EC still crashes to desktop.!

[Roland']

So i have a few friends trying EC client they love getting people to switch over in swarms. Except they keep crashing to desktop, with all the other little probs EC has, especially the memory leak, no one is gonna stay with this if it constantly crashes.

By constantly crashes i mean i log out of UOEC then exit program aprox. every half hour and i still get shut down to desk top 3-5 times a day. My buddy had it crash on him once then again five minutes later.

 

[Gilmour]

make sure it is running as admin, also might try updating directx and graphcis drivers.

 

[Cear Dallben Dragon]

yeah, yeah it does.

 

[Roland']

yeah, yeah it does.

QFT Im updated, i run a new machine, it plays more advanced graphic games then EC yet still theres a huge memory leak and this BS crashing issues.


Spend some money on your Fekkin game EA before your customers stop spending theres. Maybe you should start selling gold at the EA store as the only people making money off this game dont work for ea...

 

[Gilmour]

although i agree it has been dorment for way to long, you do need to remember it is still in beta, thus it is not flawless.

but try and be constructive in your critism if you give any, mythic can't really use this post for anything.

but to try and troubleshoot your problem, did you install directx 9.0c? you need to manually download this, windows vista or 7 will not install it automaticly.if you do not install it directx10 will render dx9 which is a completly different generation. and on paper not compatible, it could cause the problems you are experiencing.

link here: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...38-db71-4c1b-bc6a-9b6652cd92a3&displaylang=en

 

[Willard]

I always run EC as Admin and I still crash to the desktop at least 2X a day if I play for a few hours. There does not seem to be any rime or reason to when or why it happens, but I have noticed it mostly happens while I am running with my char.

 

[Woodsman]

I've run the EC under non-Windows systems and can get it to consistently crash if I run through a few areas of Luna and then pop into Zento. Everything starts to slow and then bam, the windows disappears. It can also crash on me in PvP which is really a hassle. I know right before it's going to crash as well, I get that feeling.

I also still have the excruciatingly slow moving crate issues.

I understand that it's in beta, but it's in beta because they don't have the resources to continuously work on it (hence the bit about only fixing bugs when they can squeeze the time in), which is a shame, because if they had a couple of people working on it full-time, they would be able to convert a lot more people over I think. I hope that with the new player stuff, they are going to work to improve it a lot, because the new player stuff relies on the EC and if they don't improve it, it's going to be bad for UO in general.

 

[Roland']

although i agree it has been dorment for way to long, you do need to remember it is still in beta, thus it is not flawless.

but try and be constructive in your critism if you give any, mythic can't really use this post for anything.

but to try and troubleshoot your problem, did you install directx 9.0c? you need to manually download this, windows vista or 7 will not install it automaticly.if you do not install it directx10 will render dx9 which is a completly different generation. and on paper not compatible, it could cause the problems you are experiencing.

link here: Download details: DirectX End-User Runtime Web Installer

this is an awesome post, i will try this it is helpful thank you. Turns out i have tried to install this and it says my directx is equivilant or better. it simply finishes after that with no option to maualy install.

 

[Gilmour]

this is an awesome post, i will try this it is helpful thank you. Turns out i have tried to install this and it says my directx is equivilant or better. it simply finishes after that with no option to maualy install.

it is far to buggy to not be beta, also..

they learned from kr not to make it out of beta prematurely, there was a massive oproar when they did so.

 

[lucitus]

I can confirm that! But it depends what you are doing i can champ all day long but especially this animated tiles swamps, water, etc seems to be a problem, houses.

Why they dont make an intellegent memory managment with a file for house cache, etc.

But we generally need more development for the Enhanced client, we all should stand for that, it should be finished this year! But we should also be sure that such a small development team is not able to reinvent it, so they should focus on stability and the fixing of bugs.

 

[aarons6]

i wish they used the dragon age 1 or 2 engine.. that game rocks on my pc, uses more graphics and is generally faster then the EC client engine.

then they could finally upgrade UO to true 3d, meaning you can rotate and see behind stuff.

 

[Woodsman]

i wish they used the dragon age 1 or 2 engine.. that game rocks on my pc, uses more graphics and is generally faster then the EC client engine.

then they could finally upgrade UO to true 3d, meaning you can rotate and see behind stuff.

The engine behind UO is the same engine used in Warhammer Online, Oblivion, Fallout 3, Rift, and a slew of other games, the problem is not the engine, it's resources.

