[EM 2.088] Crash on planet approach *FIXED*

[kukiric]

I've been getting crashes whenever I try to get close to a planet since the 2.088 update, on procedural and pre-generated modes. Procedural lets me get a little closer to the surface (depending on the planet, some let me go down to 2000 height while others will crash before the ship switches to atmospheric avionics), while pre-generated always crashes even before entering the atmosphere.

Crashes are almost always silent (Game closes instantly and generates an empty log file), sometimes there's an "EvochronMercenary.exe has stopped working" message.
I don't know what's causing the issue, I always run the game as admin (since the profile data is in C:\\sw3dg)
The game just seems to crash after using up ~800MB of memory, sometimes more but there's always at least 2GB free, and the game has never crashed in space (as far as I remember), I'm 90% sure it's not corrupted files either since I've verified the game files in steam multiple times now.

Already tried the standard procedures:
- Cleanup procedure
- Reducing graphical detail (to minimum)
- Video drivers are updated (nvidia 306.97)
- NoLAA exe (crashes when loading the game with a runtime error 7018)
- Security programs: only Windows Defender, turning off realtime protection doesn't stop the game from crashing
- Full restart: tried restarting without using hybrid boot, no change

Computer specs:
- i5-2500k at 3.3Ghz
- GeForce GTX 570 (1280MB vram)
- 4GB DDR3 memory
- Running Windows 8 Pro x64

Definitely not lacking in hard drive space, my primary (with the profile data) has over 50GB free and the secondary (with the game data) has just over 6GB free.
So, any ideas?

[Vice]

The fact you can't run the NoLAA version suggests you have a limited memory condition on your system. That is, you may have 2GB total listed as 'available' in MSINFO and 4 GB installed, but a smaller amount is what may be consecutively available on your system for some reason. Your right about it being at around an 800 MB limit, that's where it should be if the planet data can't be loaded into memory. I'd be happy to review your system for possible causes if you follow the steps here (you can leave out the pilot profile): http://www.starwraith.com/evochronmercenary/faq.htm#8

[Vice]

Also noticed you listed 6 GB available on the drive where the game is installed. There may also be a possibility that combined with temp/swap/virtual space that may be getting used, that may not be enough to handle the additional needs of the game. I'd also suggest trying to free up some more space on that drive (at least 10, more if possible), then test again for any changes. If it continues, I'll gladly take a look at the msinfo report.

[kukiric]

I'm going to try freeing some space on the hard drive by moving things around, but I don't think it's going to help much since the planet data is installed on the C:\\ drive with 50GB free, as is the page file. And it could indeed be a contiguous memory limitation as the game seems to crash as soon as the system runs out of "Free" memory before Windows can prepare "Standby" memory for usage, even when most other programs can allocate up to 3,2GB of memory with the page file disabled. Also sending you a msinfo report so you can take a look.
Note: I do normally run Windows with the page file enabled, so it's not having issues with not being able to move unused memory to the hard drive.

Taking a closer look, it's definitely using standby memory correctly while in space gameplay. It's just planets that crash the game as soon as I get close to them.


[Edited on 14/12/2012 by kukiric]

[kukiric]

I tried to free up space by the way, it's still crashing with 17GB on the game install drive. I've tried mostly Olympus Prime so far, going to test other planets tomorrow as it's kinda late right now.

[Edited on 14/12/2012 by kukiric]

[Vice]

I've reviewed the report and there seems to be several intermittent reliability problems on your system. Unfortunately, the faulting modules aren't consistent, so it may be tricky pinning down the cause (or there may be more than one). In terms of this game (and several of the others since 12-7 with similar records), there are display module stops and ntdll.dll stops. So the first direction I would suggest would be display related. Try rolling back to an older display driver or if available, newer. Then launch the game and see if the behavior changes.

Make sure your copy of Windows is fully updated. Also, try launching the game with Steam not running, see if the behavior changes.

Have you done any other troubleshooting for PlanetSide 2, Endless Space, FarCry 3, or Tribes 2? If so, what have you tried and what results have you had?

Windows 8 is still very new and may receive some improvements through updates and revised drivers that are eventually more mature. If it persists, I may be able to provide you with an alternate install you can test with, but it may not help considering the list of faulting modules.

[kukiric]

These errors you listed are quite harmless because they're either bugs that don't affect gameplay (Planetside 2 crashes when trying to force quit due to a server timeout or Tribes 2 crashing the moment Vertex Lighting is enabled) or just general instability with specific games (Far Cry 3 loves crashing in the main menu, not so much in-game)
The other errors (Driver and Windows-related) are mostly unrelated and harmless (Like Windows not detecting my USB mouse at startup but doing so on a reconnection)

I've downgraded to the 301.42 drivers and tried landing on sapphire with a new pilot profile, no luck. Back to procedural, I can get a little closer before crashing but as soon as the first tiles in the planet start to load the game crashes.
Reinstalling the game right now just to be sure it's not any files.

Oh, about running the game outside of Steam; I've been testing this way since I started the thread since it cuts a few seconds off the startup procedure.

[Edited on 14/12/2012 by kukiric]

[kukiric]

UPDATE: Well, so much troubleshooting for nothing. Reinstalling the game did the trick, and I've never been so happy to be able to crash on a planet's surface. Note taken, steam does like to corrupt game files during updates and verifying doesn't really fix them.

Thanks for the help Vice, I should've really tried reinstalling earlier but you still did a great job at looking at what's wrong and at troubleshooting possible issues.

[Vice]

Thanks for the follow up, glad you got it fixed.