Silent Hunter 3 Blue Screen Crash

[timman2112]

Hey guys I'm new to the forums and to sub sims in general so I apologize if this isn't the right place for this question.

I bought Silent Hunter 3 during the latest Steam sale and I've been getting blue screen crashes about 15 to 45 minutes into gameplay.

I'm completely stumped because I have a pretty powerful laptop and all of my graphics/audio drivers are up to date.

Here are my system specs:
Windows 10
Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-3740QM CPU @ 2.70 GHz
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660M
8 GBs of RAM
64-bit

I've done some searching on the internet and I seem to be the only one with this problem so can anybody help me out? I also have the dump files of all of the crashes.

Thanks for the help.

[Aktungbby]

timman2112!:Kaleun_Salute: U R in the right place; hang tight; better tech assist than I will be along shortly!

[siege00]

hey Timman,

Is this stock SH3, or have you added anything to it? If it's stock, what version of it are you running? Not sure I know what ails you, but that info may help anyone that may have any ideas.

[adrians69]

Hi there, what graphics chipset has your laptop got? Blue screens are almost always driver related and you may have an unsupported chipset.

Adrian

[timman2112]

hey Timman,

Is this stock SH3, or have you added anything to it? If it's stock, what version of it are you running? Not sure I know what ails you, but that info may help anyone that may have any ideas.

Yep stock SH3, no mods. I believe it's also updated to version 1.4.

Hi there, what graphics chipset has your laptop got? Blue screens are almost always driver related and you may have an unsupported chipset.

Adrian

The chipset in my laptop is the Intel(R) HD Graphics 4000.


I've also tried running SH3 in compatibility mode with Windows XP (Service Pack 3) but that didn't work.

[siege00]

Very strange. Almost sounds like a heat issue. Is your laptop running very hot while playing the game? Do you play any other games on it? I know in the past I've run into items on laptops that peg the CPU or GFX cards and without good heat dissipation could result in bluescreens, but I'm not sure that's your problem. I haven't run into anything like that in years.

[timman2112]

Very strange. Almost sounds like a heat issue. Is your laptop running very hot while playing the game? Do you play any other games on it? I know in the past I've run into items on laptops that peg the CPU or GFX cards and without good heat dissipation could result in bluescreens, but I'm not sure that's your problem. I haven't run into anything like that in years.

Don't think it's a heat issue because I play more graphically intensive games that cause the computer fan to really crank and my computer never crashes when I play those games.

[timman2112]

I do have the dump files of you guys want to analysis them.

[siege00]

I can take a look at the dump files if you want to post them, but usually dumps have function calls and a bunch of other things that wouldn't give us actionable information unless I was actually developing the software and had access to the codebase and/or knew the base functions within the OS.

What may be happening is that the graphics, the way they were written to take advantage of hardware at the time, are over-stressing the current system. It can happen anytime older games are run on newer equipment since it's using legacy calls. At least that MAY be the problem.

You can always try modding it and see what happens, like trying to use a new UI (like Ahnenerbe's: http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=215433) just to see what happens. Do you know how to use JSGME to manage your addons?

I don't know that this will help, but maybe the updated dll along with a more modern resolution may make a difference.

[timman2112]

I'll go and give that a try and report back.

Also I can't seem to post the zip file containing all of the dump files, would you know how I can post em?

Oh and thanks for helping me thus far siege00!

[siege00]

I'll go and give that a try and report back.

Also I can't seem to post the zip file containing all of the dump files, would you know how I can post em?

Oh and thanks for helping me thus far siege00!

My pleasure. Hope to help you get running. :) You may have to post it to a public site like a shared dropbox file, or something like that. I think the forums have a limit on attachments otherwise the storage requirements for the site would be insane based on the years it's been up and running. Not sure if we'll figure this out, but it won't be for lack of trying.

[timman2112]

So I tried using Ahnenerbe's 1920x1080 resolution mod you directed to me just to see if it would help but I still bluescreened and this time it crashed within minutes..

Here are those dump files if you want to take a look.

https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B0TRW1r6wpMMYW1SVEFKVmZ1QWc&usp=sharing

[siege00]

Will take a look tomorrow. I'm downloading a MS tool to open the files and it's going to take a little while. The tool to open the file is within the Windows Driver Toolkit, so it's most likely going to be some sort of driver issue. Hopefully it'll shed some light on it, but too early to tell. I still think it's a call that the software has made that isn't fully supported anymore. I don't know if it's the Intel chipset as Adrians69 inquired, or the GTX.

Just out of curiosity at this point, are you using Nvidia drivers for your card or the OEM drivers that your laptop manufacturer published? What about the Intel drivers?

[timman2112]

Will take a look tomorrow. I'm downloading a MS tool to open the files and it's going to take a little while. The tool to open the file is within the Windows Driver Toolkit, so it's most likely going to be some sort of driver issue. Hopefully it'll shed some light on it, but too early to tell. I still think it's a call that the software has made that isn't fully supported anymore. I don't know if it's the Intel chipset as Adrians69 inquired, or the GTX.

