Game Freezing Machine

[Thrasher91604]

Does anyone know how to prevent freezes? I had major trouble on the 2nd level of the eye of the serpent. It's the top middle section with trolls, spiders and beetles. Lots of them in HoF and insane mode.

I suspect it's the trolls, since it was my first encounter with them, and it was the first time freezing my machine.

The game would completely freeze in the middle of battles. The only way I could recover was turning my machine off. I had to replay those battles 5 times (in two sets for a total of ten times).

Very frustrating!

Thanks!

[Klorox]

Lower your computer specs in the config program for the game.

[Thrasher91604]

How many notches down for which of the 3 sliders?

BTW, my laptop far exceeds the labels on the highest settings for each slider, so that's why I'm asking...

Thanks!

Plus, I'm wondering if something became corrupted, since I had zero problems up to now (or if it's a "known" issue with trolls).

[Aerich]

It's a known issue for me. I had major deja vu when I read your post, as I've had the exact same problem, down to the area and the "solution" to the graphics freeze.

I had huge freezing problems a couple of years ago, primarily in Dragon's Eye. I have three observations.

1) Reduce graphics, even on a good machine.
2) The area drains a lot of power and puts stress on your laptop fan. Check out the heat it generates. I added "feet" to my laptop and did a couple other things to improve air flow/ventilation, and it seems to help.
3) The spell Web was a common denominator in all of my freezes (a couple of dozen). See if it makes a difference if you don't cast it.

[Thrasher91604]

I cranked down all the sliders to below average and that seems to have fixed it. At least once. Thanks for the help!

Just moving them down 1 notch didn't help, still crashed. But looking at the config differences, I wonder which parameter(s) was really key to making it work? I tried lower resolutions before and that didn't seem to help.

Is it frame rate (27 vs 30) ? Search nodes (20K vs 50K) ? Tile Pre-cache (25% vs 75%) ? Footstep sounds (Off vs On)?

And yes, I spammed a 2 or 3 webs against trolls in all cases where it crashed. But I had used similar tactics against other baddies without crashes, so I presume the problem also lies with trolls in some way .... Maybe their death by being held by the web?

Or it could be something in the cave environment / lay out?

[Aerich]

I think it's the DE environment, although I'd never thought of trolls being the problem. Now that you mention it, most of my freezes have happened in troll areas.

I think frame rate is the most likely parameter to make a difference.

[Thrasher91604]

Well it happened again last night in the first level of the Severed Hand. No trolls there But I did cast lots of webs (and grease, and entangles, and spike growth, and....).

I turned down the framerate and search nodes and it didn't reoccur. Hopefully now my settings are safe now with acceptable performance.

Thanks!