Black screen system crash

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Boinx
Posts: 6
Joined: Tue Dec 17, 2013 7:53 am

Black screen system crash

Post by Boinx »

I've run into a black screen that stalls the entire system 4 or 5 times now. They occur after at least an hour of gameplay. Loading a save game causes it to happen a little quicker, but the game can be progressed past the point where the crash occurred last. I do not get any .error log, but have attached logs, dxdiag, msinfo, and even the autosave files for the most recent time it happened.
Attachments
PandoraLogs.zip
(448.13 KiB) Downloaded 9 times
Conquistador3
Posts: 9
Joined: Mon Dec 16, 2013 5:42 pm

RE: Black screen system crash

Post by Conquistador3 »

I've been having the same issue.
I have been experimenting with various resolution settings and it seems running the game at 1360x768 results in much increased stability, but I haven't been able to play the game long enough to ascertain that. What I can tell you for sure is I have errors with all 1280 settings.
Try running the game at 1360x768 and let me know: perhaps it's irrelevant, perhaps we are on to something.
Boinx
Posts: 6
Joined: Tue Dec 17, 2013 7:53 am

RE: Black screen system crash

Post by Boinx »

I still ran into the same problem at 1360x768 after about 30 minutes.
Boinx
Posts: 6
Joined: Tue Dec 17, 2013 7:53 am

RE: Black screen system crash

Post by Boinx »

The issue appears related to the video card. The new AMD Catalyst 15.12 drivers released yesterday let me test lower clock and temperature settings, and the black screen seems to no longer occur. The game ran long enough that it looks like it ran out of memory. Crash was at Clip.cpp:168 in ffmpeg::Clip::open(). Task Manager had game using about 1.7GB the last time I had alt-tabbed to check (probably at least 30 min) and memory usage seemed to be growing ~200-300 MB/hr.

Does anyone know if there is a 64-bit executable for the game?
Conquistador3
Posts: 9
Joined: Mon Dec 16, 2013 5:42 pm

RE: Black screen system crash

Post by Conquistador3 »

ORIGINAL: Boinx

The issue appears related to the video card. The new AMD Catalyst 15.12 drivers released yesterday let me test lower clock and temperature settings, and the black screen seems to no longer occur. The game ran long enough that it looks like it ran out of memory. Crash was at Clip.cpp:168 in ffmpeg::Clip::open(). Task Manager had game using about 1.7GB the last time I had alt-tabbed to check (probably at least 30 min) and memory usage seemed to be growing ~200-300 MB/hr.

Does anyone know if there is a 64-bit executable for the game?

I haven't been able to find such a file, sorry.
Which clock settings have you been running?
Boinx
Posts: 6
Joined: Tue Dec 17, 2013 7:53 am

RE: Black screen system crash

Post by Boinx »

I tried -50% power, -58% GPU clock, -60 mem clock, and 75% max fan speed the first time. That's the minimum I could set in OverDrive through the Catalyst Control Center.

I tried -30% power, -30% GPU clock, 0 mem clock (default), and 75% max fan speed the second time. It was working fine until I had to quit. That second test gives me pretty strong confidence that I just have an R9 290 unable to run at stock speeds without locking up.

Finding out what clock speeds are stable is just trial and error. Every card will be different, even if they are the same model number and manufacturer.
Conquistador3
Posts: 9
Joined: Mon Dec 16, 2013 5:42 pm

RE: Black screen system crash

Post by Conquistador3 »

Thanks again.
I found out my version of Catalyst is the most up to date for my ancient VGA and it allows access to the Catalyst Control Center after accepting a few conditions.
I've tinkered with clock speeds and so far I have been able to reproduce the Black Screen of Death at -50% Clock GPU and -50% Clock Memory and at -25% Clock GPU and -10% Clock memory (both with 75% fan speed as I haven't seen the VGA exceeding 60°C). At higher settings I am able to play longer.
Next I'll try running everything but the fan at full power and see what happens.
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