Mercenary Freezes

Darkside360 · Post by **Darkside360** » Sat Nov 06, 2010 8:09 pm

I've been playing for about 2hrs now and all of a sudden I'm getting random freezes when I go through menus such as my inventory and nav map.

My specs

Win7 32-bit
Intel Quad Core 2.4 Ghz
Nvidia GeForce 260 GTX
4GB RAM

[Edited on 11-6-2010 by Darkside360]

[Edited on 11-6-2010 by Darkside360]

Maarschalk · Post by **Maarschalk** » Sat Nov 06, 2010 8:20 pm

It looks like frame rate dropped and your lagging......probably resource issues......Is this in SP or MP? and if in MP are you using wireless internet connection?

Darkside360 · Post by **Darkside360** » Sat Nov 06, 2010 8:29 pm

Its single player.

And I can confirm that it happens every time I open my nav or inventory.

[Edited on 11-6-2010 by Darkside360]

Darkside360 · Post by **Darkside360** » Sat Nov 06, 2010 8:50 pm

Task manager says the game is still running so It didn't stop responding. Something broke when I tried to go to the nav menu.

Its freezes the game every time. Would a reinstall do the trick?

Just confuses me since it was working great the first 2hrs of play.

[Edited on 11-6-2010 by Darkside360]

Post by **Vice** » Sat Nov 06, 2010 9:08 pm

Reinstall probably would not help. I'd just give your system a fresh reboot and try again. A sound event (or graphics update event) like opening a console can just sometimes bring a problem to the surface. Could be outside interference, could be a driver quirk, could be lack of memory resources (blocked or lean). If the problem persists, make sure any A/V program you are using is set to a 'gaming mode' or is disabled if known for interference with games, verify you have at least 1.5 GB of your 4 GB available (start > run/search > type in MSINFO32 and press enter > system summary), and update your audio and display drivers.

Darkside360 · Post by **Darkside360** » Sat Nov 06, 2010 9:13 pm

Originally posted by Vice
Reinstall probably would not help. I'd just give your system a fresh reboot and try again. A sound event (or graphics update event) like opening a console can just sometimes bring a problem to the surface. Could be outside interference, could be a driver quirk, could be lack of memory resources (blocked or lean). If the problem persists, make sure any A/V program you are using is set to a 'gaming mode' or is disabled if known for interference with games, verify you have at least 1.5 GB of your 4 GB available (start > run/search > type in MSINFO32 and press enter > system summary), and update your audio and display drivers.

Yeah everything on my system checks out. I exceed in everything yet when opening my Nav Menu it just stops the game, yet its still listed as running, the audio isn't skipping just running as normal.

Something obviously isn't executing right when I bring up the nav menu.

Post by **Vice** » Sat Nov 06, 2010 9:17 pm

Are you using any custom system settings (ie affinity)? If you'd like me to review your setup for possible causes, complete the steps here: http://www.starwraith.com/evochronmercenary/faq.htm#8

Darkside360 · Post by **Darkside360** » Sat Nov 06, 2010 9:31 pm

Originally posted by Vice
Are you using any custom system settings (ie affinity)? If you'd like me to review your setup for possible causes, complete the steps here: http://www.starwraith.com/evochronmercenary/faq.htm#8

Ok I sent you the info. Appreciate the help.

Post by **Vice** » Sat Nov 06, 2010 9:34 pm

Unfortunately, that file is mostly blank, only the Summary page is available. If you save the NFO directly, it should retain all needed data.

Darkside360 · Post by **Darkside360** » Sat Nov 06, 2010 11:16 pm

Originally posted by Vice
Unfortunately, that file is mostly blank, only the Summary page is available. If you save the NFO directly, it should retain all needed data.

Ok I resent it. Take your time, I can wait.

Darkside360 · Post by **Darkside360** » Sat Nov 06, 2010 11:37 pm

Ok I got it working again but I deleted my profile information. That seemed to do the trick. Made a new profile and working well now, however I'm not sure if the issue will happen again.

Here is exactly what I was doing before It froze the first time.

I was saving a coordinate in the nav map and then it froze.

Then I came back into the game and tried to open the nav map and it froze.

Was there possibly something corrupted in saving coordinates?

Well I'm going to keep playing and see if I can reproduce the problem again, if not well then thats good and hopefully a one time thing.

Post by **Vice** » Sat Nov 06, 2010 11:52 pm

Ok, the list of application faults/haults/crashes is really long, so I'll need to try and dig through that. But a quick scan indicates a lot of memory faults, especially with kernelbase.dll. Does your system really encounter these kind of errors every day to few days? It seems Internet Explorer, something called Yahoo SearchProtection, Dragon Age Origins, and Evochron are the recent ones. My initial recommendations would be:

- Stop all non-essential tasks (via msconfig and reboot), especially things like the Yahoo search program which may be trying to index files/attributes as they are being loaded/used. With only essential tasks left running, launch and test the game. If this solves the problem, start turning the programs back on one at a time to pin down which one is causing the haults.

- Set AVG9 to a 'gaming mode', if available. If not, temporarily disable it to test.

- I'm not familiar with the multiple audio devices listed. If possible try to temporarily disable/remove all but one at a time and see if that might confirm if the problem is audio event related.

- Such memory errors can also indicate hardware problems. If the problem continues after trying the above steps, reseat your memory sticks to make sure they are secure. If it continues, unplug a stick (or two if needed) at a time, then test to see if anything changes. Bad memory could be another cause.

Was there possibly something corrupted in saving coordinates?

Edit to answer: Yes, it's possible. If one or more of those background programs is trying to poll data from files for indexing or scanning, it could interfere with the read/write process and cause corrupted data. Might help point toward that Yahoo program to try and test with that disabled first.

[Edited on 11-6-2010 by Vice]