Ohai people.
I've recently gotten back to playing Discovery, and after much frustration on the base of NGGGH BD Y U BLOCK FREELANCER I got it working again. Much fun was had thereafter, and so I believe my current problem isn't related to a connection issue.
After spending a while in-game, like 2 hours, and interacting a lot with the same station to mine and drop off, the game simply freezes, when leaving the station or using another menu. Now the actually upsetting part is that it freezes my computer as well, with no other option than to reboot.
I don't think it comes from my computer specs, since I have no issues whatsoever with other games and can play them for a much longer while, so I don't know where to look next. Has this already happened to anyone else ? Do you have any advice ? Am I completely uneducated in computer stuff (yes) and did I screw something up (probably) ?
I look forward to reading whatever answers you may have. Cheers.
If ever you get a freeze like that, hit Ctrl+Alt+Del or Ctrl+Shift+Esc to bring up Task Manager, and then type "freelancer" in so as to target the game application. Then press delete, followed by enter in order to terminate that application. While you may not actually see Task Manager, the commands might still be registered. If this fails then it is quite possibly a fatal hang and if that's the case, an immediate hard reboot is strongly advisable.
One option to ascertain the problem is to disable your anti-virus whilst playing the game. It's not ideal though, as it obviously results in a lack of security. Alternatively, you could set Bit Defender to not scan automatically. If it ceases to happen afterwards, then it would suggest that the scans were causing a problem. Any such problem could by all means be related to DSAce.DLL, which tends to freak out a lot of security solutions.
If you have no other applications running which might interfere with the game and have ruled out the AV, then it's possible that your graphics card is having a moment.
Hey, thanks for the reply.
I did try the whole task manager routine, but it just doesn't work. Actually, if I try to wait the freeze out, my screen just turns off.
Spooky.
As for the anti-virus, well, I have to disable it prior to launching discovery, otherwise it'll make it crash whenever loading a character.
It may come from the graphics card though. Thanks for the insight.
That sure does sound like the video card. If it were any other piece of hardware then the system would either stay hung, reboot or just switch off. Now, you say the monitor goes but is the computer still running? If you have on-board graphics, it would be worthwhile switching to see if there is any difference.
Umh... When it happened, the lil' green light on my cu was still blinking, so I guess it was still working, yes, but I was certainly unable to issue any kind of input.
Do you mean non-peripherical components by "on-board", like a graphics card that's issued with the motherboard and can't be removed ? If that is so, then I have a separate graphics card, so I guess the "no input" thingy was simply me flailing around while not seeing anything.
Yes, an integrated graphics processor. What I mean is that you could try removing your existing drivers and then installing those for the on-board graphics. If the problem persists then the cause lies elsewhere, otherwise it is evidently the card.
Having said all this, the problem could be the monitor. That doesn't explain the freezing although it is certainly worth looking into. Maybe you have a spare one to hand?
Ah, thanks for clearing that up for me.
BD, being the good guard dog that it is, won't let me manually change my drivers. I don't really feel like wrestling with it right now, so I'll leave it for later. I'll definitely look into it, though.
As for the monitor, well unfortunately I'm in very short supply right now, so I can't explore either of your options. I'd like to point out that it's pretty much the first time I've had a freeze like this, on any game; do you think an incompatibility with Freelancer's graphics might be the cause of all this ? I've been flying around in-game for a while now and it doesn't feel like it's gonna blow up in my face, but it might also be trying to lull me into a false sense of security.
Thanks again for your feedback.
P.S : It just struck me as odd that BD would prevent me from manually reverting drivers, but it isn't the first time it's been overzealous either. I might try switching to a new antivir software sometime soon, one that doesn't lock me out of my computer.
You're very welcome.
If it becomes a regular problem then it's not something which you should ignore.
The graphics rendering of Freelancer is pretty basic so there really shouldn't be much scope for compatibility issues. Some games can show problems down the years, but I've personally never experienced any major problems with this one. Either way, any serious incompatibilities are not going to cause a complete system hang. If anything, you'd experience a hang of that application alone, a crash-to-desktop or, at worst, a blue screen. Thus, what we're looking at here is probably a hardware issue.
Something else to consider; the power supply. If the maximum output is insufficient or it is failing, the system may not be receiving enough power and the most likely victim I'd expect would be the graphics card as everything else generally uses less. You should check to see what the peak power usage is of your graphics card and also the output of your supply. Generally speaking, a basic 400-watt PSU is insufficient for today's hardware, especially if a high-end GPU is installed.
Something you might want to try out is
GPU-Z. This tool can log the usage of your video card and I think it will save the results even if a system crash occurs, so you can take a look to see where it was at in such a scenario.
I don't know, but Bit Defender might have an application control setting somewhere in the preferences. Take a look, maybe turning something off will allow you to make driver modifications. It certainly ought to give the user options, if it doesn't then
overzealous is the right way to put it.
Well, I did overlook the whole hardware specs stuff for Freelancer, considering it hardly uses up memory or slows down my computer when I'm doing something else. I didn't notice anything out of order while checking the power supply during play, so I guess that's a relief.
Anyway, I don't seem to be having any more issues, despite having basically done nothing. Heh. I'll still download GPU-Z and give it a go in case anything happens, and if it does I'll be able to provide information a little more accurate than "well uhm basically it crashes despite having no reason to" :p
I guess I'm ok for now, then. Have a nice evenin', and thanks for the feedback.
No problem at all. Good gaming to you!