Random but persistent crash when targeting an object.

[tass_bur]

Thanks...I have 2 too but havent tested it yet as im not at home at the moment.

[mac.wheeler]

I have another PC here that I will put back together and try to load the savegames on that, it's an AMD and ATI based systems whereas this one I am using now is Intel and Nvidia. Let's see if it makes any difference. All I need to find is two power plug sockets and another network cable hehe. Oh and carry my old 17" CRT down from the loft, that could be awkward.

[markkram95]

I think that is highly unlikely as my system is quite new and I have the same problem!

Please do not assume that the answers given to someone else automatically apply to you. When a DirectX game crashes there are only 3 things that generally happen (CTD, freeze or reboot) but there are a myriad of possible reasons these can occur, both within and external the game itself.

To pick up on one point you make, just because your system is quite new does not make it immune from power supply or overheating problems. Many systems are sold with inadequate or insufficiently stable power supplies, not to mention the possibility of hardware faults.

To be clear, since people seem to insist that I always blame hardware, I am not saying that all problems are caused by faulty hardware. What I am saying is that these causes need to be eliminated, both for the benefit of the player who wants to get playing and for the benefit of those chasing up the problems so that time is not wasted on problems that may or may not exist.

Sorry CBJ, didn't mean to disrespect or upset you, I guess the problems with my game are getting to me and I'm irritable that I can't play it properly!!!!

[tass_bur]

I have another PC here that I will put back together and try to load the savegames on that, it's an AMD and ATI based systems whereas this one I am using now is Intel and Nvidia. Let's see if it makes any difference. All I need to find is two power plug sockets and another network cable hehe. Oh and carry my old 17" CRT down from the loft, that could be awkward.

I would VERY much like to know how that goes as i ALSO have an nvidia/Intel system

[CBJ]

Just a quick update. It looks as though at least some people who are experiencing this have hit upon a problem relating to their savegames rather than a sound issue. The savegame problem will obviously have to be addressed by us for a patch, but anyone experiencing this problem should still try and eliminate possible audio-related issues since if this is the cause in their case they will obviously have to sort it out anyway.

[tass_bur]

Just a quick update. It looks as though at least some people who are experiencing this have hit upon a problem relating to their savegames rather than a sound issue. The savegame problem will obviously have to be addressed by us for a patch, but anyone experiencing this problem should still try and eliminate possible audio-related issues since if this is the cause in their case they will obviously have to sort it out anyway.

Will do...thanks a lot for the update made my day a lot better

[moritz21]

Hi there

I've got the same problems

I'e target object/ship-c(CTD)

I first thought It was my joystick as noticed that movement was slow jerky so removed it used classic x3 keyboard cfg but still CTD have noticed that keyboard repeat rate Is High as in menus see load of letters after a command key eg ( select taget: t KKLJHKLJLHGKUYJB:EBJBFJ )

so altered keyboard rep rate at desktop but problem still there I though this was something to do with my joy drivers so removed them as well this has only made CTD more frequent

[Scoob]

Maybe it is some obscure problem that develops over time. Like I said, I'd been playing X3 for a while with no problems. Now, I've not been at work so that does equate to many hours in a day, I'm actually a little embarrased to say quite how many!

It's odd but if I revert to a 15 min old save, and even though I wasn't experiencing problems at the time of that save, I reload and get problems. If I revert to a 2 hour old save, I get less & things like mouse-targeting and mini-monitors work again but things like the freight scanner option CTD the game. If I then go back like to a previous days saves everything appears to work except the map to mini-monitor option (Enter > Target > Monitor) And finally reverting to saves made 2 days ago all appears to be fine again.

It appears that the act of having a very long gaming session, saving often but rarely if ever loading, causes some sort of save corruption than manifests its self next time you load any of those saves. Basically the only time I tend to load is after something has caused a CTD after hours of play.

Here's a thought I just had. I remember for my first few days of play I never disabled the HUD. It was only after reading of the fps benefits that I started doing this a lot while flying to places. I think that there may be a problem if you save the game with your HUD off then re-load and turn it back on. A bit of a leap I know, but every game I've loaded with a problem seems to have had the HUD off upon loading. That's only a hunch though so I wouldn't give it too much weight.

Scoob.

