Client Crashing Issues.

[Septa Scarabae]

Once more, I come to ask for advise. I'd rather not end up quitting AC again, but I'm not looking to purchase a new computer either. I had an open ticket with AC technical support for about a month to fix this, but to no avail. Some of the issues I have been having are described here:

-: Darn. (http://forums.ac.turbinegames.com/showthread.php?t=29396)
-: They've gone plaid! (http://forums.ac.turbinegames.com/showthread.php?t=29661)
-: Gfx Glitch: No more housing. (http://forums.ac.turbinegames.com/showthread.php?t=27898)

Common Issues:
-: The AC client crashes to the desktop.
-: The AC client logs out my character.
-: The AC client disconnects me from the game, forcing me to quit.

Uncommon Issues:
-: Housing becomes transparent when viewed from the outside.
-: Areas of player models become translucent.
-: The paper doll for my character animates itself.

Rare Issues:
-: The AC client freezes, forcing me to reboot my computer.
-: The AC log on screen does not display a texture.
-: Items on the landscape disappear completely.
-: Creatures and their corpses disappear, but are still selectable.

This problem has persisted through two computers, with completely seperate hardware. The only thing that was used in the second computer was a sound that isn't currently in use. These are some things I have tried:

1.) Re-installing Asheron's Call.
2.) Re-installing video and sound drivers.
3.) Re-installing DirectX 9.0c.
4.) Using a different GPU and installing new drivers for it.
5.) Using old drivers for a GPU.
6.) Tested RAM and other system components.

My current system specs are as follows:

Operating System:
-: Microsoft WinXP Home Edition (DirectX 9.0c) (.NET Framework 2.0) (Service Pack 2)

Processing Unit:
-: AMD Athlon 64 Processor 3200+ (2.0 Ghz)

Graphics Unit:
-: Nvidia GeForce 6600 (256 MB) (PCI Express)

Sound Card:
-: Creative SB Audigy LS

System Memory:
-: 2.0 GB of DDR RAM

Glenden Wood on a good day:
-: http://img238.imageshack.us/img238/1213/17po2.jpg

Glenden Wood, from the same coordinates:
-: http://img238.imageshack.us/img238/1215/27gi1.jpg

Screenshots of player models becoming translucent:
-: http://img366.imageshack.us/img366/1162/10yj3.jpg
-: http://img366.imageshack.us/img366/8766/25ye.jpg
-: http://img238.imageshack.us/img238/7184/38ur.jpg
-: http://img238.imageshack.us/img238/8232/41sj1.jpg
-: http://img238.imageshack.us/img238/2527/58iv.jpg
-: http://img49.imageshack.us/img49/9738/a5cc.jpg
-: http://img485.imageshack.us/img485/2636/a0tc.jpg

An animated paper doll:
-: http://img483.imageshack.us/img483/3680/screenshot004750oi.jpg
-: http://img415.imageshack.us/img415/2310/12sk1.jpg

Issues with translucent housing:
-: http://img361.imageshack.us/img361/6861/a23wz.jpg
-: http://img361.imageshack.us/img361/7725/a8pa.jpg
-: http://img361.imageshack.us/img361/6109/a33xw.jpg
-: http://img361.imageshack.us/img361/1385/a49eu.jpg
-: http://img361.imageshack.us/img361/1262/a53pt.jpg
-: http://img204.imageshack.us/img204/1637/a5rs.jpg

Log-in screen not displaying a texture:
-: http://img49.imageshack.us/img49/1425/15vq3.jpg

Edit: It should also be noted that I can play the following games without any issues: Tale Worlds: Mount & Blade, City of Villains, Dungeons & Dragons Online: Stormreach, Starsiege: Tribes, World of Warcraft, Battlefield: 1942, Tomb Raider: Legend, Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, FarCry and Illumina.

[Sledge]

Wow, you are having enough problems to make a saint lose patience.

So many of the issues appear to be video related,but...........

It is occurring on 2 PC. I assume that you are not using the same video card on both PCs.

Your system is more than capable of running AC.

First off, your issues appear to be somewhat unique. Therefore, they are not AC issues directly.

That said, I would start to suspect and external or unusual cause.

Network connection. I assume you are using the built in ethernet connection to each PC. Otherwise, it could be a bad network card.

Network Cable. Again, not using the same cable for both PCs.

Router. Are you using one? They are always a good candidate for causing problems. With UDP processing, there is always an exposure in AC that is not in other games.

Connection to ISP. Possible dropping of packets between ISP and you.

These items are the possible gremlins that may be causing your troubles. One would hope that data sent is data recieved, but things don't always work as expected.

The best hope I can offer is to go to a friends house that has a different ISP and connect to their system at your ethernet connection and try AC from there.

Good Luck.

