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Eroneouse · 10-09-2008, 09:34 AM

XP Specific...

Some fixes in Vista post also good for XP. I put em in one coz folks did not say a lot of times their OS.

...........For XP to play the game so it only uses a single core........

Eroneouse
Rookie
Join Date: Sep 2007 Posts: 245

load the game up, then ctrl-alt-delete, go to your task manager, find the "spore.exe" in the processes section, right-click it, and choose "set affinity".
You'll see your CPU 0-1-2-3 however many processors you have with all the boxes ticked.
Untick all of them except one to force spore to run on a single processor (don't set it to CPU 0 though because that's the one that Windows uses).
You have to do this each time you run spore though as it will reset each time.

...........................Random Crashing........................

Problem:
The game was playing fine till one day it crashed and then it keeps crashing everytime I try to play.
Solution (Windows XP):
Go to the following path on your computer:
C:\Documents and Settings\Your Username\Application Data
Important: Make a copy of the folder "SPORE" just in case...
Delete all the files named “GraphicsCache.package” (Includes GraphicsCache.001.package, 002, 003, etc...)
Information:
I had a hunch and got it right the first time, graphic caches piling up to 4 gigabytes can indeed be unstable..
I suggest that EA makes a “Start spore in Safe Mode” shortcut that automatically cleans-up the game’s cached files, or something like “The game has crashed the last time. Would you like to start spore in Safe Mode?”.
Conclusion:
I hope this was useful. You may use/reference anything in this post as you like, no strings attached (Nice if it would go as part of a helpful sticky). Also I probably won’t be maintaining this post, so don’t count on any feedback.
And please pardon my bad Englilalalalary. Last edited by Xenosteel; Today at 04:20 PM.

..........................To skip one of the stages .....................
ColibriMONOPOL
Rookie
Join Date: Sep 2008 Posts: 15
Hi, yes you are not alone this has been posted alot even by me. The only thing I can say is you use the skip level cheat and go back to tribal when the patch comes out.
Go to the galaxy screen where you select your planet.
Click on a planet
Press Ctrl+Shift+C
type levels -unlock
exit console
Go back
Select planet again
All levels should be unlocked

The only other help I can give is, You do not need th game DVD in your drive to play, I found removing it did help with game play,
If your using Wi-Fi turn it off and play ofline.
Or I also found pluging in my PC over LAN to my router helped.
All this helped and was not a fix only EA can do that!

..................Spore won't load, no error messages...................

Fozzibab
Rookie
Join Date: Sep 2008 Posts: 2
People are reporting two possible fixes for this problem.
Possible Fix the First:
Go to your Spore root directory /Sporebin and delete the file called DMCmdPortalClient.dll
Download the replacement for that file and save it in the /Sporebin folder.:
http://www.spore.com/static/war/imag...rtalClient.dll
Please note that this fix did not work for me, but has worked for others.

ElDoRado1239
Rookie
Join Date: Sep 2008 Posts: 16
Solved !I got a tip from someone who has solved this problem - by creating a new Windows account, loggin on as the new user and ... Spore works now ! Great, weird, but great.

...............................Fix for SLI issue 10012...........................

t8z5h3
Rookie
Join Date: Sep 2008 Posts: 2
fix for sli issue 10012
(back up the configs.)
the issue is a config file issue it looks like to me that the programe run's a script to look at video setting and stuff but what ea was thinking the next bata driver was going to be relased but it was set back so the coding is looing for a driver of 176.00 well the driver is 175.19 so to fix this you must go into c:\program files\Electronic arts\SPORE\DATA\Config
then open configmaker.txt in note pad and then go to edit and find search for "1176.00" it will hight light then replace it with 117519
save and play.

......................Problem with zooming in/out from planets................