[mac.wheeler]

So what you are saying Scood is that everyone will end up stuck like this once they have enough hours in the cockpit

Honestly though I'm with you man I'm in exactly the same boat, it's so wierd how it started doing it then I reload a save from a few hours before that was fine and it still does it, it's almost like this problm is nothing to do with save game state but something else.

But who knows, lets see what the guys at Egosoft come up with.

I'm installing it on my old PC right now to try it out, I forgot I switched to an Intel in my old systme as well though but at least it's an ATI 9800XT and not my swanky 7800GTX, I'll let you know if it still crashes.

[tass_bur]

So what you are saying Scood is that everyone will end up stuck like this once they have enough hours in the cockpit

Honestly though I'm with you man I'm in exactly the same boat, it's so wierd how it started doing it then I reload a save from a few hours before that was fine and it still does it, it's almost like this problm is nothing to do with save game state but something else.

But who knows, lets see what the guys at Egosoft come up with.

I'm installing it on my old PC right now to try it out, I forgot I switched to an Intel in my old systme as well though but at least it's an ATI 9800XT and not my swanky 7800GTX, I'll let you know if it still crashes.

People with AMD also have the crashes we do but I AM interested in the ATI Part

I really hope they fix this as i want to plaaay!

So you guys found an OLD save game which have had no problems yet or one wich started to get problems?

a very strange bug i must say

[mac.wheeler]

Ok, I installed X3 on my older PC which has completely different hardware to my main box.

Copied the save game across.

Undock from station, switch on the HUD and CTD.

[tass_bur]

I wonder if there is any chance that any patch egosoft makes will fix our savegames or just the saving problem?

[hox]

I really hope it does fix our savegames, whats the odds on a hotfix release ahead of the patch for this problem?

[tass_bur]

I really hope it does fix our savegames, whats the odds on a hotfix release ahead of the patch for this problem?

I am a pessimist considering hotfix i have to admit...they DO have a lot other issues to worry about but i hope they come with a hotfix...I have been thinking of going back to x2 lol but that seems a bit...scary right now

[Rambam]

I've had exactly the same problem for a couple of days now - corrupted saves where if you try to target an object, you get a CTD. I think I've finally figured out why this is happening - on my system, at least. I'm certain that it has something to do with saving a game while there is a battle in progress, or when there are enemies somewhere in the system.

As soon as I suspected what might be happening, I tested it by flying around and saving periodically, and as soon as I encountered an enemy in a system - whether Khaak or Pirate - I'd save twice - once in space, and once by docking at a nearby station and using the autosave.

Every time, I got the same result - savegames without an enemy in the system worked perfectly, but the others didn't. An autosave with an enemy present loaded okay, but I'd immediately get the problem with targetting objects causing a CTD. The saves whilst out in space would usually crash immediately, and even when they didn't I'd still get the targetting error. I even had this problem when there were no hostile ships around, but for some reason a lasertower was firing at a civilian ship. Saving again just carried the error on to the next save, and so on.

I'm kicking myself that I didn't realise this before now - but I've only recently started exploring, looking for pirates, etc. The battles I've had previously were as a result of me looking for neutral, friendly ships to capture ( I captured three M3s, two TSs and a Teladi Superfreighter before I had a crisis of conscience and decided to go straight ). In those cases, If I saved the game it was before the ship turned hostile and started firing, presumably avoiding the savegame error.

If you guys are having the same problem caused by the same error - and it sounds as if you might be - this might explain why the problem apparently comes out of nowhere and corrupts games where there were no problems at the time of playing. I suppose most of us leave the autosave feature on by default in case anything happens and we lose hours of work. A player would only have to dock at a station once whilst there was an enemy in the system, and that autosave and every subsequent save would become corrupt and include the targetting error. And the farther the player got in the game and the more they explored, the greater the chances of this happening.

I tried disabling the HUD - hadn't thought of that until I started reading this thread, and I've found that for me, the problem isn't so much the HUD but the monitors. If I use F5 to minimise the monitor, I can target as normal.
Not an ideal solution, but it might do until the next patch comes along.

Right now, I'm wondering what would happen if I loaded a 'clean' savegame, minimised the monitor and tried saving with enemies around. It the problem really is with the monitor, it might avoid the problem altogether.

[hox]

I've saved in the past when enemies were in a sector, as this is the point I would normally save b4 attacking them. It hasnt effected my subsequent savegames though, at least not until this point.