[pacesetter]

WOW!

I'm afraid I don't have a difinitive answer but it looks like rendering or not getting complete downloads (packet loss).

If it were me I would check 3 things closely.

1. make sure SP2 is configured properly and all drivers are up to date.
2. make sure one of the other games didn't reset graphics to it's liking.
3. Get with my ISP and make them go thru the lines and make sure everything is clean. ( no bird nests in the switch boxes, all good connections, the line is unique to you- no one else is crossed with your line, etc) Do trace route, etc to make sure there is no bad connecting steps. check and/or change the phone jacks, filters, wires etc in your house, and rule out nothing until it is verified good.

Sorry I couldn't be of more help but from my experience these are the checks I would make.

[Septa Scarabae]

Network connection. I assume you are using the built in ethernet connection to each PC. Otherwise, it could be a bad network card.

I've tried using my NIC and the built-in Ethernet connection. Neither of which showed any change in results, unfortunately. Different network cables were used, as well as modems. A new line was put in about six months ago for the connection. I have a 100 ft. patch cable, but it would be quite the pain to test that out. Also, I'm not using a router.

I'll run ping test in a moment to get a confirmation on any possible packet loss.

I install updates for SP2 and a fairly regular basis. I think I may have even done a complete re-install of it at one point.

None of the settings in any of the games have changed since I've personally edited them to my liking. And if they have, I've noticed no graphical or performance difference.

3. Get with my ISP and make them go thru the lines and make sure everything is clean. ( no bird nests in the switch boxes, all good connections, the line is unique to you- no one else is crossed with your line, etc) Do trace route, etc to make sure there is no bad connecting steps. check and/or change the phone jacks, filters, wires etc in your house, and rule out nothing until it is verified good.

If I'm not losing packets, this shouldn't be a problem. I'll let the ping run for a while and see what comes back.

[Septa Scarabae]

Ping statistics for 00.000.000.00:
Packets: Sent = 856, Received = 856, Lost = 0 (0
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 50ms, Maximum = 72ms, Average = 54ms

[Yula_the_Mighty]

I have a 100 ft. patch cable, but it would be quite the pain to test that out. Also, I'm not using a router.

Hundred foot patch cable? No router? What the heck are you running over that cable?

Can you describe all the components? How they are connected? and what protocols are being used?

For example, if you have a modem and you connect it to a PC via a 100 foot 100 megabit ethernet cable. That is probably too long a run. I have to look it up in my Cisco reference manuals, which I do not have in front me.

Yula the Mighty - HG

[Septa Scarabae]

No, no. I have a 100 ft. patch cable I could test as an alternate cable. The one I'm connected with is maybe 6ft at most. I used it to connect supply a connection to another computer on my previous build.

Essentially, I'm connected directly to my cable modem, using a NIC and patch cable. And the cable modem gets a coaxial feed from outside.

[Hazmat]

ARe you running the newest vidio driver? umm 91.28 or something like that.

What model/brand modem are you running? Any chance it is a modem/router combination?

what motherboard are you running?

Make sure anisotropic filtering is turned off on your vidio card.

[Septa Scarabae]

ARe you running the newest vidio driver? umm 91.28 or something like that.

I'm running the latest GPU drivers and tried using older ones. I'm using a Motorola cable modem, without a router. The previous modem was a Terayon. I was to say the motherboard is ABS.

[Yula_the_Mighty]

No, no. I have a 100 ft. patch cable I could test as an alternate cable. The one I'm connected with is maybe 6ft at most. I used it to connect supply a connection to another computer on my previous build.

Essentially, I'm connected directly to my cable modem, using a NIC and patch cable. And the cable modem gets a coaxial feed from outside.
This is the simplest configuration. Most likely running at 10 Megabits. Nothing interesting here.

Some of the problems you are reporting look like video card problems. The 6600 has a reputation for heat problems. Although AC is an old game, it drives video hardware and the CPU very hard. If there is any weakness, AC will find it.

If it is heat related, everything will be fine when you start playing --> then things will go awry. Then if you turn your PC off and let it cool down, it will work fine again until it warms up.

Now some of the other snapshots are of cases where the necessary information was not sent to your client by the server. You are going to have to look into the quality of your internet connection.

Are you running something ese, that would consume video resources? Two instances of AC? Windowed mode? What screen resolution? Have you tried running in full screen 800 x 600 and see if clears up the problem? Yeah I know - 800 x 600 is not much fun. Also look at your other video settings. Looks like you are running out of texture memory.

Yula the Mighty - HG

[Sangria]

The pictures you posted make me think it could be a direct draw issue.

I started having weird issues with GForce video cards and finally changed back to the ATI.

My Radeon card plays the game just fine.

