Dear 3DGS Developers,

I have a problem with 3DGS A8 Commercial (8.02) and Data Execution Protection (DEP).

When I try to run .exe files created with the engine on my system (Windows 7 Ultimate 64) they crash on engine load due to DEP being triggered.

I have DEP set to the OptOut mode “Turn on DEP for all programs and services except those I select” to help protect from security threats such as malware.

I have so far recreated this issue on my 64 bit windows 7 system, a friends XP 64 box and a 32bit Windows XP Pro install all on physically separate systems.

To validate that this was not my game code causing the issue or a third party plug-in I created a new minimal test project in WED which also suffers from the issue.

If this is a problem with the underlying engine this represents a significant problem. I acknowledge that there are workarounds namely...

1) Persuade the user to relax their global DEP setting to the OptIn mode “Turn on DEP for essential Windows programs and services only”.
2) Persuade the user to add a specific DEP exception for your game .exe.

The problem with both of these is that they require the user to modify their Windows security settings to run your game and that WILL put people off downloading or running it. The other issue here is that unless you want the users first experience of your game to be an application crash you have to splash all over your website, documentation and loader application that there is a problem with it that requires the user to relax their security if they use the OptOut DEP mode.

I acknowledge that the default setting for DEP on XP, Vista and Windows7 is OptIn mode and that works OK with the engine for the time being. That said... an increasing number of the people I know are switching to OptOut mode and there is no guarantee that the default wont change in the future.

Please can you investigate this issue and let me know what the problem is and when/how it can be addressed.

Many thanks.

MACRO

--Edit --
My apologies I meant to post this in the bug hunt forum and put it here by mistake. Admins please feel free to move it as appropriate.

Have win7 x64, never touched DEP settings, everything is working fine.(published exes)

That's probably because the default is OptIn mode rather than OptOut. If for whatever reason you change your DEP setting to OptOut then I reckon you would see crashes.

For the time being it is reasonable to assume (although it could be a wrong assumption) that the majority of users wont have changed their setting away from the default and wont hit a problem but that may change and if it does then users may suddenly hit this issue which is somewhat less that desirable.

MACRO

I assume that you havent yet got very much experience with Windows security settings, right? The PC makes a distinction between code and data areas. Data Execution Prevention means that you cant execute whats in data areas. Thats for preventing some virus code from being executed, which is hidden in data files.

Well when you write a lite-C script, its also data! This can not be executed when you set up your DEP in a wrong way, thats the simple reason of your problem. You can then only execute executables, such as compiled EXE files.

Long story short: Don't tamper with your security settings without knowing the consequences very well.

This is also covered in the beginners FAQ, look in your manual or under "Support", so its already answered. I moderate this thread into the beginners forum.

Uhm, the thing with DEP is that you can mark places as data and others as executable.
Your exe is also just some random data that surprisingly does funny things when you double click it.

I understand how DEP works and there is no need to be condescending.

I had missed the comments in the manual and on the website – my bad – thanks for pointing that out.

With my system using aggressive DEP settings I have absolutely no problem running .exe files built using DarkGDK, Essenthel, Leadwerks, Straight C++ (Visual C++ 2008 express), PureBasic... the list goes on.

One of the features listed for the commercial and pro editions is "Compile to executable" so what is it about the way .exe files are compiled with this engine that causes the DEP issue?

I am happy to relax my settings for this engine but it would be nice to know what is the difference between 3DGS compiled .exe files and the vast number of other .exes that I can run without any issues.

MACRO