How do you minimise the monitor without bringing it up on screen? I tried F5 but I had to select something = CTD

I guess no hud, is a work around till they fix it; no more dogfights or capturing boron ships tho

[Sagan]

I've had exactly the same problem for a couple of days now - corrupted saves where if you try to target an object, you get a CTD. I think I've finally figured out why this is happening - on my system, at least. I'm certain that it has something to do with saving a game while there is a battle in progress, or when there are enemies somewhere in the system.

As soon as I suspected what might be happening, I tested it by flying around and saving periodically, and as soon as I encountered an enemy in a system - whether Khaak or Pirate - I'd save twice - once in space, and once by docking at a nearby station and using the autosave.

Every time, I got the same result - savegames without an enemy in the system worked perfectly, but the others didn't. An autosave with an enemy present loaded okay, but I'd immediately get the problem with targetting objects causing a CTD. The saves whilst out in space would usually crash immediately, and even when they didn't I'd still get the targetting error. I even had this problem when there were no hostile ships around, but for some reason a lasertower was firing at a civilian ship. Saving again just carried the error on to the next save, and so on.




.

Pretty much what he said It didn't happen the first few hours of gameplay, but the game is starting to crash a lot now. And it seems to be pretty much as mentioned by Rambam.

It's bloody annoying when you've just spent 15 minutes capturing a falcon and that annoying windows message, apologizing and telling you you are knackered and you have to quit, comes up.

Basically, until it's fixed it's too annoying.frustrating to keep on playing. Hope they fix it in 1.3

[Scoob]

Ok here's a new twist.

I reverted back to a game from 2 days ago (the most recent that appeared stable) and all is running perfectly.

This was at a point before I got my wheat farm complex up and running in Queens Space so I set about rebuilding it. Every time I saved, I reloaded and did all the things that could make the game crash, the main one of these being assign a target to the second mini-monitor cos that's always the first thing to go for me.

Right, so I go all the way from Argon Prime to Queens Space with my hired Mammoth following, saving, reloading & checking often with absolutely NO problems.

I place 3 wheat farms, save & load, check 2nd mini-monitor & all is great.

Next step is to place the station hub to link it all up. I do this save, load test & CTD! Damn!

I reload the save where I just have 3 wheat farms & no hub - everything is perfect once more, so that save hadn't become corrupted. I place the hub once more, save, load CTD!

It appears that something about placing a hub is what starts to make certain features of the game unstable for me.

First: activating the 2nd mini-monitor causes CTDs - now I never really used the 2nd mini-monitor but I know many people do so that may explain why I've lasted so long without a crash.

Second: Scanning a ship starts causing CTD, a bit more difficult to ignore this one.

Third: any use of the main mini monitor starts the game CTDing, really can't live without that.

The only way to keep playing after I get the Third thing causing CTDs it to target things only while the HUD is off by using the Sector Map view.

One more thing, Queens Space is a very foggy sector, and it does give my system a hard time to SETA round it - maybe this has some influence on stability?

*Edit* Did another test. It appears that after I have placed just the 3 Wheat Farms (no hub) my game will CTD if I have BOTH mini-monitors active & I press Esc or Return to get the bottom menu to appear. Before Pacing the 3 Wheat Farms that works ok. Maybe three factories in close proximity is causing some confusion in the saved game?

I suggest this is another good place for the Egosoft testers & developers to look when investigating the various CTD issues, as I appear to have made this 100% recreatable on my system now. Obviously they know exactly how they've implemented the various features, so maybe the order in which things start to deteriorate and cause CTDs will be significant to them. I really hope this helps them get to the bottom of this.

All you others getting similar CTD symptoms, have you built Hubs/multiple factories close together like this? I'd be interested to hear if someone could re-create my exeriences.

Scoob.

[tass_bur]

I only have one station...a silicon mine...well 2 actually if I consider

Spoiler

Show

plot ore mine

too

[Scoob]

tass_bur: Ah well, maybe my theory doesn't explain it for everyone

It still is reproducable for me though, but there may well be some other condition happening in Queens Space I don't know about. It is only when I reload a save than things start going wrong though. If I just stat placing the Factories & Hub all goes smoothly until I reload.

This is rather puzzling.

Scoob.