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ToMI #2 Freezes After 5-10 Minutes

eyebobuildereyebobuilder
edited August 2009 in Game Support
I suppose the title says it all...

Running Intel DP45SG mobo with 8GB of RAM, a GeForce 8400 GS video card, and the on-board IDT sound card. Windows Vista 64, latest drivers (including video and audio).

I downloaded the latest version of ToMI2, but it has made no difference.

Essentially, after playing for 5-10 minutes, the game and the ENTIRE COMPUTER freezes up. Everything is locked down and any audio at that moment is left "warbling" continuously. There's nothing I can do but a hard power shutdown.

I used nVidia's monitoring tools to watch the GPU temp... it runs around 60C ambient (just using the computer normally), and then climbs to around 72-74C once the game is running. As far as I can tell this is normal.

I've tried running the game at 1024x768 and setting 3 (to force it to use the older rendering); I've tried various higher settings; I've tried windowed and full screen. Nothing seems to make any diffference.

I've checked the Event Viewer logs, but when the freeze happens the entire system locks solid, so absolutely nothing is being recorded to give me any hints (even the clock stops).

I've attached my DxDiag files to see if anyone can find what could possibly be the problem, but this is beyond frustrating. I have not had this problem with any of the other dozen or so Telltale Games I've purchased.

Please help!

Zang

Comments

  • denitz666denitz666
    edited August 2009
    Exactly the same here. The games Fps drop to about 1 or 2, beetween 3-5 minutes playing time, and then crashes. Going windowed and reducing the resoluton to about 800x600 gives about 5 extra minutes.
    I can tell you, it's not the gfx driver nor the audio driver, booth are brand new.
    Will this be fixed anytime soon? Because I loved what I saw so far.

    Regards,

    Dennis
  • DjNDBDjNDB Moderator
    edited August 2009
    I looked at both of your dxdiags without finding anything unusual.

    I think overheating is very likely. Luckily that can be tested by stress testing your CPU and GPU.

    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.
    Download and start core temp. It will show you the CPU Temperature.
    Also activate logging in the menu under "Tools/Logging on".

    Now download prime95 for 32-bit or 64-bit Windows 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 at least 5 minutes. If the temperature reaches 70°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 you didn't have to abort prematurely and there are no Errors listed, your processor should be okay.
    Errors would look like the red worker thread in the Picture below.

    Upload the core temp log file for us.

    The log file created is called similar to "CT-Log*.csv". You have two options to make it accessible to us. Pick the one that works best for you:
    1. If you know how, you can zip the file and attach it to a message.
    2. You can upload it to Rapidshare and copy the link to the file into a new message.

    P95ss9.gif






    Testing your graphics card:

    Download FurMark to stress test your graphics card. Start it, select "Stability Test", "Xtreme Burning Mode" and "Log GPU Temperature". Now start the test by pressing "Go!".
    While running you should be able to 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.


    The log file created is called "gpu-temperature.xml". You have two options to make it accessible to us. Pick the one that works best for you:
    1. If you know how, you can zip the file and attach it to a message.
    2. You can upload it to Rapidshare and copy the link to the file into a new message.
  • eyebobuildereyebobuilder
    edited August 2009
    OK, so...

    I ran the CPU temperature tests first, and the ambient was ~65C and climbed to an average of 81C for the four cores at its highest point. For a Q8200 processor with the stock CPU fan and heatsink, it looks like that's considered "marginal", but within acceptable ranges, including according to the Intel Desktop Control Center that's custom for this MOBO - the temperature information was near the top of the green range (a 25deltaT).

    As a result, I pulled out my Arctic Silver and cleaned, purified, and reseated the heatsink. (When this computer was built the OEM goo on the heatsink was just used).

    The results dropped the ambient temp down to 56C (a 9C drop is pretty good there), and the max temps fell to an average of 78C. Several repeat tests rendered similar results. Not great, but better.

    The GPU test was as expected: the temps gradually rose from 57C to 68C and stabilized there. All in all pretty good for a basic 8400GS card.

    All test results are attached.

    I'm going to go ahead and start the game when I'm done posting this to see if I get any different results. I'll report back later.

    Zang
  • denitz666denitz666
    edited August 2009
    The Laptop i try to play this on, is brand new... oh well.
    The cpu temperature seems okay to me (test ran up to 14 minutes with 50°C max), but the gfx card seems to get hot pretty early.
    Anyways, here is the logs.

