100% CTD *FIXED*

[gamerdude873]

When i try to run Evochron Merc, it loads to a hundred percent and then gives me an error-less CTD.

Don't think I haven't read the posts around here. I am very sure that available phys memory is not the problem.

My machine has about 4 gigs of ram, and the msinfo32 says that about 2+ gigs of that is free for use. My video card is pretty good: ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5800 Series. I also know for certain that the game works on this laptop because I got it to work beforehand for a little while. The crashing started slowly, then became more and more frequent till the point where the game wasn't working any longer.

I run a Win 7 64 bit with the Ram and Video card above. I have more than enough HD space. Sound is a built in chip on the Mobo, so probably pretty average. Video Card drivers are all up to date. The only mod installed is some custom music and SFX, and the machine passes that part of the loading easily.

I've tried reinstalling and updating the game to the latest release, and starting new profiles with different classes and names. No dice.

And while I'm at it, I keep hearing talk about a main storyline, but I've never gotten an initial popup message that says: "HEY! You've got this job that you might wanna think about doing sometime." I started as a Combat Pilot if that helps at all. Since I can't start any new profiles, I can't figure out if that's what's wrong.

Thanks a ton in advance

[Edited on 11-29-2010 by gamerdude873]

[Edited on 12-21-2010 by Vice]

[Marvin]

Combat Pilot is the only profession that doesn't offer you the Quest ... mainly because it's a civilian Quest. To initiate the Quest, you'll need to start a new profile (once you get the game running again). Then, upon entry to the game, you'll see the first Quest message in the Chat window.

About the CTD ... I assume you've tried running the game without any mods (music or otherwise).

[Vice]

Since it sounds like problem got progessively worse, it's possible something else (getting updated and changing your system from time to time) could be a possible cause. What do you use for anti-virus/security? Other programs running in the background?

[Vice]

This thread was slightly pruned due the forum software update, so I'll continue with my reply below:

AVG does generally work fine with the game. At one point, it had a gaming mode which might be an option to try.

Another test you could try to see if perhaps memory blocking is occuring is to change the Planet Detail setting in the Options menu to 'Low' then relaunch and test. If that works, it could be an external interference issue.

And another step to try is turning the music off entirely, then launching the game to test.

What driver version are you using for your Radeon?

[gamerdude873]

My driver version for the GPU is, which windows update says is the latest available: 8.712.0.0

I've already trimmed the graphics as far down as they will go and tried launching. No difference there.

But I have good news. It seems when i load the music mod, it crashes the most frequently. I'm guessing that it's the culprit. How does EM handle the music? Does it require even more space than the original minimum, and I just need to be more zealous in clearing room for the game? Or is there a limit on the size of the .ogg files? I have some fairly large music pieces that might be the problem in that case.

Joker

[~G~]

the recommended ram for windows 7 64bit is 8 gigs,

http://gizmodo.com/5133771/why-you-shou ... -windows-7

I'm not exactly sure if this is your issue, but you should try selecting a new profile in the main menu, and start a new game, different save slot, same game type, and see if the game can lauch, and if so does it again slowly degrade and start crashing,

If so it might be the way 7 64bit manages its ram and the way its caching the game in memory,

Windows 7 can of course use a 4GB flash drive as extra ram, if your stuck, not quite as fast as normal ram, but it can help.

Unfortunatley, troubleshooting is a case of start with the obvious and slowly work towards the complex and even weird solutions,

You could try backing up all save games, or even sending your save game to another user to attempt to launch, then un-install game, re-install, move save game back in, launch etc,

I had issue with the latest version of ati drivers, so am using older ones, thats a simple solution try, just takes a few reboots,

I reverted back to a known stable,

catalyst drivers aqcuired here:

http://www.oldapps.com/ati.php

You of course will need to try only 64bit versions built for vista/7

ALthough i did have 64bit installed on lappy, and needed to use some vista 64bit driver and some xp 32 bit drivers,

7 32 bit is on it now and fine, not driver mismatching cr#p

You can also try right clicking the shorcut and run in xp compatability mode, or run as admin and see does that help.
You could also try having task manager open, and the process highlighted, let it load to main menu, then alt+tab to task manager, right click the process, evochronmercenary.exe and set affinity to cpu 0 checked only, making it only use 1 cpu core, this is usually needed for older games that dont know what multicore processors are nevermind how to use em, that could get it to launch,

a pain to have to do every time, but if it works you may have to.

[Edited on 11-30-2010 by ~G~]

[gamerdude873]

I'm 100% sure that it's the music now. I've tried swapping out the mods, and it consistently flunks whenever the music mod is installed. The weird thing is that I'm watching my memory allocation as the game loads in the task managers, and it doesn't even come close to maxing out. I wonder if there's possibly a corrupt music file or something that its choking on. Hmm.

I've also tried the compatibility mode, and will also try the CPU trick when I get the chance.

[gamerdude873]

Alright I've fixed it I THINK.

As it turns out, it seems like the engine goes into convulsions whenever I try to have more than 9 music files in level 1, meaning that if I try to add 10 and 11 and 12 etc, the game crashes, but if I pull limit the mod to musiclevel1-1 -> musiclevel1-9, then no crash, although I understand that the engine should be capable of supporting up to a hundred tracks.

Thanks guys for the help.