24 réponses à ce sujet

[Creesen]

the only way I can get out of it is to cold boot my computer.  There is no rhyme or reason why the game just randomly freezes up and I can do nothing.  I ruined one hardrive because of this, cold starting everytime this happened.  I've tried all the fixes anyone suggested up to about 6 mos ago when I gave up.  I just recently put a new hardrive in my computer.

Here is what I have:

XP SP3

AMD 64x2

Core Proc 6000+

3.10 GHZ

2 GB of ram

Nvidia 9600 GT with 197.45 drivers

Any help would be awesome, if theres a fix for this somewhere a point in the right direction would be wonderful.

Thankyou in advance.  

[RaenImrahl]

Wow... sorry you've been having so much trouble... I know you've posted about other issues before.

The first thing I'd suggest is doing a clean uninstall/reinstall of your video drivers. I see Gorath and others suggested you roll back to 197.45... which I totally agree with. However, sometimes when you roll back drivers, there's lingering code that can gum up the works.

There's a link below in my sig with a "how to" guide on doing a clean uninstall/reinstall.

Beyond that, I am suspicious of your hardware's fidelity. Meaning there may be an overheating issue and/or some sort of physical damage/flaw. I would suggest monitoring your temps during gameplay... there are links to some free monitoring software in the Solutions Roundup, also linked in my sig below.

Beyond THAT... I dunno. I use to have a machine with your same processor, and it was bulletproof. If there is any way of trying another video card on your system, that might be an option.

EDIT:  I do NOT recommend going out an getting a new card.  Not enough data.

Let us know about the driver reinstall and the temps, and we can go from there, I guess.

Modifié par RaenImrahl, 01 mai 2011 - 01:25 .

[Moondoggie]

Just to throw something else in it'd be good if you could clarify exactly what happens is the game screen just freezing up? Or does the screen go black?

Any strange noises coming from your computer tower when it happens like scratches or beeps?

Modifié par Moondoggie, 01 mai 2011 - 01:46 .

[Creesen]

The game freezes up, no black screen. No noises at all. Its like someone hit pause with no way out.

[Creesen]

I also wanted to add, not sure if it matters or not, but I do play Fallout 3 alot and I have no problems at all while running this game.
Just trying to make sure I give all the info I can think of.

[Moondoggie]

It's strange because what you are describing is a characteristic of when a hard drive turns off everything will just freeze where it is and you have to reset by turning the power off. I've never known it to happen when just playing one game.

What motherboard and hard drive/s do you have?

All i can think of right now is that your MoBo might need a BIOS update and that might fix the issue.

[Creesen]

The only time I have a problem is when I'm playing DA:O. No other games cause this to happen. My mother board is a MSI. Not sure what my harddrive is, I just put a new one in as the other one was ruined from cold booting my computer so many times.

Thanks for your time.

[Creesen]

Sorry RaenImrahl, I've have'nt had time to run those programs, I do have them dl'd I just haven't been home enough lately to do anything. I try to get them done today.

[DarkPerfect]

Without meaning to hijack this thread, I am having exactly the same issue as Creesen.

I played 80 hours of this game in July last year, with no issues. The other day, I reformatted my system however. I hadn't actually finished my game the last time i played, so i decided to pick it up again.

Now, every 5-10 minutes, it completely locks up and requires a cold boot to get it up again. I doubt this is a hardware issue simply because it was working fine last year. I suspect because i've formatted the drive, my software setup is now slightly different.

I'm about to try cleaning off the graphics drivers i have installed and installing the 197.45 ones that are recommeded above. I'll let you know how it goes.

May also be worth mentioning that my spec sounds very similar to Creesen's.  Geforce 9600GT, with AMD X2 6400+, 4gb memory.

Modifié par DarkPerfect, 13 mai 2011 - 08:00 .

[DarkPerfect]

No luck, i'm afraid. Uninstalled all the Nvidia drivers (physx, graphics), and then restarted. Then used the driver sweeper utility to clean off everything, and tried installing the 197.45 drivers, but just had another crash.

In the crash I just had, I wasn't even really doing anything in the game. I had the game paused (by pressing the space bar) so I could pop off to the kitchen, and when I came back it had frozen, so it doesn't really seem like there's a specific trigger causing it to crash.

[FrostbittenHero]

I'll chime in and say that I'm also getting this crash.

Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit
Intel® Core™ i7 CPU Q 720 @ 1.60GHz (8 CPUs), ~1.6GHz
4096MB RAM
NVIDIA GeForce GT 240M
Display Memory: 2768 MB
Dedicated Memory: 986 MB

Bought DAO Ultimate Edition as a farewell to the last of my free money, being a poor student and all, and I get this. The game worked perfectly for me a year or so ago, now it just locks up after 30 or so minutes of running.

Also, for the took a picture of just how psychedelic the screen looks when freezing: http://i476.photobuc...130511_1855.jpg

[RaenImrahl]

In all these cases, these appear to be issues related to the video card. Either driver issues or overheating. For those playing on laptops, I would look seriously at the latter.

