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.