Crashes!..can't..take..it..anymore!

[Mhorhe]

Hello everyone!

First off, I gotta say I absolutely love the latest Heroes. I've been with the series since the very start, aaaages ago, and played through it all, expansions and everything (yes, even the IVth). I liked the Vth quite a bit, and I'm liking the VIth even more -baring a few minor things, a rather major one(bugs) and one HUGE thing: CRASHES.

To preempt any posts on the following matters, before posting here I have:

1) uninstalled Heroes and the Ubi launcher, completely removed both the beta and the game, reinstalled it (I have it on steam).

2) my video and sound card drivers are updated

3) I have disabled my firewall

4) I'm well within system requirements

4) I have run the beta almost flawlessly (a few crashes but nothing major).

It started off relatively minor, 2-3 crashes for a few hours of gameplay. It got progressively worse. If at the start at the Haven campaign I crashed a few times, now at the end of it I'm crashing ALL the time. When I bring up the town screen. When I open the spellbook. Randomly while moving across the map.

There's a fort on the last Haven map that I simply couldn't take by manual combat because I crashed on it every single time, most of the times when I tried opening my spell book. I must have tried a good 10 ten times or more.

What's even more mystifying is that the beta ran almost perfectly. Hell, even the vanilla game ran better when I hadn't removed the beta!

I don't know what is happening, but I find it absolutely intolerable. There's zero enjoyment I can derive from the game at this point, and on top of the various bugs (abilities not working, quests not finishing etc) I find it quite.. aggravating, to say the least.

What I wanted to ask is how many others have suffered the same (I know at least some had, I browsed before posting) and if a solution, any solution, has been found, either by them or by Ubi support.. or if we're simply forced to wait for a patch (not quite what you'd want to hear when you've preordered).

[Mozared]

What are your computer specs? Anything special we should know about, too - are you overclocking, running any odd apps, simulating a CD drive with Daemontools?

[Mhorhe]

What are your computer specs? Anything special we should know about, too - are you overclocking, running any odd apps, simulating a CD drive with Daemontools?

I've got an Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 at 3 Ghz, 4 Gb Ram, and an Nvidia Geforce 9600 GT - I was concerned it would be too old for the game but surprisingly I ran the beta (and now the full game) flawlessly in 1920x1080, textures and most options on High.

I've got Windows XP still. No overclocking, no odd apps, no virtual CD drive (at least not when playing Heroes). Generally don't keep anything running in the background when gaming. Nothing occupying up broadband, either.

[Pol]

And otherwise your graphic card is working well? I would suggest to test it, including the ram, just for sure. As you described it, it sounds really suspiciously strange.

I was having crashes with Beta, then I upgraded my graphic drivers and voila, everything is fixed now. However I have quite a different card, than you and that's ATI HD5xxx.

Be careful but you can use for test GPU Caps Viewer and memtest86+. That's of course, considering that you haven't a chance to test it with other game and proved it running fine here.

If you have game settings on high lower some, fe units animations from High to Low. Try windowed mode, I heard that it mysteriously can fix some errors. Also did you patched to 1.1.1?

[Edwardas 3]

I had 3 crashes so far . 1 before drivers update and 2 later(in demo not in the game) .
ATI cards have crashes with some games , it is the long question ,but shortly:
Microsoft supports Nvidia so Nvidia's card are more expansive but their routines are better .

[Mhorhe]

Thanks for the responses!

And otherwise your graphic card is working well? I would suggest to test it, including the ram, just for sure. As you described it, it sounds really suspiciously strange.

I was having crashes with Beta, then I upgraded my graphic drivers and voila, everything is fixed now. However I have quite a different card, than you and that's ATI HD5xxx.

Be careful but you can use for test GPU Caps Viewer and memtest86+. That's of course, considering that you haven't a chance to test it with other game and proved it running fine here.

If you have game settings on high lower some, fe units animations from High to Low. Try windowed mode, I heard that it mysteriously can fix some errors. Also did you patched to 1.1.1?

No problems with my video card, nope :/ I also play Space Marine and The Witcher 2 -more recent releases-and a host of older games - Starcraft 2, Dawn of War 2 Retribution, both Fallouts, all King Bounties, both Dragon Ages, both Mass Effects, the Witcher 1, Torchlight.. None of which have caused me any real problems - certainly not recurring crashes I could link with my video card.

