911 FR Full crash (computer shuts off)

[maverick7689]

I downloaded 911 FR from amazon a few days ago, and installation went fine. When I started to play my computer just shuts off after a while of playing (it could be a minute or two or it could be 20 min). I also installed the LA Mod, but the computer shuts off just the same with it installed or not. To describe the "crash" a little better: I will be playing a mission and all of a sudden the computer shuts off, no freeze or anything, it just plain turns off, like someone removed the battery. I have updated the BIOS, graphics card, directx, audio drivers, etc, anything I could think of before posting on here. I realize I have a dynlight error, but I have updated the graphics card and checked and rechecked that I installed correctly/downloaded the most current drivers. It doesnt seem to be an overheating issue because I have cleaned the dust out and I can play much more taxing games without the computer having any problems (civilization 5, sims 3, tropico 4, etc). It makes me think there's some issue with the software with the game I downloaded (from amazon), I have redownloaded and reinstalled, but nothing helps. I can't think of anything else to do, I have posted the log file and dxdiag. Any help would be greatly Appreciated.

Dell 1555 Laptop

Intel core 2 duo 2.8 GHz

4GB RAM

ATI Mobility Radeon 4500/5100 series

[attachment=12462:logfile.txt]

[attachment=12463:DxDiag.txt]

logfile.txt

DxDiag.txt

[CFDDIVE11]

I don't a solution but whenever i download games from amazon i have problems like that, it might just be easier for you to buy a hard copy of the game and maybe contact amazon to see if they have anything to say about it.

[maverick7689]

Ya I considered that, but I have a hard copy of EM3 (which worked fine on my old desktop) and it did the same thing, so I thought it might be just that game and this computer not working well together, so I thought I'd get EM4 and maybe that would fix it (besides I just wanted EM4 haha). So that makes me hesitant to buy another copy of EM4, and other guys have the amazon copy and they work, so idk, this issue is really getting me.

[EmergencyFan97]

Might be your laptop. Dell is a rather shitty brand. Also, next time it does this, check your laptop for heat. I've had problems with my old Dell overheating rather badly. Always make sure to play on a hard surface with the laptop able to properly vent.

[theparanoid]

I think it likely do the fact you only have 249 MB of Video Ram.

The rest is taken from system ram.

|Vision Core: Resized memory for Entities to 1779 kB.

at that point you using almost halve of your system ram for Video. Leaving you only 2gb ram for windows and what the game needs in ram to run.

[maverick7689]

Emergencyfan97---I play on a desk and have cleaned the case, and I play much more demanding games and the laptop fans runs higher and the computer is hotter and has no trouble staying on and working correctly, so I have somewhat ruled that out

Theparanoid----not sure I follow what you're getting at, I can play much more demanding games (like gta IV) without issues. I have even lowered the graphics settings on em4 to see if that helped, but it made no difference. The game plays fine and does not lag or anything up to the point where the computer just shuts off. I would think if ram/VRAM were the issue it would lag, freeze and or crash to the desktop not shut the whole computer off.

I periodically see something in the log file about not being able to load muscle frame textures/ no skeleton or something to that effect, could this be a missing file issue or something to do more with my computer hardware?

[theparanoid]

Emergencyfan97---I play on a desk and have cleaned the case, and I play much more demanding games and the laptop fans runs higher and the computer is hotter and has no trouble staying on and working correctly, so I have somewhat ruled that out

Theparanoid----not sure I follow what you're getting at, I can play much more demanding games (like gta IV) without issues. I have even lowered the graphics settings on em4 to see if that helped, but it made no difference. The game plays fine and does not lag or anything up to the point where the computer just shuts off. I would think if ram/VRAM were the issue it would lag, freeze and or crash to the desktop not shut the whole computer off.

I periodically see something in the log file about not being able to load muscle frame textures/ no skeleton or something to that effect, could this be a missing file issue or something to do more with my computer hardware?

As I said sounds like you do not have enough ram to load the game. I use to try play this game on my laptop. But I gave up. Because issue. In fact the first computer I had that run the game right is my current one. ANd that a

6 Core AMD Phenom X6

With 8GB of ram and

Nvidia GeForceGTX 560Ti with 4GB of video ram.

With the game on SSD hard drive.

And it still take 10 to 15 minutes to load the mods.

Oh I have EM4

EM4 Dexlue and 911

[maverick7689]

The computer has no trouble loading, it starts right up and loads in under a minute, la mod takes roughly a minute to two minutes to load. Then plays absolutely fine, no lag, nothing like that, all graphics show up fine, but it randomly shuts off. Graphics issues or lack of ram/vram would lag and crash to the desktop. I experienced lag and such with gta IV, but never ever had the computer shut off, but once or twice it would "stop responding" and crash to the desktop, and that was with all kinds of mods. That being said my computer is plenty capable of playing the game, I played just fine with an older computer (I used to have) with lower specs.

