Almost a month ago I opened a ticket with CIG about the frequent crashes I have been experiencing while playing Arena Commander (most commonly happening after playing for 15 or 20 minutes of a Cooperative Vanduul Swarm match). Basically, the screen will freeze but the music will keep playing the last fragment of effects over and over. At the time the issue happens, I am able to open and see the Task Manager, for example, but any attempt to bring the task manager or any other application to focus will fail and only the start menu will remain on top of the crashed Star Citizen screen… (I can do Alt Tab and I am able to see the app scren, but the moment I release Alt, the app will be hidden by SC). After a while, the game might finally crash (and Windows will show a screen saying SC is not responsive).
I believe some of you might have experienced the same thing. So, now, CIG is asking for more information about this type of game crash. If you have had such a crash or if the issue happens to you now and then, please, open a ticket with CIG. You can do this through: [url]https://robertsspaceindustries.com/contact[/url] If you like, you can reference the ticket number I opened (Request #117756: Multiple crashes tonight).
Also, please, let me know if you will like to know more details about the issue or if you are interested in the diagnostic steps that CIG suggested.
It is an AMD Radeon R9 M265X (as rendering device) with an Intel® HD Graphics 4600 (as “full device”). I was not able to upgrade the drivers for the Intel GPU, since the utility to upgrade kept telling me that the drivers are custom and there is no update for those. So, here are the updates I got for the AMD R9 drivers:
Initially I had the driver version 12.x. The game didn’t work well with that. I think it didn’t even load…
Then I updated to the latest driver (version 14.501.1003-141120a-178000C). So, with that I was able to play and I would experience the issue, let’s say 1 out of 4 times I played a vanduul match.
Finally, AMD came up with the latest driver customized for Toshiba, which is what I am running now:
Driver Packaging Version: 13.351.1006.1001-140404a-171610C-Toshiba
With this driver, the game seems to work just as well as with the version 14. In other words, I get the same feeling of % of crashes.
I also thought it was the CPU overheating (I got it to 93 C once, which is close to the “melting point” of 98 C). So, I installed fans and it improved air circulation, but the game still crashes. I tried other things as well, such as upgrading SSD drivers, checking the RAM, viruses, malware, etc. Nothing seemed to have mattered.
When it does not crash, it works well. Other than that, I hear what you are saying. I did not buy the laptop to play demanding video games, initially. But I bought it recently (not planning to buy another one for some time) and the fact that it works for hours, at times, without crashing tells me that it cannot be a hardware failure. So, I reduce the video resolution to reduce the demand on the chip. I am fine with that.
Whatever it is, give me an error message, give me log entries describing a problem, just don’t stop responding. I went over the logs every single time the issue happened. There was nothing. A program should have more control of what is going on. It shouldn’t freeze just like that. Again, the OS and the computer keep working fine after SC crash, which tells me it is something with the program.
Even if it is the video card, alright, just get over it and keep working! In the programming world it is called “exception handling”.
So, we all know SC is under development. Thus, again, if anybody happens to have a similar experience, please, let me know. Maybe CIG can find a common denominator… And I know it has happened to others, because it happened to other folks when we were flying together.
Sorry, but in my expieriance it IS Hardware failure. To be more precise: Your GFX gets to hot in boost, then slows down and that is something the game does not tollerate atm. Try disableing boost on your GFX so that you don’t get performance changes from it. Or simply lock the gfx to a specific setting from wich you know it will run 100% at ActionTime 100%. Should do the trick in my opinion. Had same problem with my OC GFX, runs smoothly till I get a performance reduction caused through overheating. Found out that “only” increasing the alloted powerlevel made it run stable at 83°C.
The issue seems fixed in version 1.2. I have had no crashes while playing since I’ve installed it.
Back in June, CIG said this: “we’ve got a massive 1.2.0 update next month that will introduce a slew of optimizations and fixes that hopefully will address the freezing issues.” And they were right.
Other than that, I hear what you are saying. I did not buy the laptop to play demanding video games, initially. But I bought it recently (not planning to buy another one for some time) and the fact that it works for hours, at times, without crashing tells me that it cannot be a hardware failure. So, I reduce the video resolution to reduce the demand on the chip. I am fine with that.