Random Game Crash

[greyze]

Hello, Recently i've built a new gaming system (Xmas Ftw) but some reason i crash in WA :(

In WA, randomly (literally) the entire computer crashes.
The system is completely unresponsive and i must turn off the power, what happens is the screen freezes and the sound crashes and goes into a loop.

Randomly the game crashes, wether its just started playing a multiplayer game, single player, online game or even in the menu screens.. the times seem to be different, i can play for 10 mins to an hour before i get a crash.

The PC i have is running Windows XP, it is completely clean from viruses and bad programs/files, i have re installed WA several times in hope of fixing this and have had no changes. I am running the latest software updates from Microsoft and all my drivers are updated (Graphics card, sound card etc...)

System specs:
Windows XP SP2
Geforce 8800 GTS 512MB
Gigabyte Ultra Durable 2
Q6600 Quad-Core CPU
2GB 800MHz RAM
500GB Western Digital HDD

Nothing is overclocked, everything is cooled with high performance system fans and a Antec 900 gaming case.

My computer runs completely fine on everything ive tested with, all games work with no crashes or errors, all programs/apps, never had a system hang of any kind and my computer can stay on for days with no problems. WA is the only game that seems to crash.. i really cant figure out whats wrong with it.

My old computer did not crash at all though, never has on WA. Sorry to tell you but i dont have an error log to post either, as WA gives a system crash not just a program crash.

umm.. thats all i think i can tell you, of course tell me what you need to know if ive missed something out.

Thanks for helping.

Oh and i have updated to the latest version of WA.

[CyberShadow]

That sounds like a hardware lockup, but maybe this is worth trying anyway:
Get WormKit (http://worms.thecybershadow.net/wormkit/), and install this module: 30787
Run the game via WormKit, and get it to freeze. If this isn't a hardware lock-up, five minutes after the game was started the game should close and a FREEZE.DMP file will be created. Note that the module will close the game and create the debug dump whether or not the game freezes, so if the game closed without freezing first as you described, ignore the dump file and try getting it to freeze again.
If the game still stays frozen for more than 5 minutes even when you run it with WormKit+this module, then it's a hardware lock-up. The problem is most likely with your device drivers or your hardware. I'd suggest a stress-test on your system to reveal the faulting component.

[greyze]

Did what you said, ran the game x2 and got a Freeze.DMP file (attached).

the 5 mins doesnt seem to be long enough to get the crash i was talking about.

[CyberShadow]

Unless the FREEZE.DMP file was generated after your PC "crashed", it's of little use - please clarify. If the 5 minute period is too low, specify a period of your liking; I shall make a module which closes the game and writes a FREEZE.DMP file after a specified amount of time has passed since the game has started.

[greyze]

Yes if you want my pc to crash so the wormkit module can attempt to kick in at that time... i need the module to be longer than 5 mins, say 30-45mins?

btw, i have done a little checkup on what kind of crash it is.. i have external pieces of hardware that monitor computer programs or hardware. So lets say if a program crashes, also i cannot gain access to any of the system because the program that crashed was a fullscreen program lets say. I have a G15 Logitech keyboard with a screen on it that can monitor various things like system performance, show clock etc..

if i have a program crash, i know its a program crash and not a system crash because the G15 screen is completely responsive to commands and activitys shown by the system..

When WA crashes, the G15 keyboard screen freezes aswell, so its a full system crash.

I may be wrong, but doesn't that sound like a hardware crash?

If this is a hardware issue, id like to point out again that this is a brand new system and every single program i use on it works competely fine, i can run games like COD4, HL2, world of warcraft etc etc for hours on end with no problems, i am also uptodate with the latest drivers.

have done random hardware testing aswell, such as overlocking cpu/ram/gpu and the whole system ran fine, never crashed and kept it overclocked for 3 days, its back to normal now with no problems.

I play games that use the full power of my 8800GTS 512MB, played games thats used all memory and the maximum power it can push out with no errors.

I have used up all my RAM by running many random programs at once to see if there was any issues, none came up.

stress tested my cpu and managed to make it go hot as hell, no problems.

basically.. WA is the ONLY program that has crashed on this system since it was made in Xmas.