Thanks for the links though, I will try those out

The game is bought through steam, so it updates automatically. I'll try toying with the settings, although -and this is the really annoying part-they're the same settings I used just fine with the beta

I've come across a thread on officials where someone was complaining about crashes with Haven forts/towns. I most definitely have that issue, about 50 % of my crashes are linked to popping up that godawfully ugly town screen. Anyone else got that?

I had 3 crashes so far . 1 before drivers update and 2 later(in demo not in the game) .
ATI cards have crashes with some games , it is the long question ,but shortly:
Microsoft supports Nvidia so Nvidia's card are more expansive but their routines are better .

Alright, I hope you stay crash free I had little to no issue with the beta, but now, man oh man. I've got an Nvidia card so that's not the issue there

[TheUndeadKing]

I had 3 crashes so far . 1 before drivers update and 2 later(in demo not in the game) .
ATI cards have crashes with some games , it is the long question ,but shortly:
Microsoft supports Nvidia so Nvidia's card are more expansive but their routines are better .

Uh, no. Microsoft doesn't provide any kind of "exclusive" support to Nvidia. It's Nvidia that provides game developers with money and hardware, which usually results in better Nvidia optimization (and sometimes better performance) in said games. They also get to advertise their products in said games during initial loading screens ("The Way It's Meant To Be Played", remember?). Add that to inconsistent ATI drivers' performance (sometimes they make really good drivers, but they also screw up now and then), and you get lower performance.

[Edwardas 3]

I tried Rift's trial and liked it.
But it was period when many got crashes ,one after one . I got 3 in 3 min.
One guy on forum has said he got 15 crashes .
It was ATI cards owners . ATI cards are good for money ,but routines
sometimes screwd up

[Mhorhe]

Nobody else with this problem? Am I the lucky one?

[Mozared]

Have you tried running the game in compatibility mode? And does it run well in safe mode? Do you have access to different PCs that run on vista/7 instead of XP that you could try the game on?

[Mhorhe]

Have you tried running the game in compatibility mode? And does it run well in safe mode? Do you have access to different PCs that run on vista/7 instead of XP that you could try the game on?

Didn't try that, to be sure, and I don't have anything else than XP.

I'm surprised I'm the only one with this problem here (but pleasantly surprised, I wish you all a crash free environment forever!), though, on the official forums my thread got around 3 pages and I'm guessing a good 20 people at least.

The really really REALLY aggravating thing, though, is that it was nothing of the sort during the beta. I barely crashed back then, and I didn't change anything about my hardware or OS since..

[wneubert]

Mine was working fine, then it began crashing like crazy, you couldn't do anything. But I got it fixed and it may work for you.

First I installed on my laptop, and there it ran perfect so I knew it was my Win XP machine. Since I could now play I decided to delete the install on Win XP.

I deleted all reference from Steam directory, all files from Mygames, all files under documents and settings, and all references to Ubisoft or Heroes in my registry. Scoured it clean, then reinstalled. It worked flawlessly ever since. No changes to hardware or drivers at all.

When I first installed I did have the beta and the demo on there (I scoured them off too), which may have been the problem.

They been sneeking stealth patches with no version change a bunch of times too, so those may fix it. I recommend reinstall.

[Mhorhe]

Mine was working fine, then it began crashing like crazy, you couldn't do anything. But I got it fixed and it may work for you.

First I installed on my laptop, and there it ran perfect so I knew it was my Win XP machine. Since I could now play I decided to delete the install on Win XP.

I deleted all reference from Steam directory, all files from Mygames, all files under documents and settings, and all references to Ubisoft or Heroes in my registry. Scoured it clean, then reinstalled. It worked flawlessly ever since. No changes to hardware or drivers at all.

When I first installed I did have the beta and the demo on there (I scoured them off too), which may have been the problem.

They been sneeking stealth patches with no version change a bunch of times too, so those may fix it. I recommend reinstall.

Hmmm... I've already done a clean reinstall (deleted all local Steam content, beta included) but I didn't delete my saves and all that. Might try that, thanks for the idea