[ODE] ODE freezes, can you help?

[ODE User]

> I have multi monitor support for my notebook. The only problem is that
> device gets lost when I focus visual studio. This is also problem 
> for other
> directx apps, including samples which come with sdk. How to solve it?

I really do recommend WinDBG in multi-machine mode. WinDBG can debug 
user-mode applications over a regular TCP/IP network, and it won't take 
over the screen or make you lose focus on the target machine.

For those hard-to-track-down kernel crashes, WinDBG can run over a 
serial cable kernel connection (S-L-O-W) or, if you're on XP on both 
ends, it can run over FireWire (not slow!).

http://www.microsoft.com/ddk/ -- click "debugging tools". And you want 
the 6.1.9 beta version. Don't let the alleged "driver development kit" 
connotations fool you; this is a full-featured source-level debugger, 
although slightly less integrated than the MSVC debugger.

> But, I dont understand what could I have written that freezes 
> ode. Where is

If I can reproduce the freeze, I usually find these cases using VTune. 
Turn on VTune right before the freeze, turn it off after the freeze, 
then let the profile output tell me where I spent my time. If you have 
things like denormal floating-point numbers, it'll be obvious from the 
skew in the profile samples.

Also, just hitting "break" (F10 if MSVC is running your app, I think) 
to stop and see where the program is currently running is usually a 
good first step.

Cheers,

				/ h+