Game crash frequency question

SoloFlyer

Grand Admiral
May 27, 2018
966
3,608
1,000
RSI Handle
housebroken
So I was able to play the game (sort of) for two hours today. I got acquainted with the controls in arena commander and went to exit out to the main menu. That was when I had the first of 9 crashes in that two hour window. I tried to do a delivery mission and a few bounty hunting missions. With the bounty hunting ones, the closest I came was getting within firing range of one of the objectives before another crash, and the missions seemed to clear out every time I came back on. The delivery mission disappear when I crashed but kept sending me back to Port O except for the one time I spawned back on Yela but was falling through the planet. Was this just bad luck and the server's usually more reliable or should I wait for the next patch? I'd imagine with the shared missions that they wouldn't disappear if one person crashes during the attempt right?
 

Lorddarthvik

Space Marshal
Donor
Feb 22, 2016
2,740
9,488
2,860
RSI Handle
Lorddarthvik
I haven't really touched 3.6.2 but 6.1 seemed to work fine for me, really stable. Done multiple 1-3 hour sessions without any crashes.
It might be just bad luck, or if it was after two hours of constant play, maybe it was some overheating issue?

As for shared missions, the answer is "it depends" . In theory, it should work fine once they figure out the bugs and have the server side instancing and streaming working properly. Which they don't, for the moment. So in like 2 years.
It depends on weather you can get back on the same server instance with the same group, just in time, and absolutely nothing bugs out.
Which I highly doubt, as non of the "join friends" functionality, or the "rejoin session" works nearly well enough for this. So I'm guessing that a crash during a shared mission will result in the same mess as it does today with non shared missions.

Basically a reset to you last spawn point with a clean mission log, unless you can log back into the same session without any hiccups, which I never managed to do, even when it seemingly loaded back in just fine. Something was always broken.
 

Vavrik

Space Marshal
Donor
Sep 19, 2017
5,452
21,832
3,025
RSI Handle
Vavrik
3.6.2 stability depends on the server you're in, and the location you are in the game. It's less stable than 3.6.1, but they seem to have implemented a somewhat better recovery system this patch. I found that it's depressing to think of SC right now as "playing" a game. Think of it as testing, it's better for your mood, blood pressure, etc..
 

Mich Angel

Space Marshal
Donor
Sep 19, 2016
3,625
13,726
2,910
RSI Handle
ARCHANGEL_666
So I was able to play the game (sort of) for two hours today. I got acquainted with the controls in arena commander and went to exit out to the main menu. That was when I had the first of 9 crashes in that two hour window. I tried to do a delivery mission and a few bounty hunting missions. With the bounty hunting ones, the closest I came was getting within firing range of one of the objectives before another crash, and the missions seemed to clear out every time I came back on. The delivery mission disappear when I crashed but kept sending me back to Port O except for the one time I spawned back on Yela but was falling through the planet. Was this just bad luck and the server's usually more reliable or should I wait for the next patch? I'd imagine with the shared missions that they wouldn't disappear if one person crashes during the attempt right?

In short it is a Alpha, this is what game in Alpha test state do best, crash and bug out... expect that to happen..
What worked earlier suddenly don't work.. expect it to happen...
etc.. etc..

If you look at it like hey they put this new mission, function, thingy in the game now, gotta try that out... as above cause it is in the game don't mean it will work 100%..
But every crash you have every minute you play leave data on performance on the server info that help them make it work.

Even better, if if you find a thing crash or something is off or odd, then go to issue council page and check for bug reports on what you experienced.
If you find other had same problem then confirm their report if you can't find a report on the bug you experienced make one.

This is the way you should do it, and that help the game evolve and fixed, the best place to find other that had same problem that you might have had is here.

https://robertsspaceindustries.com/community/issue-council/star-citizen-alpha-3/contribute <--- issue council ( place where bugs and crashes are reported )

And there are you find a lot of info and discussions of latest live build, and probably lot of other stuff related to latest Live as known bugs and such that can cause crash etc..

https://robertsspaceindustries.com/spectrum/community/SC/forum/4?page=1&sort=last-activity

And as Vavrik say which server you're on can greatly have variation in performance and such..

