Question to fellow players about crashes.

djwinza

In the recent patch, I can only recall one time where my entire PC didn't crash and restart in less than 15 minutes of play. I've tried multiple other games, even ones from Cryptic/Arc including Star Trek Online, Neverwinter, Royal Quest, and Torchlight 2. I'm able to play all of these without a full PC crash and can do so for well over an hour.

Fact of the matter is my favorite game, Champions, is causing my PC to crash (completely restart) without fail and I'm wondering if anyone else is experiencing this issue. I have a PC meant for gaming and no other game from any other company or even this company has this happen.

Are there any other people experiencing full PC restarts while trying to play Champions Online?

If it helps, I have dual nVidia GeForce GTS 450s and 8GB RAM and an i5 quadcore.

biffsmackwell

Only time I ever crash is when I haven't cleaned my fans and my computer overheats. Aside from that I dunno what your problem might be. Maybe remove all game mods if you ever installed any.

chaelk

mine used to on the old computer but that was due to the video card. STO is the one I have problems getting to even let me in.
login timeout
login timeout
login 2 timeout
unable to findmap
login 2 timeout

run traceroute.
computer goes " doh, that's where you wanted to go" and lets me get a character in.

---

NVIDIA card, there was some problem with them this year, hit CO & STO,check under graphics settings.
I think there's a setting specifically for it. MY friend had to change it to that to get his to let him play.

yes despite the game supposedly made for Nvidia cards, there's ones which don't work on it and it's a random collection of numbers.

djwinza

I can't emphasize enough that it ONLY happens when I log into Champions and ONLY since the recent patch both went live and when it was on test. I hope it's simply a setting that no longer works with my PC, but I'm a little worried about logging in to check, y'know?

djwinza

So update: I have tried multiple things, same results... PC restarts after only a couple of minutes. I have made a list of everything I have tried below this line:

In game GFX settings, uninstalling/reinstalling, safe mode with the PC, safe mode with the game, half resolution, full screen, windowed, windowed full screen, avoiding other players, running an instanced mission, simply standing still, remaining in the character select screen.

I was incredibly excited to try out the new tutorial, but having the game it's self force my PC to restart before I can even create a character makes that impossible. I am NOT going to buy new hardware just so I can play a game that has worked beautifully on this same machine for the entirety of the time I've owned it. I also don't want to abandon the game since I have had a lifetime subscription since open beta.

My GFX cards are 2 nVidia GeForce GTS 450s.

I can't stress enough that they are NOT overheating since I had the onboard temperature open in a separate monitor on 2 of my tests and a physical thermometer on at least one of the others. It is something with this recent patch that added the new tutorial and I'm sure the company is losing revenue somewhere because people with my GFX cards are experiencing the same problem and abandoning the game without posting anything about this issue.

Fact of the matter is I want to play this game over all the others I have available and am unable to because of this bug. It is fully rendered unplayable as a result.

BiffSmackwell, you have seen my posts in the past, you're a fellow lifer from back in the day. You know I'm not trying to cause problems, I'm just trying to get this resolved so I can get back to playing the game and making more characters.

biffsmackwell

I meant I don't know what your issue with your game is, not that you're causing problems. :P​​

djwinza

Sorry, I wasn't insinuating that you thought that I was trying to cause trouble. I was just saying since you've seen some of my random stuff on the forums, that you knew I wouldn't be saying this unless it was true. I know, I'm really confusing sometimes. I pointed you out because since you're a well known and liked member of the community, that you could help amplify my plight so Cryptic can see if there was something they tweaked in this patch so they can fix it.

I'd be very happy to test any changes they can think of that could potentially alleviate this issue. I miss playing my toons >.<

nextnametaken

Run DXDiag.exe, save all the information, post it to a thread in the BUGS section where it belongs.

Try removing/disabling one of your video cards?
Did you choose a video card in the CO preferences...if you can even get that far.
Else look in the Cryptic Studios/Localdata/GamePrefs.prefs
Also in Cryptic Studios/Champions Online/Live/Localdata/GamePrefs.prefs

Change a value, save, try launching.
Something like:

Prefentry SystemSpecs.Numrealcpus 4

Prefentry SystemSpecs.Numvirtualcpus 4

Maybe yours should be 8?


I remember there was a weird instant crash and crash every few minutes bug for Fallout 3 that was fixed with this kind of quick text file and pointer to number of CPUs fix.

You do have On-Demand patching turned off and force verify on? If you keep booting up to a corrupt file it could keep crashing on that file, if On-Demand patching is off, the whole game will patch before it tries to access the data, force verify will double check the integrity of the files.

djwinza

nextnametaken, thank you for reminding me about the dxdiag. I've posted the DxDiag in a post I made in the bugs section before I wanted to know if anyone else was experiencing the same issue.

itsbrou

What happens when you visit your Windows event viewer to look at the time it crashed? Are you playing through Steam? Arc? Just the launcher?

djwinza

I've tried all versions (Arc, base game, Steam) both before and after re-installing and also in safe mode. None of them let my PC continue running for longer than about 15 minutes before it fully restarts. Windows event viewer doesn't show any of the reports of my having restarted. Also, the only thing that happens upon having restarted is it simply shows the "Windows shut down unexpectedly" black and white screen where you can choose safe mode (tried the game with the PC in safe mode w/networking too, same problem).

This has been since I tried the patch on test about a month ago, and alerted in the thread of that particular patch, that my PC fully crashed and restarted. It's been almost, if not over a month since Ravenswood was on test, and it still consistently restarts my PC, only now on live.

I posted a DxDiag on my original thread in the bugs section of the forums, but it looks like it's maybe gotten only 2 views since I posted it. I'm getting progressively more frustrated since I absolutely refuse to go and buy a brand new machine so I can play a game I have played with 0 issues both since it came out and in the time that I've owned this PC (longer than a year) all because something was added that now causes my PC to simply shut down, you know?

djwinza

They fixed this issue! Could a moderator close this thread, please?