Game Crash, Out of Memory, Windows 8.1 x64

Discussion in 'Support!' started by emironov, December 8, 2013.

  1. emironov

    emironov New Member

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    I'm having an odd crash in both the steam and non-steam version for PC. The UI stops responding to anything and if I alt-tab windows is saying that I am running out of system memory and that PA needs to close. Looking at the system resources PA is only using 2.2gb of ram, and I have 30% of my 8gb left available. Usually this crash happens with ten minutes, but it has happened at around an hour. I have been not able to finish a game yet.

    Windows 8.1 x64
    Intel P67 with i7-3770
    8gb Ram
    Nvidia GTX 480, current drivers
    Samsung Evo HDD

    My dxdiag is attached.

    Any ideas?

    Attached Files:

  2. mered4

    mered4 Post Master General

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    Might want to check your virtual memory variables in the control panel.........

    Hang on.....gotta find a link.....cannot remember where this stuff is......

    Might be a few hours. :(
  3. maxpowerz

    maxpowerz Post Master General

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    How much free HDD space do you have on the drive with the swap file?
    It sounds like a full HDD issue but it may be a faulty RAM.
    The game should fill RAM before moving on to use Virtual memory.

    Or your RAM maybe loose, if you have the side off your tower,
    power down your pc take power cable out,
    press the power button so the mainboard sucks the last of the power from the PSU.
    Then wobble RAM chips.
    Put power back in,
    Boot pc and see if it solved the issue if yes it was loose RAM,,
    I have had similar issues myself and fixed it this way (I'm a comp tech)
  4. thetrophysystem

    thetrophysystem Post Master General

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    It sounds like hardware but something tells me it isn't. Check it anyway if you can, run another game that takes a load of ram.

    Besides that, wait for sxx to post here in a few hours. Maybe check your virtual ram in computer>properties>advanced>virtual memory or something like that. It should show at least a gig and it may be incorrectly set low if your almost out of hard drive.

    Is possible the game uses some vram by default. That would be nice to know if it did, and if it is planned for fix with optimization.
  5. kryten42

    kryten42 Member

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    If RAM modules would be loose, his System won't show those and thus would show less than 8GB available. I am pretty sure tho that a System with loose RAM modules won't even boot up properly, instead it should halt on error during memcheck(before POST) at startup.
    This really sounds more like a vram issue. If you want to be sure about your RAM, get yourself memtest, put it on a bootable disk/cd/stick and check your RAM with that.
  6. maxpowerz

    maxpowerz Post Master General

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    It depends on the RAM, and what slot is loose.
    I have had ram boot and only 1-2 pins are dirty/no connecting properly on a RAM chip to the ram slot, the chip loads in bios and shows in windows, but when os or app use the ram with bad connection in slot it fails and system halts or windows stops using that module and offloads onto Virtual memory.
  7. Programmdude

    Programmdude New Member

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    Stupid question, but verify that you are running the x64 version of the game? Does it have (32 bit) after it in task manager or is it actually the x64 version.
    maxpowerz likes this.
  8. maxpowerz

    maxpowerz Post Master General

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    or try running the 64bit exe directly..
    C:\Program Files (x86)\Planetary Annihilation\PA\bin_x64\PA.exe

    Steam version
    C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\SteamApps\common\Planetary Annihilation\PA\bin_x64\PA.exe
  9. nixtempestas

    nixtempestas Post Master General

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    The swap file should have no effect on the game, it only starts swapping when it actually runs out of RAM, at which point you computer is probably already thrashing and screwed anyway.

    Try creating a massive planet in system editor and preview it (2500 - 3000 radius ought to do it for 8 GB)
    See if that crashes the game. If it is actually a RAM issue, it should happen there, without the added complexity of the full game engine on top of it.

    I have tried using vastly more memory than I had available to me and the game has never crashed, the computer just starts thrashing and becomes unusable. The OS should only start outright killing processes when it is catastrophically low on memory. Under normal circumstances this should never happen.
    maxpowerz likes this.
  10. Timevans999

    Timevans999 Active Member

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    Guy above is right, I've got a 32 kit up from 8 and the maximum I've seen it on is 7.5 used in windows. But it wouldn't go past 6 with the 8 gig stick. On the same games this probably effected performance.
  11. kryten42

    kryten42 Member

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    Then Sir, you have a strange behaving PC. The last time I had a RAM module not inserted correctly, the machine did what it should, halted during boot and gave me some "beeps" indicating the problem. Also dirty pins != loose pins...two different things you are talking about...but meh, I'll stop now as this discussion won't help with the problem here.
  12. maxpowerz

    maxpowerz Post Master General

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    your right 99.99% of the time in this situation it should either not show at all, or cause the mainboard to halt and emit diagnostic beeps (or flashing of a led on some boards).
    I'm just saying it's a possibility....
  13. emironov

    emironov New Member

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    -Not a hardware issue.
    -I have manually started the x64 .exe. (First thing I tried.)

    I haven't had a chance to test yet, but I did check my page file memory size. I had set it to 500mb due to the ssd. Even though I had ram left over their is a chance the swap file was filling up. I think I can try another game tonight to see if that was the issue. I'm set it to system managed for the time being, and I'll post the result later.

    Thanks for the ideas.
    maxpowerz likes this.
  14. maxpowerz

    maxpowerz Post Master General

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    i think your swap file should be set to system managed if it's not..
    Windows can be demanding on this at the best of times, games like PA push that demand even further....

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