TDM crashes randomly all the time

[Plutonia]

I've lurked around the tech support forum for answers but nobody seems to have the same crash as I do.

 

I've been trying to play the training mission that comes with TDM. I downloaded TDM with the updater just yesterday so it's the newest version. I updated DOOM3 to 1304 as was instructed. But when I play the mod, it crashes randomly. I can get through the object manipulation and archery traning areas with no problems, but in the combat area or the stealth training area it just randomly crashes. And when I load a savegame, it crashes every time. The crash is always the same. After loading a save, the game works for 1.5 seconds, the screen freezes, and there appears a small area in the middle of the screen where my mouse cursor is visible (DOOM3 doesn't let anything minimize itself, so it's the error message that's trying to view itself). When I press Ctrl-Alt-Del and go to the task manager, it's always the same. There are two error messages of DOOM3 crashing. So not only is the game crashing, it's doing it twice every time.

 

DOOM3 version = 1.3.1.1304

OS = Windows 7 Pro 32-bit 6.1 build 7601

Processor = AMD Phenom II X4 955 3.2GHz

Memory = 3GB DDR3

Graphics-card = NVidia GeForce GTS250 1024MB

Sound = Creative X-Fi 5.1 surround

[Sotha]

Just a vague guess, but...

 

Check your doomconfig.cfg.

 

Will it work better if you use change the corresponding params as shown here?

seta image_usePrecompressedTextures "1"

seta image_useNormalCompression "2"

seta image_useAllFormats "1"

seta image_useCompression "1"

seta image_preload "1"

 

Try to uninstall, reinstall and restart the mission after the changes.

[Plutonia]

Trying that out, thanks.

 

EDIT: Nope. Didn't work. Loading a save still makes the game crash after a second or two.

Edited July 30, 2011 by Plutonia

[Sotha]

Trying that out, thanks.

 

EDIT: Nope. Didn't work. Loading a save still makes the game crash after a second or two.

 

Same savegame or a different one? Also, there was this thread about savegame compression causing trouble for users. Check there, the problem was solved by disabling the compression.

http://modetwo.net/d...ashing-on-save/

 

Do note, that if you do changes, do not try to load the same savegame, but try to create a new one and test that.

 

For instance, the suggestion I gave initially prevents some memory-related crashes. If such a crash occured during save game creation, the save may be corrupted altogether.

[Plutonia]

So the compression needs to be "0" instead? It's funny that the first suggestion you gave could actually include the thing that's causing the problem. I'll try that now.

 

EDIT: Nope. Didn't do a thing. Still crashes on load. This time I got to see an actual error though, instead of just "DOOM3 stopped working" -message.

Edited July 30, 2011 by Plutonia

[Sotha]

So the compression needs to be "0" instead? It's funny that the first suggestion you gave could actually include the thing that's causing the problem. I'll try that now.

 

No! Texture compression and savegame compression are different things. Put the texture compression back on in the doomconfig.cfg.

 

Then, as instructed in the thread I pointed to, start the game and give the following command in the console:

tdm_savegame_compress 0

 

Now savegame compression is off and saving and reloading might work better, although your savegames will be much larger.

[Plutonia]

But doesn't that mean that every time I play I need to re-enter the command? Coulnd't I just add that command to the cfg-file?

 

EDIT: nevermind I found the command in the cfg. No need to add.

 

EDIT2: Even disabling the savegame compression makes no difference. Now I need to ask, are the config changes supposed to be made on the cfg file in the "darkmod" folder, or in the doom3 "base" folder? Because the changes I made were on the one in the darkmod folder.

Edited July 30, 2011 by Plutonia

[Sotha]

EDIT2: Even disabling the savegame compression makes no difference. Now I need to ask, are the config changes supposed to be made on the cfg file in the "darkmod" folder, or in the doom3 "base" folder? Because the changes I made were on the one in the darkmod folder.

 

Damn. That expends my capacity to help. Hopefully someone else chimes in with some better ideas.

 

You have done right, darkmod folder .cfg file is the one to edit. Base folder is of no consequence.

