Random hangs

**bibbledy** · November 19, 2006, 11:30 PM

I can deal with my lancers wussing out of a charge, but I've been bloodying the plaster around here as of late because MTW2 has been hanging randomly. The screen (battle or campaign map), but not the cursor or the sound, freeze for several seconds, then the mouse freezes for several more seconds, then the sound skips for a few seconds, and then sometimes there is a soft white flash, like being punched hard in the head, after which things are fine. I'd assume that my system was under duress, but it happens on the campaign map, and if I don't move the screen away from a "hang zone," it will hang repeatedly. For example, hovering the campaign map over Spain, and battles in small towns, are great hang-inducers. Turning down the graphics features seems to slightly reduce hanging, and playing the game for long periods tends to increase the rate at which hangs occur.

Mongols and Timurids also seem to cause hangs, but I may be prejudiced because they're knocking the crap out of my Fatimids.

System:
Athlon 64 X2 4200+ (2.2 GHz)
2GB RAM (533 MHz)
GeForce 7950GT (512MB)
9GB free disk space for MTW2 to screw around with
EDIT: These 9GB are on the same drive as MTW2, but the Windows drive has only 1.5GB

Please tell me this is some known memory leak issue! Thanks for reading.

**vikrant** · November 19, 2006, 11:54 PM

seems like ur system is uptodate
i am assuming all ur drivers are also updated {especially graphic card}
try disabling ur antivirus ,anti spy ware ,firwall etc while u play mtw2 .

and how much is ur virtual memory ??

**bibbledy** · November 20, 2006, 12:12 AM

On windows drive, 8GB. On MTW2 drive, 120GB. It's a bad setup, i know

And yes, all drivers are up-to-date.

Update: I played hastings with shadows on extreme, antistropic x16, etc, and it went for 10min, then did a mega hang and rebooted itself (my first CTD or system crash with MTW2, which is saying something given how much I've already played it and how often Rome died).

Thanks for the suggestion, though, I had none of those things running but will try killing minor apps.

**Gaius Julius** · November 20, 2006, 12:41 AM

Originally Posted by bibbledy

On windows drive, 8GB. On MTW2 drive, 120GB. It's a bad setup, i know

And yes, all drivers are up-to-date.

Update: I played hastings with shadows on extreme, antistropic x16, etc, and it went for 10min, then did a mega hang and rebooted itself (my first CTD or system crash with MTW2, which is saying something given how much I've already played it and how often Rome died).

Thanks for the suggestion, though, I had none of those things running but will try killing minor apps.

Well, it sounds to me like an overheating issues possibly caused by overclocking your videocard...

Have you overclocked it? Have you experienced this issue with any other game? Can you check the temperature the videocard is running at when you're not playing M2TW, and while you are?

Try removing the side panel of your computer and placing a fan next to it and ventilating it... The hang and then reboot indicates overheating. The white noise indicates to me an overclocking of the Core clock or Memory clock ( I forget which one causes the noise...) which can then lead to rebooting.

**bibbledy** · November 20, 2006, 04:28 AM

Just popping in and can't measure relative temps at the moment, but this card is the PNY model, not overclocked.

**Tom Servo** · November 20, 2006, 05:33 AM

If there is no overclock you might still be getting overheated if you have v-sync off. You have a pretty good system which means when you arent staring at 2000 troops you are probably getting 100+ fps, if you do that for long your card will overheat, its a problem in 2 other games i tried including oblivion. I used to have the same problem, the monitor would just go black. Try enabling v-sync.

**bibbledy** · November 22, 2006, 12:47 AM

Measured temperature, and it wasn't getting near the danger level (standard temp being 50, temp playing MTW 2 being 70-90, overheat temp being 130). Turning the resolution down one notch, from 1280x1024 to 1152x864, almost eliminated the hangs, though. Haven't noticed any changes beyond that with V-sync, but it's nice to be able to ease the strain on the machine. I'll just hope that patches improve performance to the point i can play at 1280x1024 again. So thanks guys, this may have been the most helpful gaming forum I've asked for help in.

**robinhood** · November 22, 2006, 07:42 AM

Your PC is in no way configured properly yet alone OPTIMIZED. With your rig you should be getting flawlessly smooth performance at whatever IQ level. Sort it out.

**bibbledy** · November 22, 2006, 11:12 AM

Define optimized. I just built her and don't have too much comp-building experience, but I am sure all the wires are hooked up lol.

**verena xeventus** · November 23, 2006, 01:20 AM

Nice graphics card bibbledy. I am getting random hangs too, although not to the extent you mentioned, mine just freezes up for 2 seconds then runs normally again, this usually occurs on seiges more than anything else. Im gonna try this V-sync stuff to see if it helps... I turned it off originally because I thought it would kill my graphics card.

As far as this being the most helpful gaming forum I can only agree.... so far.

**Tom Servo** · November 23, 2006, 01:48 AM

Originally Posted by verena xeventus

Nice graphics card bibbledy. I am getting random hangs too, although not to the extent you mentioned, mine just freezes up for 2 seconds then runs normally again, this usually occurs on seiges more than anything else. Im gonna try this V-sync stuff to see if it helps... I turned it off originally because I thought it would kill my graphics card.

As far as this being the most helpful gaming forum I can only agree.... so far.

Thats a different thing, its actually the siege lag bug, i think its related to many troops rushing to the ladders, im not sure why it kills the computer though.

**bibbledy** · December 02, 2006, 07:37 PM

The random hangs mysteriously stopped for a few hours of play, then came back.. as system failures. The hang will begin as previously, with the sound skipping near the end, after which I can move the view around for half a second.. then the screen turns black with the hourglass cursor in the middle, spinning and movable, for 5 seconds.. then the computer reboots and it says windows encountered a serious error. It often blames this error on the video card, and sometimes it says the nvidia driver failed to draw something and needs updating.

The system-killer hangs have happened the last 10 battles i tried to fight. Including one that would have been a heroic victory >_< Those battles were my first battles with hashishin, though, so next time i will try it without them. The freezing still happens on the campaign map as well, showing a tendency for the vicinity of Toledo and Toulouse.
:hmmm:

**castorp** · December 02, 2006, 08:19 PM

i'm having exactly the same difficulty.
random hangs that end-up in having to reboot.

my system specs:

XP Pro x64 (3.84 GB page file)
AMD Athlon 64 3000+ (1.8 GHz)
1.5 GB RAM
e-GeForce 7900-GS-KO
mainboard is MSI RS480M2 (ATI RS480 chipset)

all drivers are up-to-date, as is DirectX.
system temps are nominal with plenty of chip and case cooling.
every other app/game that i use works just fine.

i do have my virus scanner running however...
'have as yet to try things with it shut down.

i'm guessing this is either a 64-bit compatability issue, a gpu specific Forceware issue, or both... but that's just my not-particularly-too-informed 2 cents.

in any event,