Fatal crash - seemingly at random.

Black Mesa Archive In-game Issues (Mod)
#1

Hi all!

I’ve just gotten the game, and I’m really looking forward to reliving some old memories through it. Unfortunately, the game kills my computer.

First time around, the game crashed during the first loading, after the initial tram ride. You know, after you go into that huge vault door thingie. It starts with the sound going choppy, like any other crash. However, after a second or two the screen goes black, and loses input all together. I can’t CTRL-ALT-DELETE, or do anything else for that matter. I have to shut down, and start over again.

It’s happened two more times. One in the second part of the tram ride, and one after getting into the labs, but before the resonance cascade failure.

I’ve updated all my GPU drivers, but nothing has changed. I’ve attached my DXDIAG file.

Thanks :slight_smile:

EDIT:
Dxdiag - https://pastebay.net/1074186
Also, no minidump files are generated after the crash

#2

Hi I have the same problem can get the game to start but crashes anywhere on the tram intro to constant buzz and have to restart pc. I get no Minidump files listed in the source folder either. its a real downer

#3

Apparently the dxdiag wouldn’t upload, here it is on pastebay instead https://pastebay.net/1074186

EDIT:

Does it crash in the same place every time?

#4

Shameless self bump

#5

Sounds just like mine. I’ve experienced crashes like these in Civ 5 after the new expansion as well. Freakin weird!

#6

Reinstall BMS > Reinstall S SDK 2007 > Re-download the previous and repeat > Await response from a dev.

#7

Did that, solved nothing.

#8

Is your computer a laptop? I had that very same problem with my previous laptop. Games freezing with sound looping, and then blue screen. At first, it only happened with powerful games, but in the end I even had crashes with Windows card games. It was a hardware problem. The GPU soldering was bad. Since it was included in the mobo, I had to buy a new laptop.

You should stress/test your GPU to make sure you don’t have that kind of hardware problem.

#9

-dxlevel 81

#10

So you didn’t have to reboot completely? How did you do that, or was it just random?

#11

Why the f you have 12GB of RAM? Lol. It’s just a smidge pointless, but, whatever floats your boat :wink:

Anyhows, sounds like your graphics (or possible CPU) could be overheating. Does the error take a while to manifest from a cold boot? (like in the morning after it’s been off all night)? does it occur faster after a warm boot?

The other thing to try would be a beta driver from nVidia, which can be downloaded from their beta drivers section.

However, first port of call, check that all of your fans are functioning, completely free from dust, (being a GTX 480 i’m guessing it’s been there a while).

#12

I highly doubt that it’s overheating. I mean, this is Source we’re talking about. My GPU can handle higher load games without any problems. Besides, the error is identical to one I had in Civilization 5, which only occured when in singleplayer games. Thanks for your reply though :slight_smile:

#13

I had similar problem in games once (all games, not just one). Game randomly froze, sound loop started and it crashed to windows. It was a problem with my sound drivers for my Asus Xonar. If you are using same / almost the same sound card, try turning off GX option.

#14

Unfortunately no. Thanks though :slight_smile:

#15

Are the devs active in this part of the forum? Any progress on a patch?
(Disguised shameless bump)

#16

No problems,

I only mentioned that it sounded like a gfx overheating problem because I had a similar affair with bf3, and it was a gfx overheating issue (nVidia does some funny shite when controlling the gfx fans).

Also, if it’s crashing to boot, rather than crashing to desktop, I would have assumed hardware error over software, as Windows should catch all software errors, and if it doesn’t, it should blue screen.

#17

BM is a userland app, it can’t cause kernelspace hangs unless you have something wrong with drivers or hardware.

In case you have your GPU and sound card drivers up to date (Logitech USB thingy you have attached to your PC included) you have to suspect hardware problem.

Yes, BM uses Source engine but don’t expect it to be that easy on hardware - it doesn’t.

What I’d tried to do if I were experiencing the same problems you have:
a) Reverted CPU/GPU and system RAM to the default clocks in case I had overclocked any of these.
b) Installed nvProfile tool allowing to overclock GPU and used it to (A) force GPU FAN into maximum speed and (b) downclocked - yes, reduce freq - GPU and VRAM ~15-20% just to be sure it’s not overheating or power supply shortage problem.
c) Cleaned up all the fans inside the PC case from dust, replaced thermal glue under CPU cooler and under GPU heatsink with a fresh compound.
d) Performed memtest86+ test for at least 30 minutes to check if there are no errors related to system RAM.
e) Replaced PSU with brand new and more powerful one just to be on a safe side.
f) Started to replace internal parts of the PC one by one checking that the problem persists after each change.
g) Quit using computers.

:smiley:

#18

Haha, thanks :slight_smile:
I’ll definately check these out! A computer-wizard friend of mine mentioned that there might be some “adresses” or paths or something that could be fucked up. We’re going to try and switch GPU’s and see if that does anything :slight_smile:

#19

i only registered here to say i fixed the random crash, and the library problems, and to share it with others.

so, i’ve downloaded over 20GB before i got this to work. first i got this official 3,07GB torrent and had some library problems. later i got non-steam version (almost 3,5GB ) and got the crashes after 1-2minute (sometimes in menu, sometimes in tram-depends where i was at the moment). after all these tries i saw i need the SDK Base thing. so i got torrent where there was SDK integrated in installation of BMS. that didn’t help either. after everything, i’ve downloaded 1st torrent (the one with 3,07GB ) and installed it over steam (SteamApps\sourcemods) and tried to download the SDK thing. since it was another long download and i had it downloaded in some non-steam BMS, i searched where it should be downloaded with steam and copied those files from offline installer of SDK to that folder (SteamApps). when i started steam again, i had SDK 2006 and 2007 installed. the BM was in list of games, and the tram scene went ok. i was very nervous if crash will happen agan - but the game kept runing :smiley: had no crashes at all after that… also, i saw people have bug with the gigantic fan and had some fixes for it too, but nothing happened when i turned the fan on :smiley: so, i guess installed steam, SDK 2006 & SDK 2007 is needed to run the game without bugs.

cheers, i hope you get it fixed too…

Founded in 2004, Leakfree.org became one of the first online communities dedicated to Valve’s Source engine development. It is more famously known for the formation of Black Mesa: Source under the 'Leakfree Modification Team' handle in September 2004.