Attack of the crash invasion
By
Atomic_Avenger,
Posted on: 2012-03-06 23:51 in ALL ACCESS Gameplay Technical Issues Bugs
it may be two simple things that are causing the game crashes. your system with two gig of ram and what open in the back ground may be causing os and the game to crash do to lack of ram. first step is to close things that are not needed like itunes and orther stuff on the task bar and start up. also running defrag and cc cleaner to clean up some drive space will help. if the game still crashing and your just running the game and anti virus i would look into swapping out the ram. the max ram is 4 gigs on that system ie 2 sticks of 2 gig ram per cruisal memory advisor. the other isue that can be causing issues is one of the memory sticks could have a failing bit or two. there a program called memtest that you put on a cd and boot from it and run it overnight. if there a problem with one of the mem stick it show up in a report. also go to ati web age and download the newest drivers. some of ati drivers and coh did not like each other.
Does runnin the game in "safe mode" work. Turn down/off all the eye candy you can stand to go without. Shadows, texture levels, world detail, etc. Ambient Occlusion completly off.
As Microc mentioned, more ram would help, but you can shut down all programs you can, skype, etc., anything running in the background that isn't OS related or required, and that might help until you can add some. That would include all the extras that Windows 7 brings. Aero, desktop shadows, etc. I think Windows would like 2 GB ram just for itself, so your really tasking the memory to do to much, when running the game on top of that.
Check the Amd card, driver list thread, http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showt...=278655&page=3 I think that the 12.1 driver has been stable for most, but not sure.
I wouldn't revert back to XP myself.
At first glance I see the following change(s) could help.
-Increase your virtual memory to 3067Mb (3Gb or whatever the number that windows suggests). When you change it make the number the same for the Min/Max options.
-Windows 7 and 2Gb of RAM is honestly not a good combo for gaming (my opinion).
-ATI cards seem to be "fun" to get just right for this game for some reason.
-Not that I've had issues with my Roxio virtual drive, but try turning off that virtual DVD drive and rebooting as well.
Overall my main concern with your setup is the limited memory as Win7 likes to take up about 1Gb-1.5Gb of RAM.
The guy who helped me upgrade my graphics explained that it probably was a RAM problem, since XP ran with less crashes which uses less RAM(I had 1GB RAM then).
I got some new RAM(8GB Ultra Performance Ripjaws) awhile ago, but it turned out to not be compatible with my motherboard, so I plan to just get a new motherboard+CPU in the next 2 months since the RAM is pretty awesome.
So just the AV? I also have Comodo, Malwarebytes and Super Anti-Spyware running. Should I turn them off while playing CoH?
What if I increased Virtual Memory more than 3067 MB? Like to 6000MB or 10000MB? Would there be any issues caused by that apart from it taking up extra space?
I'm not sure how much memory Comodo uses, and I would hesitate turning off my antivirus, but check if it has a "gaming" mode. See if you can change a setting in Comodo to exclude the game, most antivirus programs have that ability. Malwarebytes, and super anti-spyware need not be on at all. Update those, then run once, and shut down, repeat once a week or so.
If you really want to get to the nitty gritty about freeing up resources, until you can upgrade the system, take some time and go through Blackvipers guides at, http://www.blackviper.com/category/guides/windows-7/
Virtual memory settings as per Wanderingaries suggestion, adding more can start to hurt performance.
Game is giving me the same taste of Hell that the OP is having.
Win 7 32bit
Intel 9550 processor
4 gigs of RAM
Installed on my SSD which has 35 gigs free
Nvidia GTX560 with latest drivers.
CoH is the ~only game that gives me problems.
WoW, DCU, Crysis2... None of them have issues.
Frankly the "every 30 minute crashing" is rapidly convincing me to drop CoX again..this time for good.
Update: 20 more minutes of play and it crashes again. The game is unplayable in this state.
Quote:
I,m running Windows 32bit with 3 gigs of ram and a Sapphire graphics card and do not have any crashing problems at all,I,m not that much of a tech guy as my son sorts all my problems but I wouldn,t think the game is the reason for your crashing.
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Originally Posted by Atomic_Avenger
Game is giving me the same taste of Hell that the OP is having.
Win 7 32bit Intel 9550 processor 4 gigs of RAM Installed on my SSD which has 35 gigs free Nvidia GTX560 with latest drivers. CoH is the ~only game that gives me problems. WoW, DCU, Crysis2... None of them have issues. Frankly the "every 30 minute crashing" is rapidly convincing me to drop CoX again..this time for good. Update: 20 more minutes of play and it crashes again. The game is unplayable in this state. |
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Since no other program, game or otherwise has a problem...