[Plutonia]

So this means I need to be hardcore, and never save. :|

[Bikerdude]

@Plutonia

 

Can you delete the doomconfig.config file from the darkmod folder and try and see how you go...? as that file sometimes gets corrupted and can cause weird issues.

[Plutonia]

@Plutonia

 

Can you delete the doomconfig.config file from the darkmod folder and try and see how you go...? as that file sometimes gets corrupted and can cause weird issues.

 

I did that, and then changed the parameters again once the file was regenerated. Now I saved near the training hub area, and the game didn't crash when I loaded. But in the hallway when you need to sneak by the first Builder guy, again as I saved there, the game crashed on load. So it looks like if you save exactly in that place, the loading crashes. I need to experiment some more.

[Springheel]

Does this happen with any other mission, or just the training mission? Some people with ATI cards reported odd crashes when specific textures were on screen, though I thought that was fixed (and you don't have an ATI card).

[Plutonia]

I just got the current version of the mod yesterday, and I haven't even managed to finish the training yet because of the crashes, so I haven't bothered to get other missions. It seems to work fine now though, except for the part where if I save in the hallway where the builder guy is sitting at his desk.

[Bikerdude]

Plutonia, it was mentioned in another thread that if your not running a vanilla copy of doom3 eg (as in r any of the ID expansion packs eg. Resurrection of Evil) you will have weird things happen...

[Plutonia]

Plutonia, it was mentioned in another thread that if your not running a vanilla copy of doom3 eg (as in r any of the ID expansion packs eg. Resurrection of Evil) you will have weird things happen...

 

I don't have RoE. Just DOOM3 patched to the version that was instructed.

 

Update to my situation: It seems that changing the parameters in the cfg has gotten rid of the random crashes I used to experience. I played St.Lucia yesterday and fortunately, loaded saves did not crash. So I need to conclude that the only reason why the saves kept crashing, was because I was always saving in that one spot in the training mission, where the builder dude is sitting at the desk. So, saving in that place = crash guaranteed. Someone might want to look into that. It's not nice that savegames work depending on which area you save in, and you have no idea whether it is safe to save.

[Serpentine]

You'll most likely find that doom3 is running out of usable memory. With 3gb and a 1gb gfx card, in 32bit windows this will leave 1gb for doom3 and most other applications to run, while this isn't always problematic for games, doom is very specific with its memory management and has a tendency to just flat out crash if it can not allocate things as it wants. Solving this of course is not something that's very easy. At the moment we use very memory intensive texture files as well as being limited to 32bit userspace addressing issues.

 

If I could suggest something, it would be to try decreasing texture quality either by using downsizing or enabling full runtime compression. Compression is most likely the best path,

try :

image_useCompression 1

image_useNormalCompression 2

 

If that doesnt work, fiddle with image_downSize and its verious related options (image_down<press tab>).

 

If everything looks terrible at the end of the day, revert it to what I'd consider the best option by using:

image_downSize 0

image_useCompression 0

image_useNormalCompression 2

image_usePrecompressedTextures 1

image_useAllFormats 1

[Tels]

I've lurked around the tech support forum for answers but nobody seems to have the same crash as I do.

DOOM3 version = 1.3.1.1304

OS = Windows 7 Pro 32-bit 6.1 build 7601

Processor = AMD Phenom II X4 955 3.2GHz

Memory = 3GB DDR3

Graphics-card = NVidia GeForce GTS250 1024MB

Sound = Creative X-Fi 5.1 surround

 

As Serpentine said, your hardware allows about 1 GByte usable memory for D3 (a 1 GByte video card + 3 Gbyte memory and a 32 bit windows is what should never have been sold to you...)

 

A likely improvement is (as strange as it sounds) to replace the video card with a 512 MByte version, OR upgrade your main memory to 4 Gbyte (this way you might have a few hundred MB more usable main memory), OR upgrade to a 64 bit operating system.

 

Preferable the two latter steps at the same time

[Springheel]

I used to have only 2GB of RAM and I almost never experienced random crashes.

