Far Cry 2 - crash to desktop "solution"
Elias Fotinis
I've mentioned before that on my system FC2 crashes to the desktop after
30-60 min of playtime. I have finally figured out why and wrote a little
program that sounds an alert a couple of minutes before the crash (giving
enough time to save, quit and restart if needed). It's not much, but it sure
beats having to save every 5 minutes -- or forgetting to do so... :o)
I seem to remember a few other people having the same problem, so if
anyone's interested I'll polish it up and upload it somewhere (source code
included of course).
Rin Stowleigh
Didn't it have something to do with the total % memory available in
the system?
Tim O
I played for just over 60 hours and think I had two (one definite)
crashed in that whole time.
Spec at the time was XP 32 bit, Intel Core 2 duo 3ghz, Nvidia 8800GT
with 3 gig of RAM.
Getting ready to play through again on the came CPU but with 4 gig,
Windows 7 64 bit and Nvidia 285GTX.
Hope I don't wind up with the issue now!
Rin Stowleigh
wrote:
I never had the issue at all in single player, but I heard of problems
in both single and multi whenever your memory used % hit a threshold
(i.e. regardless of how much total RAM in your system). What I found
is that when hosting running a multiplayer server off the same box I
was playing on (which this game handles quite well, BTW), after about
2 hours (depending on how busy the server was), it would dump everyone
out of the server, sometimes crashing me to desktop and sometimes not,
but interestingly enough crashing many of the clients (I know this
because they would often rejoin and tell me what they were seeing on
their end).
So I researched it a little and it seemed that in both cases (though
seeming slightly different symptoms) of single and multiplayer, once
your total RAM usage got to 50% or 60% (I dont remember), it would
drop you out.
I found that by simply doing a reboot before I started hosting, I
could keep the server (and my own gameplay) going for a good 4-5 hours
solid. In other words, after I exit a FC2 session, the desktop gadget
is telling me I am at 42% or so usage, even with no games or
significant apps running (only services)... but I believe that's
consumed mostly by cached data, because starting from a clean reboot I
sit right around 21%. I'm on Win7 64 with 6 gigs ram. So you might
want to try a reboot before playing just to maximize time before
crash.
The one thing about your specs that caught my eye is that you only
added 1 more gig ram when you went to Win7 64bit. If you do find that
there is more problems than with your old rig, the first thing I would
try is maybe going up to 6GB. Everything, even 32-bit programs use up
more memory than they did under 32bit.. the 1 gig might be enough to
compensate for this, I'm not sure, I just know that 6gb has been a
very comfortable amount for me and although I currently rarely come
close to using it all, I wouldn't want to get by with less than that
on 64-bit. I'd suspect in your case 4gb won't be a problem except for
possibly something like the fc2 issue mentioned above. Besides, RAM's
a cheap fix :)
Also don't forget to patch up to the latest version (I think the last
patch was released in June). If you do play multiplayer at all, be
aware that the punkbuster implementation is rigid, and if you have
problems staying connected to a host you probably want to make sure
not only PB is up to date, but you need to set the punkbuster services
to run in compatibility mode (I think I used vista SP2) and as
administrator. PB was a pain in the ass in this game but it did a
good job of keeping hacks out. The game is worth it... most immersive
game engine ever IMO.
Rin Stowleigh
<rstow...@gmail.com> wrote:
> The game is worth it... most immersive game engine ever IMO.
Also forgot to mention this since you went from XP to W7: Be sure to
try DX10 in this game, it's one of the few games that I've found to
actually be significantly more visually appealing in DX10 (as well as
markedly better framerates). Use the benchmark tool to find your
sweet spot.
Tim O
<rstow...@gmail.com> wrote:
Will do. Thanks for all the info. I've only played the multi-player
for a short time, but I'll give it a try before I restart the single
player campaign again.
I've drifted away from multi-player now that I only have a few hours a
week to game. Get wiped out by the people that live online now,
regardless of the game. :-/
Elias Fotinis
"Rin Stowleigh" <rstow...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:845tj51osebk0r2fl...@4ax.com...
>
> Didn't it have something to do with the total % memory available in
> the system?
Sort of. The real problem is virtual memory space exhaustion in the game
process due to a memory leak.
Too bad Ubisoft hasn't decided to fix this. I'm sure they could if they
wanted to, but they probably don't want to spend any more resources to FC2.
Here's some background info:
FC2 is a 32-bit program and, as such, it can only address (i.e. point to) 4
GB of virtual memory (2^32 = 4 GB). Virtual memory has nothing to do with
RAM or the swap file. Whether you have 128 MB or 16 GB of RAM, each 32-bit
process has its own private 4 GB virtual space. Of those 4 GB the half is
usually reserved for Windows. FC2 happily chews up the remaining 2 GB until
it runs out and dies.
You can see the virtual memory usage in Vista's "Reliability and Performance
Monitor": go to Performance Monitor > add counter with the green plus sign >
select "Virtual Bytes Peak" from the Process counter and the "farcry2"
instance (the game must be running to be visible), and click on Add.
My program simply monitors the "Virtual Bytes Peak" of the game (via PDH or
WMI) and sounds an alarm when it reaches a limit (e.g. 90%).
Elias Fotinis
news:mg6tj5tqrqkv9it52...@4ax.com...
>
> I played for just over 60 hours and think I had two (one definite)
> crashed in that whole time.
>
> Spec at the time was XP 32 bit, Intel Core 2 duo 3ghz, Nvidia 8800GT
> with 3 gig of RAM.
>
> Getting ready to play through again on the came CPU but with 4 gig,
> Windows 7 64 bit and Nvidia 285GTX.
>
> Hope I don't wind up with the issue now!
I sure hope you're not affected, but that 4 gig combined with a 64-bit OS is
worrying me. :) I'm running Vista x64 with 4 gigs and found out that
removing a 2 GB stick stopped FC2 from crashing (it would freeze severily
instead). Win7's memory manager will probably be better that Vista's, so it
may mask out the problem.
Anyway, if you do run into trouble, there's a (partial) solution at least
now.
Trimble Bracegirdle
Do you have them ? http://www.patches-scrolls.de/far_cry2.php
@@@
Elias Fotinis
news:hhoeqd$vl0$1...@news.eternal-september.org...
>
> Just a thought ..Elias. FC2 has 3 patches released ..
> Do you have them ? http://www.patches-scrolls.de/far_cry2.php
The latest patch (1.03) was already out when I got the game, so I've playing
with it all along.
It would be interesting however to do some testing with the other two
patches and the original version. I'll try it when I get the chance.