... It's CoX that is having issues.
Looking back I'm wondering if it's an OpenGL issue as those other games use DirectX tech. It's been mentioned before and until someone threw out game X, Y, Z... I hadn't thought about it.
Quote:
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Originally Posted by Atomic_Avenger
Game is giving me the same taste of Hell that the OP is having.
Win 7 32bit Intel 9550 processor 4 gigs of RAM Installed on my SSD which has 35 gigs free Nvidia GTX560 with latest drivers. CoH is the ~only game that gives me problems. WoW, DCU, Crysis2... None of them have issues. Frankly the "every 30 minute crashing" is rapidly convincing me to drop CoX again..this time for good. Update: 20 more minutes of play and it crashes again. The game is unplayable in this state. |
Quote:
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Originally Posted by Atomic_Avenger
Since no other program, game or otherwise has a problem...
... It's CoX that is having issues. |
All those other games are DirectX games. They utilize the card and drivers differently than CoH and OpenGL does.
Hit the "Asking for Help" link in my sig. Provide the information that HOWTO shows you how to collect. That'll give us an idea what's going on.
It's possible your settings are up so high you're exceeding the 32-bit thread memory ceiling or pushing it into territory where most 32-bit apps get flaky (usually above 1.5GB).
Quote:
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Originally Posted by WanderingAries
Looking back I'm wondering if it's an OpenGL issue as those other games use DirectX tech. It's been mentioned before and until someone threw out game X, Y, Z... I hadn't thought about it.
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Clicking on the linked image above will take you off the City of Heroes site. However, the guides will be linked back here.
Quote:
So what you're saying is that it puts the responsibility for actually handling the GFX on the GPU and not the system as a whole right. IE: doing its job?
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Originally Posted by Hyperstrike
Probably. OGL places higher demands on hardware (and drivers) than DirectX does.
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Pretty much yeah.
That and it's actually tougher to write a decent OGL driver, because you can't fall back on all the black-box "cheats" in the OS the way DX does.
Clicking on the linked image above will take you off the City of Heroes site. However, the guides will be linked back here.
When I first started playing this I only crashed every 1-2 hours(around Sept last year), but because I enjoyed the game, I didn't let it bother me and simply ran the game again. I thought maybe it was my graphics card, even though I'd be able to play on ultra with no lag during the times between crashes when things were fine, but with a new card, it seems to crash even more. Even before the new card, with each new day the game crashed more often and now I hardly ever play because of the hassle it is for me to have to leave the task manager open to close the game since it often just freezes out right without any message or just closes itself.
Also things like this happen a lot:
./piggs/stage3f.pigg: Failed memory allocation (zip'd size 2553801, unzip'd size 5592998)
Read failed for file: texture_library/WORLD/streets/elements/Parked_Cars/Parked_Semi/Semi_Cab01.texture
-1
The game ran out of memory and must now exit.
This example in particularly is the only one that isn't completely random that happens 50% of the time when a new alt leaves the Hellion base under the bridge(that part you get disguised when you enter that you kill an informant to get in.). But a lot of the time it's just random, from the moment I enter the game, to simply rotating the direction I'm looking. Even the ones with the message have stopped closing normally when I hit 'ok' like they used to.
I tried following that guide to use CoH helper, but my time is limited as it is with studies, homework and the occasional off time to do things like this, so I don't really like reading large walls of text that take some of that time away from me, but the problems bothering me enough to finally seek help. When the CoH helper runs after getting information it always gives me an error message, running with or without admin doesn't matter(even though the error states it's related to this), nor is it because of my dotnet thing being out of date, that's already been updated.
So here is what it copies to clipboard but because of the error, there may be errors in it, but the guide never mentioned the error. I'll just put results from both admin and non admin instead.
