[Multicore PC] Possible Workaround for game crashing/freeze during map/instance transitions

deokkent · November 2015

Title edited for clarity and transparency.

Some players have seen their game client crash or hang suddenly/randomly during map transfers. I found a possible workaround and I am posting this here for visibility. I found this workaround (not a FIX!) in the bug subforum. Solution 2 seems to work for multicore machines when attempting a map transition that results in freezing and crashing of the client process.

Solution 1 (easy)

1. Launch game.
2. Click options at character selection screen.
3. Go to advanced tab
4. Turn on reduced file streaming and click OK to confirm.

Solution 2 (moderately easy)

1. Open taskmanager
2. Click details tab.
3. Right click Gameclient.exe
4. Set affinity.
5. Select only one core instead of all and OK.

Solution 2 is a very strange workaround but it seems to work. You can set affinity for all cores again once the transition is completed, it's only necessary for smooth map loading.

I got the idea from here. Tested with a Windows 10 build with elevated privileges (admin session).

dirlettia · November 2015

I did post in one of the threads what to change in the shortcut to to do this automatically for STO at launch time but cant find it now. I wont repost in case the devs deleted the last one considering it a slight.

Edit to add for me I have found running sto on one core to be just fine and the other power is wasted anyhow so no need to keep changing after map transfers.

rickdanko · November 2015

I'm getting "access denied" when I try to set affinity.

darkbladejk · November 2015

how much have you guys tested this and what not? the OP included a link to it as the word, here.

I highly doubt they would consider it a slight. actually the more people test the more it could help narrow down the issue. just curious as to what degrees of success has been had on varying builds.

dirlettia · November 2015

Make sure you are not running the game as an administrator as this apparently blocks you being able to set affinity.

dirlettia · November 2015

Okay posting here my original post on this subject:

dirlettia wrote: »

Since changing my command line to start the game to the following I have had no freezes between transfers at all:

C:\Windows\System32\cmd.exe /C start "" /affinity 2 "L:\SteamLibrary\steamapps\common\Star Trek Online\Star Trek Online.exe"

The purpose of the command is to start the game using only 1 core, in this case core 1, so that it minimises the chance of a speedy computer managing to put itself into race or deadlock conditions and hence proceed as normal. This will only work on a computer with 2 or more physical cores but the chances are that you would not be freezing if you had 2 or less anyway.

The first part is the link to open a command prompt by the PC and then uses a system call to start which takes an argumnt called affinity and a number. the numbers are 1 for core 0, 2 for core 1, 4 for core 2, 8 for core 3 etc and adding the values of all the cores you wish to use tells the command which processors to use, ie 1 will use core 0, 2 will use core 1 but 3 will use core 0 and 1. The last bit is just the path to where the game is installed and as usual any spaces in the path mean the entire thing has to be surrounded by quotes. This is entered in the shortcut to the launcher and not in the command line option within the launcher.

rickdanko · November 2015

I checked and I'm not running as an admin, yet still can't change affinity.

ancientfighter · November 2015

OMG!!! Finally some solution, i already reinstalled the game, cpu formatted, all drivers updated, overclock (lol), and more, I will test it right now and say tomorrow if it was resolved. Thank you so much!

ancientfighter · November 2015

the short time I tested only noticed the lag size caused by skills, and before was always smooth even using any kind of ability. I believe it works yes, but I give up, I'll stay in elder scrolls until the game decide who should play it.

dsaris · November 2015

It's odd... I've got a quad core CPU, my wife's rig has a 6 core. Neither of us have ever experienced any crashes or freezes.

questerius · November 2015

There is an easier way to fix this.

Ingame go to options > advanced > reduced file streaming on

Once i changed that setting the map transfer crashes stopped. Been running crash free for the last two weeks now while prior to the change i had several freeze up a day.

smoketh2 · December 2015

I went into this being skeptical as everything I have tried before didn't seem to work as a workaround. Having tried this it has not only fixed my map transitions it has also improved the wait time on being able to click the play button in the character select and a whole lot of other problems I have been having with the game.

A big thank you to the person who found this.

Obviously the game runs quite slow only running on one core, a hyper-threaded one at that too, but the game is so much more stable now.

Cryptic - this is absolutely appalling. Fix your game so that it runs properly on multi-core computers that a good majority of your player base use! We shouldn't have to use workarounds as a substitute to bad bug fixing.

markhawkman · December 2015

Umm... I run on a quad (Win7)... Never noticed issues with the quad cores themselves.

What exactly does "reduced file streaming" do? Is that related to patch-on-demand?

I long ago realized patch-on-demand was the cause of most of my crashes, and disabled it. Sure it takes a while to patch, but the game runs better.

czertik321 · December 2015

if woraround 2 works every time...well than it showts that STO have poorly done multicore suport.....which is realy bad since multicore cpus are here for over 10 years.

markhawkman · December 2015

deokkent wrote: »

markhawkman wrote: »

Umm... I run on a quad (Win7)... Never noticed issues with the quad cores themselves.

