vista COAS freezing problem

[shroder300]

I am having a problem with COAS freezing about 30 min into playing. my setup is:
ms vista
intel core2 duo E7500 2.93 Mhz
ami bios
3G memory
ati radeon hd5700 1G ram
1600 x 900 x 60Hz resolution

what I have done so far:
I have upgraded tages
COAS is installed in c:\games\Age of Pirates 2
I am not running full screen (1024 x 768 resolution)
I am running in safe mode.
I have reinstalled twice
my hard drive has been defragmented.

as far as I know my video card is capable of running directx 11.

I am running out of posts from the forums about "crash". What else can I try?

 

[Thagarr]

Sounds like a bit of a strange one, usually if the game gets past the loading screen it will run fine, as long as it's installed outside of program files, which you have done. Your hardware should have absolutely no problems with this game. I assume you are running the stock game with no mods installed?

Does the game always crash at a certain point? Or just after around 30 minutes of gamplay? You say your running the game in safe mode, what happens if you don't run it in safe mode? You should not have to run this game in safe mode, in fact, most games won't run in Windows safe mode because a lot of essential drivers are not loaded.

From what you have posted above, there are a couple of things I can suggest. First, try installing DirectX 9, it is the most backwards compatible version of DirectX, and will install just fine on Vista. You can download it HERE!

Second, take a look through any background processes you have running, and try disabling them one at a time. You have plenty of memory, so that shouldn't be an issue, but one of them may be doing something in the background that is conflicting with the game.

 

[shroder300]

when I mean safe mode I mean in the game config program not windows safe mode. And yes every 30 min or so. it doesnt matter what I am doing in game it will freeze, at sea, in a tavern, in a menu, wherever. I didnt install direct x9 but I will try that. then I will start removing my background programs. I am running the stock game. and the game runs the same in or out of safe mode.

 

[Thagarr]

Sorry mate, I misunderstood you, I haven't used the config utility since POTC, I forgot all about it.

I'll do some more thinking and see if I can come up with anything else for ya.

 

[shroder300]

I tried downloading directx9 and not really sure what I got. sdk? but it didnt work. I have a lot of programs running in the background. as far as I know most of them are windows and are needed. I tried to stop a few of the updater programs with no luck. if you have no ideas as to what conflicts that I would be looking for then I am going to have to give up and call it a loss. from what I have played I like the game but I have not played all that much. should I try installing the all encompassing mod/fix (whatever it is called?) I didnt want to install any mods till I got it running right though.

 

[shroder300]

I tried downloading directx9 and not really sure what I got. sdk? but it didnt work. I have a lot of programs running in the background. as far as I know most of them are windows and are needed. I tried to stop a few of the updater programs with no luck. if you have no ideas as to what conflicts that I would be looking for then I am going to have to give up and call it a loss. from what I have played I like the game but I have not played all that much. should I try installing the all encompassing mod/fix (whatever it is called?) I didnt want to install any mods till I got it running right though.

 

[shroder300]

I tried downloading directx9 and not really sure what I got. sdk? but it didnt work. I have a lot of programs running in the background. as far as I know most of them are windows and are needed. I tried to stop a few of the updater programs with no luck. if you have no ideas as to what conflicts that I would be looking for then I am going to have to give up and call it a loss. from what I have played I like the game but I have not played all that much. should I try installing the all encompassing mod/fix (whatever it is called?) I didnt want to install any mods till I got it running right though.

 

[shroder300]

now I see why there are multiple posts. Is there a way I can delete my copies? I thought that it wasn't going through.

 

[Thagarr]

As soon as a mod sees it, they will take care of the multiple posts.

Don't give up on this game yet mate, it can be a bit frustrating to get going sometimes, but it is well worth the effort! Someone out there may have the same problem, and if we can figure out what is causing yours, it may help them as well.

When it freezes, does your whole system lockup? Or just the game? Do you get any kind of error message at all?

 

[Beneke]

try running the game manually, by that i mean running the .exe file from the install folder also, are you administrator?

 

[shroder300]

just the game locks up. and I do run the file from the game folder. I am the administrator. I also have the game set to run as admin and to run in xp sp2 compatibility mode. to get out of the game I have to crtl-alt-del to get the task manager and kill COAS. I have waited to see if it will just com back up but no luck.

