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The mysterious "Crash to Desktop" (CTD).
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RPGDot Forums > Morrowind - General

How often your MW crash (CTD)
Never crash since first day
0%
 0%  [ 0 ]
Never crash since first day
0%
 0%  [ 0 ]
Occasionally or sometimes
75%
 75%  [ 15 ]
Occasionally or sometimes
0%
 0%  [ 0 ]
Often or frequently
20%
 20%  [ 4 ]
Often or frequently
0%
 0%  [ 0 ]
Always (unplayable)
5%
 5%  [ 1 ]
Always (unplayable)
0%
 0%  [ 0 ]
Total Votes : 20

Author Thread
Remus
Overgrown Cat
Overgrown Cat




Joined: 03 Jul 2002
Posts: 1657
Location: Fish bowl
The mysterious "Crash to Desktop" (CTD).
   

I heard a lot of people have this CTD problem when playing Morrowind. I wonder what cause this, and to my amazement after thousand posts of discussion in several forums (include official forums) and some suggestions from Bethesda or techie to overcome it, CTD is still a prevalent problem, even after almost one year Bethesda released the game.

CTD can happens randomly or not randomly: some people can make it happen at specific place or when doing something specifically; or completely random like when loading a save game, during combat, when entering new interior or exterior areas. Sometime it happens 2-3 in one hours; but sometime won't happen even after playing 3-4 hours or more (that's what happen in my case), strange?, indeed. That's not all, it can happen on both high-end systems or low-end computers, plus in wide range of computer configurations or hardwares. And yet some running the game without CTD at all!.

There's more, some people tinkering MW ini. file and completely stopped the CTD from happening, so some did the same but to no avail. Some successfully stop the CTD but few days later only to find the CTD problem is back with vengeance!. Some found that the longer you play MW the more often you will experiencing the CTD. Some think that it's always a good idea to update your video driver or the Windows (e.g the SP1), but they're wrong! - even more CTD!.

Some said it's related to SB Live! sound card or it driver because statistically many people who reported the CTD also use it. But that tendency also could be misleading, because SB sound card is widely used by gamer or in gaming PC so of course people who reporting the problem also said he/she use that sound card!. Processor? well - user with Celeron, Duron, Athlon XP or Pentium 4 all experienced the problem. Combination of hardwares inside PC? - maybe but not necessary, because sometime few players with practically same hardwares and yet couple of them have not problem while the rest stucked with CTD problem.

So, what's the culprit? many people it's the game itself, especially the Netimmerse game engine (bad memory management or memory leaks). Whatever, lets see how many people have this problem with the poll above.
Post Fri Feb 07, 2003 8:12 pm
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cfmdobbie
High Emperor
High Emperor




Joined: 01 Jul 2002
Posts: 1859
Location: London, England
Rarely
   

I had my first crash in ages today - in fact I can't remember it crashing at all since the first patch - until today.

I'm playing on a very low spec machine (original Athlon 700MHz, 256MB SDRAM (PC-66?), original 32MB GeForce256 DDR, Win98SE). My settings are basically turned to minimum, except I occasionally turn view distance up in dungeons if I encounter a wide open space.

The game definitely gets slower the more I play it - when I first load a game my frame rates will be ~20 or so in dungeons, but after ~4 hours of playing that will reduce to ~5 fps. I just try to restart the game every now and then whenever I notice the frame rates beginning to drop.

Come to think about it, the crash I've just had, I'd been playing for a good few hours and my frame rate was running REALLY low, so I expect this crash is related to whatever memory leaks etc are killing my frame rate...

Originally the game was unplayable for me, as ~90% of the time I couldn't get out of the ship's hold without crashing. The times I did get out I didn't make it into the office. That was all fixed with a graphics driver upgrade.
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Charlie Dobbie
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Post Sat Feb 08, 2003 12:18 am
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vaticide
Put food in here
Put food in here




Joined: 21 Feb 2002
Posts: 1122
Location: One step behind a toddler bent on destruction.
   

I used to have quite a few, then I installed the new Tribunal patch, and poof, none since then. I hope it was a fix and I'm just not recently lucky with my CTDs...

-vaticide
Post Sat Feb 08, 2003 5:47 am
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Remus
Overgrown Cat
Overgrown Cat




Joined: 03 Jul 2002
Posts: 1657
Location: Fish bowl
   

In my case it happens often or frequently at early stage, then after install certain driver (can't remember which) it became less (occcasionally or sometimes), and this continue under original MW, after pathces 1.1, 1.2, and 1.3. I haven't try 1.4 yet but i think it won't be any different.

It seem most people can't totally avoid the problem, or sooner or later he/she will experiencing the CTD - at least few times.


Last edited by Remus on Sat Feb 08, 2003 2:11 pm; edited 1 time in total
Post Sat Feb 08, 2003 2:05 pm
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Jaz
Late Night Spook
Late Night Spook




Joined: 20 Jan 2002
Posts: 9708
Location: RPGDot
   

It happened pretty often before the first patch, never after the first patch, and pretty often after the second patch. And always at completely random events/places/times. I had a SBLive up to halfways between patch No. 1 and No. 2. Hm.
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Jaz
Post Sat Feb 08, 2003 2:10 pm
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Remus
Overgrown Cat
Overgrown Cat




Joined: 03 Jul 2002
Posts: 1657
Location: Fish bowl
   

See, the obvious pattern of the problem is the random-ness itself. Weird. In short MW very prone to crash. Other people said they played games for 20 years but never encounter game as crash-able as MW, include myself in about 10 years of gaming history.