[Septa Scarabae]

If it is heat related, everything will be fine when you start playing --> then things will go awry. Then if you turn your PC off and let it cool down, it will work fine again until it warms up.

It can happen anywhere from a minute after logging in, to an hour after logging in. I've ran fine for a good hour without noticing any issues on some fairly hot and humid days, and had opposite results for colder days. It seems pretty random.

I started having weird issues with GForce video cards and finally changed back to the ATI.

My Radeon card plays the game just fine.

The second card I tested was an ATI GPU.

Are you running something ese, that would consume video resources? Two instances of AC? Windowed mode? What screen resolution? Have you tried running in full screen 800 x 600 and see if clears up the problem? Yeah I know - 800 x 600 is not much fun. Also look at your other video settings. Looks like you are running out of texture memory.

Nothing else is running as far as applications. A few standard processes. I've tried all the available screen resolutions, with no change.

[Septa Scarabae]

Make sure anisotropic filtering is turned off on your vidio card.

It's set to be application controlled.

[Sledge]

Hi,

This additional info really does help.

If I remember correctly, 100 foot patch cable is the max. I would not use it.

I still come back to the fact that you are having the same problem on 2 PCs at one location.

With that fact, the problem has to be between your PCs and your ISP.

Can I take it that you used the same cable and modem for both machines?

Also, the coax cable can also be flaky between the main line and your modem. How many splits from the main entrance line are there? The ends may need replacement.

As I had suggested, you may want to take your system and try it somewhere else.

For heat issues, take off the left cover and put a fan directly on the unit. Try it that way and check for success or failure. Heat can make the video card do very strange things.

Good Luck

[Yula_the_Mighty]

/e rubs his face
/e scratches his head
I am out of ideas on the PC front. My gut feeling based on your answers is that there is nothing wrong with your PC. There is nothing wrong between your modem and PC. You have plenty of video memory.

I can only think of two reasons why stuff does not get rendered:
1) Video card issues
2) The packets are not arriving

Since you reported:
-: The AC client crashes to the desktop.
-: The AC client logs out my character.
-: The AC client disconnects me from the game, forcing me to quit.

I guess the next thing to look at is your connection between the US west coast (Turbine's servers) and your PC. Have you carried your PC to someone else's place and tried connecting to AC (preferrably a different ISP)?

Have you monitored the link status (the chain) to see if your ping time is stable?

Yula the Mighty - HG

[Septa Scarabae]

Can I take it that you used the same cable and modem for both machines?

Also, the coax cable can also be flaky between the main line and your modem. How many splits from the main entrance line are there? The ends may need replacement.

Seperate cables, seperate modems, same yard, different house. I'd rather not lug my machine to someone elses house and hook up a modem. Can consider it as a last resort, though.

Have you monitored the link status (the chain) to see if your ping time is stable?

I'll setup a continous ping while I play and see what it looks like when I get errors.

[Yula_the_Mighty]

I do not like the idea of lugging the PC to another place either. Right now I am going around the loop of. It does not matter what PC is used, AC just does not work right at your place. So far we have not been able to determine for sure what works and what does not work.

I am thinking your PC and Turbine's AC software is configured and working correctly. The problem is something else. But the only way to know this is to take the PC somewhere else. Preferrably to a place that is much different as possible. Do not use the same ISP. Do not take any of your cables. If you have to take one. Take the six foot one.

Yula the Mighty - HG

[Septa Scarabae]

I haven't noticed any problems since I turned off anisotropic filtering. That isn't to say they wont happen. Further testing is needed. It can be funny like that.

Ping statistics for 68.142.226.56:
Packets: Sent = 7000, Received = 6991, Lost = 9
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 50ms, Maximum = 95ms, Average = 54ms

[Septa Scarabae]

Just fell through the floor in my house, still having issues. :p

[Septa Scarabae]

Small, odd update. If trees on the landscape disappear and I hit Enter on the Num Pad to change views, they can re-appear until I change back.

[Migrax]

Have you tried going into AC's setting and lowering everything to very low, bilinear, very low and see if you are still having these issues? Have you tried switching to 16 Bit color insted of 32 Bit Color? Have you tried chang to windowed? Have you tried adjusting the refresh rate of your video card and monitor? Have you move the slide on the video driver from right to left (i.e. adjusting hardware rendering performance from Full to less than full (on your troubleshooting tab under display properties and advanced settings?) How about software rendering? I am thinking it is a rendering issue. A network issue (I could be wrong) would result in disconnects and lag, but not texture issues.. I mean after all... how the heck would your network lose only specific packets... no I really think it is a rendering issue. I am not sure how AC manages textures but it could be that the files are corrupt and thus not rendering correctly or it could be a video memory issue... sorry, not much help I realize.

migrax

[Septa Scarabae]

My sound card was causing this problem and it has since been resolved.

