CTD at dunkerque?

[fo3]

I've been playing SH3 for the first time in years.
Running GWX 3.0 gold.
I know CTD was a big deal back in the day, but so far been playing for weeks without issues. Now up to patrol # 9 and the game keeps crashing at the same spot.

It's May 1940 I think, belgium has surrendered, Denmark shows up as axis too.
I was given a patrol in the north near norway, and during that time told allies evacuating from dunkerque.
So after I finished my patrol grid given I headed south.

Every time I get off the coast of dunkerque it slows down and does a CTD.

So has this happened to anyone else? Is it a GWX thing, a overload of traffic that should be there at that location.
Or after ages of stable play has something else gone wrong in my setup?
It's worth asking though if this has happened to anyone else, ie this exact same time and place.

[Gargamel]

the Dunkirk campaign i believe is heavily scripted in GWX, you may just be running out of resources.

[Gerald]

It has not happened to me before in that place that you describe, perhaps it was just a coincidence

[fo3]

the Dunkirk campaign i believe is heavily scripted in GWX, you may just be running out of resources.
As in PC?
This is an old system I knocked up with win xp to play old games, but it's no slouch for the era really. I have newer and faster gear but the old games I play like SH3 and red alert don't like new OS.
Anyway, this old system I'm using is an AMD 4400+ dual core (s939), 2GB RAM and an ATI X850 GTO. Basically the system I was using 3 years ago before I upgraded to my current win7 system.


edit:
^^
Didn't just happen once though. Once is a coincidence and it happened the three times I tried to reload and re try.
Maybe it is explained above though, and just need a reboot of PC and try again.


late edit:

OK I try again after a reboot.
I don't take the risk of going too close to dunkerque this time, I pass by about 40mi off the coast, no problems.
No ships in sight, flat calm water. I figure I'm way late and it's all over anyway, bu the TC is running a little weird, like heaps of things are supposed to be around me. It may just be me or this PC, but when using high TC around ports and harbours usually it is a little jumpy and skipping. So because of that I figure something must be there, so I turn around to do another pass.

4 war ships and 1 ocean liner heading towards me.
I go to periscope depth and start to line up the ocean liner...


And another CTD!

[Gargamel]

the 2gb of ram is killing ya.

That's what's doing it.

I usually run about 1.5gb of ram being used by SH3, and that's not including everything else the computer needs to do.

I don't take the risk of going too close to dunkerque this time, I pass by about 40mi off the coast, no problems.Dunno if you mean Km or miles, as the game is in Km, but the render range is about 50km. So you're still rendering those ships. Your system is just getting overloaded.

You should be able to find 4gb of ram for that machine for about $20 online.

As for the new OS, there's a few threads on here about making them work on the newer machines. This game may be older, but it's still a decent resource Hog. It doesn't do 15 minute load times for nuttin!

[fo3]

OK thanks. Got heaps of this era stuff laying around, it's DDR1 though, and 4 sticks not friendly with this era mobo I think. But I do have more lying around to try.

I've long abandoned the idea though of going near dunkerque. I had 4 attempts without a CTD (it really only does a CTD when I go near the french shore). It's weird though as I have chased and been chased by two convoys and not had problems. IE chased the convoy with the ocean liner while being chased by the warship taskforce, and a few aircraft has been into the mix and it wont CTD unless I go near the french shore.

Anyway, with the system as it currently is, after 4 CTDs, I tried again a few more times without any CTD by stay far away from dunkerque itself.
One time from the north to intercept in the middle of the channel.
Warship task force cleaned me up (got ran over, couldn't repair damage in silent mode)

next attempt, avoided that warship task force that shows up really late (they start firing before I've even spotted them), but didn't find any ships by the time I got near.

Last attempt, boot it west to dover to intercept rather than i) risk CTD by being near france, ii) avoid the warship taskforce from the north. Didn't work out so good, air craft in the area, so again had to submerge and couldn't get into position for anything.

So I've given up in the area completely anyway. Bugged out and headed north, tried to intercept a convoy heading NW from the aberdeen area, but missed my two shots, so now the long journey back to Kiel. Empty handed with nothing to show for it for the first time since patrol #1

[Fish In The Water]

the 2gb of ram is killing ya.

That's what's doing it.

I usually run about 1.5gb of ram being used by SH3, and that's not including everything else the computer needs to do.

Start shutting down services...

Anything you don't absolutely need should be (temporarily at least) disabled. You'll find the extra resources will go a long way toward 'ironing out' these kind of ills.

[fo3]

It's a pretty bare bones xp install, not much running when I checked the task manager.
Just mainly SH3 using 1.2GB and the video drivers using 64MB, about 14 other processes running using 10MB or less, mainly related to system or video/audio so I can't do anything about them.
Anyway, I found 2x512MB RAM sticks in the shed, installed them and then had to fiddle with the BIOS for windows XP 32 to detect 2.7GB RAM installed.
So going by what SH3 was using (1.2GB), I've got over 1GB headroom now, and I 'll see if it runs any better next time I have the time to play a patrol.

[HW3]

I've gone right into Dunkirk harbor during the evacuation and torpedoed ships with no crash before using GWX. It is the lack of ram that is doing it to you.

:salute: