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Problem in the way the game uses pc resources.


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This is really starting to get to me now. I really love the Marines Module and the 1.10 update BUT I'm playing the Battle for Objective Pooh scenario in the campaign and the game keeps crashing halfway through, when there are many many units on the field.

It has just crashed as I was saving the game, the save is now corrupted and this battle will no longer load.

This means I have to go back to the beginning, not for the first time, which is really driving me nuts.

I've got a powerful Core 2 Duo pc which should be able to handle this battle with ease. But something in the game seems to be sucking up all the resources, preventing it saving and making it crash.

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I get the out of memory message sometimes, other times just the generic Microsoft error message. The problem is definitely not memory, either graphics or pc, in terms of my rig, but apparently in the way the game allocates it and/or fails to make proper use of Core 2 tech. I know this was an issue a way back, but it had greatly improved. I've not had this problem since the early days after release of the original CMSF.

This is such a great battle, too, but very long, so it's horribly frustrating to have to keep starting it again.

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I had a save during that mission fail too - fortunately I had a save from about 3 turns prior to that which I could resume from. I started making more than one save file per scenario way back - hindsight is a wonderful thing!

By the by, I have a Core Duo 6700 and an ATI X1950XTX running on XP SP3 - no memory problems so far, and the corrupted save happened after about an hour of the mission (WEGO) - the game crashed during the save process (showing 100% cpu usage for 1 core in the task manager), and then would hang trying to reload the save.

This only happened one time though, so I guess I was lucky. Other than that v1.10 has been stable for me.

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I would just like to add my voice to the cry for a resolution to this problem. I have an Athlon 64 3800+ Dual Core with 8800GT graphics card that eats most games for breakfast but slows to a crawl in the "Objective Pooh" battle. Not only that but the game starts to ignore my detail setting (best/best) and just do its own thing, usually resulting in my men turning into horrible-looking stick-men.

One thing that seems to cause the slowdown is pathfinding. Selecting a group of units and giving them waypoints several hundred metres away usually results in the game grinding to a halt for several seconds. I would prefer it if the game maintained speed but the pathfinding algorithm took longer, spreading its workload through the axis of time to reduce the number of CPU cycles used per second. If I give a general advance order for several units to move right across the map, it would make sense to me for them to take several minutes to plan a route. In other words, I would prefer them to take ages to move off than for the game to grind to a halt.

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I don't know what is happening for you guys. I am running an Intel Duo 3ghz with 2 gigs ram, WinXP SP3, with an Nvidia 7600 GS 512mb set to 1440x900. When lots of stuff is running around and lots of shooting is happening I get Loss of Detail but no big slowdowns and certainly no crashes.

I shrunk the map and units as far as I could to get it to run on my system. Anything newer than mine (less than 18 months) should run it fine. Hopefully Charles can find something.

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I have the same problem, it seems to happen within a minute at mission time 0512/0513 right when the sun starts to rise I get a CTD I have a save that crashes within afew minutes every time. I havn't really tried messing with setting yet..

Vista 64

Intel 2x3.4 Ghz (oc'ed)

Diamond Viper RADEON HD3870 x2

w/ Marines

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This mission ran horrible for me when the vehicles turned up, until I removed Mords background radio chatter mod. Then it runs like a breeze.

However I have noticed slowdowns in some missions part way through them, as if my machine is really struggling for memory (3GB). It seems to be related to AI pathfinding.

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I have just 1GB of main memory and 128MB memory in graphics card (AMD64 3200+ and NVidia 5900 or somesuch). When I set the resolution to 1024x768 and turn antialiasing of I can play Pooh with no performance problems. To me that says that the problem is in the graphics, not in LOS checking or pathfinding.

The error I got was that I ran out of graphics card memory, not main memory. Maybe a different problem?

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Dave brings up a good point. Are any of you who are having problems running mods? I am running vanilla right now but I tested it with some of Gordon's mods and it ran fine. Some of the third party mods may be nuking something.

If you are running mods I would suggest pulling out your z folder and trying it, then reintroduce the mods one at a time.

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In Pooh and next mission I get horrible loss of performance when all the units show up, and playing WEGO the turn itself is a 4-5 slide show and then I need to watch the replay just to see what happened. Also having problems with game crashing during saving when the performance goes down. I have no mods installed and got 2Ghz, 2 gig mem and 128mb GFX card...

As a side note having the whole fricking MEU in the map makes the game play real micromanagement hell, especially when you REALLY have to mind your own casualties... Commanding every soldier in the battalion is simply too much to have fun.

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I did a fresh install of both CM:SF and CM:SF Marines and added just one mod ("Ragtag" Syrian Army mod) before starting the Marines campaign. Once all the main units show up in "Pooh" I get something like 9 - 12 FPS and my soldiers start looking like stick-men unless the camera is really close to them.

I just don't get these sorts of problems with other games and it makes me suspect that my nVidia hardware isn't being used at all and the game is just using the CPU to render the game. I know Open GL games sometimes suffer from this because Open GL doesn't need hardware acceleration, unlike DirectX, and Open GL games can sometimes fall back to software rendering mode if there is a problem whereas DirectX games would just crash with a DirectX error.

