CTD Woes

Kurt Lange · 07-26-08, 11:19 AM

Just reregistered after a loooooooooooong time away ( so long I cant even remember what my log on was ) in the hope of some advice.

Just had the game crash in Patrol 15 of the WaW3 campaign. The screen goes black, the sounds persist for about 30 seconds, and then I'm dumped back to the desktop, only its in 800 X 600 resolution, and the colours are all corrupted. I get back to normal resolution ( 1152 X 864 ) by rebooting.

Had this happened three times now, each time while submerged and with enemy ships in sound and periscope contact. Updated the graphics driver, but it didn't stop the third crash happening.

XP
P4 3.2 Mhz
Nvidia 6600 256 Mb
1Gb DDR

NYGM 3.0
SH3 Commander 3.1

Any help ( or sympathy ) will be gratefully received.

Pisces · 07-26-08, 11:51 AM

Last week I had SH3 crash me back to a reboot several times. (worst of all, when I encountered my very first convoy ever even got some hits in it) I never had that before. Then I noticed my videocard fan was quite dusty. And a fan inside my case started to make more noise than usual this week. I cleaned it and ran perfectly since then (many hours). I think those chips got too hot. Maybe that's your problem too.

Cheapskate · 07-26-08, 12:53 PM

As Pisces says, heat problems would be the first thing to suspect with graphics corruption probs particularly if they came on suddenly with no previous warning.

Didn't realise that until couple of months ago when I got some strange artifacts followed by a CTD. Switched off, rebooted and all was well....for about 10 mins...then wallop, another CTD.

The following day, suddenly had the thought the graphics card might need reseating...opened case up. Couldn't even see the circuits on the back of the card for a thick layer of dust. The CPU heatsink and fan were even worse. And here was me thinking that the gauze filters on the front of my case, would stop all the rubbish getting in

.

The graphics card (or CPU :hmm: ) never did recover...I could run Windows OK but nothing 3D. Now I hoover out the case every month.

Really hope you haven't left it too late like what I did!!

Kurt Lange · 07-26-08, 01:04 PM

Thanks guys: the overheating problem was something I considered first time it happened a couple of weeks ago. I blew out my graphics card fan and CPU fan with compressed air, not that they were particularly dirty anyway.

This seems to happen only in SH3. I have other graphics-intensive games like FSX and COD2, which run without a problem.

Cheapskate · 07-26-08, 01:55 PM

Lucky You. You haven't killed anything!

You don't say whether a save was involved prior to all this. If it was, maybe the following may throw some light on the subject:-

http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/show...6&postcount=37

If this isn't the reason then your PC may just be suffering from the strain from running WAC3 ( assuming you meant this rather than WAW...apologies if you didn't!). This is a very demanding version graphically and memorywise. I don't have the worst system in the world but WAC slows it down to a crawl. Moreso than any other version I've played.

It seems that that a reboot before trying to run WAC does sometimes make things a little smoother. NB this view is very subjective.....don't have any FPS data to support it.

You also mentioned sound, and I'm wondering if your card acceleration is a little too high. Maybe bring it down a notch or two in the Control Panel???

Letum · 07-26-08, 10:39 PM

Letum's tips to prevent CTDs:

If running windows XP disable those information baloons that pop up in the taskbar. To do this see the bottom of my post.
Close down all programs you are not using. EndItAll is a good program to help with this.
If you are not playing online, disconnect your PC and turn off any anti-virus or firewalls.
Be very careful when doing anything above. If you don't know what you are doing and the effects it will have, then don't do it. Any changes you make are at your own risk.

Disableing pop-up Baloons (XP ONLY).
Pop-up Baloons caused crashes on SH3 for me every time one popped up. To fix this:

Quote:

Copy the following into notepad...