It's also puzzling that Bethesda never directly explain what's the nature of the problem. Probably they also don't have any ideas.

I know NetImmerse engine also use by other games but i think none of these games have CTD probem as in MW. Somewhere and something must have gone wrong when they use the engine to build MW.
Post Sat Feb 08, 2003 2:28 pm
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Jaz
Late Night Spook
Late Night Spook




Joined: 20 Jan 2002
Posts: 9708
Location: RPGDot
   

When playing the first Gothic my game crashed just as often, but I finally found out it was my computer's power supply which just wasn't up to the task anymore, and after (first) overclocking it and (much later)exchanging it for a new one I never experienced another crash with Gothic I. I started to play Morrowind with the new powers ource, however, so that can't have been the problem either.
I heard something about the CTD in MW being a side effect of the Athlon/VIA chipset/WinXP combo, one that could be fixed with a certain update, but the update didn't do anything for me. Anyway, I'm done with playing Morrowind and all other games are running just fine, so I stopped hunting for culprits.
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Jaz
Post Sat Feb 08, 2003 2:34 pm
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Remus
Overgrown Cat
Overgrown Cat




Joined: 03 Jul 2002
Posts: 1657
Location: Fish bowl
   

quote:
Originally posted by Jaz
...I heard something about the CTD in MW being a side effect of the Athlon/VIA chipset/WinXP combo, one that could be fixed with a certain update, but the update didn't do anything for me.


I heard about that solution and i installed the relevant updates, and it didn't do anything for me too. MW still crash sometimes.

quote:
Originally posted by Jaz
Anyway, I'm done with playing Morrowind and all other games are running just fine, so I stopped hunting for culprits.


I also pretty much done playing MW (finish all quests except Vampire related), so only check up plug-ins from time to time and tinkering with them.
Post Sat Feb 08, 2003 2:45 pm
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vaticide
Put food in here
Put food in here




Joined: 21 Feb 2002
Posts: 1122
Location: One step behind a toddler bent on destruction.
   

Ok, I did some pretty good testing last night and this morning, not one CTD. Before I would have had at least 3 in this time. At least for me 1.4.1313 (newest patch) fixed my problem.

-vaticide
Post Sat Feb 08, 2003 6:01 pm
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Srikandi
Noble Knight
Noble Knight




Joined: 04 Dec 2001
Posts: 222
   

I think there's actually more than one crash bug, leading to different problems. I tend to crash while loading a saved game. How often? ... sporadically. Can go for a long time with no crashes and then crash several times.

And I'm sure Bethsoft doesn't know what the problem is, or they would certainly have patched it. Before MW came out they said several times that they were going to release a stable game, since Daggerfall was so famous for its bugs... and they clearly had every intention and desire to do that!
Post Sat Feb 08, 2003 11:53 pm
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Jaz
Late Night Spook
Late Night Spook




Joined: 20 Jan 2002
Posts: 9708
Location: RPGDot
   

Ah, but I loved one bug in Daggerfall. The Fall-Through-The-Floor-And-Leave-This-World bug. I thought it was a far better explanation for the disappearance of the Dwemer than the attempt they started in Morrowind .
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Post Sun Feb 09, 2003 10:29 am
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cfmdobbie
High Emperor
High Emperor




Joined: 01 Jul 2002
Posts: 1859
Location: London, England
   

quote:
Originally posted by Jaz
Ah, but I loved one bug in Daggerfall. The Fall-Through-The-Floor-And-Leave-This-World bug. I thought it was a far better explanation for the disappearance of the Dwemer than the attempt they started in Morrowind .


ROFL! So Sunder is actually something that just adjusts vertex locations *very slightly*?

Heh, it still scares the Hell out of me when that happens in Morrowind. I think "Oh No! I haven't saved for ages!" Then you just get returned to the world and everything's okay.

I think only once have I had to reload after falling through the floor in Morrowind, and once it replaced me at the entrance, but I died on landing!
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Post Sun Feb 09, 2003 1:40 pm
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InSaNe
Guards Lieutenant
Guards Lieutenant




Joined: 09 Nov 2002
Posts: 174
Location: Netherlands
   

hehe, a shame that the "fixme" command doesn't work when you fall through the ground! you can use the "coc" command to teleport yourself in a town or something though (pretty handy for long-walking quest if you WANT to cheat)
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Post Thu Mar 06, 2003 11:51 am
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puma
Eager Tradesman
Eager Tradesman




Joined: 03 Mar 2003
Posts: 44
Location: Poland
   

I've only started the MW (level 5) but I've experienced a few crushes so far. These happaned mainly when entering new area or just after killing an opponent. The frequency would be one crush per few hours, which is quite acceptable for me, as my hardware and software configurations are quite extensive, lots of drivers, services (like database, etc.) - which may cause a multitude of conflicts.
I have recently finished Divine Divinty, which used to hang much more frequently, so now I am not too much disturbed by MW occasional CTDs. I try to save often, which luckily is really a QUICK save, not a minute long like in Divinty, where one savegame used up to 70MB HDD!
The SB Live may be a problem, not only in this game. In a few others I had lockups with infinite sound loop or some sound related crushes. The random character of crushes may also be well explained by sound problem - when you approach specific area, the game may try to load an adequate portion of data into the sound buffer, which may cause a crash. It is dificult to trace conditions when it happens, as it may depend on what sounds were in the buffer previously (so depends on everything you did in the game).

Anyway, I like the game and these CTDs will not discourage me from finishing it.
Post Mon Mar 10, 2003 10:57 am
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