When Things Go Wrong

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How do I test if Alice will run on my computer?

To see if Carnegie Mellon's " Alice " runs on your computer, try the following:

  1. Download the latest version from www.alice.org

  2. Unzip the Alice system

  3. Run the file Alice.exe (may take up to 2 minutes to load the first time

  4. Double-click on the "amusementPark"' example program (will take up to 30 seconds to load)

  5. Click on the "Play" button in the upper left hand corner -> A 2nd window should pop up, rendering a scene with several amusement park rides

  6. Left mouse click in the middle of the 3d graphics window with the amusement park

  7. Use the left/right/up/down arrow keys to drive around the 3d graphics scene.

If this works, then Alice works fine with their graphics card.

If this fails, they should report that, and then repeat the test, but click on "SlowAndSteadyAlice.exe" in step two, instead of "Alice.exe" (that forces software rendering).

Please mention the Alice version (under Help menu, "About Alice" entry) in any correspondence, as we update www.alice.org frequently.

 

When I hit "play" the window that comes up is black and I get an error about the renderer.

This problem is often a sign of not having enough video memory (which is different from the RAM in your computer--check you video card to see how much you have). 

Try changing the size of the render window: 

  • Go to "Edit->Preferences" in the toolbar
  • Click on the "Rendering" tab (at the top)
  • under "render window position and size" change the "width" and the "height" to a smaller size (320x240 is a good starting point)
  • Rerun your world

If changing the size of the window doesn't work, try this:

  • Go to "Edit->Preferences" in the toolbar
  • Click on the "Rendering" tab (at the top)
  • Check the "force software rendering" checkbox
  • Rerun your world

When I loop an animation for a long time, the animation no longer starts and stops in the same places.

This is problem with the way Alice calculates the animation of objects. Here's a detailed explanation of the problem: When looping goes bad

 

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Alice is made freely available as a public service.
Alice v2.0 © 1999-2003, Carnegie Mellon University. All rights reserved.
We gratefully acknowledge the University of Virginia, where the Alice project originated.
We gratefully acknowledge the financial support of DARPA, Intel, Microsoft, NSF, and ONR.