CyberMage Crash Issue

I pulled this one out of the technical thread because it was getting unwieldly. I'd like to know the current status of this and if it's not fixed as of the July 12 hotfix, we'd like to get hands on trying to track down the problem. So Cybermage, when you read this, please give us an update

Here are the previous postings:

Reply #50
Beta 2 : Major freeze-crashes during the tutorial (on 21 June).

I'm new to the SSE beta. I have downloaded B2 on 21 June and have only played on that day, attempting to do the tutorial. TWO major crashes then happened, which made me lose interest in the game (for a few days).

Before you blame my computer, please be aware that the "freeze-crashes" I will describe have NEVER happened before in any of my numerous PC games. Also, please consider that my XP/SP2 system NEVER crashes (no BSOD, for example). I maintain a very clean system, thanks to daily antiviral + antimalware scans + registry cleaning. The Windows checkdisk function also indicates that my system is error-free (when the check is done during a reboot). DXdiag also indicates that my system is error-free.

Consequently, it is obvious to me that something in the SSE program enters into conflict with my system. Unfortunately, I have not found on this forum anybody else who seemed to have the same type of problem. Also unfortunate is the issue that the "freeze" does not allow SSE's own error-reporting window to appear and to generate a .dmp file in the MiniDump (I have checked at the appropriate location, and no MiniDump folder has been created yet.)

GENERAL DESCRIPTION. Game-screen freezes + Mouse-cursor freezes + Keyboard becomes dead-frozen (no keys work!) + a faint sound stuttering is heard, endlessly stuck in repetition.

SITUATIONS. It happened twice, on 21 June. I have not been into SSE since then, prefering to play at the new "Lost Empire" TBS/4X (which does not "freeze" on me). The first time, I was into the 1st chapter of the tutorial. Without pausing the game, I stopped playing for a few minutes to focus on the TV. I was not touching the mouse or the keyboard, and the game suddenly froze by itself : the stuttering sound alerted me to the problem, before I realized that nothing was moving on the screen and that I had lost mouse & keyboard functionality. The 2nd time, I was into the 3rd chapter of the tutorial. Again, the game was not paused, and I had stopped touching mouse & keyboard for 5 minutes to take a rest : the game froze by itself, and I was again alerted by the faint stuttering sound coming out of the speakers. Note that before, I had paused the game for 30 minutes to eat supper when I was into the 2nd chapter of the tutorial : that did not make the game freeze. Both "freeze-crashes" occured when the game was unpaused + when I was not touching the mouse & keyboard. It froze by itself!

WHAT HAPPENED NEXT. No crash window appeared : no SSE error-window, no Windows error-window, no BSOD, nothing! Note that I was playing in window-mode since my 19-inch widescreen was set at a 1440 X 900 resolution. The game-window was frozen at a certain point in the intersideral action, and I could see my desktop beyond its margins. I could not close the game-window (or alt/tab) because I then had no mouse & keyboard functionality. There were NO graphical anomalies within the game-window & my desktop's visuals : but there was that audio anomaly, a faint repetitive stuttering. I then had only one interesting option : press the reboot button on the PC's tower. I did that and came back to my desktop WITHOUT having been informed by Windows that a problem had occured. As far as WinXP was concerned, nothing had happened. I then easily got back into the game's main menu, as if nothing had happened : except that I had to restart the tutorial chapter. Since I purchased & downloaded "Lost Empire" on 21 June (the very same day as Beta 2), I decided to dedicate the next few days in that game. I will go back to SSE/B2, after having installed Stardock's SmartException program. Pehaps, next time, SE will identify the problem's context, since Ironclad's own error-reporting program seems to freeze with the game!

Your tech persons can obtain my DXdiag info if you tell me where to e-mail the file. For now, I can state that I have those relevant specs :

WinXP/SP2 (up-to-date)
1024 MB of RAM with a 4 GB fixed page-file!
Pentium 4 @ 2.8 GHz (the model of 3 years ago)
A new Enermax 485-W powersupply
DirectX 9.0c (up-to-date)
Asus GeF 6800 (512 MB vram model) with May 2007 Nvidia drivers (9424)
Creative SB Live with March 2002 drivers (no newer one exists)
DirectX reports NO problems with the video & audio
Antivirus & Antimalware programs had been disabled during SSE
No non-essential program was running in the background !

Thank you for reading all that stuff! I'm not angry : there are many months of beta to come.

Reply #117
MAJOR FREEZE-CRASH (3rd occurrence : see my reply #50 for a full account of the 2 other events + my system specs).

Symptoms : Sudden loss of mouse + loss of keyboard + frozen game-screen + slight sound stuttering.

No Ironclad or Smart Exception report was initiated because everything seemed frozen (except the repetitive sound stuttering).

When? : On the first 2 occasions (see reply #50), I was doing nothing (not even touching the mouse & keyboard). This time, the freeze seemed to follow an abrupt movement I made with the mouse (to go and select something fast).

Immediate solution : No functional mouse + no functional keyboard >> Press the reboot button. (No Windows error-message during & after reboot. Could reload and continue game easily.)

Differences with events 1 & 2 : It happened after 2 hours of problem-free play in a custom game. I was not playing in a window anymore. I had disabled hardware audio (because of the sound stuttering, I believed the SB Live card might be considered as a possible cause, even though this type of freeze-crash never happens in my other games.)
I took great care to close all possible running programs before launching the game. And this time, I had Smart Exception on, but the crash seems to have frozen it out of the action too. I could enjoy a lot more game-time than when the 2 previous events had occured during the tutorial.

Reply #122
Thanx, Yarlen. I shall re-select the SDC option, and go visually hunting for those rare & subtle celestial phenomena.
_________________________________________

Concerning my previous posts (#50, 117 & 118), which described a total game & system freeze, it happened to me for a 5th time, yesterday evening, but that time, I could un-freeze and continue the game! The sequence of events was :

1. Loss of mouse functionality
2. Music then switched to a repetitive audio stuttering
3. BUT this time, I still had keyboard functionality, because when I tested it by pressing the CapLock key a few times, the corresponding keyboard light went on & off...
4. And lo & behold, my CapLock dance seemed to un-freeze the game : the music came back, the mouse came back, and ships moved again.

In my 4 previous freeze-crashes, the loss of mouse & keyboard appeared to happen at the same time, so I could not execute step 3 -- but I will have to check if it's just a question of being fast enough to un-freeze the program with the keyboard (before it turns off).

The only change I had done in the set-up of the game, between crash #4 and crash #5, was to re-select audio hardware support (SB Live Value), since de-selecting that option had not prevented crashes #3 & #4. I don't know if that helped, especially since I don't know if the cause of those freeze-crashes is audio-related (the sound stuttering might just be a secondary symptom).

What is strange is that on most of those crashes, I was not even touching the mouse & keyboard : event #4 even occurred when the game was paused! (Which might point to an audio-related cause, since the music still plays when the game is paused.)

No Ironclad or SmartException or Windows error-ID window has ever appeared in those 5 cases.