I've came across MANY computer problems in my time and conquered them too.. but this one is a really doosy!, the ONLY solution i can come up with.. is that perhaps my graphics card (Nvidia 8800GTS 512MB) and its drivers do not conform well with WA.. this card has only recently been released, so id guess it would be that or the drivers or something.

tbh Cyber, i wish you was at my house right now so you could see for yourself, hehe

[Muzer]

The 8800 did have problems, but they were WA not running at all due to lack of Direct Draw support and they have been completely fixed now with new drivers.

Oh yeah, but online, WA still always uses 100% CPU, but that now only happens online (as of the latest update), not everywhere like you said the crash happens.

[greyze]

Hmm, since you mentioned the 100% CPU usage, this may be nothing at all, but im curious.

i have the Q6600 processor (Quad-Core)

of course, when the system is IDLE the cpu usage is at 0%... but when i fire up worms, 1 full core is used, my hardware monitor shows that when WA is on 1 full cpucore is stuck at 100% (25% total system)
the core is not always stuck at 100%, randomly goes down to 95% sometimes, and a different core goes up by 5% or.. random stuff like that.

this is way off track i think, but im quite curious how quad cores work. World of Warcraft has multicore support and uses all cores to play the game, when that game is running the total cpu usuage is at 30%, WoW is a huge game compared to worms, so why does worms take 25% cpu?

please stay on topic about the crashing btw.. im just learning about random stuff too ;)

[KRD]

WA, up to version 3.6.28.0, uses up all available CPU resources it can get its hands* on. Since it doesn't support multiple cores, your observation seems logical. This has caused overheating problems in the past, but mostly in the case of notebooks. And anyway, your system seems modern and ventilated well enough to be able to handle it.

Nonetheless, future versions of WA will use up significantly less resources online thanks to DC's and CS's efforts in that regard. About as much as 3.6.28.0 does during offline games now, which is around 20% in my laptop's case [an Athlon64 3000+ running at 800 MHz].

* Tail, perhaps?

[franpa]

have done random hardware testing aswell, such as overlocking cpu/ram/gpu and the whole system ran fine, never crashed and kept it overclocked for 3 days, its back to normal now with no problems.how does this prove anything? since when has overclocking been a way to test stability?
I have used up all my RAM by running many random programs at once to see if there was any issues, none came up.you should use memtest86 for testing your memory modules.
stress tested my cpu and managed to make it go hot as hell, no problems. elaborate, what did you use to "stress test" it?

[CyberShadow]

From your description of the problem, this most likely is a full system lock-up, and this WormKit module won't be helpful; I made one anyway if you care to give it a shot.
Let's not exclude that drivers may be a cause of the fault as well. It is unseldom these days for hardware manufacturers to neglect backwards compatibility and proper testing with older software when writing drivers for new hardware. The most outstanding example of this in W:A's case is Intel's new drivers for their graphics chipsets for Windows Vista, which are incompatible with W:A and a number of other games without certain hacks/workarounds.

[greyze]

The freeze dump didnt work, the crash is a full lock up it seems.

Im still very confused though.. im still positive its some sort of conflict with WA and my new hardware such as my new GTS or something, just to boggle your mind a bit more ive played older games with no errors.

played worms 2, left the game run for hours and no crash
played worms world party, left the game run for hours and no crash

even some really old games like black and white, no problems.

basically my hardware is fine, its obviously a software issue.. but im not a coding expert :(

its not like im nocking off WA, especially the patches uve made a brilliant :D

but you know, somethings wrong here.

Its a shame i cant compare it to my old system that runs WA fine, its runs on ATI and etc..