Rather than only squeezing in bug fixes when they can, they need to be actively working on the EC. They'll have to given the art update and new player experience, but they should have somebody dedicated.

 

[Gilmour]

also make sure you have an exception in protection software for uosa.exe this could also cause it.

 

[Woodsman]

I can consistently crash it doing a loop around Luna now.

 

[Gilmour]

also. if you are using win7 or vista, you may in some cases benifit from doing a scandisk on the drive with EC. they both (in some cases) got a bad data corruption issue, not caught by the patcher.

Computer - Right click drive in question - properties - tools - disk scan (tick automaticly correct error, but leave scan sectors uncheckeed).
disck scan without sector scan typically take 2-10 min depending on disksize and number of files on your disk, note that your pc will schedule a scan for next time your pc is restarted if its the system drive to be scanned.

would like to point out its an issue in windows, not in EC

 

[Roland']

if the game is built to run on a windows system should it not be compaitble with windows and not have these problems?

 

[Roland']

i have that scheduled and am accualy on the phone with tech support atm. this poor guy is going ill be right back like 15 times keeps coming back asking me for information.

 

[Gilmour]

would like to point out its an issue in windows, not in EC

my previous post stated that this issue got nothing to do with ec client. no software can counter windows corruption if this is your problem.

 

[Roland']

well i played ec client all las t year till november with no problem. came back in feb with no problem. the last big patch we had i started getting the crash issues.

so we hav e along expance of time with no issue, then magicaly an issue. i pent about 1 and a half hours on the phone with ea today. they know its a problem. they gave me some trouble shotting tips. run compatibilty in xp service pack three, or set the game client to 2-3 cpus vs all 8. i noticed a huge improvement setting the it to 2-3 cpus. the memory leak is much slower. now i just have to figure out how to run uocartographer without running the ec client as admin. as the maponly works when ec client+skin is in admin mode.

 

[Gilmour]

ok. but you might want to do a diskscan, if it does not help at least you have eliminated that, and it only takes a few minutes, it could be a windows update screwing with you also

and disabling cores also can solve all sorts of issues. it took world of warcraft untill 2009/2010 or so to become compatible with more than 2 cores... no ****.

but it might be some change in the code that made your client run wierd, like you say. let us hope Cal sticks to his word from todays producer's letter and they do alot for the EC this year, and get it decent enough to remove the beta tag.

also just an FYI due to mentioning "8 cores", if your are using a pc bought this winter with a sandy bridge mother board, verify it is not a dodgy version. Intel have publicly announced some are faulty in the chip related to sata ports and will eventually break. as far as i understand the replacement motherboard is on intel's bill. .. so if that is the case do a search on google on the topic. otherwise never mind =)

Greetings
Gil

 

[Roland']

Its not the computer gil. ive had it just over a year now.

Its not windows gil. Ive now had 10+ friends try the EC client. The newest just a few hours ago crashed 2 times in his first 15 minutes. in a low populated area in his house which isnt very cluttered. He wants me to let him know when i stop crashing, they all love making fun of me out in the field since i have to stop playing every 15-20 mins to restart the client so i dont crash as much.

Something broke recently since the last large patch. I wish it would unbreak.

 

[Petra Fyde]

I'm slightly wondering if your crash issue is related to your reluctance to run the client as admin, if it's constantly failing to write because it doesn't have permission? I've only been playing the client for a short time, but I haven't had a single crash so far.

 

[Pinco]

I notice some crash if you get packets loss.. it's strange but seems that in large data transfers (like areas filled with items), if the client loose to many packets will crash...

 

[Roland']

I'm slightly wondering if your crash issue is related to your reluctance to run the client as admin, if it's constantly failing to write because it doesn't have permission? I've only been playing the client for a short time, but I haven't had a single crash so far.

I always run the client as admin accualy. The reason i didnt want to run as admin was because my computer wont let my set my pcu usage while in admin.

So accualy ive only ever ran the game outside of admin for about 30 mins one day.

If anyone knows how to set my PCU usage while in admin please fill me in! = )



Also Pinco how do i check my packet loss please.

 

[Gilmour]

am not implying it is something specific am only trying to help rule out the obvious before you blame an ec that obviously works fine on some systems, okay? so am trying to troubleshoot what cause it to not work optimal on your system.

personally i rarely crash in enhanced client. it can be counted on one hand the past month..

