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ToMI consistently crashing in game

mdoyleIRLmdoyleIRL
edited July 2009 in Game Support
ToMI is crashing and taking down my PC within minutes of starting new game.
This appears to be a common problem across many different hardward types.

For me, I can only play a couple of minutes then I lose video card signal to the monitor while the sound either continues for a minute and then goes dead, or goes into a loop imeediately when i lose video, and I have to cold boot the machine to recover.

It seems to happen randomly a few minutes in (I get to see the intro sequence play and then as I'm walking around on the boat doing various different things it crashes as described above - but never at the same action. Just randomly while i'm on the boat just after the intro)

I updated to latest Catalyst drivers and have direct .

It looks like the game is taking my video card down.

I'm really annoyed as I love the MI series and was really looking forward to this, but I can't play it with all the crashing.

Please help!

My specs are:
AMD Athlon 64 X2 4200+
2GB RAM
ATI Radeon X1950 Pro (Driver Version: 6.14.0010.6925 - latest)
DirectX 9.0c (4.09.0000.0904)

Comments

  • mdoyleIRLmdoyleIRL
    edited July 2009
    Also note:
    This crash happens on every video resolution that I have tried so far, from very high, down to 1280x720, and has occurred in both full screen and windowed modes.
  • TreeChargeTreeCharge
    edited July 2009
    Same problem here...

    Intel Core 2 Duo - E6550 @ 2.33GHz
    GeForce 8600GTS (latest driver)
  • WillWill Telltale Alumni
    edited July 2009
    Hey guys, do you have any sort of debugging tools running in the background (anything from Process Explorer on up to the more serious stuff)? Or any cd cloning tools? Basically anything that SecuRom might freak out over?
  • GizmhoGizmho
    edited July 2009
    I have the same problem. ToMI is crashing already within the intro. Bluescreen tells something about video card problem.

    My system:
    Intel Core2Duo 2.16
    ATI Mobile FireGL 512MB
  • MIFan199MIFan199
    edited July 2009
    I'm having the same problem only I don't even get to the intro, as soon as I click start new game I get the blue screen and it reboots my computer....

    Specs:
    AMD Athlon 64 3000+
    512MB Ram
  • WillWill Telltale Alumni
    edited July 2009
    A good rule of thumb is that if your computer is ever rebooting on you, then it's time to update your video and sound card drivers. Blue screens and reboots are almost always a driver problem.

    If that doesn't work but you are crashing at some point inside the game (as in you get past the initial load), then you might want to try redownloading, just in case something has corrupted in the game itself.
  • mdoyleIRLmdoyleIRL
    edited July 2009
    I have Nero's Image Drive running...will shut turn it off and see if it does the trick!
  • mdoyleIRLmdoyleIRL
    edited July 2009
    Disabling Nero ImageDrive didn't do the trick...still crashes a few minutes into playing the game.
    Mine is not a blue-screen but a crash of the game which is taking down my video card and rendering my PC useless until I force a cold boot.

    I'll try downloading the game again tomorrow, but that sounds silly. Have never had to do that before for any other game, and besides...I downloaded the game as 1 big .exe from Telltale. If the exe was corrupted it never would have installed.
    Don't see how downloading it again would help but I'll do it again out of desperation.

    I've paid for this game and would like to be able to play it.
    No other game has ever crashed my PC...and I've played plenty way more resource intensive than this.
  • mdoyleIRLmdoyleIRL
    edited July 2009
    I have re-downloaded this game...killed all non-essential processes and services...have the latest drivers for all hardware...and the game still crashes randomly...taking down my PC.

    I am woried that one of these crashes is going to corrupt my hard drive, as I have to cold restart the machine every time to recover. Longest play I got was around 15 minutes.

    C'mon guys...its not good enough to ask for driver updates and re-installs...this game is not handling errors gracefully and is crashes PCs of all many different hardware configurations.

    There is a larger issue here guys!

    Any other suggestions?
    Are there any updates planned for a more stable release of the game?
  • DjNDBDjNDB Moderator
    edited July 2009
    mdoyleIRL wrote: »
    Any other suggestions?
    Are there any updates planned for a more stable release of the game?

    I have a bunch of them.

    Since you have random crashes and ruled out many software issues, it is a good idea to check for hardware problems.

    Testing your graphics card:
    Open your PC and make sure the graphics card cooler is dust free and look whether the fan runs when the PC is running.

    Download FurMark to stress test your graphics card. Start it, select "Stability Test" and "Xtreme Burning Mode" and press "Go!".
    While running you should monitor the temperature at the bottom of the screen. Run it for 10 minutes or until the temperature seems to be stable for some minutes. If the temperature exceeds 80°C, abort with Escape.

    Maybe we can reproduce your crashes this way.





    Testing your processor:
    You should monitor your processors temperature while running the processor test, just as a safety measure to prevent hardware damage by overheating. You can do that with core temp.
    Now download prime95 and run it. If you see a "welcome to gimps" window choose "just stress testing".
    In the "run a torture Test" window just press ok.
    Let the Test run for 5 minutes. If the temperature reaches 60°C before that, abort it. To stop it use "Test/Stop" in the Menu, but keep the window open because you need the results. Just closing the window would keep it running in the systray.