AS ADMIN
---System information gathered by CoH Helper version 0.2.0.2---
DxDiag gathered at March 7, 2012 19:39 (+13:00)
Operating System: Windows 7 Home Premium 32-bit (6.1, Build 7601) Service Pack 1 (7601.win7sp1_gdr.111025-1505)
System Manufacturer: Acer
System Model: Aspire X1800
BIOS: Default System BIOS
Central Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU E7500 @ 2.93GHz (2 CPUs), ~2.9GHz
Memory: 2048MB
.Net Memory Report: 1230MB out of 2047MB available
Page File: 2437MB (2245MB currently in use)
C Drive: (ST310005 28AS SCSI Disk Device) 246680MB out of 470381MB (52%) free
D Drive: (ST310005 28AS SCSI Disk Device) 61627MB out of 470385MB (13%) free
E Drive: (ATAPI DVD A DH16AASH SCSI CdRom Device) zero-size drive
J Drive: (MagicISO Virtual DVD-ROM0000) zero-size drive
Windows directory location: C:\Windows
DirectX: DirectX 11
DirectX Diag version: 6.01.7601.17514 (32-bit version)
Display Notes: No problems found.
Sound Notes: No problems found.
No problems found.
Input Notes: No problems found.
Monitor:
Monitor's Max Resolution: (blank)
Video Device Name: AMD Radeon HD 6800 Series
Manufacturer / Chip: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. / ATI display adapter (0x6739)
Video Memory: 2803 MB
Driver Version: 8.930.0.0
Driver Date: 12/06/2011 4:17:36 p.m.
Driver Language: English
Sound Device Description: Speakers (3- USB Audio Device)
Driver File: USBAUDIO.sys
Driver Version: 6.01.7601.17514
Driver Date: 1/01/0001 12:00:00 a.m.
Sound Device Description: Digital Audio (HDMI) (High Definition Audio Device)
Driver File: HdAudio.sys
Driver Version: 6.01.7601.17514
Driver Date: 1/01/0001 12:00:00 a.m.
WMI Information
Motherboard Manufacturer: Acer
Motherboard Model: (empty)
Motherboard Product: Aspire X1800
Motherboard Version:
BIOS Manufacturer: American Megatrends Inc.
BIOS Name: Default System BIOS
BIOS Version: ACRSYS - 20090826
BIOS Release: 20090826000000.000000+000
WITHOUT ADMIN
---System information gathered by CoH Helper version 0.2.0.2---
DxDiag gathered at March 7, 2012 19:41 (+13:00)
Operating System: Windows 7 Home Premium 32-bit (6.1, Build 7601) Service Pack 1 (7601.win7sp1_gdr.111025-1505)
System Manufacturer: Acer
System Model: Aspire X1800
BIOS: Default System BIOS
Central Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU E7500 @ 2.93GHz (2 CPUs), ~2.9GHz
Memory: 2048MB
.Net Memory Report: 1189MB out of 2047MB available
Page File: 2429MB (2252MB currently in use)
C Drive: (ST310005 28AS SCSI Disk Device) 246680MB out of 470381MB (52%) free
D Drive: (ST310005 28AS SCSI Disk Device) 61627MB out of 470385MB (13%) free
E Drive: (ATAPI DVD A DH16AASH SCSI CdRom Device) zero-size drive
J Drive: (MagicISO Virtual DVD-ROM0000) zero-size drive
Windows directory location: C:\Windows
DirectX: DirectX 11
DirectX Diag version: 6.01.7601.17514 (32-bit version)
Display Notes: No problems found.
Sound Notes: No problems found.
No problems found.
Input Notes: No problems found.
Monitor:
Monitor's Max Resolution: (blank)
Video Device Name: AMD Radeon HD 6800 Series
Manufacturer / Chip: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. / ATI display adapter (0x6739)
Video Memory: 2803 MB
Driver Version: 8.930.0.0
Driver Date: 12/06/2011 4:17:36 p.m.
Driver Language: English
Sound Device Description: Speakers (3- USB Audio Device)
Driver File: USBAUDIO.sys
Driver Version: 6.01.7601.17514
Driver Date: 1/01/0001 12:00:00 a.m.
Sound Device Description: Digital Audio (HDMI) (High Definition Audio Device)
Driver File: HdAudio.sys
Driver Version: 6.01.7601.17514
Driver Date: 1/01/0001 12:00:00 a.m.
WMI Information
Motherboard Manufacturer: Acer
Motherboard Model: (empty)
Motherboard Product: Aspire X1800
Motherboard Version:
BIOS Manufacturer: American Megatrends Inc.
BIOS Name: Default System BIOS
BIOS Version: ACRSYS - 20090826
BIOS Release: 20090826000000.000000+000
I also played a few years ago and it almost never crashed then, I used XP and considered trying XP again to see if it would solve the issue, but Microsoft no longer sell XP.
There are also the iTrial crashes too, so I probably have a mix of all the crash issues possible.
If I did anything wrong with this thread, then critics are welcome, but I'd rather helpful advice regarding the issue.