Mroovek Rookie
Join Date: Sep 2008
Posts: 5
I may have a temporal solution to this problem. At first I got CTD sometimes after defending homeplanet. Later I had CTD everytime I tried to leave my planet, no matter attacked or not. And now for the solution:
Delete "GraphicsCache.package" file. It's located in "Application Data\SPORE" folder in Documents and Settings. In my case this file reached the maximum limit set in game options(I'm not sure if it didn't even exceed it). So problem may lie in this cache file. Take in mind that after you run the game after deleting this file you may see some graphics elements missing, but it's only temporal. It'll be ok after game downloads needed content again.
It helped for me. So far no CTD when leaving homeplanet. However the problem may be back after cache file gets bigger.
P.S.
I suggest making copy before deleting since I can't guarantee that everything will work ok :P
EDIT:
Well it worked for only 3 times I had to land on my homeworld and again it doesn't so it's a very temporal solution or simply it was a coinsidence.

.................................Corrupt Saves.................................

Problem:
One of my planets (Savegames) crashes everytime I evolve and enter Creature Phase / Tribal Phase / Civilization Phase. All my other Saves work except this one....
Solution:
Play on a NEW planet, and make sure you select the same creature that had the problem. Then select the phase you were stuck at.

The game saves your creature's evolution "Paths" in the Sporepedia, so when you load it for a new game no evolution progress is lost (Notice the little blue circles right below the Creature’s thumbnail, that’s the saved progress). Lucky for you.
Information:
I never knew that the game saves your evolution paths in the Sporepedia! I discovered that by pure accident just when I was about to give up on that savegame and start a new one. Whew.
I had the game crash everytime I entered the Civilization Stage, and I tried a LOT LOT of things to solve it but no avail. Hell I even copied the entire save to ANOTHER computer and the game crashed in exactly the same spot!! So it was not a hardware/software problem and its not exactly a "Corrupt" save, more like a corrupt planet (or content) which causes the game to crash everytime it translates it into civilization mode. An exceptional thing I suppose.
Definately not the fault of a custom creation either because I tried deleting the editorcache.package and no luck. It’s definitely a bug. (Maybe I could send the save to EA so they could sniff the funny code out)