    If there are no Errors listed until then, your processor should be okay.
    Errors would look like the red worker thread in this Picture.
    P95ss9.gif





    Testing your memory:
    Bad memory is often the reason for random crashes. In order to test your memory download http://www.memtest86.com/ and make a bootable cd or disk. Start your system from that medium to run the memory test.

    It is probably enough to run it for one pass. Look at the lower table that looks like this after one pass is finished:
    Test Pass Errors
---- ---- ------
Std     1      0

    If there are errors they are showed in red as in this example:
    th_Photo024.jpg
  • RoenbaeckRoenbaeck
    edited July 2009
    For me the game crashed after the credits had been shown (at the completion of the game). Were there supposed to be anything special happening after those credits?
  • WillWill Telltale Alumni
    edited July 2009
    Nope, at the end of the credits it just kicks you back to the main menu. Weird that it's crashing there of all places, but it's about as harmless of a crash as you could hope for.
  • mdoyleIRLmdoyleIRL
    edited July 2009
    @DjNDB

    Thanks for the suggestions...looks like we found the problem on first try.
    My Radeon X1950Pro GPU was heating up to over 90c when playing.
    It seems to be both a combination of the stress put on the card by ToMI and also the lack of good cool airflow in the case.

    I have installed ATI Tool which monitors GPU temp and fan speed and allows override of fan speed also.

    If I set graphics quality of ToMI to level 6, and open the side of my case to allow better airflow, my GPU can run up to around 84c without crashing and maintain that temperature. As I reduce graphics setting I shave of a few degrees here and there, but level 6 seems fine for now.

    Out of curiousity, can you provide a guide as to what graphical features are enabled at the various quality intervals 1-9?
  • DjNDBDjNDB Moderator
    edited July 2009
    mdoyleIRL wrote: »
    @DjNDB

    Thanks for the suggestions...looks like we found the problem on first try.
    My Radeon X1950Pro GPU was heating up to over 90c when playing.
    It seems to be both a combination of the stress put on the card by ToMI and also the lack of good cool airflow in the case.

    I have installed ATI Tool which monitors GPU temp and fan speed and allows override of fan speed also.

    If I set graphics quality of ToMI to level 6, and open the side of my case to allow better airflow, my GPU can run up to around 84c without crashing and maintain that temperature. As I reduce graphics setting I shave of a few degrees here and there, but level 6 seems fine for now.

    Out of curiousity, can you provide a guide as to what graphical features are enabled at the various quality intervals 1-9?

    Wonderful. I wish more people would just try what i propose. That's what i wrote these tutorials for after all.
    I am glad it worked for you.

    There was a post by Yare just a few days ago explaining the Graphic levels.

    Opening the case is not really the best solution. If you want a proper airflow you should have the case closed and take care of your cables, so that they don't block the air from your fans.
    A good start is to have at least one fan in the lower front and one in the upper rear of the case. If you want your system to be not too noisy i would propose 120mm fans. The advantage of bigger fans is, that they create more airflow at the same speed as smaller fans, which enables you to reduce the speed and as a result the noise and still have the same airflow, and gives you some more airflow power if you really need it.
    Many cases however don't offer suitable places for these big fans, therefore you could consider buying a different one if your's is not suitable. Mine sadly doesn't either, so i can only have 120mm @front blowing in, 80mm @back and @top blowing out, and of course the fans of the PSU and 120mm for the CPU with a decent and big heatsink. It still works pretty well though, but not as silent as i would like it. But most of it is the rushing of air, not motor noise of the fans. I chose them wisely, because i prefer quality hardware.

    The speed of the 3 case fans can be regulated by a special 5,25" front panel, which enables me to choose between silent and performance depending on whether i have the usual low performance desktop applications running or ToMI.

    Considering that my System now has much more performance than I intended to ever have, because i didn't play many games except for TTGs Sam&Max series, the cooling works amazingly well.

    It is a Phenom II X4 940 and my new "ToMI card" a passively cooled Radeon 4850. I like my Graphic cards to be silent, which requires a good air flow even more.

    Compare that to my previous low performance system until a few month ago:
    Athlon X2 4200+ and Nvidia 7600GT

    The GPU just wasn't powerful enough to run ToMI in insane 1920x1200 resolution at levels above 3, and so i decided to spend just a few bucks on a powerful GPU.

    Now i can play that resolution at level 9 and even play around with some extra anti-aliasing and anisotropic filtering in my ATI CCC to make the image look as i like it.

    Though it is passively cooled, the GPU temperature just goes up to about 70°C while playing ToMI at these settings. I would feel even better if it was a bit lower, but considering the circumstances, and that todays Graphics cards are basically small high performance computers, i can't expect much more.

    Okay, i think i babbled enough. If you read this, you are almost through.
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