 

[Roland']

am not implying it is something specific am only trying to help rule out the obvious before you blame an ec that obviously works fine on some systems, okay? so am trying to troubleshoot what cause it to not work optimal on your system.

personally i rarely crash in enhanced client. it can be counted on one hand the past month..

What type of processor do you run? can you share any other system specs please?

 

[Gilmour]

i have an oldschool intel quadcore 2.4ghz core 2 quad (Q6600)
4gig ram highperformance ddr2 ram
nvidia GTX 560 Ti connected to dual monitors
XFX 650i Ultra motherboard (Nvidia 650i chip)
onboard lan, and audio
2 sata drives (320gb + 2tb)

thats about my intire computer

also i was browsing on the issue. and just want to rule out you dont have one of the following graphics chips (since they are official not supported):

(according to Enhanced Client - UOGuide, the Ultima Online encyclopedia)

• Geforce™ FX Series
• Geforce4™ MX Series
• GeForce™ PCX 5900
• GeForce™ 6200 Series
• Intel® Graphics Media Accelerator X3000
• ATI® Radeon™ X300 Series
• ATI® Radeon™ X1300 LE HyperMemory-32

 

[Woodsman]

I notice some crash if you get packets loss.. it's strange but seems that in large data transfers (like areas filled with items), if the client loose to many packets will crash...

This is my problem. I can recall over to a heavily populated area, and it starts to freeze and I know instantly it's going to crash within a second or two.

I'm not running it under Windows so no admin problems, and up until the last patch or two, and I think it was the last patch, it was steady as a rock for a while before that. I was having some crashing issues with a previous patch, but those seemed to have went away with a patch, and everything was fine, and then the last patch or two and it went haywire.

It's still playable as long as I accept the fact that Luna or Zento will crash me fairly often.

Memory is not really my problem - I have 12GB, and the UO processes never hit more than 1GB - 2GB at most, but I think it's tied to trying to transfer or losing too many packets. I'm on a very fast connection as well, with very fast processor, graphics, etc., but I think it's a matter of the client not being able to handle it. If I recall right into the middle of a bunch of vendor houses in Luna, it's all but assured I will crash. The Novablast spell will crash me as well, but that's probably a different issue.

 

[Gilmour]

which gpu you have?

also, did you try lowering graphics details, turn off foilage etc? maybe put a cap to frames per second on 60?

 

[Roland']

my vid card wasnt on the list = /

unlike woods crashes mine are not predictable in that i am laggy prior to them. I simply surprisingly crash to desktop instantly.

what version of directx do you use gil? i keep feeling like directx9 keeps popping up. But wouldnt a newer version be compatible and better than 9? that kind of stuff is past me.

 

[Gilmour]

my vid card wasnt on the list = /

which is good since the list is cards NOT supported, all other cards that has the basic creditials are in theory supported.

unlike woods crashes mine are not predictable in that i am laggy prior to them. I simply surprisingly crash to desktop instantly.

what version of directx do you use gil? i keep feeling like directx9 keeps popping up. But wouldnt a newer version be compatible and better than 9? that kind of stuff is past me.

you may try download the directx9c webinstaller, and see if it updates anything, this is not installed on windows vista/7 default, nor will windows update download it.

worth a try...

--> Download details: DirectX End-User Runtime Web Installer

 

[Woodsman]

Intel Core i7, ATI 5750. I've actually turned down quite a bit in an effort to stop it, even though I've got the horsepower to run everything.

I think it comes down to what Pinco says - when I get into an area where my client needs to receive a lot of data in a short amount of time, it just dies at times. If I walk into that area, I've got a decent chance of not crashing, but there are still occasionally crashes after I've moved past so many houses.

Something changed in the last patch. I wish I knew what it was.

 

[Roland']

Also as i said before i called EA to find that they do not have accual tech support for UO. They have Tech support but the gentleman i talked to (as helpful as he could be honestly) didnt even play UO and had to keep putting me on hold to talk to a teir 3 tech (their highest tech supporter) who was on the phone with someone with my exact problem. Apperently this tech played the game but still did not have solid answers.

What do we have to do to get someone who knows the game and can accualy help solve our problems instead of us users spending hours and hours trying to find answers in a feild we may not be trained in?

I think a few good posts from a accualy UO tech could be a huge help.

