SRO client locks up at random times.

PR0METHEUS · Post by **PR0METHEUS** » Mon Nov 12, 2007 1:06 pm

Hey all.

This may have been brought up under different topics, or as a side note in GD, but I haven't seen a solution. Lately, almost every time I play SRO, my client will lock up on me at random times. I could be out grinding, stalling, jobbing, or just standing in town. Just after some random time of being logged in, the game will just lock up on me. I'm forced to ctrl-alt-delete and end task on sro_client.exe. The process is using 0% CPU and usually around 150k - 250k ram when the freeze happens.

I don't believe it's a graphic driver problem, because I have installed the latest versions, Device Manager doesn't have anything in an error state, and I've had this problem on multiple operating systems (XP Pro, XP Home, Ubuntu Linux, PCLinuxOS).

When it happens, the rest of the computer is fine. I can run other applications and do other things. It's just SRO that is frozen and does not respond to keyboard/mouse input.

Does anyone have a solution to this?

PR0METHEUS · Post by **PR0METHEUS** » Mon Nov 19, 2007 10:34 pm

An update to this:

It happened again today, but this time, the graphics didn't just freeze, I have rays and blurs stretching out in different areas, there's part of someone's horse near me as they ran by...

Other people can still see me logged in on the server. From my "frozen" client, I can type PM messages to people and they get them. I can use buffs and run around town randomly, but nothing shows up on my display. I can go to Task Manager and minimize SRO, then when I restore it, it just shows a transparent window (really no window at all - I see my desktop), but I can still interact with the game that I cannot see.

pr0klobster · Post by **pr0klobster** » Wed Nov 21, 2007 3:47 pm

guessing here - video driver related. If you can type in the window, SRO is still working, but you're getting display corruption.

It could also be your 3d card isn't getting enough power. I had that problem playing BF2 and replaced the PSU.

edit: what type of video card, chipset, etc, does it do this in any other 3d application/game?

PR0METHEUS · Post by **PR0METHEUS** » Wed Nov 21, 2007 5:58 pm

I have reinstalled video drivers for the card several times, and even reinstalled the OS (changed between different OS's) so I think the drivers are fine.

You may be right, it could be the card isn't getting enough power. It's an nVIDIA GeForce FX 5200 128 meg card. Now I don't know if it's an nVIDIA brand, or if that's just the chipset. I'd have to rip the box open to find out.

I've played other games like PerfectWorld, Doom3 demo, Starport GE, and 2moons and never had this problem, but then I have never had those games running for more than an hour or two. With SRO, I tend to stall a lot after I'm done grinding.

EDIT: Some info from the advanced display properties in XP:

chip type: GeForce FX 5200
DAC type: Integrated RAMDAC
Memory: 128 MB
Adapter String: GeForce FX 5200
Bios Information: Version 4.34.20.42.00

It's using driver version 6.14.11.6371

One thing that may be an issue, the card does not have a fan or heatsink directly on it. So it may just be overheating.

I guess I could go back to using my onboard VIA chipset :/

Manhor · Post by **Manhor** » Sun Nov 25, 2007 5:40 pm

hmm this happens to me too.
i would be walking in town or riding to my training place and sro
would freeze. i could still move the cursor though, just the screen was frozen. i could still ALT- TAB and do other things like u said.

PR0METHEUS · Post by **PR0METHEUS** » Sun Nov 25, 2007 10:27 pm

When that happens to you, are things still happening to and/or around your character? You wouldn't be able to see it, but if you have game sounds on, can you hear your character running, getting attacked? Can you hit your quickslot buttons to buff your character even though you can't see anything happening?

At least with me, it's not the game locking up. The game works fine, and even accepts keyboard/mouse input most of the time. It just doesn't actually show me what's going on. It's just the graphics that freeze.

Manhor · Post by **Manhor** » Sun Nov 25, 2007 11:47 pm

my screen just freezes, like nothing is moving except my cursor.
i havent tried buffing and trying to hear the sounds because i listen to my own music.

ill see next time if its just my screen freezes and im still actually ingame
or my sro just crashed and im disconnected.

Deathsythe · Post by **Deathsythe** » Mon Nov 26, 2007 12:04 am

I tend to get this problem alot after my laptop has been running SRO for over 3 hours, SRO will just completely freeze but i can still alt-tab and use other programs. I also notice that at this point i usually get a message from Notebook Hardware Control that my hard drive is overheating, so I'm guessing that my GPU is also overheating.

PR0METHEUS · Post by **PR0METHEUS** » Mon Nov 26, 2007 12:29 am

Deathsythe wrote:I tend to get this problem alot after my laptop has been running SRO for over 3 hours, SRO will just completely freeze but i can still alt-tab and use other programs. I also notice that at this point i usually get a message from Notebook Hardware Control that my hard drive is overheating, so I'm guessing that my GPU is also overheating.

That could very well be my problem. My video card does not have a heatsink or fan on it. A friend shipped it to me that way.

PR0METHEUS · Post by **PR0METHEUS** » Sun Dec 16, 2007 6:00 pm

I was just thinking. Even if my problem is that I don't have a fan or heatsink on my video card's GPU, would that make my motherboard CPU usage go up to 100%?

It happened to me again today out at the penon warriors. My screen froze on me, but I was still able to use the rest of the operating system (PCLinuxOS by the way). My wife saw my character on her screen so she was able to keep me from dieing, but I couldn't control anything from my system.

My system monitoring utilities reported 100% CPU, and I even tried "nice-ing" sro_client.exe but it didn't seem to help.

I would think a faulty graphics card shouldn't make my CPU usage spike like that. Any thoughts?