Steam: Lockup, forced to restart computer

[Nike-it]

Guys, please send this problem to our support (support@1cpublishing.eu) and add dxdiag report. We'll collect all reports and try to fix this problem ASAP. Also screens of the problem are much appreciated.

[Hypatian]

Getting screenshots of the issue is pretty difficult, since the machine is locked up at this point. Kind of distressing--I'd love to be able to send some crash reports and so on--but it's not the game that's crashing.

Somebody mentioned in another thread that they were having overheating issues with their card while playing the game (although not with other games.) This was also with an nVidia card. Can anybody suggest a tool for monitoring video card temperature? If that's the problem, it could be a bad interaction of some sort between KB and the nVidia drivers/card that leads to runaway overheating. I've no idea what could cause that, but it would explain why things die in such a glitchy way.

It could also explain why people have less problems when they turn off various options like AA, since that'll task the card much less heavily.

Here's a screenshot I snapped just before the machine died one time. It has been resized since your size limits won't accept the native resolution.

[duh]

http://www.cpuid.com/hwmonitor.php


That will monitor CPU and GPU voltages and temperatures, as well as a number of other statistics.

Edit: my GPU (nvidia 8600 GT) hits 80 degrees Celsius while playing.

[Hypatian]

Thanks very much. I'll see if I can get a good feel for how my GPU temp behaves when I'm playing some other game with all of the bells and whistles turned on compared to when I play KB. (Although the other thread, the guy said that it would drop back down when he tabbed out. We'll see.)

[duh]

Yea, my GPU temp drops when i tab out, but you can still see for a brief moment what the temp was before the minimize.

[Hypatian]

Hrm. I'll keep trying, but this looks like it's not going to work well to spot the problem, if overheating is in fact the problem. I played a new game three times. The first time, up through killing the dragon in training. The second time, up through killing the necromancer. Neither time did the temperature get very high (a bit lower than max playing Team Fortress 2, in fact.) The third time was going to be through the treasure hunt, but the system crashed at the very start of the necromancer fight. I have no idea what the temperature was then, but it was just fine after I rebooted, so... *shrug*

Since the problem appears suddenly and without warning, and prevents any useful recovery of information after the machine needs to be power cycled, I'm not sure what to do.

[duh]

I ran the game in windowed mode so i was able to view the hardware monitor after it had crashed. Overheating is very unlikely to be the problem, as you said it runs at a slightly lower temperature than source engine games.

[andrew]

Originally Posted by Nike-it

Guys, please send this problem to our support (support@1cpublishing.eu) and add dxdiag report. We'll collect all reports and try to fix this problem ASAP. Also screens of the problem are much appreciated.

Hi Nike,

Any news? I have just bought this game for like a week and never able to get through the first 2 trials (dragon / necromancer) without crashing my PC.
(having similar synptoms as those who posted in this thread).

It's a very critical problem and any, any help is most appreciated.

Andrew

[duh]

One thing i can suggest is to turn of anti aliasing if you have it on. It prolonged the time before the crash for me somewhat, so i am able to play a little bit at least.