Freezing not fixed after patch

[Nikek Notlad]

Hi guys

Since I have put the new patch on the game keeps hanging. This normally happend when using SETA mode and is random. It makes the game very un playable. My system is right up to date with the latest drivers. I even re-installed the product from scratch and it didn't crash for a few hours so I thought it had been fixed - but alas not.

Can you help please?

[The_Heretic]

hi all,
Im loving X3, and to be honest for me it mostly plays fine. Ive not had it freeze yet when Im actually PLAYING it. However, I like to leave it running in SETA, when, for example I go to the shops.
This worked fine at first, but now it seems to freeze even if I leave it for a few minutes in SETA.
I know this is not as severe as some of you guys, but a lot of you have more gametime under your belts than me, and it looks like Im heading your way.

Things Ive tried :

1. shut off zonealarm.
2. shut off third party programs (IM, sound manager, printer monitor etc..)
3. setup up "fake playing" macros on my joystick (Saitek X52 HOTAS)
4. switched off EAX.
5. completely disconnected joystick & throttle.
6. fly ship out to 1000 KM outside system and run SETA / macros from out there (where its quiet)
7. leave monitor (LCD screen) switched on while its in SETA (worth a shot ! )

NONE of these things have had any effect. Sooner or later it hangs. Sometimes after less than a minute, in fact one of my macros was to sit in SETA for 12 seconds, exit SETA, pitch up a little, then engage SETA again, repeat. I also tried this macro with forward speed in case it was to do with drawing the "space dust" over and over, but still no effect.

Now, if a 12 second burst of SETA is enough to kill it I expect there must be some quirk in the software environment thats setting it off at a time of its own choosing.
It may not even be SETA related, but as I say its never hung on me whilst I am actually playing.

Things I have not tried yet :

1. complex macro to SETA between stations - that way I at least get the autosaves.
2. looking into windows security / native firewall settings.
3. "stripping down" the active processes in task manager.
4. disconnecting my wireless network adapter (in case something is talking to it - ie new wireless network detection - causing windows to perform its own version of an ALT-TAB)

These things could take time of course :/

IF I happen to find anything to work or work-around, then Ill be sure to post. Fingers crossed.

Also, a special word to the DEVs, x3 is superb. I know its said too often about this type of game, but I honestly believe its the closest we've come to the holy grail of Elite. You guys have done a superb job of creating the X universe. Pay heed to the forums and dont loose heart with all the complaints. Sure people feel burned when something doesnt work like its supposed to, and you guys are the obvious place to vent. Its just a function of the communication age, but that doesnt mean we dont appreciate all your efforts to bring this "game" to realisation, and nobody REALLY thinks youre just sat on your asses ;p
That said, some folks cant even play it, they should be the top concern - to hell with fps and gate-jump effects, lets get everyone playing first !

Seriously, good job, we Elite die-hards appreciate it !

Heretic.

p.s. I wonder if David Braben ever got hate-mail ??

[captain_crunch]

I know, I am so sick and tired of this game freezing up all the time that I think I'm going to shelve it till 1.3 comes out. I would be satisfied with another patch before 1.3 (like 1.2.2) that at least fixes these gamekilling types of bugs.

Oh well, I love the x games, but I just can't take it. Seems like everything was fine unitil I started building factories. Don't know if that has anything to do with it or not. Guess try to finish Doom 3 or start another game of civ 4...

__________________________
system specs

Pentium 4 prescott 3 gighz @ 3.3 Gighz
Asus P4P800 Mobo
2 gigs corsair XMS pc3200 2 latency Ram
Leadtek Geforce 6800 GT agp 256 mb version running at ultra speeds
audigy2 zs soundcard
36 gig 10000 rpm raptor boot drive
300 gig maxtor game and data drive 16 meg cache
asus 52x cd burner
nec 16x dvd burner
600 watt aspire power supply
ati tv wonder tuner card
zip 250 drive

[captain_crunch]

hmm, come to think of it, I don't think mine ever crashes when I'm playing it either. Sounds like a good clue, hopefully egosoft is working on it (I'm sure they are, with all of the posts about this). I really love this game! >having withdrawal symptoms already<

P.S. I hope the mobile mining feature is fixed soon, that's one of my favorite ways to make cash...