[FrostbittenHero]

I tried a few of the fixes mentioned in topics such as a clean driver install, CPU affinity and removing the 2gb limit for the executable. Held out a little bit longer, but ultimately crashed again in 30 minutes or so.
I monitored my CPU and RAM with a utility while playing in window mode. After setting the affinity to cores 5-6-7-8 CPU usage has been hovering around 24-30%, RAM 2.20~Gb and page file at 3.10Gb.
So yes, definitely the video card. I WAS able to play DAO back when it was first released with no problem at all. I now bought the ultimate edition, which I read is 1.04 version, is there a way to get a lower one somewhere?

<rant>
I am extremely frustrated that I have spent money on this and can't return it since I used up the DLC code. </rant>

Modifié par FrostbittenHero, 14 mai 2011 - 01:05 .

[Moondoggie]

FrostbittenHero wrote...

I tried a few of the fixes mentioned in topics such as a clean driver install, CPU affinity and removing the 2gb limit for the executable. Held out a little bit longer, but ultimately crashed again in 30 minutes or so.
I monitored my CPU and RAM with a utility while playing in window mode. After setting the affinity to cores 5-6-7-8 CPU usage has been hovering around 24-30%, RAM 2.20~Gb and page file at 3.10Gb.
So yes, definitely the video card. I WAS able to play DAO back when it was first released with no problem at all. I now bought the ultimate edition, which I read is 1.04 version, is there a way to get a lower one somewhere?

<rant>
I am extremely frustrated that I have spent money on this and can't return it since I used up the DLC code. </rant>

There isn't a lower patch you can use for the ultimate edition and personally i think it wouldn't make any difference. That screenshot definately looks like overheating as RaenImrahl has already bought up. You need to be looking at the tempreture of the video card and maybe give your laptop a bit of a clean for dust as it may be clogged up and overheating the video card.

[FrostbittenHero]

My laptop's been recently cleaned, so it's not the issue. It's starts heating up even when I run the game with everything set to low and 800x600 resolution.

[Rezuvious]

Modifié par Rezuvious, 16 mai 2011 - 11:11 .

[Gorath Alpha]

You are in the wrong message thread with your comment. Pay attention to the "Read First" directions, use a decent Search Engine, and report your problem in your own message, the way that has been requested.

Thank you.

[DarkPerfect]

Ok, so setting the processor affinity that is documented quite well on these forums seems to fix my problem. I'm not entirely comfortable doing it however, as I suffer a bit of a performance drop when I do it (slight frame-rate drop, nothing drastic).

Obviously, this is a bit of a workaround and shouldn't be required. Is the issue known the developers? I heard that there's actually another patch coming our way soon - does anyone know if this is on the 'to fix' list?

Interestingly, this wasn't an issue before I formatted my drive, which makes me think that there's a software setup issue here, and that I'm missing a dependency or something. I have a disk image that I made of the formatted drive before I actually formatted, so what I could do is restore that and try the game again to see if it works. If it does indeed work (without having to set the affinity), then it would seem that the requirement to set the processor affinity is because of a software dependency or something similar, right?

[DarkPerfect]

Just solved my problem.

Turned out that setting it to use only one core just extended the amount of time I could play before it crashed. Thought that if i was able to play longer by setting it to use one core, then maybe it was the CPU overheating.

Cleaned out the inside of my case, and cleaned the compound off of the CPU with some citrus cleaning solution before applying a new layer and reseating heat sink. This seems to have solved it. Just played for a good hour and a half whereas before it wasn't even making 10 minutes without crashing.

Checked my CPU temperatures during the game this time round. Interestingly the core 1 temp stays at a pretty solid 58 degrees, whilst the second core stays at 65. Don't know whether that means I applied the thermal compound unevenly (seemed like a fairly even spread when I did it).

Also, just wanted to check : the game uses up 100% of every core, 100% of the time during the game for everyone else too, right?

[RaenImrahl]

DarkPerfect wrote...

Also, just wanted to check : the game uses up 100% of every core, 100% of the time during the game for everyone else too, right?

On a dual-core Athlon series processor, yet.  Had the same thing happen on my Althon X2 6000+.  If people have CPUs with a newer, more robust architecture (Phenom II, for example)... won't have all the cores maxed all the time.  In other words, it is using the technology you have to the utmost.

[Creesen]

My game never freezes at the same time, sometimes I play for 5 mins, sometimes for 3 hours, there seems to be no rhyme or reason.

[Gorath Alpha]

Let's *NOT* create duplicate threads, please. Whatever you have in the new thread belongs here in this one, and then Raen can close the Dupe.

[Creesen]

Raen could you msg me please letting me know when you will be online so I can get some help with one of the programs in you sig. thanks

[Gorath Alpha]

He lives in the American midwest, so he's almost certainly on Central Standard Daylight Time, and fitting his visits here in with RL responsibilities (of which, the greatest majority I've had are done with. I've raised the kids, they have raised their kids, and I've had a couple of careers, and didn't choose to retire, but had that choice made by my last employer and the many potential employers who ignored my job applications after that).

Sometimes I'm awake when I don't want to be. Now is one of those times.

[RaenImrahl]

Unfortunately I don't hold "office hours" here... doing so is above my current pay grade . However, at least until late July, I should be able to manage to check in once a day.

Since @Creesen's problems are not being addressed in another thread, I am locking this one.

Thanks all!