 

[Thagarr]

Ok, if Windows isn't locking up, that narrows it down to something that the game is doing. Since you installed DirectX 9 and that didn't solve it, I think we can rule out a DirectX call. It could be something as simple as the game playing a video or sound file, usually that problem only happens at the beginning when the game loads, but I have seen it at other times too.

A while back I ran across a handy little program that will show you a complete list of audio and video codecs that you have installed on your system, it will also let you disable and re-enable them easily. Badly written codecs can play all kinds of havoc with both Windows and apps and games that you are trying to run. The program is called Installed Codecs, and you can download it from here :

http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/installed_codec.html

I would suggest disabling all the codecs at first, just to see if it fixes your problem mate, it's really easy to re-enable them.

 

[shroder300]

still hangs up. the game did turn some back on though. I installed the big mod and it seems to work a little better. its a little more sporadic. sometimes I can play for around an hour before it freezes. I have noticed that it hasn't froze in the f2 menu yet.

 

[Thagarr]

Ok mate, looks like this one is just not going to go away easy!

It could possibly be that your graphics card is getting warm, but that would be highly unusual for the card you have, unless you are using a laptop. This game shouldn't even make it break into a sweat! Just to make sure we cover everything though, a handy little program for checking your temps is HWMonitor, it's free, and will tell you both your CPU and GPU temps as well as some fan speeds. You can get it from HERE!

 

[shroder300]

that was the very reason that I got this card in the first place. my old one was getting too hot. I will keep an eye on this but I also have run oblivion, risen, guld2, fallout3 and others all at max graphics without any problems. I still think that it is a conflict with something I just can't think with what. I have a razer naga mouse and a logitech g15 keyboard. has anyone else seen conflicts with these before. (they each have resident programs that watch what is running so that the correct profile can be loaded)

 

[shroder300]

hottest it gets is 107 and it doesn't freeze at that temperature reliably. I also upgraded my video driver. still no luck.

 

[Luke159]

Have you defraged and run disk clean up?

These can course the games to freeze. I can't think of any other reason why you would be getting that problem.

 

[Thagarr]

I don't know much about the Razor mouse you have, but I do have a Logitech G-11 that uses the same drivers as the G-15, never had a problem with it here. The driver continues to insist on loading the LCD driver, even though I tell it not to!

It's a bit strange that some codecs were re-enabled after you disabled them, that shouldn't happen normally. Can you list the codecs that were re-enabled?

 

[shroder300]

Here is what codecs were activated. I also ran disk cleanup and defrag with no success.