[Xandarb]

You haven't overclocked your cpu have you? Overclocking caused these kinds of issues for me on my one year old semi highend desktop , but I fixed it by resetting the clock. (and eventually I started overclocking again, but that's irrelevant)

As stated earlier, overheating of the CPU can cause these kinds of problems with that distinctive delayed effect. The CPU could overheat even with standard clocks especially if it's a laptop. Try to cool it down mate! It doesn't matter that it your computer runs gta or whatever, different games use your computer in different ways, especially when there's a big time difference between the games in question. (multithreading vs single thread, blah blah.). I built a platform (first out of books, then I refined it with some Lego ) for my laptop so that air could run beneath it freely.

Try to run the game as administrator, I don't know why this would work but definitely worth a try since it takes like 2 seconds to do that.

Can't one make your computer log the activity monitor thingy so that you can review it afterwards? Well try to do something like that.

Edit: Posted a few links for what i meant:

Clicky clicky.

This link is better!

Edited February 26, 2013 by Xandarb

[theparanoid]

The computer has no trouble loading, it starts right up and loads in under a minute, la mod takes roughly a minute to two minutes to load. Then plays absolutely fine, no lag, nothing like that, all graphics show up fine, but it randomly shuts off. Graphics issues or lack of ram/vram would lag and crash to the desktop. I experienced lag and such with gta IV, but never ever had the computer shut off, but once or twice it would "stop responding" and crash to the desktop, and that was with all kinds of mods. That being said my computer is plenty capable of playing the game, I played just fine with an older computer (I used to have) with lower specs.

Did make the config file read me only?

[maverick7689]

You haven't overclocked your cpu have you? Overclocking caused these kinds of issues for me on my one year old semi highend desktop , but I fixed it by resetting the clock. (and eventually I started overclocking again, but that's irrelevant)

As stated earlier, overheating of the CPU can cause these kinds of problems with that distinctive delayed effect. The CPU could overheat even with standard clocks especially if it's a laptop. Try to cool it down mate! It doesn't matter that it your computer runs gta or whatever, different games use your computer in different ways, especially when there's a big time difference between the games in question. (multithreading vs single thread, blah blah.). I built a platform (first out of books, then I refined it with some Lego ) for my laptop so that air could run beneath it freely.

Try to run the game as administrator, I don't know why this would work but definitely worth a try since it takes like 2 seconds to do that.

Can't one make your computer log the activity monitor thingy so that you can review it afterwards? Well try to do something like that.

Edit: Posted a few links for what i meant:

Clicky clicky.

This link is better!

No overclocking, I have tried to clean the case as best as I can and keep it on a desk with plenty of room aroud it for air flow. I know different games play differently but my point in mentioning GTA IV was to say I have plenty of vram/powerful enough hardware to play this game (according to the system req's). I have tried running as administrator, running in compatibility mode, not running in admin, I have tried all the different settings haha, but none make any difference. I have also run the game on one core, but didnt make a difference. I checked my performance monitor (in norton 360) and it shows "high CPU usage" by em4.exe (at least 97% of one CPU), but it isnt everytime I play the game, its only sometimes (even though the game crashes everytime). The strange part is sometimes I can play the exact same mission and one time I was able to complete the mission and other times as soon as I call a few units out it crashes, so thats what makes me think it isnt overheating because you'd think it would be somewhat consistent as to when it crashes.

Did make the config file read me only?

Yes tried that, but still no difference.

Thanks for the continued help guys, hope we can figure this one out!

[theparanoid]

... I checked my performance monitor (in norton 360) and it shows "high CPU usage" by em4.exe (at least 97% of one CPU), but it isnt everytime I play the game, its only sometimes (even though the game crashes everytime). ...

..

Try disabling norton 360 then playing. It that those not work. Start looking at other progarms running in back ground.

[maverick7689]

Tried that, makes no difference. I also keep the programs that run in the background to a minimum

[theparanoid]

I would consider increasing you memory to 8 GB. Here

Your OS Requires 2GB of ram to run.

Windows 7 system requirements

If you want to run Windows 7 on your PC, here's what it takes:

• 1 gigahertz (GHz) or faster 32-bit (x86) or 64-bit (x64) processor
  
• 1 gigabyte (GB) RAM (32-bit) or 2 GB RAM (64-bit)
  
• 16 GB available hard disk space (32-bit) or 20 GB (64-bit)
  
• DirectX 9 graphics device with WDDM 1.0 or higher driver
  

So you have 4GB. But your video used

Dedicated Memory: 249 MB

Shared Memory: 1774 MB

Display Memory: 2GB.

However your video card only has 249mB.

That means 1774MB comes from your 4GB system ram. That leaves 2226MB Left over for your OS and any progarms running.

But windows 7 64 bit requires 2GB so that means your game only has 226mb aviable to All progarms running. Minuim specs for EM4 are 512 MB RAM but you only have 226MB. So it has to use your swap file.

Is your swap file set to fix size? or is windows managed?

Also are you using a cooling fan for your laptop? Gaming on laptop is hard enough. But doing with not enough ram with out extranel fan. That asking for trouble.

[JrFF34]

Have you tried to close out all background programs? But from what I'm thinking, if your computer just clearly shuts off, its more of a technical issue and its not the game. How old is your laptop?

[maverick7689]

Yes I have tried that. Its about 4 years old. But seeing as it plays other games fine and has NO OTHER trouble besides this game, it seems more of an issue with the game