Periodical crashes.

[Nausilus^^]

Ok this is what happens:

Each time I enter DAoC and run out to RvR, I get about 15-25mins of play time, before the game crashes. If I restart DAoC right away after it's closed down, I get about 5-10mins ingame before next crash, and next time DAoC wont even start. If I reboot after crash, I get the same 15-25mins to play before the next crash and so on and so forth.
When I PvE, I don't have this problem, then it's only like 1-2 crashes per day, if any at all.

I've been thinking about possible solutions, but only ones I can come up with would be to change graphics, sound or network card. My graphics are radeon 9000 pro, netword is onboard, sound is no-name. I used to be able to play with no problems about a year ago, but that was before I changed my sound card (since my onboard sound broke) - had the graphics and network for a couple of years.

Any help is greatly appreciated, as I'm running out of ideas, and I don't want to invest in new hardware unless I'm fairly certain that this is where the cause of the problem lies.

Ty in advance

-Nausilus

 

[Demon2k3]

it sounds like overheating to me. had the same problem on my bro's comp. could be that your gfx card get's overheated, or that you need to update gfx drivers.

 

[Nausilus^^]

How can it be overheating, when I'm only crashing in RvR and not PvE? Other games run smoothly with no problems, such as WoW, HoMM5, CS.. It's _only_ DAoC RvR that makes game/computer crash.

 

[St.Anger]

Ah, it's actually a technical problem, when I saw the title, I thought it was about the monthly blues

But seriously, maybe run something that checks the heating inside? Doesn't hurt doing that, updating all drivers might help too. Although, i have the same problem when running two accounts, after, sometimes, 3-4 hours the main account crashes. But that's pretty long, i can imagine a crash after 15 is a bit annoying. Oh, windows Vista doesn't help, can't even run 1 account then

 

[Nausilus^^]

lol

 

[fl3a]

i have the same problem, it only happens in new frontiers, i can rvr just fine in old frontiers.

 

[Nausilus^^]

I have checked interior temperatures, and everything is in order. Even if things were out of order, it wouldn't make any sense whatsoever that they only cause crashes when I'm playing in particular zones in 1 particular game, and things work fine in all other situations.

I tried to do a fresh DAoC install, but I still get crashes in NF. Did dungeon tasks for about 2 hours with no problems, but when I logged a character that crashed in HW last night, DAoC closed down in roughly 5 minutes.

 

[Cylian]

maybe a file got corrupted and now causes this problem, tried reinstalling DAoC or a complete File Check yet ?

 

[fl3a]

it happens for me with all daoc clients (got 4 different ones installed over 2 hdds), however the symptoms are those of a hdd crash

 

[Nausilus^^]

I did complete file checks, reinstalled DAoC twice, now I'm trying to install DR client (ran with cata before, since I haven't got DR enabled) - I should very much hope that it's not a HDD flaw, as I just purchased the one I'm using, less than 2 weeks ago.

 

[Mybuddies]

I've read Radeons have some problems with SOME 3d gaming. My new computer has a Radeon X700SE. Works fine in PvE and Thid, Crashes out lots of times in NF RvR. I don't know if it's just beacuse it can't cope with all the throughput in RvR.

My card eventually failed & I got a replacement installed under warranty. Guess what, same problem. I've just Rightnowed it to see if their techies have had this before. I'll post here if I get a decent reply.

And yes, other games works fine, even WoW.

PS I's only since Darkness Rising I had this problem (though I didn't RvR in the space between Catas & DR), but it definitely didnt happen under the SI expansion. I would use SI to RvR in, but my fotm character is a Heretic.

 

[Nausilus^^]

Yea, I didn't have this problem pre DR either. Do you think it'll resolve itself if I replace my gfx with a different brand?

 

[Mybuddies]

I havent heard of non-radeon people having the problem so maybe yeah. I was waiting to see if rightnow had a solution. I'd be gutted to shell out on a new card & have the same problem.

