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Game crashes every 10ish minutes in the Underdark.

TrudeauIsSantaTrudeauIsSanta Member Posts: 161
edited April 2016 in Troubleshooting
Had no problems until I got to the Underdark. This is both on 2.0 and 2.1. It feels like it might be a memory leak - the game performance gradually gets worse (runs slower and slower and slower) until it finally gives me the "Not Responding, needs to be closed" error.

Comments

  • Gate70Gate70 Member, Developer Posts: 3,883
    Do you have a save where this happens please - I'm not seeing an issue but it could be a specific area, party member, equipment, drow transformation etc.
    Thanks
  • TrudeauIsSantaTrudeauIsSanta Member Posts: 161
    Gate70 said:

    Do you have a save where this happens please - I'm not seeing an issue but it could be a specific area, party member, equipment, drow transformation etc.
    Thanks

    I'll get you one soon. Have an email I'm supposed to send this to?
  • Gate70Gate70 Member, Developer Posts: 3,883
    If you zip the 00000nnnnn-savename containing the specific save, you should be able to drop it into this "leave a comment" box.
    Thanks
  • TrudeauIsSantaTrudeauIsSanta Member Posts: 161
    So it was only occurring from when I entered Chapter 5. From the Sahuagin path if that matters. I quicksave often but rarely hardsave, so don't have a save for you from this point anymore. It went away shortly after I became a Drow - I'm not sure if that's what did it, or if clearing the zone some helped.

    If I get this again on a future playthrough, I'll be sure to get a hardsave sent to you.
  • TrudeauIsSantaTrudeauIsSanta Member Posts: 161
    edited April 2016
    It happened again when I went to turn in the Silver Eggs and wrap up Chapter 5. I got a huge performance dip when walking towards the dragon and then the game crashed. The crash has only happened once, but the huge dip in framerate has happened every single time I approach her.

    My *best* uneducated guess is it has something to do with the rendering of her in Dragon form, as once she morphs into human at the end, the performance is restored. Might also be why the Underdark general zone was laggy for me to the point of CTD until I had cleared it out as well... maybe some of the monsters that spawn there are overtaxing the engine somehow?

    My stab in the dark. Anyway, here you go, and again, if I encounter this again on another playthrough, I'll be sure to get a hardsave in that area.
  • TrudeauIsSantaTrudeauIsSanta Member Posts: 161
    Crashing like a mofo now. New save coming.
  • TrudeauIsSantaTrudeauIsSanta Member Posts: 161
    edited April 2016
    Level up the main character, then go through each character looking at their wizard and priest spellbooks. Crash crash crash crash crash. I'm going to try rolling back from 2.1 and see if that fixes it.

    EDIT: Rolling back to 2.0 didn't fix it. Going to try rolling back to 1.3. This time it also crashed just from leveling up the main character. Right at the end of the game. Great.

    EDIT 2: Rolling back to 1.3 fixed this. Not only that, but moving things around in the Inventory feels a lot smoother than it has in 2.0 and 2.1.

    EDIT 3: Still no problems. I will say this though: Aside from this issue, 2.0 is absolutely a huge improvement on 1.3. The UI updates and sprite outline makes the entire game far easier on the eyes (as does the better font). The sprites and backgrounds look a lot cleaner in 2.0/2.1 as well. The party AI is a lot better too. The game overall is a lot more enjoyable. Just this crash issue... which is obviously quite significant... getting in the way.
    Post edited by TrudeauIsSanta on
  • Gate70Gate70 Member, Developer Posts: 3,883
    Looking at the saves now. In the meantime please could you provide diagnostics as below, assuming this is for Windows.

    Press the “Win + R” key to open RUN dialog box. Type dxdiag, and click/tap on OK
    Once the diagnostic finishes (a few seconds), click save all information
    Drop the resulting txt file into the 'leave a comment' section here.
    Thanks
  • TrudeauIsSantaTrudeauIsSanta Member Posts: 161
    Done.
  • Gate70Gate70 Member, Developer Posts: 3,883
    I can't reproduce the issue, no slowdown or crash with either save. You could try it in Windowed Mode (Alt/Enter) with Task Manager (Ctrl/Shift/Esc) in view to observe CPU, Memory and Disk. Then approach her and report what happens to those values.