"AC3 Parser Filter","DirectShow MPEG-2 Splitter.","Microsoft Corporation","C:\Windows\System32\mpg2splt.ax"
"ACM Wrapper","DirectShow Runtime.","Microsoft Corporation","C:\Windows\system32\quartz.dll"
"ATI Ticker",,,"C:\Program Files\ATI Technologies\ATI.ACE\Graphics-Previews-Common\Ticker.ax"
"AVI Decompressor","DirectShow Runtime.","Microsoft Corporation","C:\Windows\system32\quartz.dll"
"AVI Draw","DirectShow Runtime.","Microsoft Corporation","C:\Windows\system32\quartz.dll"
"AVI Mux","DirectShow Runtime.","Microsoft Corporation","C:\Windows\system32\qcap.dll"
"AVI Splitter","DirectShow Runtime.","Microsoft Corporation","C:\Windows\system32\quartz.dll"
"AVI/WAV File Source","DirectShow Runtime.","Microsoft Corporation","C:\Windows\system32\quartz.dll"
"Color Space Converter","DirectShow Runtime.","Microsoft Corporation","C:\Windows\system32\quartz.dll"
"DV Muxer","DirectShow Runtime.","Microsoft Corporation","C:\Windows\system32\qdv.dll"
"DV Splitter","DirectShow Runtime.","Microsoft Corporation","C:\Windows\system32\qdv.dll"
"DV Video Decoder","DirectShow Runtime.","Microsoft Corporation","C:\Windows\system32\qdv.dll"
"DVD Navigator","DirectShow DVD PlayBack Runtime.","Microsoft Corporation","C:\Windows\system32\qdvd.dll"
"Enhanced Video Renderer","Enhanced Video Renderer DLL","Microsoft Corporation","C:\Windows\system32\evr.dll"
"File Source (Async.)","DirectShow Runtime.","Microsoft Corporation","C:\Windows\system32\quartz.dll"
"File Source (URL)","DirectShow Runtime.","Microsoft Corporation","C:\Windows\system32\quartz.dll"
"File stream renderer","DirectShow Runtime.","Microsoft Corporation","C:\Windows\system32\quartz.dll"
"File writer","DirectShow Runtime.","Microsoft Corporation","C:\Windows\system32\qcap.dll"
"Full Screen Renderer","DirectShow Runtime.","Microsoft Corporation","C:\Windows\system32\quartz.dll"
"Infinite Pin Tee Filter","DirectShow Runtime.","Microsoft Corporation","C:\Windows\system32\qcap.dll"
"Internal Script Command Renderer","DirectShow Runtime.","Microsoft Corporation","C:\Windows\system32\quartz.dll"
"Line 21 Decoder","DirectShow DVD PlayBack Runtime.","Microsoft Corporation","C:\Windows\system32\qdvd.dll"
"Line 21 Decoder 2","DirectShow Runtime.","Microsoft Corporation","C:\Windows\system32\quartz.dll"
"MIDI Parser","DirectShow Runtime.","Microsoft Corporation","C:\Windows\system32\quartz.dll"
"MJPEG Decompressor","DirectShow Runtime.","Microsoft Corporation","C:\Windows\system32\quartz.dll"
"MMACE DeInterlace",,,"C:\Program Files\ATI Technologies\ATI.ACE\Graphics-Previews-Common\MMACEFilters.dll"
"MMACE ProcAmp",,,"C:\Program Files\ATI Technologies\ATI.ACE\Graphics-Previews-Common\MMACEFilters.dll"
"MMACE SoftEmu",,,"C:\Program Files\ATI Technologies\ATI.ACE\Graphics-Previews-Common\MMACEFilters.dll"
"MPEG Audio Decoder","DirectShow Runtime.","Microsoft Corporation","C:\Windows\system32\quartz.dll"
"MPEG Video Decoder","DirectShow Runtime.","Microsoft Corporation","C:\Windows\system32\quartz.dll"
"MPEG-2 Demultiplexer","DirectShow MPEG-2 Splitter.","Microsoft Corporation","C:\Windows\System32\mpg2splt.ax"
"MPEG-2 Splitter","DirectShow MPEG-2 Splitter.","Microsoft Corporation","C:\Windows\System32\mpg2splt.ax"
"MPEG-I Stream Splitter","DirectShow Runtime.","Microsoft Corporation","C:\Windows\system32\quartz.dll"
"Multi-file Parser","DirectShow Runtime.","Microsoft Corporation","C:\Windows\system32\quartz.dll"
"Overlay Mixer","DirectShow DVD PlayBack Runtime.","Microsoft Corporation","C:\Windows\system32\qdvd.dll"
"Overlay Mixer2","DirectShow DVD PlayBack Runtime.","Microsoft Corporation","C:\Windows\system32\qdvd.dll"
"SAMI (CC) Parser","DirectShow Runtime.","Microsoft Corporation","C:\Windows\system32\quartz.dll"
"Smart Tee","DirectShow Runtime.","Microsoft Corporation","C:\Windows\system32\qcap.dll"
"VGA 16 Color Ditherer","DirectShow Runtime.","Microsoft Corporation","C:\Windows\system32\quartz.dll"
"Video Mixing Renderer 9","DirectShow Runtime.","Microsoft Corporation","C:\Windows\system32\quartz.dll"
"Video Port Manager","DirectShow Runtime.","Microsoft Corporation","C:\Windows\system32\quartz.dll"
"Video Renderer","DirectShow Runtime.","Microsoft Corporation","C:\Windows\system32\quartz.dll"
"Video Renderer","DirectShow Runtime.","Microsoft Corporation","C:\Windows\system32\quartz.dll"
"Wave Parser","DirectShow Runtime.","Microsoft Corporation","C:\Windows\system32\quartz.dll"
"WM ASF Reader","DirectShow ASF Support","Microsoft Corporation","C:\Windows\system32\qasf.dll"
"WM ASF Writer","DirectShow ASF Support","Microsoft Corporation","C:\Windows\system32\qasf.dll"

 

[Thagarr]

I just tried it with mine, and your right, it did re-enable some of the codecs, I missed that before, I guess I just never looked far enough down the list. My mistake mate. I currently have 152 codecs installed, and of those, only six were re-enabled when I ran the game.

