come up because Gimp has total control of your system theres not much you can do but wait or hard boot. I was runnig an interface modifying program and its very posible that could contribute to the trouble I was having. But I have managed to lock Gimp and XP up without it running so anybodies guess is as good as mine. I have desided to wipe the partion and start off fresh again. I must consider that my PC is in a major flux as it gets various hardware upgrades whitch is probably going to give fitts until everything is completely upgraded. I still haven't given on Gimp yet. This is now a major chalenge for me now.

[UncleSpam]

I've encountered conditions on my XP setup, where working with textures >16K, with separate RGB components has caused Photoshop to "lock up".

It did not crash, but the system felt incredibly slow while the program did the number crunching... this included a "program not responting" verdict in the task manager.

After many minutes, things magically cleared up.

:)

Bogdan

[Rassilon]

Also you might consider the texture you were loading was corrupted...I have had a problem with that in the past...system hard locks when trying to load the texture...even in photoshop...

[t00fri]

I've encountered conditions on my XP setup, where working with textures >16K, with separate RGB components has caused Photoshop to "lock up".

It did not crash, but the system felt incredibly slow while the program did the number crunching... this included a "program not responting" verdict in the task manager.

After many minutes, things magically cleared up.

:)

Bogdan

If I am not wrong you are talking about 21k images that are 300-400 MB in size??? Well if you do not have 1GB of memory, then a substantial amount is placed into some "swap file" on /disk/ rather than being worked on in you much faster RAM memory. All operations then become deadly slow! This phenomenon is entirely normal and happens to everyone as soon as there is not enough RAM memory installed!

Bye Fridger

[D.Edwards]

BINGO!!!
Well I believe I have finally discovered what is causing Gimp to lockup on me. I don't think there is anyway of fixing this but at least I think I have nailed it down. Gimp systematicly is locking up when I work on specular textures and I have come to the conclusion its the animation when an area is chosen for the specular texture. After choosing by color and inporting the specular chanel to the open grayscale image it creates another animated image of the selected areas scolling in the window. If i acidently click in the window it brings up the select by color window again and thats when the system hangs up for me. This could be an issue with my video card not being able to keep up with the requested drwaings in the various windwos and could be the culprette for the lockups. I have been able to recreate this problem several times in a row by accident and on purpose to see if it would happen each time and it does. As I have said in previous posts I am getting a new video card latter this week and we shall see if the screen drawing problem persistes. If it does than I can come to only one comclusion and that is its Gimps drawing engine that is at fault here and not my graphics card. I am going to emailing the Gimp folks and hopofully they may have some answeres for me.

[Guest]

D.

You are making a mistake by not using NTFS under Windows XP. You won't get crosslinked files, lost clusters, etc. using this much-improved file system. FAT, FAT32, etc. are complete junk when it comes to data integrity.

[steve.wray]

On the other hand, XP does an admirable job of 98/95 compatibility; but installing 98/95 apps on NTFS filesystems can make this more difficult.
I use NTFS for the system partition and install games etc onto the fat32 partition...

By the way, I had to run Celestia in 98 compatibility mode; until I rolled back my NVidia 'detonater' drivers a few versions. The latest detonator drivers seem to break some openGL features.

[D.Edwards]

Hey Guys,
The Gimp lockups have been traced to bad hardware. Namely a cheap peice of juck motherboard and a graphics card thats had better days.
After changing out the motherboard and puting in a slightly better video card all my lockups have gone away. I have completly stopped bitching about Gimp and I am singing it praises again.
As for NTFS. I have always used it as my format of choice so to speak.
But the major loss a had was with the NTFS file system installed. There was so much data coruption that I couldn't even see the contents of the drive when it was slaved to another install of XP. I build computers for part of my income so I am well aware of what can go wrong and how to fix it. It was just a matter of illimination to find out what was causeing the errors and hangups.
I have only had one complaint about the NTFS file system in XP. If I want to overwrite a system file with a customised version it has to be done from a dos promt. Of course dos can't see a NTFS partition so you cant do things like you were once able to unless you happen to have another install of Windows 2000 or Windows XP handy. I have found a Dos driver for NTFS but I haven't had a chance to try it out yet. Just been to busy with work and other things like making textures and checking and keeping up with the Celestia forum.
Thanks for the input and information but I think we can put this subject to bed unless someone else whats to keep it going.