I beg you CS, DC! fix this problem :)

[CyberShadow]

A lock-up like that isn't a problem with W:A, and we can't fix what's not broken. However, on a fast-enough system you should be able to run W:A just fine in a virtual machine. Grab a copy of Microsoft Virtual PC and set up a virtual machine, W:A should work well enough in it :)
(you may need to disable mouse integration to avoid some problems with the mouse)

[greyze]

Well im attempting to use this Virtual machine software, dont really know what im doing with it as i dont understand it :P so far ive gotten to a DOS screen, clicked on use physical drive (WA) and dont really know what to do from there..

but i hoped i didnt have to resort to something like this.. i mean opening a virtual OS to load the game that may not function well :S

every single thing i do with this pc runs perfect including other worms games like WWP and W2, this is really frustrating...

I think its best to leave this thread now because it seems like you have done all you can for me, thanks alot for that.

If you can find a solution in the future, please bump this thread or msg me, ill be around ;)

[Muzer]

Use MS Virtual PC 2007, available for download off their site. It would be best to install '98, if you have a '98 CD. If you have XP home, just ignore the messages that say you need XP pro.

[greyze]

i can give that thing a re-try and use to install 98, but do u have a website that guides you through how to actually use the program? all i had is a DOS screen with text.. didnt understand it :(

[CyberShadow]

I advise consulting the documentation that comes with the program (RTFM).
Hint: You need to "insert" a Windows installation CD.

[franpa]

lol greyze, have you never used DOS before?

[greyze]

Only thing ive ever used close to DOS, was my college apps.. and various small commands in MS-DOS for fixing, such as Tracerts.

[bgmagic]

I have this same problem with similar hardware. I have a q6700 and a 8800GTS card and the same thing happens to me. There should be no reason we would have to run this in a virtual machine. Did anyone figure out a workaround for this problem? It sure sounds like the 8800GTS video card to me.

[Muzer]

Update your drivers

[bgmagic]

I tried that. Used Nvidia Latest Drivers and the beta drivers and neither made any difference. I also tried to run it in VMware on a second Windows XP install using the VMware SVGA graphics driver and it works but the mouse is all crazy in the game and I can't scroll around the screen. One problem after another.

[CyberShadow]

A hardware lockup does not indicate a fault within W:A. Did you try the WormKit modules posted earlier in this thread?

Regarding your VMware problem - uninstall the VMware Tools mouse driver, or disable mouse pointer integration. See http://worms2d.info/Installing_WA_on_VMware_Player for more information.

[greyze]

Long time since ive been here.. Id like to say that the problem still exsists :(

Cyber, I'm not knocking your knowledge or the WA updates you've done.. but it is actually possible that software can cause hardware crashes. Its obviously impossible to go whine to Nvidia or whoever is causing the problem to fix it.. But we are in direct contact with you and we solely rely on you to /care for us in our time of need :(

I'm not a l33t programmer, but im positive you can find some sort of solution to make WA work with our hardware :) If you cant find a solution, if you found the problem im sure thats good enough to present to the manufacturers so they can fix it.

I dont play WA unless its at my GFs (rarely), I play games im bored of now :(

I BEG YOU CYBERSHADOW!!! PLEASE HELP US ! :)

Btw, VM seems to work, but honestly.. I really dont want to play the game with all the hassle i have to go though, i miss the old days where I loaded and played in seconds.

[franpa]

unless you send cybershadow your whole computer tower, there is not much that can be done.

[CyberShadow]

User-mode software cannot cause system crashes directly on operating systems that use user-level process isolation, such as the NT family of Windows OSes (that includes XP). Simply speaking, if a user-mode program like W:A causes a system crash, this means that it sent a command or some data do a kernel-mode component, such as a video driver, which does not process the data correctly. The data may be malformed, but any properly-written kernel-mode component must validate all data before processing it - otherwise, it leaves the system at risk for a Denial of Service attack. Therefore, what you are experiencing is probably a compatibility bug in one of your kernel-mode components (or possibly drivers).

If I were you, I'd try to use a kernel debugger to see what happens exactly, but this process is impossible to explain in one go.

Did you make sure to have the very latest driver versions? Do not trust Windows Update or your hardware vendor's website, consult the manufacturer's website directly.

[greyze]

Windows update for drivers? = lol

of course not :) straight to Nvidia themselves.

[CyberShadow]

I have no suggestions other than virtualizing W:A.