 

[Roland']

which is good since the list is cards NOT supported, all other cards that has the basic creditials are in theory supported.



you may try download the directx9c webinstaller, and see if it updates anything, this is not installed on windows vista/7 default, nor will windows update download it.

worth a try...

--> Download details: DirectX End-User Runtime Web Installer

Says mine is compatible or better. just so you know gil you are appreciated.

 

[Gilmour]

just keep in mind my last post about directx

enhanced client use directx9 this is not on vista/7 default, although client will still run without it due to having directx10 however they are not identical and could cause the issue.

 

[Roland']

just keep in mind my last post about directx

enhanced client use directx9 this is not on vista/7 default, although client will still run without it due to having directx10 however they are not identical and could cause the issue.

so it will literaly nto install from that download. how do i make it install directx9 without giving me the yours is equivilent or better when i try to install please?

 

[Gilmour]

if it says you have eqvilent or better you already installed, maybe in conjunction with another game

atm i am fresh out of ideas.

but pinco might have got a point, it might be worth to check his theory and try and extensively ping loop your shard and see if there is any packetloss worth mentioning.

ORIGIN - Ultima Online - Main uotrace ultility found here is useful for that, just click no on updating shardlist, it no longer work.

you can generelly type <shardname>.owo.com and it will ping it (ie "atlantic.owo.com")

 

[Roland']

400/400 pkts r/s

 

[Ezekiel Zane]

I played for a couple of hours tonight and crashed to desktop twice. Once while at Navrey and another time training a pet on Sphinx at the Pyramid.

 

[Gilmour]

hmm am out of ideas, but it would appear running it on less cores, and maybe in xp sp3 compability mode both has positive effect of prolonging the time between crashed untill a more permenent fix is found.

how to run on less cores on vista/7:
Ctrl + Alt + Delte
Select taskmanager
in processes rightclick EC (while running)
click "Set Affinity"
Deselect a few cores.
press ok.

Compability mode:
Find the file or shortcut for your EC client UOSA.exe
Right click and select properties
on compability tab tick compability mode
and select XP Service pack 3

one more thing you can try, although i doubt it will help, is also in compability tab, which is the "disable desktop composition" option. (vista/7 only)

if you haven't already; downloading graphics drivers direct of the chip manufactorer is also a good idea.. (don't trust windows to do this)

www.nvidia.com
www.ati.com

also i would l would like to know are you running windowed or fullscreen? (am only trying to find a trend when it occurs)

PS: Also to answer your answer i jumped over elegantly earlier:

what version of directx do you use gil? i keep feeling like directx9 keeps popping up. But wouldnt a newer version be compatible and better than 9? that kind of stuff is past me.

Directx9 and directx10 are two different generations of directx (dx10 using an all new core), although directx10 will run any directx9 application, installing directx9 may solve various issues if you have any. although obviously not if it isnt directx related..

 

[Roland']

hmm am out of ideas, but it would appear running it on less cores, and maybe in xp sp3 compability mode both has positive effect of prolonging the time between crashed untill a more permenent fix is found.

how to run on less cores on vista/7:
Ctrl + Alt + Delte
Select taskmanager
in processes rightclick EC (while running)
click "Set Affinity"
Deselect a few cores.
press ok.

Compability mode:
Find the file or shortcut for your EC client UOSA.exe
Right click and select properties
on compability tab tick compability mode
and select XP Service pack 3

one more thing you can try, although i doubt it will help, is also in compability tab, which is the "disable desktop composition" option. (vista/7 only)

if you haven't already; downloading graphics drivers direct of the chip manufactorer is also a good idea.. (don't trust windows to do this)

www.nvidia.com
www.ati.com

also i would l would like to know are you running windowed or fullscreen? (am only trying to find a trend when it occurs)

PS: Also to answer your answer i jumped over elegantly earlier:

Directx9 and directx10 are two different generations of directx (dx10 using an all new core), although directx10 will run any directx9 application, installing directx9 may solve various issues if you have any. although obviously not if it isnt directx related..

Solid info but id liek to add. If you are disabling cores via task manager you must be out of admin. and you cannot run uocartographer without admin. So unless we can find a way to disable cpus while in admin mode then this fix is not gonna work = (

I am running in winowed mode. Once again i cannot goto full screen because cartographer will no tsit on top of it.

before anyone says use in game map id like to add that it does not keep up positions, it will often say a player has stopped here when they have moved on long ago, even if they are on your screen it is slow to update. you must be partied and people in cc cannot see you as they do not have the map. Even if the map was decent getting everyone to party and stay partied through multiple crashes woul dbe more work than its worth. also it is just clunky.