[lefthandblack]

Add another one to the list.
I get freezes after about an hour, most often during dogfights, sometimes
just flying non-seta. It's usually in more cluttered sectors where my framerate drops. I get good framerates in uncluttered systems, playable
but not what I would call good in cluttered sectors.

Specs:
Windows XP Pro sp-1
Antec true-power 550 watt ps
Gigabyte 7n400 pro2 MB (nforce 2)
Athalon xp 2800+ no overclocking
2x512 MB PNY PC-3200 in dual channel @400 ddr
Gainward Geforce FX 5900xt ultra 128mb (factory OC 450mhz core 780mhz memory)
SB Audigy
Maxtor 60gb SATA HD
Swap-file set to 1.5GB
Sony DRU-800A dvd-Burner
Game version 1.201 vanilla, no scripts
Playing Bankrupt Assasin

Drivers:
Video- Nvidia 81.95
MB- Nforce 5.10
Soundcard- 5.12.0001.0441 creative



It's a complete system freeze with infinite sound-loop usually requiring
a hard reboot. (the last time it happened I was able to end-task)

Ive set the windows media codec to #1 priority.
Tried re-encoding soundtrack to 64k w/lame
Run with all non-essential apps/processes disabled including explorer
Tried at all settings low/low med/low high/high etc.
Checked for temperature issues, doesn't run any hotter than anything else
causes.

It will still consistently freeze after about an hour.

The other thing I've noticed is that the first time I fire a weapon or a ship
explodes my frame-rate will drop to zero for about 1/10 of a second,
then frame-rate is fine until I enter a new sector and the above happens
again (just the first time I fire or a ship explodes)

Also, if I die and immediately re-load a save I will CTD.

[The_Heretic]

ok, I tried switching off all firewalls (inc windows native) and auto update etc.. this had NO effect.

Then I tried turning down all details in the game to low, switched off EAX and UNchecked the auto-quality setting. Set my ship right in the middle of the sector and set the SETA running and it sat there quite happily for 2 full hours !

Im a little surprised by this, but until now Ive been lucky to get 10 - 15 minutes, sometimes only seconds like I said in my other post (above).
I normally leave the qualities low, and have the res at 12x10.
Cant say for sure if setting it to 10x7 is gonna be a robust solution, but it could be at least a work around for now. Certainly wouldnt wanna play the game in that res, especially since my LCD is 12x10 native :/

Anyway, FOR ME this may at least bear some fruit. If anyone else tries it this way then please post your results.

What Im thinking right now though, is that maybe its some kind of memory "bunging" problem, where itll sit chugging away in SETA then suddenly its running out of RAM and locks up. OK, that could just be nonesense on my part, but changing resolution doesnt suggest much by way of a clash in the soft- or hardware environment, eh ?

Then again perhaps I just got lucky for 2 hours, Ill be trying it again over a longer period tomorrow, so Ill post again either way.

Hope this helps someone for now :/

Heretic.

[captain_crunch]

Just for the record, I just had it freeze on me while docked at a station today, so it is possible to have it freeze while docked...

[BaronDeKalb]

Just thought id post in this thread, i had the same problem as you all did.

i pulled out the Ethernet connection to the internet (just the cable) and have

not yet had 1 crash yet with it unplugged. As we know for a fact this game

does not share any running process well, perhaps any system I/0 to any

external device is enough to house the program. So give it a shot, it's

easy enough to try and no need to unistall anything, save for the

wireless crowd, in which case just try inactivating the card. Post any results

as i would like to know if dis-abeling all external I/0 reads or checks could

be the band-aid.

