Crashing and freezing ...

[chris160]

Hello!

I recently installed VTM:B, installed the official patch, then the unofficial v3.1, but I just don't get this game running without crashing every five minutes or so.

My comp's specs are:

Athlon 64 3200+, 512 MB RAM, NVidia GeForce 7300 GS (256 MB), about 10 GB free disc space on drive, hmm ... Realtek AC97 sound (I think that's on-board, not sure, though), DirectX 9.0c, Windows XP Professional.

I turned down (off) all of the settings in the Options (800 x 600, turned off environmental sounds, effects, etc.) and still:

The game crashes (everything freezes and I have to do a hard reset), most often when I enter a new area during the loading process, also during or immediately after loading a saved game, sometimes (but not that often) also during the game, not even necessarily when there's much happening on the screen.

I also experimented with turning on and off the Win 98 compatibility mode, but that didn't really change anything.

While I could live with an occasional in-game crash, having to reboot my computer three times to load a game and then praying every time I enter some new area not to crash makes this game practically unplayable.

Please, forgive my ranting, but I just think this game is too great to miss from what I've seen so far and I'd really love to play it ...

I've read here that some people had very few problems (crashes) while playing without necessarily having a high-end comp, so there has to be some way to get this d*mned thing running

I'd really appreciate any help with this

chris

P.S. Upping my RAM to 1 GB might help, but how good are the chances that it'll work better then??

[Jhereg]

Originally Posted by chris160

Hello!

I recently installed VTM:B, installed the official patch, then the unofficial v3.1, but I just don't get this game running without crashing every five minutes or so.

My comp's specs are:

Athlon 64 3200+, 512 MB RAM, NVidia GeForce 7300 GS (256 MB), about 10 GB free disc space on drive, hmm ... Realtek AC97 sound (I think that's on-board, not sure, though), DirectX 9.0c, Windows XP Professional.

I turned down (off) all of the settings in the Options (800 x 600, turned off environmental sounds, effects, etc.) and still:

The game crashes (everything freezes and I have to do a hard reset), most often when I enter a new area during the loading process, also during or immediately after loading a saved game, sometimes (but not that often) also during the game, not even necessarily when there's much happening on the screen.

I also experimented with turning on and off the Win 98 compatibility mode, but that didn't really change anything.

While I could live with an occasional in-game crash, having to reboot my computer three times to load a game and then praying every time I enter some new area not to crash makes this game practically unplayable.

Please, forgive my ranting, but I just think this game is too great to miss from what I've seen so far and I'd really love to play it ...

I've read here that some people had very few problems (crashes) while playing without necessarily having a high-end comp, so there has to be some way to get this d*mned thing running

I'd really appreciate any help with this

chris

P.S. Upping my RAM to 1 GB might help, but how good are the chances that it'll work better then??

First off, and nothing against your computer, upping your RAM to 1 GB would be an excellent idea from all points of view. Windows XP almost uses all of your 512 Mb just to run. The more memory you can give it, the happier you're going to be.

Having said that, VTMB is a memory leech. Over a period of time, it will crash simply because it has butchered so much memory that it no longer has anything left to run in. That is what you're experiencing.

With my 1GB of memory, VTMB will crash about every hour or so, so I quick-save pretty often - I don't know when it's going to crash, and I don't want to have to re-do things all the time.

You're experiencing the same thing, but since you only have 512 Mb of memory, you're just experiencing it a heck of a lot more often than I do.

Upgrade your memory, and get used to hitting the F9 key at regular intervals. I'm sorry I couldn't be of more use, but life is what life is.

[Lucita]

Increasing the RAM is the best thing to do....I run the game on 768 MB and 1 GByte and the performance was way better.

[Coruel]

If you can't increase your RAM, increasing your virtual memory might help.

[EriXx]

As the previous guys said, upgrade the RAM is the best option,
but what you also can try(if you have not already done it of course) is to upgrade the game itself, try patching it up, Ive played numerous of games that runs a lot better when Ive patched it up
It's also very usual in gamepatch upgrades to fix the memory leeching problems.

Good luck

[Jhereg]

Originally Posted by Coruel

If you can't increase your RAM, increasing your virtual memory might help.

Not a particularly good idea. No offense, but if the game gets into the paging file, performance is going to drop straight through the floor. It just gets ugly from there. Consider what the game would be like to play if your frame display rate fell to, say five frames a second. It would still, technically, run, but the first goober that came at you with a baseball bat would beat you to death before you had enough time to turn around.

[chris160]

Hi all!

Thanks for your help!

I've now bought another 512 MB RAM and played for about 10 hours or so without a single crash so far! (hooray )

I tried increasing virtual memory earlier, but it didn't make any difference. Regarding the patches, I had already installed the official patch (1.2) and the newest unofficial patch (3.1) ...

Anyway. The game runs really smooth now, and I gotta go kick some ugly plaguebearer's asses ...