Another reason I suspect my card is doing minimal work and the CPU is having to do it all is that I have RivaTuner installed and can monitor my Graphics Card GPU Core Temperature. When playing the "Pooh" mission, it doesn't rise at all, whereas for other games it would go up by 20 degrees or so.

[EDIT] By way of comparison, I just ran "Call of Duty 4" on max settings and was getting FPS of 80-90 most of the time and my Graphics Card GPU Core Temperature went from 60 to about 77. In Shock Force when playing "Pooh" I get FPS of 10-15 if I'm lucky and my Core Temperature barely moves above its resting value of 60. There is something definitely not right here - the GPU isn't doing anything in Shock Force!

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Was about to finish Milk Run slideshow when the game crashed with "out of memory" -message. I don't know much about these things, but could it be some sort of memory leak, as when I load the scenario "fresh", no matter how many units are on map, it runs OK. After couple of turns it slows down into slideshow.

Zip

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Yep, I tried removing user mods and switching off antialiasing. For a while I thought things were running slightly smoother, and was optimistic of a happy ending. Sadly, after just over an hour (gametime) it all went belly up with the arrival of Fox Company.

When they turn up the framerate plummets and I simply cannot save. Trying to save freezes the game completely.

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I've been getting this too, on an original MacBook Pro with Windows XP. Same deal, if it freezes up during a save, that save file will bring things down if I try to load it later. I was thinking memory leak too because of how it runs okay at first but after a few turns starts to really bog down. I tried stripping out all mods but the difference it makes is minimal.

I have found that saving all the time seems to keep things chugging along a bit better - having had to play the same mission from the middle at least three times I started saving after every minute of WeGo (save file 001 when I'm quitting for a while, 002 for an even-numbered minute and 003 for an odd-numbered minute, so even if one freezes up I only lose a minute - I call it "bounding overwatch saving"). The fact that constant saving makes each save happen fast and smooth and helps keep the game running had me wondering if unsaved information is kept in memory or something... I don't know enough about the topic to guess at what that means though.

Artillery is the worst for slowing things down, I found.

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Also had memory problems starting on the Pooh scenario. Was able to play through but on the next scenario the game was stuttering and finally crashed with the "Out of memory" message. Adjusting the unit detail and texture detail to faster options didn't seem to have any effect. Then I switched to a lower resolution setting and the game ran smooth as silk. I had it on desktop setting, which in my case is 1680 X 1050. That was fine for the small scenarios but for the big ones I have to use a lower setting.

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The slowdowns I'm getting are entirely due to graphics performance. If I raise the camera above the map and look straight down from max height, I get about 8 FPS. IF I tilt the camera to look more off to the side, I get about 50 FPS. IF I look at the sky, I get 100+ FPS.

This is a graphics problem, not a CPU/Memory problem.

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It may still be a graphics problem, but the symptoms are different for me.

It's fine when I load the game, despite how many units I am looking at, or where the camera is at.

After about 3-5 turns it then starts to give me <10FPS only during the real turn in WEGO - not the playback. Doesnt matter where I look or what I do. Also all my AI men suddenly can't aim for sh!t while it is having these problems. Tanks fire in the air, Javelins fire right in front of them, etc

That "feels" more like some sort of memory leak issue/CPU calculation issue to me. However your problem is definitely GFX card related Cpl Steiner.

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The Edit button doesnt work for some reason. Here are some attachments.

First one is 19 (pretty much the lowest I get, very playable still) after I load my save game. Then after 3 or so turns it crawls down to 5 fps, looking up at the sky gave me anywhere between 5 and 15 fps. When I go back into the game, it runs fine for a while again.

I have a dual core 2.6GHZ processor with 4GB of ram with a Nvidia 8600GTM 512MB video card.... This is the only mission so far in CM:SF, or Marines, (or any other game for that matter) where I get anything like this.

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Further Update.

When the slowdowns happen (I can usually save the game OK after the turn has finished), I have to completely quit out of CM:SF and come back in to reload my game. Otherwise it just hangs on 2% while trying to load.

The fact when you replay the turn the framerate is normal, but the units "chunk" around, cant aim, etc, really indicates to me that there is some calculation issue, perhaps some sort of programming loop that isnt exiting cleanly.

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I ran something called FurMark - an OpenGL benchmark program similar to 3DMark. My GPU core temperature went from 60 to about 81. I then immediately ran Shock Force. After loading the "Pooh" save and playing for about a minute, I quit out of Shock Force to look at my GPU core temperature in Rivatuner. It had gone steadily down. In other words, when I was playing Shock Force my GPU was cooling down, which indicates to me that it was probably idle.

I know this is probably not the same problem as the one DaveDash is getting but I'd still like some suggestions about what to do. Can I confirm in any way whether or not OpenGL in Shock Force is using Hardware or Software rendering mode?

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