Constant Crashes of Unknown Origin (Victoria III)

[MercianWolf]

Hi,

I'll preface by saying I'm terribly sorry if I'm not making this the right way, I have no idea what I am doing or how to do it and couldn't find an official template of how to ask for help for those kinds of issues (most likely due to my own incompetence, hopefully not but my hopes aren't high. x)

Ever since the new DLC's first hotfix (I think it's 1.3.1, but I'm not sure since it's been a while), I've started crashing while trying to play the game, though back then I didn't mind it and just put it on the shelf for later. Now I'm playing on 1.3.6, and unfortunately my issue is still going on.

Basically, what's going on is, I'll play for about an hour, without taking into account the time spent paused, and I'll crash. If I then try to launch the game again and play, I'll crash in less than 5 minutes, sometimes without even having time to unpause, but always once I get in the game. Through trial and error, I found out that restarting my PC helped "restart" the time before I crash again. Furthermore, and most bizarrely. it seems also restarting Steam does the same thing. I just found this out and was so dumbfounded that I knew I would need help because I have no idea what could be the cause. I'll try to attach relevant files to help anyone interested analyze the situation, but I'm unsure which ones would be the right ones. Also, the issue seemed less worse playing as Canada than with Russia, France, Sweden, Portugal and Wallachia. I can not find any link between those countries, but hopefully the logs will reveal something. Although, it might not show it all, as in a fit of desperation I may have deleted the entirety of the Paradox folder at some point, in the hope the issue lied there, hopefully this wasn't where they were stored though.

I hope this was enough information, condensed well enough to not waste anyone's time. I wish everyone a good night/day, and hopefully this is an easy issue that'll be simple to identify and that I'll be able to act on. x)

P.S.: I appear to find no logs through the path:
This PC/Documents/Victoria 3/crashes
and this next path is simply empty:
C:/Users/[Myself]/Documents

That last one I'm not sure how and when I must have messed up, could this be the cause of my trouble?
I think I saw on another thread that lack of crash logs could result from low storage, but I've got 25gb left on my lowest drive, does this mean anything or have I broken anything? ;_;
I'm gonna try to dig some more in the hope of finding something (since trial and error doesn't seem to work, I've tried different stuff to see how the crash reacts for like three days and I'm getting tired of not knowing what I'm doing), I'll try to check as much as possible to be quick if there's a response.

Again, sorry if I'm doing this wrong, I'll happily rectify whatever wrong I did if I can when pointed out.

 

[AndrewT]

As you can run the game at all, the Windows User Documents must be there somewhere - if the game could not make them it would not start at all.

Right click on Documents in the left column of File Explorer, just under This PC there. Go to properties, location. That is where you should find Paradox Interactive folder, then a Vic3 folder.


As to the problem, Right click on victoria3.exe , properties, compatibility. Tick "disable fullScreen optimisations" untick every other box in that dialog, Apply and exit.
Then in the launcher Game Settings menu, select fullScreen display mode, Vsync off, cap refresh rate at 60.

If those don't help:
DXDIAG is a program you run from the Windows search box on the task bar. After running it will open a window and start collecting info with a progress bar in the lower-left corner. When it completes click the 'save all information' button and save it to a file then attach that file here.

Please attach here your Documents/Paradox Interactive/Victoria3/pdx_settings.json .
From your Documents/Paradox Interactive/Victoria3/logs/ folder, attach here system.log , error.log , exceptions.log

 

[MercianWolf]

Thank you for the quick response, and sorry I didn't respond faster, I got tied up with something right as I got the email you had answered. I'm testing the fix right now to see if it'll crash, but I probably won't be sure if it's safe for at least an hour (and if it follows the same pattern, as soon as I'll say it's good to go, it'll crash 10 minutes later. x)

As for the files, I'm not sure I completely understand, for the last paragraph do you want me to send them regardless if the first fix works or not, or only with the previous paragraph's files in case the fix wasn't enough?

Thanks again for the answer, I tried again today to fix it on my own and it was going nowhere as usual ahah.
(I found the files in the end, they had been sent to "One Drive", not sure why, what or how, but they're in that folder.)