    The dxdiag report indicates your GEFORCE 210 has driver Version: 9.18.13.4195 dated 1/29/2016

    The Nvidia website indicates the latest driver is GEFORCE 341.95 DRIVER dated 16 March 2016, so a different date. The driver before that has a date of November 2015. Either I'm looking at the wrong product (e.g. you have a vendor specific driver), or your driver may not be the correct one for your graphics card (which sounds doubtful to me).

    I used http://www.nvidia.com/Download/index.aspx?lang=en-us with these search criteria
    GEFORCE
    GEFORCE 200 SERIES
    GEFORCE 210
    Windows 7 64-bit
    English (tried US then UK so that could be a variant)

    You should have the option to try the auto-detect function on that page, to see what that suggests.
    Thanks

    n.b. if your rollback to v1.3 overwrote/reverted the 2.n versions, you should be able to copy the 1.3 folder so you have 1.3 and 2.n side-by-side until we make progress with your report.
  • TrudeauIsSantaTrudeauIsSanta Member Posts: 161
    edited April 2016
    Updated driver. Still get performance dip at the dragon, and the levelup save file... load it up, switch to Aerie. Hit "W". Go to spell page 8 or 9. Then hit "P". Crashes every time. It actually does this on every save file I have. Only with Aerie, only when going to Wizard page 8 or 9 and then switching to the Priest book. I only get the dip in the Underdark areas in 2.0/2.1 (even with sprite outlines and grayscale on pause - the new features - disabled), and not when rolled back to 1.3.

    When running BG2EE in windowed mode, this performance issue is gone. The crash from the Wizard to Priest book remains though.

    I also went and ran BG2 Original and warped to the Underdark Area. Got the Light Gem and ran to the room with the Dragon. No slowdown. Then downloaded the Widescreen Mod and set it to the same resolution this system runs BG2EE at (1280*1024) and tried again. No slowdown.

    It's also worth noting I run the EE's at 60fps. Is this known to cause issues? Again I did this with BG1EE and SoD and had no problems, this is exclusively being an issue in BG2EE. And to further clarify, the test I just ran on BG2 original was also set to run at 60fps.
    Post edited by TrudeauIsSanta on
  • Gate70Gate70 Member, Developer Posts: 3,883
    edited April 2016
    Right, spellbook crash reported internally. As well as affecting Aerie, it can be reproduced by selecting e.g. Imoen's level 8 spellbook then switching to e.g. Jaheira, even if Imoen only has low level spells available.

    What screen resolution are you using - I tried fullscreen at 60fps and 90fps (only at 1366x768 admittedly) and the game ran fine.

    Edit; & does changing the renderer make any difference (directx will ignore the fps setting though, but worth testing to see if the performance dip is specific to OpenGL)
    SetPrivateProfileString('Graphics','Backend','0') OpenGL
    SetPrivateProfileString('Graphics','Backend','1') DirectX

    & if you are running multiple monitors can you have Task Manager visible on one while fullscreen on the other (can't remember if it will refresh)
    Thanks
  • TrudeauIsSantaTrudeauIsSanta Member Posts: 161
    edited April 2016
    Oh ok, didn't know the spellbook crash was a known issue.

    Using 1280x1024. I did the "Alternate Renderer" on and off in-game, and it made no difference. I'll try doing a direct edit of the ini to switch it and get back to you.

    One monitor.

    EDIT: Ok, so forcing DirectX didn't make a difference. The "dip" is actually interesting - it isn't some random performance dip. Like, I'm not going from 60 to 22 (which would be sub-30 the game is "suggested" to run at), or 60 to 43. It goes from 60 to 30, or if I have the rate set to 45, it goes from 45 to 30. It only occurs when the Dragon is in the scene - when I scroll the camera to get her out of it, even in that same zone, the rate will return to 60. So... DirectX capping at 30fps I suppose didn't make a difference, since she seems to drop the game to 30 anyway.

    Is her model somehow forcing the game to cap at 30 no matter what? I would think the frame drop to 30 could be the game trying to force vsync even when a dip from 60 occurs, but if that were something the game did I'd think that'd be happening when I was running it at 45fps.