What exactly does "reduced file streaming" do? Is that related to patch-on-demand?

I long ago realized patch-on-demand was the cause of most of my crashes, and disabled it. Sure it takes a while to patch, but the game runs better.

Nope, but pretty similar concept as patch-on-demand. Reduced file streaming helps by keeping streaming files from the disk into the RAM. I am not entirely sure why this produces results but it does.

hMmm.. Well I have a dual monitor setup, so the last time I played STO I put taskman on the other monitor. I noticed a drastic dip in CPU usage each time I did a map change.

Cores 0 and 2 seemed to be running the OS and game since they went up and down a bit but never flat lined.
Core 1 started to get used when there was higher load on 0 and 2.
Core 3 got used when load started to get high on 1.
1 and 3 would flat line during map transitions. No usage at all.

So it looks like the game purges a bunch of stuff from memory each time.

hypl · December 2015

I've had reduced file streaming on for a year or so now since these map transfer crashes started happening for me. Sometimes STO feels like it's progressively getting worse performance-wise.

markhawkman · December 2015

deokkent wrote: »

markhawkman wrote: »

deokkent wrote: »

markhawkman wrote: »

Umm... I run on a quad (Win7)... Never noticed issues with the quad cores themselves.

What exactly does "reduced file streaming" do? Is that related to patch-on-demand?

I long ago realized patch-on-demand was the cause of most of my crashes, and disabled it. Sure it takes a while to patch, but the game runs better.

Nope, but pretty similar concept as patch-on-demand. Reduced file streaming helps by keeping streaming files from the disk into the RAM. I am not entirely sure why this produces results but it does.

hMmm.. Well I have a dual monitor setup, so the last time I played STO I put taskman on the other monitor. I noticed a drastic dip in CPU usage each time I did a map change.

Cores 0 and 2 seemed to be running the OS and game since they went up and down a bit but never flat lined.
Core 1 started to get used when there was higher load on 0 and 2.
Core 3 got used when load started to get high on 1.
1 and 3 would flat line during map transitions. No usage at all.

So it looks like the game purges a bunch of stuff from memory each time.

I don't know. What you are describing feels totally normal to me. Unless you are saying STO may be purging memory that would certainly be essential to complete map/instance transitions for some multicore machines?

I'm saying that it does a whole LOT of file streaming each time you change maps.

ssbn655 · December 2015

???? Never an issue on this Quad core. I would suggest you set you system prefernces to maximum performence instead of the default factory "balanced settings" and get a piece of software like System Mechanic that has far more performence setting adjustments then the factory ones. I run mine at whats called Ultra Performence where all 4 cores are running at optimum and ram use by anything but the game is minimal. Wouldn't hurt to optimize you connection setting either. IMHO if you are running less then a 105 mbs connection I feel you are going to get some issues. I was running a 25mbs and had all kinds of freezing between maps had to upgrade to the 105 for my wifes work and what a difference it made.

markhawkman · December 2015

Well, I know I don't usually bother with it. I've only ever changed the settings for one specific game. It was an older game that wasn't coded with multi-threading in mind. So it didn't work right unless it only ran on one core.

ssbn655 · December 2015

deokkent wrote: »

ssbn655 wrote: »

???? Never an issue on this Quad core. I would suggest you set you system prefernces to maximum performence instead of the default factory "balanced settings" and get a piece of software like System Mechanic that has far more performence setting adjustments then the factory ones. I run mine at whats called Ultra Performence where all 4 cores are running at optimum and ram use by anything but the game is minimal. Wouldn't hurt to optimize you connection setting either. IMHO if you are running less then a 105 mbs connection I feel you are going to get some issues. I was running a 25mbs and had all kinds of freezing between maps had to upgrade to the 105 for my wifes work and what a difference it made.

You are assuming a lot here. What makes you think players experiencing these technical issues don't already have optimized builds/connection speeds?

No need to be an TRIBBLE guy. Gee ever think that there maybe people that haven't done the optimization? Plus how the frak do I know if the person has done that or not? Again stop being an TRIBBLE.

markhawkman · December 2015

deokkent wrote: »

markhawkman wrote: »

Well, I know I don't usually bother with it. I've only ever changed the settings for one specific game. It was an older game that wasn't coded with multi-threading in mind. So it didn't work right unless it only ran on one core.

I wonder why STO would be having this problem. It's very hard to pin down what the real culprit is, especially without having any real programming skills.

And that is why I did some tests running with Taskman open. I've not had any issues with using the default settings on my quad-core system. I did note that it loads a LOT of files each time you change maps though. I can't say I know why that would cause a crash though.

eighrichte · January 2016

Just as a quick note, I tried the first solution -- enabling Reduce File Streaming -- on my Mac client. Haven't had a map transfer crash since. Thanks for the tip!

[Multicore PC] Possible Workaround for game crashing/freeze during map/instance transitions

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