 

[Gilmour]

i'd suggest you try and not launch cartographer with ec next time you play just to confirm its not that causing the trouble.

and doesn't the affinity save which cores is selected?

 

[Pinco]

i'd suggest you try and not launch cartographer with ec next time you play just to confirm its not that causing the trouble.

and doesn't the affinity save which cores is selected?

using cart means a huge disk read/write and could cause crash...

 

[Roland']

i'd suggest you try and not launch cartographer with ec next time you play just to confirm its not that causing the trouble.

and doesn't the affinity save which cores is selected?

yes but i cannot set teh affinity while im in admin.

pinco you wrote about carto causeing crashes and ive wondered this myself. But why did the problem start seemingly out of no where even though ive always used carto.

 

[Pinco]

yes but i cannot set teh affinity while im in admin.

pinco you wrote about carto causeing crashes and ive wondered this myself. But why did the problem start seemingly out of no where even though ive always used carto.

I say that cartographer has an high read/write frequency on your disk and could cause crashes if your system is not strong enough...
Just try to disable it from user settings and see if is better or not

 

[Roland']

I say that cartographer has an high read/write frequency on your disk and could cause crashes if your system is not strong enough...
Just try to disable it from user settings and see if is better or not

without sending you my dxdiag i can tell you that my system is mor ethna strong enough. Although i do wonder if you use the same stuff in pincos UI that stone enhance does to run the map. I might try running stone for a couple days to see if i get frequent crashes.

 

[Roland']

crashed within 10 mins on stone enhance. crashed to desk top at exterior steps of friends house. i pretty much ****ing hate who ever runs this game.

 

[Thav12]

not sure this crashing of yours is an EC issue... I had some crash issues previously. After a windows 7 update about 4 months ago, the problem went away and has not returned. Unsure what it was that got fixed. It was before the service pack release.

Use Event Viewer. it is a little advertised nice piece of software with win 7. find it by typing it in the search program box. I don't know how computer litterate you are, but you should be able to figure out what all was going on on your computer right up to where your app got killed. Not offering solutions here, just tools to help figure it out. I suspect however that it has to do with IRQ's and cycles. Sometimes updating the firmware on your network card helps. I did that on another machine where i was having crash issues (not with UO, i don't run UO on that box) and it solved similar "unexplained" things. Another spot to check is actually your firmware on your router. as silly as it may seem. lastly, see if you can switch around the network card and your graphics card inside your computer.

Not sure if any of this helps, but I would continue looking for a solution as it likely can be fixed.

 

[Roland']

not sure this crashing of yours is an EC issue... I had some crash issues previously. After a windows 7 update about 4 months ago, the problem went away and has not returned. Unsure what it was that got fixed. It was before the service pack release.

Use Event Viewer. it is a little advertised nice piece of software with win 7. find it by typing it in the search program box. I don't know how computer litterate you are, but you should be able to figure out what all was going on on your computer right up to where your app got killed. Not offering solutions here, just tools to help figure it out. I suspect however that it has to do with IRQ's and cycles. Sometimes updating the firmware on your network card helps. I did that on another machine where i was having crash issues (not with UO, i don't run UO on that box) and it solved similar "unexplained" things. Another spot to check is actually your firmware on your router. as silly as it may seem. lastly, see if you can switch around the network card and your graphics card inside your computer.

Not sure if any of this helps, but I would continue looking for a solution as it likely can be fixed.

It would appear to me more people are crashing using the EC than not. Just by the fact that as ive stated i have more than a dozen cases of people i know trying EC and all have crashed to desktop. Sorry but no other program i play magically closes to desktop.

Of course ill try everything you suggest.

Edit: i dunno, ive already got everything up to date. I checked my c drive and it already has service pack 1 on it (1 is the newest right?). Seems to me windows updates automatically like it told it too without me doing anything. If you know a work around to get an update it may have missed or the exact name of the update please let me know.

 

[Roland']

i'd suggest you try and not launch cartographer with ec next time you play just to confirm its not that causing the trouble.

and doesn't the affinity save which cores is selected?

Missed this, it does not save affinity.