    Here's a picture of her in my game as well - there are a couple "lines" on her model (not sure what the actual term is you'd use) - might this have something to do with it? It might be hard to see, the easiest one to notice is on her right wing.



    Screenshot of her in the original for comparison (notice no lines on her either):



    Post edited by TrudeauIsSanta on
  • Gate70Gate70 Member, Developer Posts: 3,883
    Hi
    The spellbook crash wasn't a known issue, I created it based on your initial report.

    How are you monitoring frame rate? It's not something I usually do, but having tried with Steam I'm seeing circa 60fps with Adalon on screen.



    (& yes, black lines in sprites has been reported elsewhere - believe I used Thaxxy in the repro for that)
  • TrudeauIsSantaTrudeauIsSanta Member Posts: 161
    edited April 2016
    FRAPS, I have the GoG version. I don't know if the Galaxy client has a built-in monitor... I'll take a look...

    EDIT: I don't see a frame-rate monitor in Galaxy client. But, switched back to my 1.3 version of BG2EE, no lines on the Dragon sprites there, and the 60fps is also maintained around her:


  • TrudeauIsSantaTrudeauIsSanta Member Posts: 161
    edited April 2016
    So here's what I've noticed:

    1.3 - No lines, 60fps.

    2.0 - Lines, 60fps.

    2.1 - Lines, 30fps.

    The best I could do for you at this point is to make a video of each back to back, that might cause more performance issues but I guess I'll see...

    EDIT: Yeah when I record in that area it drops even more so it's not going to be helpful... I *did* notice though that the 30fps only occurs at certain zoom levels. At about 50% - total zoom in is where the 30fps cap is, when zoom out beyond that it goes to 60fps again (2.1 issue only).

    EDIT2: To clarify... I've noticed that whenever I have frame loss in the game, it's actually due to the zoom. It has nothing to do with the Dragon, that and the Underdark is just where I first noticed it (this would've been shortly after I installed 2.1). Whenever I get frame loss, I zoom out, and it's fine.
    Post edited by TrudeauIsSanta on
  • TrudeauIsSantaTrudeauIsSanta Member Posts: 161
    edited April 2016
    I just realized, the screenshot you posted where it was running 60fps at the Dragon was in windowed. Which I said solved the problem for me as well. Full-screen...

    I will just stick to 2.0 for now and see if this ever gets addressed. How long did it take for BG1's endless combat music to get fixed? Job security.
  • Gate70Gate70 Member, Developer Posts: 3,883
    I had checked in fullscreen, however the subsequent screenshot didn't show FPS. I re-opened the game and took another screenshot with Alt/Prtscr without thinking about the mode - I tend to window apps before closing them.

    Anyway, screen capture below showing 60fps on an integrated graphics card (Intel HD). I did a longer test checking each zoom level from one extreme to the other with no degradation.

    You could try something like GPU-Z to see whether one part of your system is spiking. I had a version from 2014 so tried it with a fullscreen walk around the dragon.

  • TrudeauIsSantaTrudeauIsSanta Member Posts: 161
    edited April 2016
    It says 60fps but that definitely isn't running at 60fps. Are you not seeing the choppiness in movement? Video coming... it'll be lowquality though
  • Gate70Gate70 Member, Developer Posts: 3,883
    The choppiness is in recording that is only set to 10fps otherwise my computer won't record it. I think I'll stop here thanks.
  • TrudeauIsSantaTrudeauIsSanta Member Posts: 161
    edited April 2016
    Ignore the green counter at the top, that's the recording rate, the red one is the in-game. GPU-Z 0.7.9 spits will come next. 1.3 is first, then 2.0, then 2.1 (when FPS issue begins).
  • TrudeauIsSantaTrudeauIsSanta Member Posts: 161
    edited April 2016
    GPU-Z logs from 0.7.9 (same you were using). The beginning and tail end of each log is before and after alt-tabbing in to the dragon scene.

    1.3 and 2.1 usages look almost identical so there's clearly something else going on here. Your test is on an Intel chipset and having no issues, mine is on Nvidia so it could be a compatibility problem introduced by 2.1.
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