 

[Nausilus^^]

I agree.. keep me updated in here if you can please, I'm interested in seeing what they respond.. if they respond anything at all that is..

 

[Cylian]

checked the Systemlog yet ?

 

[Penlid]

When you nxt crash, log the time and check event viewer.

Post details of what happened here and you'll more likely get a fix.

 

[Mybuddies]

'Unable to map required address ranges for graphics card.'

 

[SkarIronfist]

Me thinks its memory.

RVR tends to be more stressful than PVE.

Search for memtest86 on the internet, download and use it to create a boot disk. Then boot from it. Run it for an hour or 2. You should have no errors.

Nate/Adola's PC was having the same flakey behaviour ..... came down to memory failing/memory slot was damaged ...

 

[Nausilus^^]

Downloaded program, now I just need to aquire an actual floppy disc somehow.. haven't used those for a while. I'll update once I find one and try it out.

 

[Boni]

Hmm kinda hard to work out what the problem could be, but your best bets seem to be :-

a). Sound card, you say your problems may have started after getting a new card. You could try disabling your card and running DAOC without any sound (if it allows that..), or turning off all sound/music etc and see if that solves the problem.

b). Video card drivers. 9/10 cats say their video card drivers caused problems, try newer versions of the drivers if they exist, if your using the latest maybe try older or alternative versions. Never had much faith in ATIs drivers tbh. Perhaps you know someone irl with an nvidia card you could borrow for a day and see if that fixes it.

Normaly I would say video card drivers was the problem, but if your sure that the problems started after the new sound card then do check that well first.

As others have said do do a full disk and memory test as well. Any more info about the crashes would be usefull, does the screen lockup? does it bluescreen? reset? any messages anywhere? anything in windows event logs?

 

[Nausilus^^]

Mostly the "symptoms" vary a bit.

Most common events are the following:

A) DAoC freezes for roughly 20-30seconds, after which the game closes with no warning or error messages.

1. If I try to run DAoC again without a reboot, either the same or one of the below events will take place, within a short amount of time (any amount of time between 1-10minutes)

B) DAoC closes with no warning or error messages.

1. Same as A1 listed above.

C) Computer reboots with no warning or error messages and either:

1. Starts up with disc scan;
2. Windows asking to start up in secure mode, or regular mode;
3. Windows starting up regularly, in which case I can start up DAoC again and wait for next crash.

In all of the events, after reboot, I'll get a message saying that Windows detected an error at last reboot, asking me to send the information or not send the information (I always click past this quickly, so I never really read it thoroughly, hence the bad translation)

This is pretty much what happens, and about as detailed as I can get right now. I don't know enough about computers to check event logs. I installed the latest driver I could find, and my first guess would be the sound card, but as I use ventrilo from I log on until I log off, I haven't tested it with sound card disabled yet. Still working on finding a floppy disc as well

 

[Nausilus^^]

One more thing - when DAoC crashes without reboot, my firewall will give me a message saying: A DLL used by D:\Dark Age of Camelot - Catacombs/game.dll has changed since the last time you have used D:\Dark Age of Camelot - Catacombs/game.dll. This could happen if you have updated it recently. Click Detail to see more information. Do you want to allow it to access the network? Yes, No, Detail.

 

[Gotrag]

Well I've been talking to you alot about this over the last week and I don't see any logical explanation for this.

It's not a GFX card problem and it can't be a Radeon specific problem as I run RadeonX700SE and have no problems what so ever

It's not a corrupted file otherwise the re-install would have fixed that as would the full system check.

Overheating is possible but some PvE areas cause as much strain on your computer as NF does and you are having no problem with any other Zones then NF.

Try turning off your Firewall and configuring camelot to the lowest graphic settings then give it a try.

 

[Boni]

Ok rebooting is a big clue, usualy some piece of hardware is failing when in use, often due to power outage. I wonder what make and strength of PSU you have, and if that last hardware change pushed it a bit too far... Its easy to upgrade a PC but overlook the power consumption of newer gfx/sound cards.

