Flickering UI, extreme RAM use, game crashes and hangs system

[Tophattingson]

Integrity​

I have verified my game files (on Steam)​

Yes

I have disabled all mods​

Yes

Required​

Summary​

Flickering UI, extreme RAM use, game crashes and hangs system

Description​

Sometimes, when launching the game, it consumes far more RAM than usual. ~15gb vs the usual ~4gb. When this occurs, the UI starts flickering horribly, and inevitably the game crashes. When the game crashes, it actually causes the entire system to lock up for around 30 seconds. The game struggles to actually close, but eventually does.

Windows event viewer gives some relevant errors.

Faulting application name: victoria3.exe, version: 1.0.0.0, time stamp: 0x649c2eef
Faulting module name: amdxx64.dll, version: 31.0.21029.6002, time stamp: 0x64decbaa
Exception code: 0xc0000409
Fault offset: 0x0000000000d1d0b5
Faulting process ID: 0x1d44
Faulting application start time: 0x01d9e1ab73ec70c5
Faulting application path: C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Victoria 3\binaries\victoria3.exe
Faulting module path: C:\Windows\System32\DriverStore\FileRepository\u0395392.inf_amd64_fd2d64b4438fd1a7\B395067\amdxx64.dll
Report ID: 59ed0324-3287-4d90-b817-85f181e4b408
Faulting package full name:
Faulting package-relative application ID:

Fault bucket 1264860393939394371, type 5
Event Name: BEX64
Response: Not available
Cab Id: 0

Problem signature:
P1: victoria3.exe
P2: 1.0.0.0
P3: 649c2eef
P4: amdxx64.dll
P5: 31.0.21029.6002
P6: 64decbaa
P7: 0000000000d1d0b5
P8: c0000409
P9: 0000000000000007
P10:

Attached files:
\\?\C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\WER\Temp\WER64C0.tmp.dmp
\\?\C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\WER\Temp\WER6647.tmp.WERInternalMetadata.xml
\\?\C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\WER\Temp\WER6658.tmp.xml
\\?\C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\WER\Temp\WER6656.tmp.csv
\\?\C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\WER\Temp\WER6676.tmp.txt

These files may be available here:
\\?\C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\WER\ReportArchive\AppCrash_victoria3.exe_133909e4f95ab94df3ebf24ca216ff28ffd13c_8abd2d55_ca54ff84-8540-4f50-ab9f-16344a53d7e1

Analysis symbol:
Rechecking for solution: 0
Report Id: 59ed0324-3287-4d90-b817-85f181e4b408
Report Status: 268566528
Hashed bucket: 46f00f5de594b7c1218dafd3a737df43
Cab Guid: 0


Since these errors include mention of AMD drivers, my GPU is RX 6750 xt and my driver version is 23.8.2

Steps to reproduce​

It sometimes happens when I launch the game. Seems to be random.

Game Version​

1.3.6, 1.4.2

OS​

Windows

Additional​

Bug Type​

Crash to Desktop

Save Game​

Attachments​

Player Pain​

8

 

[PDX_Sosanna]

Hi! Could you please upload your crash logs (if there are any) found under "Documents/Paradox Interactive/Victoria 3/crashes" as well as a DxDiag file (Start Menu->DxDiag->Save all information)?
In the meantime you can also try purging the shader cache (deleting the Documents/Paradox Interactive/Victoria 3 folder after backing up your saves) and trying to launch the game again.

 

[Tophattingson]

The game has only produced one crash log. It happened in 1.4.1 before I tried updating to 1.4.2 to see if the issue would be resolved in that version.

I have attached the dxdiag output.

I have also attached an image from hardware monitor showing the process leading up to the graphical glitches, RAM usage and crash. Blue is RAM. Green is GPU, Orange is CPU. This was from the game idling on the main menu in 1.3.6.

I have already tried purging the shader cache. It did not fix the situation.