CHEERS! 🍻
 

Thalstan

Space Marshal
Jun 5, 2016
1,999
7,031
2,850
RSI Handle
Thalstan
Compared to some patches, 3.6.2 is very stable. Compared to others, not so much,

I’ve seen patches that crash every 5 or 10 minutes, I’ve seen patches I could play for 5 hours.

Make sure you are using the latest video drivers. Make sure your OS is up to date. Check your video card and processor against the performance metric charts. Finally, how much RAM do you have...actually, what do you have for a CPU and Video card as well?
 

SoloFlyer

Grand Admiral
May 27, 2018
966
3,608
1,000
RSI Handle
housebroken
No, I totally get that this is an alpha, this wasn't a complaint per se, plus I did fill out the crash report information each time so they have more data. I just know that some patches had better reports of stability than others. The last time I put anything close to meaningful game time in was sometime between when mining became possible and before the flight overhaul, so I wasn't sure if it was this particular build or just an unlucky day for me.

I just checked and it looks like there's an update for my graphic card that I haven't downloaded so I'll do that sometime this week and my OS is up to date. As to my specs its on the low end, wasn't going to do a major upgrade until closer to launch. I have an i5-6500 3.2ghz CPU, a GTX 1070 GPU and 32 GB of ram.
 

Mich Angel

Space Marshal
Donor
Sep 19, 2016
3,625
13,726
2,910
RSI Handle
ARCHANGEL_666
No, I totally get that this is an alpha, this wasn't a complaint per se, plus I did fill out the crash report information each time so they have more data. I just know that some patches had better reports of stability than others. The last time I put anything close to meaningful game time in was sometime between when mining became possible and before the flight overhaul, so I wasn't sure if it was this particular build or just an unlucky day for me.

I just checked and it looks like there's an update for my graphic card that I haven't downloaded so I'll do that sometime this week and my OS is up to date. As to my specs its on the low end, wasn't going to do a major upgrade until closer to launch. I have an i5-6500 3.2ghz CPU, a GTX 1070 GPU and 32 GB of ram.
Yeah I got it wasn't a complaint ;) was just adding some info that others can have use for that experience the same and might not know what to do about it or how to react.

Well in short they build and test new and updated code constantly so between patches it can vary a lot in performance.

And it does vary from server to server you get on, I usually go for US cause over all they are more stable usually.
If a server cause me to many crashes I change region and just log in, I don't do much walk around a bit and let all load in then I change back to US server again.
This usually help you get int to a new server or different and if you're lucky you get a fresh restarted server.

Another thing is be patience when it load in give it a time to get all in before running around and avoid sprinting that cause more crashes than anything else.
Use scroll mouse to increase the the walk to jog fast tempo, sprinting cause OCS to load in stuff in a much higher rate hence the chance it skip loading in some.
And eventually you get a crash cause stuff is missing on your client side for OCS haven't got it loaded in.

To understand and know how the game load in and load out stuff as you move around help preventing unwanted effect to happen.
As it is in Alpha it is good to remember everything is not 100% as this is not a fished game so your behavior in the game impact how it will perform.
So will others players behavior around you also, so combine them and a bunch a peps sprinting around like mad dogs and some learning how to crash the best in your proximity.
Will have a effect on the server long term hence why they reset and restart every now and then to purge old corrupted data caused from various play styles.
Since the game is not optimized very much this will be like that until more and more get optimized.

Here is a chart to any who need a reminder or don't know how OCS works in the game and what it does when you play.



So for anyone that want smoother game play as of this moment how game is. SLOW DOWN!
You will notice right away when game is struggling to load in stuff, then just stop and let OCS catch up.
And you will start having a lot less problem, not counting other and known bugs.