    Dennis
  • DjNDBDjNDB Moderator
    edited August 2009
    eyebobuilder wrote: »
    All test results are attached.

    I'm going to go ahead and start the game when I'm done posting this to see if I get any different results. I'll report back later.

    That's good news so far. Because your hardware handled these tests it is unlikely that overheating is a problem in the game.

    Your graphics card does quite well, and the cpu only gets that hot because we fully stress all 4 cores, what the game (and most other applicactions) will never come close to.
    denitz666 wrote: »
    The Laptop i try to play this on, is brand new... oh well.
    The cpu temperature seems okay to me (test ran up to 14 minutes with 50°C max), but the gfx card seems to get hot pretty early.
    Anyways, here is the logs.

    Dennis

    Your CPU handles the load perfectly fine.

    Your GPU log sadly is empty, therefore i can not comment on it yet.


    @both
    Could you please create an MD5 Checksum for the ToMI_SiegeOfSpinnerCay_Setup.exe and compare it to this one?

    ad3f461222ae16278a92e823b77ce6b9 *ToMI_SiegeOfSpinnerCay_Setup.exe

    This way we can check if your installer was damaged during download.
  • hansschmuckerhansschmucker
    edited August 2009
    denitz666 wrote: »
    The Laptop i try to play this on, is brand new... oh well.
    The cpu temperature seems okay to me (test ran up to 14 minutes with 50°C max), but the gfx card seems to get hot pretty early.
    Anyways, here is the logs.

    Dennis

    Let me guess: Acer or Toshiba... these two are really the worst offenders when it comes to GPU cooling. And I can't get any logs of the GPU temperature either (Toshiba here). Or control the fans.

    What I did was buy an external cooling pad to always blow a steady stream of air through the laptop, even when the internal fan thinks the temperature is acceptable.
  • eyebobuildereyebobuilder
    edited August 2009
    Well, it went from bad to worse, experientially.

    I made an MD5 sumof the installer file - it matched the one DjNDB listed exactly.

    When I went to play the game last night I managed about 2 minutes before it decided to fail in a new way... it went to a black screen with audio still playing in the background, flickered for a moment, and then went to a BSoD indicating that nvlddmkm.sys had a problem and that the recovery from a timeout failed.

    I've read about many people who have experienced this with certain 3D games, but I guess you can now add me to the list too. Some solutions ranged from replacing all of their memory to playing with memory speds in BIOS, but it sounds as though they are only temporary solutions, and the problems can still show up again.

    BTW, when I played the game I left the CPU temp program running - it barely flinched in the 2 minutes, of course.

    * Temperature is not a problem.

    * Using the newest nVidia driver COULD be a problem, but I have no idea if there is one previous that is more stable, and I don't have the time to keep installing and uninstalling drivers (as well as the constant heartache of hard reboots) to "experiment". The last WHQL driver (the 186.x one) didn't seem to make a difference.

    * I did download the COMPLETE DirectX runtime files (~100MB) and tried to reinstall those, just in case there was a corrupt file, but it doesn't seem to have made a difference.

    *****

    I've run out of ideas, and am more than a little annoyed that between ToMI 1 and ToMI 2 Telltale has aparently tweaked something just enough to blow things up. (ToMI 1 still plays fine).

    The general rule is to produce or range of products using a single technology that everyone can adapt to for that product's lifecycle. If they wanted to experiment, they should have done that on the NEXT game series (whatever that may be).
  • denitz666denitz666
    edited August 2009
    hansschmucker wrote: »
    Let me guess: Acer or Toshiba... these two are really the worst offenders when it comes to GPU cooling. And I can't get any logs of the GPU temperature either (Toshiba here). Or control the fans.

    What I did was buy an external cooling pad to always blow a steady stream of air through the laptop, even when the internal fan thinks the temperature is acceptable.

    Nicht ganz Hans ;)
    The lappys manufacturer goes by LG. I might be wrong but isn't that the same company that makes fridges? Anyways, seems that they make Notebooks too. Nevertheless, the GPU cooling is as crappy as you suspected.

    Thanks to DjNDB for the overheating idea. Since the FurMark results seemed odd to me (81°C in less than 2 minutes), I tried to cranc up the fans a bit (via bios).
    After a cooling down period I tried again and the game seems to work just fine (for now).