Given that you havent recieved any error messages about sound or video card drivers (usualy youll at least get the odd clue, a windows error box saying 'nvidia.dll' crashed or a blue screen of death with a similar clue.) then im guessing your problem is core hardware, possibly bios/motherboard drivers or even worse a hardware fault on your mobo/memory (you have done the memtest thing suggested by someone else, was sound advice that and yeah a hassle todo, but important).

So . in this order..

a). Check PSU, good brand > some unknown cheap stuff, and if you have less than 400W I would upgrade anyway regardless of make. (People have different oppinions on this, but this is my rule of thumb).

b). Do that memtest86 thing if you havent.

c). Check BIOS / Mobo drivers are up to date.

d) If you still cant find the problem then you really need to start swapping hardware in and out of your PC. Try removing the sound card for a start and running with no sound or onboard or maybe a friends card. Do the same with video card as well.


Having said all that ill just remind you that all video card drivers are the work of the anti-christ and you should always suspect them if anythings going wrong

Hope that helps.

 

[Boni]

One more thing - when DAoC crashes without reboot, my firewall will give me a message saying: A DLL used by D:\Dark Age of Camelot - Catacombs/game.dll has changed since the last time you have used D:\Dark Age of Camelot - Catacombs/game.dll. This could happen if you have updated it recently. Click Detail to see more information. Do you want to allow it to access the network? Yes, No, Detail.

Hmm yeah hit yes on that, your firewalls just being suspicious of DAOC cause its been changed/patched. Maybe disable your firewall for a short period of time to rule that out as suggested.

 

[Nausilus^^]

I seriously understand less and less.
As of tonight, I can't stay logged in at all anymore. I type password, hit log in button, watch the loading screen and once I get the first images of ingame, before player models are loaded, the game freezes for 5-10seconds, then black screen a couple of seconds, then game images for a couple of seconds and then black screen until I ctrl+alt+delete to close the program.

My PSU is a quality brand at 450W and should be able to cope. I tried taking out my sound card, but I crashed nonetheless, albeit running 2 accounts, I did still crash one of the accounts in the same way as before with screen freezing before closing game on its own.

The current status happened after my soundcard worsened today. My mic has been acting up lately, and sometimes when I try to spin the plug to fix my mic output, sometimes it causes the computer to shut down. I ordered a new sound card today, so when I get it, I'll be testing to see if it'll help on the crashes, but if not, atleast I got good sound with no fear of crashing if i twist my mic plug

Thanks for all the help so far, I'll try to look at all the points made.

 

[SkarIronfist]

Test your memory. Its an easy thing to cross of the list, when running memtest86.

 

[Yeke]

Cant offer any suggestions to you just too say I have pretty much the same problem I can duel log pve and even in battlegrounds but cannot even single log in NF again this only started happening after DR.

My gfx card is radeon 9700pro and currently I'm saving up for a new card in the hope that it will solve the problem I've tried countless things (new hard disk, checked memory, reinstall, reformat and practicaly every catalyst/omega driver ever conceived) all have absolutly no effect whatsoever.

I tried rightnowing it ages ago but they seem fixated on giving out the generic "disable checksumming on your NIC card" reply I banged my head against that brick wall a few times with them then gave up on rightnow.

GL

 

[SkarIronfist]

As someone suggested earlier .... alot of problems I have experienced in the past have come down to

A) Poor power supply. Normally I will now spend £70+ on a power supply. Since you always take it between machines, its probably the best investment you can make (Look for reviews on powersupplys).

B) Dodgy memory. People often mix and match memory sticks of diferent makes and settings. Remember different memory can have different timings. So if you are running a DDR system and you are unsure of your memory, best to force it into SDR mode.

Best solution is always to buy matched pairs of memory (2 sticks of the same memory at the same time).

 

[MaCaBr3]

The solution of all my problems how strange it might sound, was too swap the memorysticks around on my motherboard.