[captain_crunch]

Aaaargh! I disabled my network connection, and it still froze up on me soon after I jumped to Lucky Planets! This sucks!

[captain_crunch]

Hah! I think I found a workaround. If I play it in windowed mode, it doesn't seem to crash. I've been playing it this way for a couple of hours now, with no problems. It's actually kinda cool, this way I can do other things from time to time, then go back to playing. Be sure to disable your screen saver though, x3 hates screen savers it seems. Pretty much shuts it down...

[elzar760]

Nah Unfortunately windowed mode is not a fix. Infact, the first time I had one of these lockups after several days of playing with no troubles, was in windowed mode, and it was a lockup in windowed mode about 30 minutes ago that prompted me to find this thread.

[captain_crunch]

Yes, unfortunately about 10 minutes ago I found that out. I also tried disabling the page file, which seemed to work for a little while, (I noticed the page file kept shooting up to 1.1 gigs every time I was playing this game, and I have 2 gigs anyways), but it crashed again. I don't think it matters what we do, the thing is messed up...

This is too frustrating, I think I'm going to bed...

[BaronDeKalb]

yeah, just for the record it did hang on me again with the internet unpluged,

i have the 700mb dump file .

anyways im just shooting in the dark now and tried dis-abeling hyper-threading in the Abit startup Bios menu. It has'nt hung in about 2 hours now but as we all know by now that may not mean anything, so i will
let you all know how i make out...

[Tracker001]

I'v had perotic frezzes .
What I did was go into my Diskeeper defrag program and saw that it
wanted to increase the MFT file . So I did that. It help alot. And when
I get a freezze. I'll check for fragmentation but nothing heavy,
even if it crashes. So I'll do a repair, at WIN. Program- In / Uninstall
and that helps. And then it's of to makeing credet's(Ya right ).
AMD 2200+ @ 1.8 g hz. . CPU @ bios set to auto. I'v watched the clock
speed run up to 2200 . But not during the game.Only during an
independent. bench marc . Which is not part of the game yet. Won't be untill the demo loop is added.
The clock speed set's at 1800 all day. I have a dual moniter
setup . But when I'm not testing I only use one.
PNY Nvidia G-force -5200-ultra AMG slot.
2x512=1.24 g of memory.@ 133/166 mhz. Self refresh,DIMM's.
Ya I'm suprised that it run's
Actualy it run's rather well.
I pulled out a 20 gig HD . Formated it .IT's a second
master ,and X-3 and X-3 screen shots is the only progam on it.
My anti-vires came on on time . froze the game until it was done
and The game resumed after I closed the anti-vires .
low rez
low texture
low shadow
useually get 20 fps - even during dog fights. depend's what sector.
I have some 14 app's running . The ovius one's are off.
As for the rest - Well -- I dont want to make a paper wieght.

[Skeletal]

The more I read about all this, and my continued experiences, the more I think that it’s a “probability thing” i.e. you can try something, and all will be well. Ah fixed it you say! Then a few minutes to hours later…freeze! BUT I’m convinced that the more running processes you turn off/unplug cables/make small audio files/defrag etc etc, the greater the probability you will not get a freeze. Note: you WILL get a freeze, eventually, but hopefully not that often.

Tracker001, I’m amazed you saw the game un-freeze; I have never seen this happen. I did once leave it running in it’s loop for over an hour with no luck.

CBJ has had a copy of my “freeze game” so I hope this can be of use to Ego. CBJ, if you spot this amongst the many threads, did you/Ego get it to freeze? Knowing about such things I suppose you’ll say it ran perfectly on 100’s of computers!!

I have now played for several hours having removed Elecard (to get rid of unwanted codecs), using small re-encoded audio files, and turning off most processes.

Next time I play, I’ve no doubt I’ll get freezes all the time!