Further details: Once I actually load into a game and start playing, if the flickering UI hasn't started yet, the issue does not occur. It can play with perfect stability for several hour long game sessions. If it happens, it happens fairly shortly after starting the game.

 

[PDX_Sosanna]

Could you upload the entire crash folder (archive to zip file)? Exception.txt alone is not enough without the files, as the function names are hidden.

The RAM issue sounds like a hardware issue, so in the meantime we will move the thread to our Technical Support forum.

 

[jpd]

0xC0000409 is a stack buffer overrun error. But I'm pretty sure that's only the resulting error of something else going wrong.

All the symptoms you describe (including this final exception code) are consistent with a system running out of available memory.

The question remains why it starts consuming 15GB+ of RAM. Since the game itself isn't very likely (there is a finite amount of game data that get's loaded) I suspect that the allocation for graphical assets is running amok. This is controlled by DirectX in close cooperation with the video driver.

Could you download and run Process Explorer (https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/downloads/process-explorer).

When it's running, open the view menu and go to "select columns ...". This opens a selection dialog with multiple tabs. From the "Process memory" tab, tick the options for private bytes, virtual size and working set size. From the "Process GPU" tab, tick the options for GPU committed bytes and GPU system bytes.

Now, let process explorer run while you launch victoria 3. Use <alt><tab> or <ctrl><esc> to make process explorer visible while victoria3 is initializing. Monitor the row for victoria3.exe in the list of processes. Once victoria3 misbehaves again, note (or take a screen shot) the numbers in the columns you've activated by ticking the options for the victoria3 process.

If the video driver is running amok, the values for GPU system and committed should go through the roof. If it's something else, the working set should go through the roof.

 

[Tophattingson]

After attempting to investigate the issue with process explorer, I have determined the sequence of events that reliably triggers the issue. If I launch the game, but then immediately minimize it and stay on the desktop, the game continues to load, I hear it reach the title screen in the background, but GPU committed memory continues to increase. Then, at a threshold of about 5gb vram, I hear a loud buzz of electromagnetic interference come through my headphones (probably very high load on GPU transfer of data), the GPU committed memory drops. Then, if I do reopen the game, the flickering starts, and if I try to play until it crashes, or manually close the application, that's when I sometimes trigger a ~30s system lockup.

Given that this is hard to describe with just an image, I have instead provided a video. I didn't record until the game crashed, however, as I suspected it would probably take the recording software out with it. The interference buzz, which isn't audible in the recording, occurred at ~34s and ~43s.

At least this points to a clear workaround for the moment. Do not minimize the game while it's loading. However, given the severity of the issue that happens if the game is minimized during loading, I think it warrants an actual solution.

 

[jpd]

What I see is that, very rapidly, both the private bytes and working set go through the roof. Which in turn drives the commit charge up. The commit charge is the total amount of working set memory for all processes combined. When that comes close to 100%, applications can start seeing failures on their requests to claim more memory, as there isn't enough free memory left to hand out by the OS. And then, depending how well applications are coded to cope with low or out-of-memory conditions, strange things can start to happen.

This points to some runaway memory allocation in the initialization phase of victoria 3. Possibly in conjunction with graphical resource allocation.

Does this also happen when you start victoria 3 normally (ie. start it, and keep it's window open and maximized. Thus, don't minimize victoria 3 after starting it) ?

 

[Tophattingson]

No, it does not happen when I start normally. Only if I minimize it during loading, which I used to do often because I'd be using discord chat to communicate for a multiplayer game. Only determined that this was the exact cause of the problem when deliberately trying to replicate the issue. Once I start playing, minimizing it doesn't cause the issue either, so there's a fairly easy workaround that prevents the bug.

 

[jpd]

Ok. I'm going to try this out myself on my own system and see what happens.

In the mean time: You don't have to minimize victoria 3 in order to access another app on your system. You can use <alt><tab> or <ctrl><esc> to switch to a different app while victoria remains open on the desktop while loading the game data.