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\... ntVersion\Explorer\Advanced]
"EnableBalloonTips"=dword:00000000

...and save the file as disableballoons.reg
Double-click on that disableballoons.reg, restart your computer and no more balloons

The above changes fixed all my crashes and SH3 runs very stable for me now.

nirwana · 07-27-08, 03:46 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kurt Lange

J

XP
P4 3.2 Mhz
Nvidia 6600 256 Mb
1Gb DDR

NYGM 3.0
SH3 Commander 3.1

Except for the 3.2 Mhz CPU (i had a 2.7) i had the same hardware as u until i tried WAC3. I had huge prob to even get out of range of the homeport without ctding. A major hardware upgrade fixed it. Alternativ i would have to drop wac3 since all other supermods just worked fine with this hardware.

07-26-08, 11:19 AM	#1
Kurt Lange Seaman Join Date: Jul 2008 Location: Cambridge UK, AN7559 Posts: 32 Downloads: 0 Uploads: 0	CTD Woes Just reregistered after a loooooooooooong time away ( so long I cant even remember what my log on was ) in the hope of some advice. Just had the game crash in Patrol 15 of the WaW3 campaign. The screen goes black, the sounds persist for about 30 seconds, and then I'm dumped back to the desktop, only its in 800 X 600 resolution, and the colours are all corrupted. I get back to normal resolution ( 1152 X 864 ) by rebooting. Had this happened three times now, each time while submerged and with enemy ships in sound and periscope contact. Updated the graphics driver, but it didn't stop the third crash happening. XP P4 3.2 Mhz Nvidia 6600 256 Mb 1Gb DDR NYGM 3.0 SH3 Commander 3.1 Any help ( or sympathy ) will be gratefully received.

07-26-08, 11:51 AM	#2
Pisces Silent Hunter Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: AN9771 Posts: 4,904 Downloads: 304 Uploads: 0	Last week I had SH3 crash me back to a reboot several times. (worst of all, when I encountered my very first convoy ever even got some hits in it) I never had that before. Then I noticed my videocard fan was quite dusty. And a fan inside my case started to make more noise than usual this week. I cleaned it and ran perfectly since then (many hours). I think those chips got too hot. Maybe that's your problem too.

07-26-08, 12:53 PM	#3
Cheapskate XO Join Date: Apr 2005 Location: Darkest Essex Posts: 403 Downloads: 47 Uploads: 0	As Pisces says, heat problems would be the first thing to suspect with graphics corruption probs particularly if they came on suddenly with no previous warning. Didn't realise that until couple of months ago when I got some strange artifacts followed by a CTD. Switched off, rebooted and all was well....for about 10 mins...then wallop, another CTD. The following day, suddenly had the thought the graphics card might need reseating...opened case up. Couldn't even see the circuits on the back of the card for a thick layer of dust. The CPU heatsink and fan were even worse. And here was me thinking that the gauze filters on the front of my case, would stop all the rubbish getting in . The graphics card (or CPU :hmm: ) never did recover...I could run Windows OK but nothing 3D. Now I hoover out the case every month. Really hope you haven't left it too late like what I did!!

07-26-08, 01:04 PM	#4
Kurt Lange Seaman Join Date: Jul 2008 Location: Cambridge UK, AN7559 Posts: 32 Downloads: 0 Uploads: 0	Thanks guys: the overheating problem was something I considered first time it happened a couple of weeks ago. I blew out my graphics card fan and CPU fan with compressed air, not that they were particularly dirty anyway. This seems to happen only in SH3. I have other graphics-intensive games like FSX and COD2, which run without a problem.

07-26-08, 01:55 PM	#5
Cheapskate XO Join Date: Apr 2005 Location: Darkest Essex Posts: 403 Downloads: 47 Uploads: 0	Lucky You. You haven't killed anything! You don't say whether a save was involved prior to all this. If it was, maybe the following may throw some light on the subject:- http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/show...6&postcount=37 If this isn't the reason then your PC may just be suffering from the strain from running WAC3 ( assuming you meant this rather than WAW...apologies if you didn't!). This is a very demanding version graphically and memorywise. I don't have the worst system in the world but WAC slows it down to a crawl. Moreso than any other version I've played. It seems that that a reboot before trying to run WAC does sometimes make things a little smoother. NB this view is very subjective.....don't have any FPS data to support it. You also mentioned sound, and I'm wondering if your card acceleration is a little too high. Maybe bring it down a notch or two in the Control Panel???