[Bikerdude]

If it is a memory allocation issue with doom, then what's very likely happening is doom is maxing out allocated memory before it or windows actually run's out of memory.

 

@Plutonia, run the following util and patch your doom3.exe (4GB patcher), what this util does is allow doom3 to get past the 1.2GB mark (the point at which it would crash out)

[Tels]

I used to have only 2GB of RAM and I almost never experienced random crashes.

 

But did you have a 1Gbye video card? The more memory it has, the less memory is available to windows if you are running on a 32 bit system (because windows can only adress 32bit aka 4 Gbyte), it needs to reserve adress bits for the video memory. Thus you end up with less main memory that way.

[Bikerdude]

But did you have a 1Gbye video card? The more memory it has, the less memory is available to windows if you are running on a 32 bit system (because windows can only adress 32bit aka 4 Gbyte), it needs to reserve adress bits for the video memory. Thus you end up with less main memory that way.

Tels your confusing poor Plutonia, because your only partly right. What your describing only effects available system memory above the 3.25Gb mark on a 32bit version of windows. In Plutonia's case he/she will see all of the 3GB in his/her PC regardless of the amount of memory on their gfx card.

 

As my dad would say " I bet a pound toi a pinch of shit" that he Plutonia applies the 4GB patcher prog. like I have suggested a few posts above the crashing will stop all together because Doom3.exe will be able to address enough allocated and usable ram with out crashing or generating malloc errors.

[Tels]

Tels your confusing poor Plutonia, because your only partly right. What your describing only effects available system memory above the 3.25Gb mark on a 32bit version of windows. In Plutonia's case he/she will see all of the 3GB in his/her PC regardless of the amount of memory on their gfx card.

 

This a is not strictly true, depending on:

 

* BIOS

* CPU/mainboard

* what type of card

 

you can have less than 1 Gbyte, exactly 1 Gbyte or even more than 1 Gbyte memory "lost" to the OS.

 

https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/PCI_hole

 

There are a few tricks around this, but the far easiest for the user is to:

 

* use a 64 bit OS

* and install 4Gbyte or more memory in the system

 

On Windows, you are still running into the 2 Gbyte-per-process limit for 32 bit process (as D3 is one, unfortunately), but as you wrote, at least there is a patch that helps a bit.

 

Windows is just such a messy crapshot at an OS... *groan*

 

I am using 64 bit linux since quite a couple of years, and even my old PC here at home has 4 Gbyte memory and all of this is available to a single process. Even 3 Gbyte are available to the 32 bit D3 on this system. My work PC has 16 Gbyte memory. So I really can't quite understand why people are still trying to run 32 bit operating systems

[Bikerdude]

Ive been running Win7x64 for a while now, essentially after I was satisfied that 100% the hardware has a 64bit driver and that any 32bit apps I ran would work. But I still use WinXp in the MediaPC in the front room because of the old HDCP/DRM issue Vista/7 that prevents me from setting any display res above 640*480 and also because Xp boots faster than vista/7 does (which is a basic requirement of a living room device)

 

Anyway back to Plutonia's prob - if she/he applies the 4GB patcher it should fix the issue.

[Serpentine]

I used to have only 2GB of RAM and I almost never experienced random crashes.

I had 2gb until last week, from time to time I'd get outright crashes if I didn't restart after dmapping a large map or had been testing for a long time then started a large map - however that was with a 512mb card and 64bit. I read that as being mem related mostly because there was no pattern and the errors would usually be malloc related (if it was dmap) or trying to read protected mem if it was during a save/load. RTTC2 used 1.35gb of mem with everything max, 32bit will run into trouble around the 1.5gb mark with normal config and such. On a system like the OP/yours, this would mean that you're already pretty deep into pagefile land, which in turn lowers performance and other fun stuff.

 

New box has 16gb, no crashes to report so far.

 

On a related but different topic:

You can increase the user process space allocation up to 3gb on 32bit Windows (bcdedit /set IncreaseUserVA 3072). x64 does not require this.

[nbohr1more]

What is your Nvidia driver version?

Edited August 3, 2011 by nbohr1more