I've recently been trying to PA and from what i have played it seems great, however, almost every time I start a game it crashes and says either Visual C++ Runtime Error or PA.exe has stopped working. I have tried updating my drivers and directx and while that made it possible to play the odd game, most games still crash while still on the loading screen. I have attached my dxdiag and apologize if this has already been posted somewhere. If it is of any import, this is using windows 7 bootcamped on a macbook as for some reason it doesn't work in the mac partition.
Most likely crash happen due to 32-bit OS limitations: Code: Operating System: Windows 7 Ultimate 32-bit (6.1, Build 7601) Service Pack 1 (7601.win7sp1_ldr.110318-1704) Memory: 4096MB RAM Available OS Memory: 2216MB RAM It's also pretty weird that your OS even being 32-bit only see 2.2GB of RAM. You can find more information on reason of crash in this topic: https://forums.uberent.com/threads/beta-error.51695/ Some workaround explained here: https://forums.uberent.com/threads/crashing-on-32-bit-windows-heres-a-guide-to-help.51990/ But I'm personally recommend you upgrade to 64-bit version of Windows.
ok, thanks, I will try to update to 64 bit windows but I only have access to windows 8 64 bit-would this still be appropriate for planetary annihilation?.
in a 32 bit OS, you can adress the 4gb, though some memory is reserved for hardware, usually yould see around 3.3 GB remaining. Looking through the DxDiag, the other part of the memory is probably set aside for the integrated Intel GPU
If you have key for Windows 7 32-bit it's also should work for 64-bit version, but better ask Microsoft support about details. But yes, you can run PA on Windows 8 without any problems.
Actually according to DxDiag iGPU only have 64mb of dedicated RAM, so 2GB of "Available OS memory" looks pretty weird.
Yes 64mb dedicated memory , and when you read one line further the next line is "Shared Memory: 852 MB" So it would be: Display Memory: 916 MB --> total Dedicated Memory: 64 MB --> taken from main memory , non flexible, bare minimum to display desktop Shared Memory: 852 MB --> shared/reserved from main memory Windows works in mysterious ways As for Ashrill , gaming on a laptop / macbook is never guaranteed to work, even with finished games let alone with Beta software, would hate to see you spend money on a Windows install only to find that you still have the exact same problem, what you could try though is to lower the amount of shared memory for your GPU in the BIOS settings. If you ever decide to buy a new laptop try to look one up that has a dedicated GPU , not an integrated one on the CPU. Those GPU are really only meant for casual gaming, or on very very low settings.
Thanks for notice, I'm always think iGPU do not "lock" shared memory from Windows. Yep, but you can still play PA here with 8-25FPS or even on 12-30FPS with "--nofeatures" flag. It's my experience with Intel HD3000 and 4GB RAM.
Well, thanks for the help everyone. In response to Mikeylow, the main reason I us this laptop is because it is free from my school but i will certainly take your advice for when i actually do decide to buy my own.