CHEERS! 🍻
 
Last edited:

Vavrik

Space Marshal
Donor
Sep 19, 2017
5,452
21,832
3,025
RSI Handle
Vavrik
I just checked and it looks like there's an update for my graphic card that I haven't downloaded so I'll do that sometime this week and my OS is up to date. As to my specs its on the low end, wasn't going to do a major upgrade until closer to launch. I have an i5-6500 3.2ghz CPU, a GTX 1070 GPU and 32 GB of ram.
You want to keep your Nvidia card updated, you can download and install GeForce Experience - it will give you a notification when there's a driver, and install it for you when you want. Your processor is getting a little long in the tooth for gaming but it should be good. You didn't say what you have for storage. With SC you really might want to look into a SSD for SC and system cache. If you are using a hard disk, just be aware that will likely be your major bottleneck, and it will cause problems with gameplay. SC does a lot of stuff with a very large compressed file. It's 50Gb on disk but SC needs to decompress parts of it to load game assets from, and that process you really want to be using fast storage like an SSD. If you don't have one, that can be your biggest bang for the money.
 

SoloFlyer

Grand Admiral
May 27, 2018
966
3,608
1,000
RSI Handle
housebroken
I installed an HP EX920 1TB SSD for star citizen a while ago. Also with the processor I'm hesitant to upgrade it. it is a couple generations old and my current motherboard won't support the newer chipset. I could probably upgrade to a Kaby Lake chip, I think my motherboard would run one of those, but if I'm spending money on a processor I might as well upgrade the motherboard too, and if I'm doing both I might as well do it only once when it's closer to launch time. Maybe I might even go with an AMD chip by that time, who knows
 

Vavrik

Space Marshal
Donor
Sep 19, 2017
5,452
21,832
3,025
RSI Handle
Vavrik
I installed an HP EX920 1TB SSD for star citizen a while ago. Also with the processor I'm hesitant to upgrade it. it is a couple generations old and my current motherboard won't support the newer chipset. I could probably upgrade to a Kaby Lake chip, I think my motherboard would run one of those, but if I'm spending money on a processor I might as well upgrade the motherboard too, and if I'm doing both I might as well do it only once when it's closer to launch time. Maybe I might even go with an AMD chip by that time, who knows
If all you're doing is games, you can go with either AMD or Intel, it honestly makes no difference until you're into nosebleed pricing, and then the difference is minimal, and it's going to oscillate between the two. Don't fall for marketing hype, it's a total joke.
 

Mich Angel

Space Marshal
Donor
Sep 19, 2016
3,625
13,726
2,910
RSI Handle
ARCHANGEL_666
I installed an HP EX920 1TB SSD for star citizen a while ago. Also with the processor I'm hesitant to upgrade it. it is a couple generations old and my current motherboard won't support the newer chipset. I could probably upgrade to a Kaby Lake chip, I think my motherboard would run one of those, but if I'm spending money on a processor I might as well upgrade the motherboard too, and if I'm doing both I might as well do it only once when it's closer to launch time. Maybe I might even go with an AMD chip by that time, who knows
You're in same dilemma as me ha ha.. mine is i5- 65K 3.7, GPU 1050Ti dual and my mother board is the bottleneck, so I'm going for all new system with i9 k CPU etc.. or better..

🍻
 
  • Like
Reactions: Blind Owl and Scape

Blind Owl

Hallucinogenic Owl
Donor
Nov 27, 2015
20,862
73,607
3,160
RSI Handle
BlindOwl
You want to keep your Nvidia card updated, you can download and install GeForce Experience - it will give you a notification when there's a driver, and install it for you when you want. Your processor is getting a little long in the tooth for gaming but it should be good. You didn't say what you have for storage. With SC you really might want to look into a SSD for SC and system cache. If you are using a hard disk, just be aware that will likely be your major bottleneck, and it will cause problems with gameplay. SC does a lot of stuff with a very large compressed file. It's 50Gb on disk but SC needs to decompress parts of it to load game assets from, and that process you really want to be using fast storage like an SSD. If you don't have one, that can be your biggest bang for the money.
If all you're doing is games, you can go with either AMD or Intel, it honestly makes no difference until you're into nosebleed pricing, and then the difference is minimal, and it's going to oscillate between the two. Don't fall for marketing hype, it's a total joke.
You're in same dilemma as me ha ha.. mine is i5- 65K 3.7, GPU 1050Ti dual and my mother board is the bottleneck, so I'm going for all new system with i9 k CPU etc.. or better..

