Steel Panthers World At War: Mech.EXE Crashing

SPWaW is a tactical squad-level World War II game on single platoon or up to an entire battalion through Europe and the Pacific (1939 to 1945).

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Horse40
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Steel Panthers World At War: Mech.EXE Crashing

Post by Horse40 »

I have diagnosed some problems why MECH.EXE is crashing on windows 7. Here is my findings: When there is many tanks on map it usually crashes middle of battle. I think all those flaming hulks crashes the .exe.

When it crashes to desktop my event viewer log says: Application Error code 1000.
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Riitaoja2
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RE: Steel Panthers World At War: Mech.EXE Crashing

Post by Riitaoja2 »

Have you tried running the game through Dxwnd? It fixed the random crashes I was having on my Win7 system.
Horse40
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RE: Steel Panthers World At War: Mech.EXE Crashing

Post by Horse40 »

I tried but it crashes all the time. What I can do? I tried to kill all procesesses but it still crashes. Dang.
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Major_Mess
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RE: Steel Panthers World At War: Mech.EXE Crashing

Post by Major_Mess »

Update your OS to Win 10


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Riitaoja2
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RE: Steel Panthers World At War: Mech.EXE Crashing

Post by Riitaoja2 »

ORIGINAL: Horse40

I tried but it crashes all the time. What I can do? I tried to kill all procesesses but it still crashes. Dang.
With Dxwnd the game should no longer crash. Did you use the pre configured dxwnd all in one fix that I posted here:
tm.asp?m=4060116&mpage=1&key=&#4060116
After extracting the fix to the game folder the game should start from "_Start_SPWAW_Dxwnd+ArtyFix.cmd". It is also importat to make sure no compatibility modes are set for mech.exe.

It is also possible that the crashes you are experiencing are caused by a broken Windows7 installation or a hardware fault.
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RE: Steel Panthers World At War: Mech.EXE Crashing

Post by Horse40 »

Win ten. blahh. I don't upgrade to that mess. I try to play with DXwnd and see what happens.
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RE: Steel Panthers World At War: Mech.EXE Crashing

Post by Horse40 »

I post back when I find some good DXwnd settings.
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Major_Mess
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RE: Steel Panthers World At War: Mech.EXE Crashing

Post by Major_Mess »

Horse40

Give this thread a read, take a look Here


HTH

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Speedysteve
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RE: Steel Panthers World At War: Mech.EXE Crashing

Post by Speedysteve »

Hi Guys,

I recently got a new Desktop with Windows 10 and have just installed SPWAWGE. Upon trying to start the game it comes up with an error screen saying mech.exe has stopped working. Any ideas?

Thanks
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Major_Mess
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RE: Steel Panthers World At War: Mech.EXE Crashing

Post by Major_Mess »

I don't know about the Generals Edition ............... it should work. AFAIK it's the same mech.exe.
SPWaW was made for a single processor machine, you got a new Win10 box, I betcha it's a multi-core.
Take a look at two posts above, try DxWnd before you start ranting at Mr McNeil.

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RE: Steel Panthers World At War: Mech.EXE Crashing

Post by Speedysteve »

Thanks.I clicked on the above and tried registering for the forum but it would not get me past the registration screen. It kept saying I hadn't entered the confirmation code correctly which was blatantly not true. I tried 15 times but it would not let me register. Ah well. Guess SPWAWGE goes back on the shelf[:(]
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RE: Steel Panthers World At War: Mech.EXE Crashing

Post by Speedysteve »

Holy shoot. I figured I'd try a few last things and voila by renaming the SND folder to 'SND-off' it loaded fine!

It's much better playing with sound mind you. Any ideas what I could do to try and fix this so I can play with sound?
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RE: Steel Panthers World At War: Mech.EXE Crashing

Post by Randall »

Large battles have always crashed, especially with large custom maps, even in the SSI days. I just save often and keep fighting.
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RE: Steel Panthers World At War: Mech.EXE Crashing

Post by Horse40 »

FREAKING awesome news [X(] . I just got it running normally without that crash: 1) I disconnected my internet because SPWAW don't need it, 2) I closed my world community grid program, 3) Then I ran the game with dxwnd command and it worked. YAY !
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Re: RE: Steel Panthers World At War: Mech.EXE Crashing

Post by loki1944 »

Major_Mess wrote: Mon Jan 16, 2017 2:59 pm Update your OS to Win 10

2023 here and it crashes constantly after about and hour of play; Im on Windows 10
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Re: RE: Steel Panthers World At War: Mech.EXE Crashing

Post by loki1944 »

Randall wrote: Sat Jul 15, 2017 1:59 am Large battles have always crashed, especially with large custom maps, even in the SSI days. I just save often and keep fighting.
I never had crashes with MSDOS Vanilla SP.
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Re: Steel Panthers World At War: Mech.EXE Crashing

Post by loki1944 »

I know this post isold now but I'm getting frequent mid battle crashes; I'm using the updated mech.exe that fixes artillery; but totally lost on what is discussed here; can someone please tell me what dxwnd is?
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Major_Mess
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Re: Steel Panthers World At War: Mech.EXE Crashing

Post by Major_Mess »

loki1944 wrote: Fri Aug 11, 2023 9:09 am ....... can someone please tell me what dxwnd is?
DxWnd is a small program that allows full screen programs (like SPWaW) to run in a re-sizable window. On top of allowing old timey programs to run on a new OS, DxWnd also has the capabilities to render the video display through your GPU in your computer. That allows the game to run smoother, and the display is somewhat improved.

If interested I can pull up an old thread that refers to it, or I can crank out a quick and dirty instructions.

TDLR: DxWnd works great, cuts down on the crashes A LOT, improves the gameplay and make the game look better.

cheers

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loki1944
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Re: Steel Panthers World At War: Mech.EXE Crashing

Post by loki1944 »

Major_Mess wrote: Fri Aug 11, 2023 2:38 pm
loki1944 wrote: Fri Aug 11, 2023 9:09 am ....... can someone please tell me what dxwnd is?
DxWnd is a small program that allows full screen programs (like SPWaW) to run in a re-sizable window. On top of allowing old timey programs to run on a new OS, DxWnd also has the capabilities to render the video display through your GPU in your computer. That allows the game to run smoother, and the display is somewhat improved.

If interested I can pull up an old thread that refers to it, or I can crank out a quick and dirty instructions.

TDLR: DxWnd works great, cuts down on the crashes A LOT, improves the gameplay and make the game look better.

cheers

Major Mess
Ok; thank you very much.
loki1944
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Re: Steel Panthers World At War: Mech.EXE Crashing

Post by loki1944 »

Major_Mess wrote: Fri Aug 11, 2023 2:38 pm
loki1944 wrote: Fri Aug 11, 2023 9:09 am ....... can someone please tell me what dxwnd is?
DxWnd is a small program that allows full screen programs (like SPWaW) to run in a re-sizable window. On top of allowing old timey programs to run on a new OS, DxWnd also has the capabilities to render the video display through your GPU in your computer. That allows the game to run smoother, and the display is somewhat improved.

If interested I can pull up an old thread that refers to it, or I can crank out a quick and dirty instructions.

TDLR: DxWnd works great, cuts down on the crashes A LOT, improves the gameplay and make the game look better.

cheers

Major Mess
Is there a guide how to use this thing; when I extracted the files I must admit I am totally lost after extracting the dxwmd zip file to a new folder. I tried every executable/application file in the main folder and nothing allowed me to point to the mech.exe.
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