[Fat_Man]

How so was the sound card an issue; the reason I am asking is...my game also crashes to the deck top.

[Septa Scarabae]

How so was the sound card an issue; the reason I am asking is...my game also crashes to the deck top.

I couldn't honestly say. I don't know how a sound card could possibly cause that many issues, but removing it solved the problem.

[Fat_Man]

I couldn't honestly say. I don't know how a sound card could possibly cause that many issues, but removing it solved the problem.



OK I know how that works lol
Did you uninstall your sound card and reinstall or get a new card; sorry to bug you about but this....but this issue has been keeping me from playing for a few weeks and it's get old lmao *but I don’t have to tell you that*

One more question how do I turn off the anisotropic filtering....I am not very wise when it comes to putter.

Thanks for any help I can get to fix my crashing issue.

[Septa Scarabae]

OK I know how that works lol
Did you uninstall your sound card and reinstall or get a new card; sorry to bug you about but this....but this issue has been keeping me from playing for a few weeks and it's get old lmao *but I don’t have to tell you that*

No, you don't. *laugh* I uninstalled the card and it's drivers. It's still actually sitting in the case, but I switched to onboard sound.

One more question how do I turn off the anisotropic filtering....I am not very wise when it comes to putter.

Check under your Control Panel (My Computer -> Control Panel). If you're using an nVidia card, you should see a NVIDIA Control Panel icon. Under 3D Settings you can turn off anisotropic filtering.

Thanks for any help I can get to fix my crashing issue.

1.) Do you crash randomly? On log in? When doing a certain task?
2.) Do you only crash to desktop, or are there other issues? And if so, what?

[Fat_Man]

1) Do you crash randomly? On log in? When doing a certain task?

*There is no telling when it crashes I could be in a portal, running, fighting our just hanging out*


2.) Do you only crash to desktop, or are there other issues? And if so, what?

* Yes it crashes to the deck top after a banner pops up and tells me sorry for the inconvenience*

I never had this issue when I had 56k but now I have DSL.
Below you can see my memory, Processor and Video card. Video card is 3 months old.

Memory Modules
736 Megabytes Installed Memory
Slot 'DIMM 1' has 256 MB
Slot 'DIMM 2' has 512 MB


Processor a
1.67 gigahertz AMD Athlon XP
128 kilobyte primary memory cache
256 kilobyte secondary memory cache

Video Card
NVIDIA GeForce FX 5500


Check under your Control Panel (My Computer -> Control Panel). If you're using an nVidia card, you should see a NVIDIA Control Panel icon. Under 3D Settings you can turn off anisotropic filtering.

*I don’t have the option to clink on the 3D Settings so I was unable to turn off the anisotropic filter*


Septa Scarabae thanks for helping.

-Fat_Man

[Septa Scarabae]

There is no telling when it crashes I could be in a portal, running, fighting our just hanging out

Yes it crashes to the deck top after a banner pops up and tells me sorry for the inconvenience

What's the exact message you get? Is it a Windows message?

I never had this issue when I had 56k but now I have DSL.
Below you can see my memory, Processor and Video card. Video card is 3 months old.

Do you get a yellow or red link before you crash? If it was a problem with your DSL, you probably wouldn't crash to the desktop. You'd most likely get a yellow/red link then crash to a page that tells you've been disconnected. Hitting okay would then bring you to your desktop.

As you can tell in my case, sometimes it's the least likely suspect.

Memory Modules
736 Megabytes Installed Memory
Slot 'DIMM 1' has 256 MB
Slot 'DIMM 2' has 512 MB

Processor
1.67 gigahertz AMD Athlon XP
128 kilobyte primary memory cache
256 kilobyte secondary memory cache

Video Card
NVIDIA GeForce FX 5500

Do you play any other games that you experience problems in? I used to have a GeForce FX 5500 and it would overheat and crash programs to the desktop. You can also use memtest86 to test your memory:
-: http://www.memtest86.com/
-: http://www.memtest.org/

It requires you to make a bootable floppy or CD to test the memory. So, you would need a floppy disk drive or a CD burner.

I don’t have the option to clink on the 3D Settings so I was unable to turn off the anisotropic filter

You can download NVIDIA software to do that, here:
-: http://www.nvidia.com/page/forceware_geforce.html
-: http://www.nvidia.com/object/winxp_2k_81.98.html

You can also try looking under Desktop properties. Right-click your Desktop and hit Properties. Then go to Settings (tab) -> Advanced (button) -> GeForce 5500 (tab). You should be able to edit the anisotropic filtering setting under Performance & Quality Settings.

Worst case scenario, you can always test hardware piece by piece. Also, if you have onboard video or an old video card, you can try running AC with that, as well.