    Strange, I haven't thought of that. Since it's only natural for gfx chips to clock down when overheated, which explains the time based slowdown.
    It looks like LG should focus on fridges again :D.

    I will test the game a bit longer this evening.

    Dennis
  • DjNDBDjNDB Moderator
    edited August 2009
    eyebobuilder wrote: »
    When I went to play the game last night I managed about 2 minutes before it decided to fail in a new way... it went to a black screen with audio still playing in the background, flickered for a moment, and then went to a BSoD indicating that nvlddmkm.sys had a problem and that the recovery from a timeout failed.

    Judged by googleing that really sounds like a nasty problem with unknown cause.

    If you are interested we can keep trying some things. I see no better option.
    - Make sure you have the latest windows updates
    - Update your BIOS. Check if this really is your Mainboard model(!!!). There is a more recent BIOS than shown in your dxdiag. If you haven't done so also update the other drivers, especially chipset.

    - Test your memory for errors
    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


    denitz666 wrote: »
    I will test the game a bit longer this evening.

    Let's hope for the best
  • denitz666denitz666
    edited August 2009
    Okay, I was able to finish the episode. Works like a charm with forced extra cooling.
    Thank you for the great support,

    Dennis
  • hansschmuckerhansschmucker
    edited August 2009
    denitz666 wrote: »
    Okay, I was able to finish the episode. Works like a charm with forced extra cooling.
    Thank you for the great support,

    Dennis

    Maybe you should stick with LG after all... at least they let you control the fan.
  • DjNDBDjNDB Moderator
    edited August 2009
    denitz666 wrote: »
    Okay, I was able to finish the episode. Works like a charm with forced extra cooling.
    Thank you for the great support,

    Dennis

    I am happy for you that it works now :)
  • eyebobuildereyebobuilder
    edited August 2009
    Sorry I haven't posted for a while - been a bit busy.


    I did a memory test, but everything came out fine. BTW a piece of advice to DjNDB: the memtest86 software would freeze every time I tried to use it, and there was a constant tone that would start. Instead, I went and downloaded Memtest86+ (http://www.memtest.org/), which is much more compatible with the newest memory and motherboards. It worked like a charm, and might be a better suggestion for others to try in the future.

    So, the short answer is that the game started working, but for the life of me I cannot tell you why. I was able to play through the entire game without a single flinch, although to be clear, I played it at 1280x720 at Level 3, which means it was using the older graphics processing approach; I'm uncertain (and haven't tempted fate) as to how well it would perform at higher levels.

    Here are the five things I did that changed between the last time it crashed and when it started working:

    1.) I defragged all of the hard drives while in Safe Mode.
    2.) I upgraded (with some difficulty) the BIOS to the latest version. The upside: the computer boots in about half the time it used to.
    3.) I removed the "3D Vision" tools that were installed as part of the nVidia driver package (I'm not about to sit down using 3D glasses, and thought it was unnecessary to have).
    4.) I changed the the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/Software/NVidia Corp folder in the Registry to include my user account with Full Control permissions (just in case).
    5.) I reinstalled the IDT audio drivers AGAIN (being the 3rd or 4th time), since i noted some odd sounds and distortions when certain wav files played.

    Whether it was one of those that fixed it, or the computer "worked it out" on its own, I'll never know. On the other hand, none of those 5 items would hurt to try for anyone else having a similar problem... :)
  • DjNDBDjNDB Moderator
    edited August 2009
    eyebobuilder wrote: »
    I did a memory test, but everything came out fine. BTW a piece of advice to DjNDB: the memtest86 software would freeze every time I tried to use it, and there was a constant tone that would start. Instead, I went and downloaded Memtest86+ (http://www.memtest.org/), which is much more compatible with the newest memory and motherboards. It worked like a charm, and might be a better suggestion for others to try in the future.
    Thanks for bringing the Memtest issue to my attention. I was not aware that there are different Versions. I only knew of Memtest86+ and thought i had linked to it.
    eyebobuilder wrote: »
    So, the short answer is that the game started working, but for the life of me I cannot tell you why.

    I hate when that happens... Reminds me of this thread :D

    I think i'll arbitrarily attribute it to the BIOS update to find my inner peace ^^
    I really have to praise Intel for their detailed change logs. I wish every company would do that.

    If I ever see that problem again I know where to find your list.
    Let's hope it doesn't come back out of nowhere some day as well.
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