I received a floating point error when I was installing the game. It plays fine, but should I be worried?

Thanks.

No.

This is just some tech voodoo nonsense that has to be ignored.

I've got an AMD system, running on AMD CPUs and GPUs and the AMD catalyst, it's about as AMD as AMD can get - and the game installs and runs just fine. No issues.

Stop spreading tech voodoo.

Dude, it doesn't mean that all AMD cards are affected, only that there is a problem with AMD drivers. Btw, I have AMD CPU & GPU too.

Stop posting your BS.

Hey *dude* let's go over the voodoo in steps for your benefit.

I read those threads and nowhere does anyone confirm an is "a problem with AMD drivers", just some person who makes a random guess that there is or must be because "something".

If there was a problem with AMD drivers, this would affect about half of all people who bought this game.

But it doesn't, because this has nothing to do with AMD drivers.

Because AMD drivers are not used, affected or affect a game when it is being installed. The installation process is in fact made without any input from any GPU driver and running the game launcher doesn't require special input from the GPU driver.

It is as absurd to claim this is because of a GPU driver as a cause for this. Not just because a GPU driver doesn't even touch any install process, but because there's literally nothing that supports that braindead theory, except some guy who claims he did some voodoo and now things work.

Setting that aside, I do have the same drivers that one guy had who also claimed the same problem and the drivers work fine and do not and have never interfered with game installation.

Stop the voodoo.

Xenonauts works and installs 100% fine on all AMD cards and drivers.

As you can see, everyone with this "problem" have an AMD card. While the game work, it doesn't mean that there isn't any problem, so this is absolutely not true.
Obviously, we have a very different definition of "installs 100% fine". For me it means, that there is no "error" message during installation.

What? No.

Installs just fine means: no issues, no error messages and if it wasn't for your claim, I wouldn't even know there is a "problem" or even a problem.

Xenonauts runs and installs just fine - without error messages or any problems or issues on AMD systems. This game works 100% on AMD.

Not all who have this problem have an AMD card, just the ones who said they did. Many said nothing about their GPU. Besides, why would they? It was just out of the fantasy of some guy that said he did some driver voodoo with his AMD card and then things worked.

It's just trash information, noise. I don't doubt some people had a problem installing this game, I have no reason to doubt that, but their GPU had as much to do with it as their preferred brand of chocolate.

Apparently, you can't read - if you don't have a problem, doesn't mean the others don't have it too, so saying that it install 100% fine on "all" systems with AMD cards is evidently a lie.

Also - http://www.gog.com/forum/the_witcher_2/cant_install_floating_point_error_at_1821/post15

edit: one more thing - I have nothing more to say to you (and will totally ignore you from now), so don't bother to reply to this or any other of my posts.

Depends on drivers, chip, and whether or not the OS uses the GPU for calculations (CUDA on NVidia, OpenCL for AMD). Assuming the OS is coded properly, it should offload some calculations to the GPU instead of the CPU if the GPU is unused, to improve performance. If there is a problem with the drivers, it can result in floating point exceptions during installation (or even notifications, like usb sticks).

Yes, not everyone with an AMD card is effected, nor is anyone with the specific drivers. But every now and then a weird incompatibility appears, that does cause errors. Hell, it could even be a faulty chip batch that causes problems with the specific combination.

I am not replying for your benefit, rather to point out to other people looking for a very real issue they are having that your "advice" is just drivel.

I saw that post you linked and base *everything* on and it even mentions the key detail, that "someone even fixed it through manual driver update" or to put it more accurately: "Someone even *claimed* to have fixed it through manual driver update". I read that even before I replied to your wildly speculative claim the first time.

This is literally "I read it on the internet so it must be true" syndrome.

Very true, I agree with all of the above, I don't agree with the claim made as being: "Problem with AMD drivers".

Not that you made that claim, but it has been made. There are no indications that *drivers* (any drivers) are particularly at fault and the game has been confirmed to work on AMD systems. Someone even claimed to get the floating point error with the Catalyst 14.9 drivers, the very same I am using now.

So even if the claim was correct, it is not consistent and pretty rare considering how few have encountered it. Also, this theory has not been pushed on Steam Xenonaut page, because this hasn't happened to anyone there - and there are a lot of users on Steam.

Floating point errors do happen to other games and are sometimes complained about on Steam, from Risk of rain to Space Empires V.

Each game results in articles that espouse different tech voodoo. Though few have been as adamant as presenting their voodoo as truth as some have done on this forum.

I'll just copy/paste this tech voodoo that was posted in response to a floating point problem: " i had read that sometimes you get this error from multiple monitors, which i wasnt running, or and overly high native resolution."

Why not.

Quite possible that it's true. So far though, that was the only common denominator, and no example that doesn't follow it. So if it quacks like a duck...

Drivers and GPU card, and again, it may be a specific chip batch that causes the errors.

The floating point error mentioned on GOG is on the installers, not the game. Steam doesn't use GOG's installers, so encountering this error would be quite peculiar.


So, best way to disprove the AMD drivers theory is to find someone who gets the floating point error on installers and doesn't use an AMD GPU with 14.9 catalyst drivers.

Again, this does not mean that it's been proven that the AMD drives cause the error, but it is the theory most compatible with the facts.

We may never know, this error is so rare, but there are at least three things that point away from AMD drivers, firstly that all the games and installers play just fine on most AMD systems, second that floating point errors point to the FPU not the GPU (which is not used as an FPU in general computing) and finally that installers do not (or should not) call on GPU drivers when performing the install script.

If there was an actual issue (for some reason) with the AMD drivers, this error would likely be far more consistent on AMD systems and far more common because AMD systems are quite common.

And most knives aren't used to commit murder, thus knives can't be used to commit murder. Something being improbable doesn't mean it's impossible.

So it is possible that it is an AMD issue, but a CPU one, not a GPU one. Unless it's an APU that's causing the trouble. Will have to remember to ask for processor type as well next time.

Again, OpenCL and CUDA. An optimized script will offload calculations to the GPU, and it does so through the drivers, not the OS. So they should call on GPU drivers, though no idea if they do.

Speculation. No idea if AMD systems are more common or not, and no idea what exactly causes it. Even if the AMD systems are more common than non-AMD systems, what about (example)systems with FX-8370 processors, R9 290X GPU and 14.9 drivers? Are those more common than the rest?

Look, if you are going to claim "speculation" on what is obviously just as much speculation as what you are pushing then be my guest. Pointless, but please do.

Fact is Xenonauts has no issue with AMD cards or drivers, this is pretty evident because this issue is isolated to gog.com

and yet you persist to insinuate that this is somehow an AMD issue - but AMD does not program gog.com installers. This is pretty dumb speculation that you and that other guy are pushing.

Grasping at straws to support some cockamamy theory some guy claimed to be true based on nothing.

All we know is that gog.com installers are failing in some systems. That's about the long and short of it. All other claims, mine *and* yours are pure speculation.