I do have an ATI card as well, Sapphire Toxic 3870, but it didn't activate any of ATI filters like on yours. Try deactivating the ATI Ticker and all the MMACE filters. The rest appear to be from DirctX, but most of those didn't re-activate on mine, could be a difference between DirectX 10 and 11.

Microsoft DTV-DVD Audio Decoder	DirectShow Filter	No	7/13/2009 11:41:24 PM	Microsoft DTV-DVD Audio Decoder	6.1.7140.0 (fbl_multimedia(bld4act).090528-1604)	Microsoft Corporation	Microsoft® Windows® Operating System	970,240	C:\Windows\System32\msmpeg2adec.dll	{E1F1A0B8-BEEE-490D-BA7C-066C40B5E2B9}		0x005fffff	msmpeg2adec.dll	6/10/2009 4:41:36 PM	7/13/2009 8:15:45 PM	
Microsoft DTV-DVD Video Decoder	DirectShow Filter	No	7/13/2009 11:41:24 PM	Microsoft DTV-DVD Video Decoder	6.1.7140.0 (fbl_multimedia(bld4act).090528-1604)	Microsoft Corporation	Microsoft® Windows® Operating System	2,134,016	C:\Windows\System32\msmpeg2vdec.dll	{212690FB-83E5-4526-8FD7-74478B7939CD}		0x005fffff	msmpeg2vdec.dll	6/10/2009 4:41:36 PM	7/13/2009 8:15:46 PM	
Microsoft MPEG-2 Audio Encoder	DirectShow Filter	No	7/13/2009 11:41:24 PM	Microsoft MPEG-2 Encoder	6.1.7600.16385 (win7_rtm.090713-1255)	Microsoft Corporation	Microsoft® Windows® Operating System	830,464	C:\Windows\System32\msmpeg2enc.dll	{ACD453BC-C58A-44D1-BBF5-BFB325BE2D78}		0x00200000	msmpeg2enc.dll	7/13/2009 7:08:50 PM	7/13/2009 8:15:45 PM	
Microsoft MPEG-2 Encoder	DirectShow Filter	No	7/13/2009 11:41:24 PM	Microsoft MPEG-2 Encoder	6.1.7600.16385 (win7_rtm.090713-1255)	Microsoft Corporation	Microsoft® Windows® Operating System	830,464	C:\Windows\System32\msmpeg2enc.dll	{5F5AFF4A-2F7F-4279-88C2-CD88EB39D144}		0x00200000	msmpeg2enc.dll	7/13/2009 7:08:50 PM	7/13/2009 8:15:45 PM	
Microsoft MPEG-2 Video Encoder	DirectShow Filter	No	7/13/2009 11:41:24 PM	Microsoft MPEG-2 Encoder	6.1.7600.16385 (win7_rtm.090713-1255)	Microsoft Corporation	Microsoft® Windows® Operating System	830,464	C:\Windows\System32\msmpeg2enc.dll	{42150CD9-CA9A-4EA5-9939-30EE037F6E74}		0x00200000	msmpeg2enc.dll	7/13/2009 7:08:50 PM	7/13/2009 8:15:45 PM	
RDP DShow Redirection Filter	DirectShow Filter	No	7/13/2009 11:41:24 PM	RDP Renderer Filter (redirector)	1.00	Microsoft	Microsoft	245,248	C:\Windows\system32\DShowRdpFilter.dll	{AB9D6472-752F-43F6-B29E-61207BDA8E06}		0xffffffff	DShowRdpFilter.dll	7/13/2009 7:02:54 PM	7/13/2009 8:15:13 PM