Just out of curiosity at this point, are you using Nvidia drivers for your card or the OEM drivers that your laptop manufacturer published? What about the Intel drivers?

I'm using the GeForce drivers since the Nvidia card does all the heavy lifting for all my games. It's funny because I've had trouble with older Ubisoft games before (like Splinter Cell) where it wasn't playing nicely with the Nvidia card and would blue screen every once in a while.

[timman2112]

So I just tried an experiment. I disabled the nvidia card and just used the Intel HD Graphics 4000 and this time the game just crashed instead of blue screen so that's a slightly different result lol.

I was still using that 1920x1080 res mod also.

[siege00]

I'm using the GeForce drivers since the Nvidia card does all the heavy lifting for all my games. It's funny because I've had trouble with older Ubisoft games before (like Splinter Cell) where it wasn't playing nicely with the Nvidia card and would blue screen every once in a while.

I wasn't able to find any new information. The dump boiled down to an NTOSKrnl error, which is pretty generic. Have you tried running it in compatibility mode for something like WinXP SP2?

Other things that I read about in researching it stated possible issues with no longer native resolutions, and pushing too many frames per second, but I'm using an Nvidia card as well with no issues. An article I read also talked about using a utility to slow down / pin the frame rates at 30 or 32. You could try using Nvidia Inspector to try to lock the game's frame rates down and see if that helps.

All of this is now experimentation. lol. Wanna give those things a shot and post back?

Edit: There's also a setting in Nvidia control panel under "Adjust desktop size and position". In that section there is a "Scaling" option. You could also try adjusting the scaling mode and whether the scaling is performed on the GPU or the display. Again, don't know if this will help but it's worth a try. For reference, my desktop is set for Aspect Ration and GPU scaling. You could also try adjusting refresh rates.

[timman2112]

I wasn't able to find any new information. The dump boiled down to an NTOSKrnl error, which is pretty generic. Have you tried running it in compatibility mode for something like WinXP SP2?

Other things that I read about in researching it stated possible issues with no longer native resolutions, and pushing too many frames per second, but I'm using an Nvidia card as well with no issues. An article I read also talked about using a utility to slow down / pin the frame rates at 30 or 32. You could try using Nvidia Inspector to try to lock the game's frame rates down and see if that helps.

All of this is now experimentation. lol. Wanna give those things a shot and post back?

Edit: There's also a setting in Nvidia control panel under "Adjust desktop size and position". In that section there is a "Scaling" option. You could also try adjusting the scaling mode and whether the scaling is performed on the GPU or the display. Again, don't know if this will help but it's worth a try. For reference, my desktop is set for Aspect Ration and GPU scaling. You could also try adjusting refresh rates.

I may have fixed the problem. I downloaded that Nvidia Inspector you suggested and forced my graphics card to play SH3 at 30 fps, I've been playing for about 2 hours and I haven't crashed or got a bluescreen since. I'm also still using the 1920x1080 mod so I'm not sure if that is effecting anything.

[siege00]

That's awesome!!! Glad that there's a shot you're past it. Keep me posted. :D

[timman2112]

That's awesome!!! Glad that there's a shot you're past it. Keep me posted. :D

Been playing the game for a couple hours, no problem!

Thanks a lot for all of your help siege :up:

[siege00]

Been playing the game for a couple hours, no problem!

Thanks a lot for all of your help siege :up:

My pleasure. Glad it worked out! Enjoy your hunts. :salute:

[timman2112]

Hey sorry I know I'm reviving this thread again but I ran into more blue screen crashes.

So I tried playing SH3 again only this time I downloaded GWX 3.0. The game no longer blue screens during patrols (as it was before). However, now it bluescreens whenever I'm in the main menus.

Can anybody give me some help again? I have the dump files on hand. I would really appreciate it because I would love to play this game without any problems.

Thanks

[fastfed]

I would suspect you're running out of Vram, HD4000, surprised it could even run this game. As old as it is I think this game is using atleast a gig of Vram. (ill check tonight)

At least @1920x1080 , how much Vram are you allowing to share?

[timman2112]

I should note that I'm not using that 1920x1080 resolution mod as stated previously in the thread, I'm just playing the game at its native resolution.

So for the HD4000 it says that the Total Available Graphics Memory is 1792MB and Dedicated Video Memory is 32MB.

[timman2112]

It also seems like I blue screen in the patrol stats screen right after I finish a patrol. Just wanted to throw that out there.

[fastfed]

32 megs?? that seems weird..

Thats right now I guess, pretty sure the HD series will use whatever memory it feels it needs, personally I would just go into the bios and change the min. from 32 to say 256. It won't impact anything but if you are playing a game and there is a dip for whatever reason in Vram it could cause an issue.

[timman2112]

Went into the BIOS on bootup, there was no option to change the vram.