Game temporarily freezing

from Sins Forums

There are some other threads on this subject, but I thought I'd add my experience to the mix. I generally play Sins in co-op mode with my girlfriend vs. several AI opponents. Our computers are in the same room and connected via LAN.  My PC hosts the game.

The problem is that after several hours of playing, the game consistently and temporarily locks up every few seconds. When it 'locks up' all the action stops (e.g., ships stop moving, etc.) but I can zoom the camera around like normal (in other words, the PC itself isn't locked up). It gets worse as the game goes on and the game we're playing now (7-8 hours in) is very frustrating.

My PC is brand new. Specs are: Intel Core2 Extreme Quad Core QX9770 processor 3.2 Ghz, 4GB DDR3 1333 RAM, SATA-II hard drives in Raid 0 for performance, Nvidia 9800 GX2 video card running in multi-GPU mode, Vista Ultimate 64-bit.

Her PC is a little older, yet mine seems to have these lock-ups more than hers (because I'm hosting?). Her specs: AMD FX-55 CPU, 2GB ram, dual 6800GT video cards in SLI mode, 10k raptor hard drive, Windows XP.

I know the problem isn't graphics-related because it's not graphical "lag". Additionally, there is plenty of free RAM on both machines; it seems more like the CPU is being thrashed. I also noted that people have experienced this problem due to the Malice ability of Advent; however the game I mentioned above is TEC and Vasari only.

Anyone have ideas?

technical
3,785 views 9 replies
Reply #1 from Sins Forums Top
This may have to do with the particle lifetime bug people noted earlier. Not sure though.
Reply #2 from Sins Forums Top
Out of curiosity, does the same behavior re-appear if you save, quit, and reload?

As far as I know, IC is investigating both the Malice-specific issue, and the more general issue that you describe.
ObjectDock - Access shortcuts and frequently used applications from an animated dock.
Reply #3 from Sins Forums Top
This may have to do with the particle lifetime bug people noted earlier. Not sure though.
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This was fixed in 1.04, though, and the strange thing these issues with Malice/etc only started popping up after 1.04.

Also, if you have replays or saves where this is happening, please email them to support@ironcladgames.com or host them and put up a linky in the thread.
Reply #4 from Sins Forums Top
Saving and reloading did not fix the problem. And now that you mention it, I don't recall this being an issue pre-1.04. However, I also got my new PC right when 1.04 came out, so it's either something with my PC (Vista 64 bit maybe?) or something with 1.04.
Reply #5 from Sins Forums Top
Saving and reloading did not fix the problem.
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That's what I thought would happen. :P

I didn't change any hardware between patches, but I've started seeing similar issues after. The running theory is that the patch changes (whether it be AI or something else) are choking the CPU, but who knows :P
Reply #6 from Sins Forums Top
put up the save. more of these examples the better.
Reply #7 from Sins Forums Top
Saving and reloading did not fix the problem. And now that you mention it, I don't recall this being an issue pre-1.04. However, I also got my new PC right when 1.04 came out, so it's either something with my PC (Vista 64 bit maybe?) or something with 1.04.
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Thats basically what it appears to be. I alt tabbed outta the game and it was saying the display driver (nvlddmkm)stopped responding and was successfully recovered. Ima try turning the visual effects all the way down and see if that helps.
Reply #8 from Sins Forums Top
it was saying the display driver (nvlddmkm)stopped responding and was successfully recovered.
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No, this is an Nvidia driver issue that's resolved in the 174.xx beta driver release. ;)
Reply #9 from Sins Forums Top
This one may be resolved in the upcoming v1.041 hotfix.