Skeletal

[Tracker001]

Skeletal;
I don't think that the anti-virus actually caused a freeze per say.
More that it saw something happening that fit;"cryterea".
And the Anti-viruse progam did what it would do normmaly.
It stops running prosses and does a system check . Report's
NA or YA. When it was finished I just closed the anti-viurs
and X-3 resumed. By the way it was, NA.
Anti-virus program is( PC-cillin ) Distributed by Trend micro.
I understand that PC-cillin has been at the Corpprate level of
anti-virus protection industry for year's . I heard that from
a D-Link rep; . Not just singel coputers's but,Server's /networks,
Inter and Intra.net structer.
A much more difficult situation to handle !

[Skeletal]

Tracker001, yes, I agree. What I’m trying to say is that anything firing up (like a firewall/anti virus/remote update etc) may cause the game to freeze; thus turning all these off means that that source of freezing is removed (but there may still be potential freeze sources within the game itself).

If you think about it, writing a letter in Word does not cause Excel to crash (not usually anyway!), but if the computer does something in addition to running X3, it may then cause the freezes everyone is seeing. I don’t know why without understanding the code.

I have been involved in writing safety critical software (i.e software that MUST not fail in a dangerous state, like a nuclear reactor going critical!). There are tricks that can be employed to make this so…the point being that it is extremely difficult to predict the behaviour of software in every circumstance and thus, one trick is to “allow” for a failure, but then to recover from it.

So, accept the game will crash, but have it self re-start. The player would then see a glitch, mutter, and carry on as if nothing had happened.

A vast and complex subject.

Oh, if anyone does try the turning everything off trick, make sure you mechanically disconnect from the internet first, and then make sure stuff is all up and running again before using the computer as normal!

Skeletal

[Tracker001]

Skeleta;
Yes agreed;
I remember year's ago in a land far far /\ OH STOP IT !!!
That Sound Blaster and ATI graphic card's had a problem,
with simular results , freezing and sound loops. And you'd
have to do a hard boot.
The only time I have a problem with EXcel is when I'm
bad mouthing it with Word

Skeleta ; You mean such as hand shackes , or over run's
or my be "cant find mem address location.

Tracker001

[captain_crunch]

That's it, I give up... I just tried playing for like 5 minutes and the damn thing froze on me again. Is anyone ever going to fix this problem!?

Well, time to go play doom 3 and watch football I guess...

[The_Heretic]

OK,
the settings I was on about yesterday didnt work, I just got lucky for a couple of hours it seems

So, I programmed a new complicated macro into my X52. I had my ship undock, fly around, target the trading station, and re-dock. Most of this was done in SETA mode, and the macro ran for about 1 and a half minutes then restarted (by launching again from the station). Even this didnt work.

However, a new theory popped into my head at 5am this morning as I was getting ready for work (I know, sick isnt it) and here it is :

This only started happening to me recently, also I only really headed out with a fast-ish ship to do some exploring recently - until now ive been loitering around the core systems around argon prime and just poking my nose into the other races systems. Now, given that the game is
A/ in realtime, and
B/ dynamic.
Would this mean that for evey system you visit, the game engine is having to account for hte dynaimcs of that system in its calculations ?

What Im saying is, the more systems you visit, the more complex the game calculations of the universe have to be.

Now, it *could* be that it accounts for every system all the time - whether youve visited it or not - which blows my theory out the water. However if Egosoft decide to comment on this I sure would appreciate it, because the idea in itself makes some sense I think.

I never had any hang problems until I started exploring a lot. this fact combined again with the SETA factor suggests to me the game engine is getting itself in a "tizzy".


so, ** ATTN : EGOSOFT DEVS **
Does the above theory stand up ? or am I a victim of 5am delerium ?


Id be interested to know what you guys (members and devs) think ?

Heretic.

p.s. Im not a programmer, and know very little about coding so dont flame me if this is all "hokey"
p.p.s. but I am a genius, so dont dismiss it out of hand