Random Crashes after long gameplay

[Captain Cookie]

After extended periods of gameplay, The screen goes black, and tells me that application has experience an error. The demo did this too me as well? I am using the steam edition, and yes, my specs meet the requirements, or I'm pretty sure they do. I have experienced things like this with games, but this one sticks out. It does it more often.

EDIT: Resolved, thanks Keith

[Will Jennings]

Thanks for the report and the dxdiag, Captain. Do the problems you're experiencing reproduce from saved games? That is, if you save the game and crash soon afterwards, do you crash in the same spot when loading the save and trying again? If so, could you upload the save for me?

[Captain Cookie]

When I played the demo, I continued playing AFTER the tutorial, and after a long amount of playing, it crashed. I started the demo up and played, It crashed very shortly after I started, so no. I would restart it up from the autosave, but currently the Steam servers are too (lazy) busy to answer my request.

[Keith]

First, try resetting your screen refresh rate to just 60Hz. Higher rates sometimes cause black screen problems.

If that doesn't help try updating the video driver.

If that doesn't do it try unplugging your USB headset device and making your Realtek sound system the default playback device. Also try unplugging any other non-essential USB devices if you have any. Except for keyboards and mice.

You may want to free up a little more space on your C: drive.

[Captain Cookie]

You may want to free up a little more space on your C: drive. I've been meaning to do that. I know it effects my system, But it's mostly Steam applications. I've been installing things on E:

EDIT: This has been resolved. It WAS the refresh rate.

[Keith]

The game needs the Tilted Mill sub folder in the C:\My Document folder to work. Make sure you have a TM folder in your My Documents folder for the account name you are using in Windows.

Sometimes installing on drives other than C: can cause problems too.

[Will-ko]

I have the exact same problem except I cannot adjust the refresh rate as 60 is the only one I have on this computer.
I've managed to get the save point literally half a second before the crash/problem occurs. Any other possible ideas/solutions?

Thanks, Will-ko

Edit: Sorry to bump the thread, but I thought it better to bump it and keep all the already known information on the problem in a single thread than start a completely new one and start from scratch.

[Keith]

Attach a copy of your dxdiag.txt file to your next reply. Without it we don't have any place to start.

[Will-ko]

Here's my Dxdiag and the save that crashes. I've got it so that it crashes a second after loading. (Don't know if it will crash with someone else) I generally have no problem running the game, never had. Not even with massive Cities.

I've tried to reset the refresh rate like captain, unfortunately my laptop doesn't go any lower/higher than 60Hz.

Thanks, Will

[mouse]

There are a couple of things I see with your system that is the source of crashes. Lack of free space on your hard drive windows needs room to move files around and the game needs room. You only have 6gbs of free space with 2gb taken up by the page file/swap file. Solution free up at the very least 10% of the hard drive.

Second this game does stress the video card and overheating could be a problem with your video card.

[Will-ko]

Well seeing as It crashes the exact same time when ever I try and play pretty much rules out any possibility of hardware overheating, seeing at it crashed this morning when my system has been turned off all night.

And to be perfectly honest, I can't see how having 10Gb compared to 6Gb is going to make much difference when the files being "moved about" would only be a couple of Mb each.
Never has made any difference in the past even when playing Crysis. I seem to remember having only 300mb of spare space and that never crashed.

Edit: I don't think it says in the Dxdiag, but I do have 2GPUs SLi'ed. And I have tried turning on and off SLi but with no avail.

[mouse]

Lack of free space and fragmentation are to common causes for software crashes. There is more going on than game files being moved around windows also moves files around in the background. These are suggestions for solutions which it's up to you if you try them or not.

This game is very demanding on a system unlike other games.
As a matter of information I build and repair computer systems as well as maintaining them for optimum performance.

[Rnett]

Page File: 1247MB used, 2691MB available

Try turning off some background programs.

[Will-ko]

Anyway, This is a save of the same game about 1min - 30secs before it crashes. I've tried to do things differently but it inevitably leads to a crash. I think if you pause it, it extends the time.

Just ran another Dxdiag without other programs running and it was,

Page File: 656MB used, 3282MB available

[Kiya]

It crashes on me too, even faster than you say, and my present PC can handle CoTN very well. Perhaps your save is corrupted some how?

PS Page file of 656MG is still pretty big if "without other programs running and it was". I have half of that (Win XP too, and 4 background programs running like my virus scan, firewall...).

[mouse]

Both the saves you posted here also crash immediately on my system. If you have the steam version of the game then you need to verify your files on steam. My games-properties-local files-verify game cache and while there it wouldn't hurt to defrag the game files.

Well both saves crash the cd version of the game immediately since it's happened to two of us there is something wrong with your game files.

[Will-ko]

I don't have the steam version.

And that second page file, when I said no programs running I meant that it only had the programs that I always have on with the exception of Firefox which I usually shut off before playing any game.
Xfire, steam, Anti-virus and an inactive download manager.

I can quite easily run CoTN with iTunes, MSN and system updates running. (Attempted to find out what it took to crash the game program wise)

Well if it is happening with everyone using that/those saves then I will have to assume it's corrupted.
This is the first time it has happened in all the years of having the game.

Thanks for the assistance anyhow.

Will-ko.