 

[MercianWolf]

Well, it crashed again, rather quickly too, so I'll be sending those files regardless. X)

 

[MercianWolf]

I couldn't find an exceptions.log file where you specified, but the others were there. I'll try to search in the search bar for it in the whole of the Victoria 3 folder, in case it could have been misplaced somehow? I might be grasping at straws, but I don't want to make anyone lose their time with my problems. ;-;

It just occured to me, while watching the analyze going, that...Could it be my PC is just too old for the game? I thought I was fine when I compared my specs to the Steam recommended specs yesterday, but I could easily have misinterpreted something while doing it...Well, if it's that, at least the problem will be easy to identify, even if it would be embarrassing to have bothered you guys over such trivial matter.

 

[AndrewT]

Your machine ought to be able to play the game just fine.

Can I get your your Documents/Paradox Interactive/Victoria3/pdx_settings.json file please.

Then, what fps do you see in the game now? It ought to not be going over 60.


Please report the temperatures of your CPU and video (GPU)
1/ before starting the game up and
2/ after say 30 minutes' play.
If your PC's vendor has given you no way of reading temperatures, install
SPEEDFAN http://www.almico.com/sfdownload.php

 

[MercianWolf]

Sorry for the late response, here is the file and as for the FPS: 42, with variations from 30 to 55.

For the temperatures, I only see GPU with a plethora of others temperatures, so I'm unsure which one is the CPU, if it's there at all.

GPU before: 0C (Doesn't appear normal to me since it's a hot summer here, but I don't know how to read it. x)
GPU after launching the game: 54C (I know you didn't ask for it, but it seemed weird enough for me to mention it)
GPU after first crash (whcih took 30 minutes): 0C (since it shows 0, which seems illogical, I'll retake it but while the game is still running if you want.)

I do note that "Temp 1" was at 56C with a fire icon, so I assume that is not normal, although my PC is room-temperature after touching it, either something is weird or it's a part I can't feel the heat from. x) HD1, and all the cores, after the crash, are also showing 56+C, and this time my PC is much hotter to the touch, at least it's underside is.

I'm guessing with all those fire icons that the culprit is overheating? I don't know how to read those numbers though, so I can't really say by myself.

 

[AndrewT]

The nVidia GPU shows 0c when you are in Windows, the launcher, and possibly the game main menu, as it is inactive then - you use the lower powered Intel video system (part of your CPU) for those things.

However none of the GPU temps you mention are a problem, issues start up towards 80c or over. It sounds a bit like the issue is outside the GPU; perhaps CPU, or other areas of your system.

You might try another app to get a different read on temps, such as Speccy

Speccy - Free Download

Download Speccy - the System Information tool

www.ccleaner.com

 

[MercianWolf]

Just launching the game, CPU reached 70 with Speccy, I'll try to see how far it goes when it crashes or after 30 minutes...
Loading reaches 80C.

It hasn't crashed yet, but after just a couple minutes it tends over 77C, so I'm guessing we have our culprit? (I'll still look out for how high it is when it crashes if it's notably higher than 80)

 

[AndrewT]

Yep, that's your problem, I am pretty sure!

Clean out all air vents it has (compressed air cans are good for this). Make sure airflow to them is not blocked by anything like walls, books or whatever.
If that doesn't drop the temps enough, you probably have a faulty fan or a heatsink/thermal paste problem. You may need professional help at that point.

 

[MercianWolf]

Thank you very much for your help! ^_^ I'll make sure to try those, thank you! ^-^

In case there was any doubt, the last reading I checked a couple minutes before my last crashed was 90, and the last crash even brought down my PC (no blue screen of death thankfully.) Readings were at 86 when I finished restarting, so I must have gone even further than 90? Not sure, not even sure how bad it is, just glad it's not enough to catch my PC on fire ahah.
I'm sorry that my issue was this small, hopefully I wasn't too much trouble.

 

[AndrewT]

It's not a problem at all, this kind of thing is one reason why I'm here. I'm just happy to have such a clear case!

FYI brief excursions up to ~90c won't physically harm your machine most likely, but extended ones over that may well - this definitely needs to be looked at sooner rather than later.