10-09-2008, 09:34 AM	#2 (permalink)
Eroneouse Forum Regular Join Date: Sep 2007 Location: UK Gender: Male Posts: 809	XP Specific... Some fixes in Vista post also good for XP. I put em in one coz folks did not say a lot of times their OS. ...........For XP to play the game so it only uses a single core........ Eroneouse Rookie Join Date: Sep 2007 Posts: 245 load the game up, then ctrl-alt-delete, go to your task manager, find the "spore.exe" in the processes section, right-click it, and choose "set affinity". You'll see your CPU 0-1-2-3 however many processors you have with all the boxes ticked. Untick all of them except one to force spore to run on a single processor (don't set it to CPU 0 though because that's the one that Windows uses). You have to do this each time you run spore though as it will reset each time. ...........................Random Crashing........................ Problem: The game was playing fine till one day it crashed and then it keeps crashing everytime I try to play. Solution (Windows XP): Go to the following path on your computer: *C:\Documents and Settings\Your Username\Application Data* Important: Make a copy of the folder "SPORE" just in case... Delete all the files named “GraphicsCache.package” (Includes GraphicsCache.001.package, 002, 003, etc...) Information: I had a hunch and got it right the first time, graphic caches piling up to 4 gigabytes can indeed be unstable.. I suggest that EA makes a “Start spore in Safe Mode” shortcut that automatically cleans-up the game’s cached files, or something like “The game has crashed the last time. Would you like to start spore in Safe Mode?”. Conclusion: I hope this was useful. You may use/reference anything in this post as you like, no strings attached (Nice if it would go as part of a helpful sticky). Also I probably won’t be maintaining this post, so don’t count on any feedback. And please pardon my bad Englilalalalary. Last edited by Xenosteel; Today at 04:20 PM. ..........................To skip one of the stages ..................... ColibriMONOPOL Rookie Join Date: Sep 2008 Posts: 15 Hi, yes you are not alone this has been posted alot even by me. The only thing I can say is you use the skip level cheat and go back to tribal when the patch comes out. Go to the galaxy screen where you select your planet. Click on a planet Press Ctrl+Shift+C type levels -unlock exit console Go back Select planet again All levels should be unlocked The only other help I can give is, You do not need th game DVD in your drive to play, I found removing it did help with game play, If your using Wi-Fi turn it off and play ofline. Or I also found pluging in my PC over LAN to my router helped. All this helped and was not a fix only EA can do that! ..................Spore won't load, no error messages................... Fozzibab Rookie Join Date: Sep 2008 Posts: 2 People are reporting two possible fixes for this problem. Possible Fix the First: Go to your Spore root directory /Sporebin and delete the file called DMCmdPortalClient.dll Download the replacement for that file and save it in the /Sporebin folder.: http://www.spore.com/static/war/imag...rtalClient.dll Please note that this fix did not work for me, but has worked for others. ElDoRado1239 Rookie Join Date: Sep 2008 Posts: 16 Solved !I got a tip from someone who has solved this problem - by creating a new Windows account, loggin on as the new user and ... Spore works now ! Great, weird, but great. ...............................Fix for SLI issue 10012........................... t8z5h3 Rookie Join Date: Sep 2008 Posts: 2 fix for sli issue 10012 (back up the configs.) the issue is a config file issue it looks like to me that the programe run's a script to look at video setting and stuff but what ea was thinking the next bata driver was going to be relased but it was set back so the coding is looing for a driver of 176.00 well the driver is 175.19 so to fix this you must go into c:\program files\Electronic arts\SPORE\DATA\Config then open configmaker.txt in note pad and then go to edit and find search for "1176.00" it will hight light then replace it with 117519 save and play. ......................Problem with zooming in/out from planets................ Mroovek Rookie Join Date: Sep 2008 Posts: 5 I may have a temporal solution to this problem. At first I got CTD sometimes after defending homeplanet. Later I had CTD everytime I tried to leave my planet, no matter attacked or not. And now for the solution: Delete "GraphicsCache.package" file. It's located in "Application Data\SPORE" folder in Documents and Settings. In my case this file reached the maximum limit set in game options(I'm not sure if it didn't even exceed it). So problem may lie in this cache file. Take in mind that after you run the game after deleting this file you may see some graphics elements missing, but it's only temporal. It'll be ok after game downloads needed content again. It helped for me. So far no CTD when leaving homeplanet. However the problem may be back after cache file gets bigger. P.S. I suggest making copy before deleting since I can't guarantee that everything will work ok :P EDIT: Well it worked for only 3 times I had to land on my homeworld and again it doesn't so it's a very temporal solution or simply it was a coinsidence. .................................Corrupt Saves................................. Problem: One of my planets (Savegames) crashes everytime I evolve and enter Creature Phase / Tribal Phase / Civilization Phase. All my other Saves work except this one.... Solution: Play on a NEW planet, and make sure you select the same creature that had the problem. Then select the phase you were stuck at. The game saves your creature's evolution "Paths" in the Sporepedia, so when you load it for a new game no evolution progress is lost (Notice the little blue circles right below the Creature’s thumbnail, that’s the saved progress). Lucky for you. Information: I never knew that the game saves your evolution paths in the Sporepedia! I discovered that by pure accident just when I was about to give up on that savegame and start a new one. Whew. I had the game crash everytime I entered the Civilization Stage, and I tried a LOT LOT of things to solve it but no avail. Hell I even copied the entire save to ANOTHER computer and the game crashed in exactly the same spot!! So it was not a hardware/software problem and its not exactly a "Corrupt" save, more like a corrupt planet (or content) which causes the game to crash everytime it translates it into civilization mode. An exceptional thing I suppose. Definately not the fault of a custom creation either because I tried deleting the editorcache.package and no luck. It’s definitely a bug. (Maybe I could send the save to EA so they could sniff the funny code out) __________________ Do you know you have a pencil up your nose sir. Ohh err yes Ive been sleep doodling... I am very bad at it. Last edited by Eroneouse; 23-09-2008 at 05:00 PM..