🍻
So my i7-4720HQ @ 2.6GHz (8 CPUs) is getting a little old for SC?
 

at-2500

Vice Admiral
Donor
Aug 24, 2018
113
291
400
RSI Handle
at2500
You want to keep your Nvidia card updated, you can download and install GeForce Experience - it will give you a notification when there's a driver, and install it for you when you want.
This is true. However, in order to use Geforce Experience, you need to create a user account and login. That wasn’t always the case and the arbitrary decision to require a login for such a bullshit is the reason why I don’t use it anymore. Fuck you, nvidia.
 

Blind Owl

Hallucinogenic Owl
Donor
Nov 27, 2015
20,862
73,607
3,160
RSI Handle
BlindOwl
This is true. However, in order to use Geforce Experience, you need to create a user account and login. That wasn’t always the case and the arbitrary decision to require a login for such a bullshit is the reason why I don’t use it anymore. Fuck you, nvidia.
Meh, I just sign in with google. Easy peasy.
 

Vavrik

Space Marshal
Donor
Sep 19, 2017
5,452
21,832
3,025
RSI Handle
Vavrik
This is true. However, in order to use Geforce Experience, you need to create a user account and login. That wasn’t always the case and the arbitrary decision to require a login for such a bullshit is the reason why I don’t use it anymore. Fuck you, nvidia.
Just saying, the only time I'd be concerned about that is if I used the same password somewhere else. Use a password manager or as @Blind Owl said, use the login credentials for Google, Facebook and whatnot. It's counterintuitive, but almost as safe as you can get without a hammer or cable cutter. You also want to have a password that's at least 10 characters long... prefer longer.
 

GPcustoms

Space Marshal
Donor
Sep 3, 2019
706
2,725
1,500
RSI Handle
GPcustom
Vavrik is spot on about servers. I have found that in my time zone in the states I can use other paths such as the EU server and play for extended lengths of time. Does not guarantee happiness and success and may simply be the luck of the draw but its been working for me for the most part. However just when you think you have it made and fill your cargo hold with unobtainium for a $$ run and the system,...well it crashes.... In those cases I sit on one of the benches in Area 18 and pan handle for some Hydrogen fuel to try it all over again. :o7: Best of luck and hail the Aurora!
 

Vavrik

Space Marshal
Donor
Sep 19, 2017
5,452
21,832
3,025
RSI Handle
Vavrik
Vavrik is spot on about servers. I have found that in my time zone in the states I can use other paths such as the EU server and play for extended lengths of time. Does not guarantee happiness and success and may simply be the luck of the draw but its been working for me for the most part. However just when you think you have it made and fill your cargo hold with unobtainium for a $$ run and the system,...well it crashes.... In those cases I sit on one of the benches in Area 18 and pan handle for some Hydrogen fuel to try it all over again. :o7: Best of luck and hail the Aurora!
It certainly feels like panhandling... I stand at the entrance to hangers at Lorvile, with a squeegee and bucket of soap and water.
 

Mich Angel

Space Marshal
Donor
Sep 19, 2016
3,625
13,726
2,910
RSI Handle
ARCHANGEL_666
So my i7-4720HQ @ 2.6GHz (8 CPUs) is getting a little old for SC?
Well it's on the edge, whit good enough GPU card you should still be able to run it to some level on low setting and might get some odd graphic effect some time.
But doable as I say about my computer and playing SC "it works but it ain't perfect" 🤪 🍻
 
Forgot your password?