[ver 1.50, 1.60, 2.20] Game randomly freezes - not responding

[Chimerak]

Hello,
my game randomly freezes / not responding, i can hear sound in background, but screen is frozen, i can only close game via task manager, no appCrash, no entry in event viewer, no error, no restart / system crash.
I can play from 20s before freeze up to 2 hours, i can stay inside dock and get freeze after few secs or i can play for longer time and get freeze in space while flying, so its completely random.
I fell in love with this game, so im still playing it - just hitting F5 every few mins, so i wont lose progress due to freeze

Already tried all possible fixes, but maybe is my problem related to new RTX 20xx card series?

Possible solutions what i tried so far:
- all drivers / system updated, game running 1.50 patch
- tried 4 older gpu drivers ***newly added
- playing with completely disabled Antivirus
- settings set to low
- ambient occlussion disabled - ssao / nvidia disabled
- no overlay software is running
- no alt tabbing out of game
- no file compression / read only settings enabled over installed folder / subfolders
- no samsund SSD rapid, no magician sw
- no WHEA errors
- all other sound devices disabled and quality set to 44100 Hz

DxDiag
VulkanInfo

For those who dont want to dig into diag files, my system:
Windows 10 64-bit Pro (october update included) - updated, all drivers up to date
8700K 4.8 Ghz all cores sync - stable cinebench, prime95 26.6 torture / blend test 8 hours - no WHEA errors
16 GB 3400 MHz RAM cl16 - memtest ok
RTX 2070 stock core 8 GB
2x SSD samsung evo 960 - rapid disabled, no magician sw
temps under 65-celsius in full load

[strask412]

Wow, that's tough.

One question, just to add detail: When it freezes, how long have you waited (maximum) for it to recover before killing it?

[Chimerak]

Wow, that's tough.

One question, just to add detail: When it freezes, how long have you waited (maximum) for it to recover before killing it?

Over 30min

[Alan Phipps]

That sounds a bit like this thread which unfortunately did not see a quick resolution.

As far as I know, the only thing the OP of that thread did not try was rolling-back their graphics driver.

[0epicurius0]

I can confirm this is still happening. I am hoping that the 1.51 will fix it. I have stopped playing until this can be fixed. It is not a bunch of fun having to reboot my system every 30 mins or so after a hard freeze.

[CBJ]

What you describe, 0epicurius0, is completely different to what the OP is describing. This is why "me too" posts are unhelpful, and you should always start your own thread with the information requested at the top of the forum rather than tagging along with someone else's.

[Chimerak]

That sounds a bit like this thread which unfortunately did not see a quick resolution.

As far as I know, the only thing the OP of that thread did not try was rolling-back their graphics driver.

Tried 4 older nvidia drivers - still same, freezing is more often when im near stations / docked at stations

[Chimerak]

...

Any posibility to turn on any debug / dev console / logger and be able to print its output into terminal / win cmd or into file?

[waynetarlton]

I'm glad I'm not the only one having this issue.

Mine tends to randomly freeze (could be average of 5-10 minutes apart and more-so when I key M or am in a ship rather than a station) for about 30 seconds to a minute then continues.

The computer specs: Ryzen 7 2700 overclocked to 3600 & 16 gig RAM at 2800, graphics cards are 2 x RX570 8gb crossfire.

Initially I thought my system may be doing 'stuff' but I've since eliminated that possibility.
I've got the graphics on a low setting which doesn't help.
Thought crossfire may be an issue so I've tried a single card - no diff.
I thought the volume of stuff I've got going on may be a burden, so I've significantly reduced my fleet and station modules, etc., but no diff.
I've tested for cpu over-throttling but there's none.
I've downloaded latest drivers, rolled back drivers, etc., to no avail.

It was getting so frustrated with it, but I feel better now that it's nothing to do with my system. Perseverance and patience is a virtue - I guess lol.

[strask412]

Any posibility to turn on any debug / dev console / logger and be able to print its output into terminal / win cmd or into file?

So a couple of things:

1) In your game settings someplace (maybe under control mappings, with no key bound by default? Not sure) there is a "chat box" option that I think also serves as debug log output window. It's certainly misnamed because I don't think you can use it to chat with anyone. But I've seen people paste error messages seen there into bug reports.

2) I've had some success attaching the debugger included in microsoft visual studio 2017 to the X4.exe process and viewing memory statistics, etc as it ran. But the issue is lack of a symbol table with all the class and variable names and stuff, which would be in a file called X4.pdb which Egosoft has not published (I think doing so might reveal more source code than they would prefer) so you are pretty much limited to the debugger saying "it's running.". If you hit a breakpoint (well, it's hard to set breakpoints without the symbol table but you can also just pause execution via the debugger) you can't see the names in the call stack, just memory addresses which aren't that helpful. The most you can do is drill down and view the assembly code, which, unless you like assembly code and want to read a LOT of it, is also not all that useful. The devs of course have access to all the symbols and more, which I'm sure they would love to make use of in this case if only we could get them a crash dump file at the minimum, and preferably a way to reproduce the problem in-house.

[Chimerak]

Any posibility to turn on any debug / dev console / logger and be able to print its output into terminal / win cmd or into file?

So a couple of things:

1) In your game settings someplace (maybe under control mappings, with no key bound by default? Not sure) there is a "chat box" option that I think also serves as debug log output window. It's certainly misnamed because I don't think you can use it to chat with anyone. But I've seen people paste error messages seen there into bug reports.

2) I've had some success attaching the debugger included in microsoft visual studio 2017 to the X4.exe process and viewing memory statistics, etc as it ran. But the issue is lack of a symbol table with all the class and variable names and stuff, which would be in a file called X4.pdb which Egosoft has not published (I think doing so might reveal more source code than they would prefer) so you are pretty much limited to the debugger saying "it's running.". If you hit a breakpoint (well, it's hard to set breakpoints without the symbol table but you can also just pause execution via the debugger) you can't see the names in the call stack, just memory addresses which aren't that helpful. The most you can do is drill down and view the assembly code, which, unless you like assembly code and want to read a LOT of it, is also not all that useful. The devs of course have access to all the symbols and more, which I'm sure they would love to make use of in this case if only we could get them a crash dump file at the minimum, and preferably a way to reproduce the problem in-house.

Love you! under settings -> controls -> general is open debug log where is see all errors, i didnt remember exact times when i got freeze, but when new freeze will occur i can finally find possible error + i had disabled logs, i enabled them, so i hope, i will finally know what happens and can post devs exact issue

[strask412]

Love you! under settings -> controls -> general is open debug log where is see all errors, i didnt remember exact times when i got freeze, but when new freeze will occur i can finally find possible error + i had disabled logs, i enabled them, so i hope, i will finally know what happens and can post devs exact issue

Love right back at you.

They must have corrected the name in 1.50 and I didn't notice. Yay.

I really hope that does indeed help. I've seen such console output be both super useful, and sometimes... the opposite. So may the force be with you.

[Chimerak]

*UPDATE*

I had multiple freezes since i enabled logger / debugger, but it didnt catch any error related to it - after freeze, then task kill via task manager it seems like logger loaded state / saved errors before freeze. So still no clue for freezes. Also today nvidia released new drivers (417.71), so i was little exited if its gonna solve my freezing issue, but no.

Now im starting to build my station, but near station i have freezing really often, like 1-5 mins of gameplay then freeze. I love this game, but im starting to be pretty sad

[Tigerius]

Hello,

I have a similar problem.
Every time i want to talk with one of those faction leaders my game freezes and its impossible to talk / bye with the NPC's.
I need to buy some blueprints every single time the game freezes before I can get close to the NPC.

[Chimerak]

Hello,

I have a similar problem.
Every time i want to talk with one of those faction leaders my game freezes and its impossible to talk / bye with the NPC's.
I need to buy some blueprints every single time the game freezes before I can get close to the NPC.

I feel sorry for you issue, but your comment is kind of useless, at least provide some info about your PC (maybe same GPU as me?) or anything helpful what can point what is the cause of this issue - posting "me too" doesnt help

[CBJ]

I have a similar problem.

Problems that seem similar to you may in fact be very different. Please start your own thread and provide the information requested in the very first thread in this forum, so that we have some chance of addressing your specific problem rather than getting it mixed up with issues other people are having.

[Chimerak]

* UPDATE 2 *

Im so desperate, so i tried game in those versions: 1.0, 1.10, 1.20, 1.21, 1.30, 1.31, 1.32, 1.50

In all versions after few minutes game freeze, when game freeze my GPU usage drops to 0%, must be somehow related to my graphic card, can anybody in Egosoft test this game with RTX 2070 with latest drivers?

[Chimerak]

* UPDATE 3 *

I bought game also over gog galaxy just for to be sure it isnt just steam version somehow rigged, still freezes.
Also tried game via free gog games site - freezes too.

If any of the devs have any tool which can debug and catch error what causes my freezes or know any other way how to find out whats wrong, please help :/

[Masterdude420]

* UPDATE 3 *

I bought game also over gog galaxy just for to be sure it isnt just steam version somehow rigged, still freezes.
Also tried game via free gog games site - freezes too.

If any of the devs have any tool which can debug and catch error what causes my freezes or know any other way how to find out whats wrong, please help :/

try to do a driver uninstallation in safe in mode safe mode, if you have win 7.. https://windows10skill.com/completely-u ... indows-10/

[Chimerak]

* UPDATE 3 *

I bought game also over gog galaxy just for to be sure it isnt just steam version somehow rigged, still freezes.
Also tried game via free gog games site - freezes too.

If any of the devs have any tool which can debug and catch error what causes my freezes or know any other way how to find out whats wrong, please help :/

try to do a driver uninstallation in safe in mode safe mode, if you have win 7.. https://windows10skill.com/completely-u ... indows-10/

win 10, clean install, all drivers / system up to date - already tried several nvidia drivers since 416.34 - first support of RTX cards

Last thing what im going to test tommorow is different graphic card and im gonna test with AMD