black screen, still running [FIXED]

[jbrazz 0]

FIXED:

used roommates RAM and fixed all my problems.

 

so i went into figuring out what was up with my sticks.

 

turns out RAM was running at 1333, it should have been 1600. not sure what my settings were at prior to un-overclocking my CPU (i returned all bios setting to defult in an attempt to troubleshoot). i went into my bios and changed it to the XMP profile. i'm confident that alone fixed my issues.

 

i have two 4gb corsair vengeance sticks. (black and spikey). technically 1600mhz, but only with the XMP profile in bios active.

 

 

 

there is a lot of info here, i understand if you cant read it all, but i wanted to be thorough. thank you in advance for reading and any suggestion you may have. 

 

 

 

in this current patch, last patch and last experimental patch, outside of the game sometimes running perfectly fine, there are three things that happen.

 

i didn't play much in this last experimental version. 

 

order from most to least frequent:

 

1) the screen goes black, but game still runs.

• this happens most often at the point i log into a server. sometimes before i even "open my eyes", other times it not until a minute or two after logging in.
• other times this happens prior to even logging into a server. sometimes it's in the server browser and other times i'm messing with my video settings. now the crash dosent usually happen when i change a setting, it's mostly between changes when nothing is happening. 

in both instrances, the screen will just go black. i'll be able to see and move the cursor. i'll point out it's the dayz cursor, not the windows one. the sound still remains. i'f i'm in game i'm also able to move around and can here my characters feet shuffle. 

 

i can alt+tab out of the game easily, no lag. when i open task manager, i see dayz, and it's "running", not "not responding". sometimes i'm not able to maximize the game.when i do, i still see the desktop, but can now hear the sound of the game again. but normally, i can maximize, but i got right back to a black screen, with sound and controls. 

 

 

at this point i'm only about to right click on the game icon in the taskbar and close the program. after a couple seconds, it closes without issue.

 

2) the other thing that happens is my game just stops responding. windows quickly "looks for a solution" and closes. from what i can remember, i only get this when actually in game. but it maybe happens 20% of the time compared to the "black screen". only option at this point to to click close on the popup. it closes with no errors or anything. 

 

3) this doesnt seem to happen anymore, probably solved with one of the many troubleshooting attempts (listed below). this used to be my most frequent error. something that happened all the time and was making dayz totally unplayable. it would crash with a specific error code. for the life of me i can remember what the code was, but i definitely googled it many times and only found forum posts relating to arma OA. maybe 1 or 2 regarding dayz SA, but these were forum posts with no responses. while i dont remember the code, the text after it states something along the lines of "internal error: rendering command buffer too small". i dont know what the hell that means. but this doesnt seem to happen any longer. hopefully.

 

 

 

Specs:

i7 3770k 3.5ghz (overclocked to 4.5gzhz)

evga gtx 660 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130826

8gb memory (2x4gb ddr3 1600)

asus sabertooth z77 mobo

corsair power supply. 850w 80plus gold.

benQ 2420xlt 24" 120hz

 

now here's what i've done to try and solve this:

• it started with drastically lowering video settings within the game and config files (this was when i was mostly getting the buffer error). this would sometimes fix it. and when i was in the game for over 40 minutes or so, i would crank the settings back up, and it would continue to run totally fine. 

 

• tried overclocking my gpu using evga precision. i tested stability in other games. seemed to help performance a bit, as far as fps goes, but that's about it.

 

• there's a setting that i verified was enabled in my bios, i cant remember the option, but it had something to do with distributing the video load across the gpu and also utilizing the video memory on the mobo

 

• in my asus bios, i tried a setting the boost performance in the PCI slot my graphics card is in. it accomplishes this by disabling the other PCI slots. from x1 to x4. i think. not sure what this will really do, but since i dont use any other slots i figured it wouldn't hurt. 

 

• i have been on the most current nvidia beta drivers, i tried going to the last stable version too. i'm back to the newest beta drivers. 

 

• returned my gpu to stock clock settings, then deleted evga precision and associated software.

 

• i downloaded the drivers off nvidias website. then i deleted all drivers for the card, restarted my computer. then installed the drivers. between deleted and re installing, the card was remosved from my case, "cleaned" and reseated.

 

• i disabled almost all startup services in windows. this obviously disabled my internet and firewall and sound and all that jazz. so i went through and enabled every one i had to. to be honest there are probably some i still need to switch back on. for example: Task Scheduler was not running and because of that, was messing with my evga precision settings. but i think i have most of the necessary ones back. this was an attempt to make the processes running in the background minimal.

 

• next was a memory test, i ran memtest86 and everything checked out with no errors. my memory should be running at 1600mhz, but prior to even playing SA, it was at 1333 for some reason, i changed this in the bios and made it 1600. 

 

• the stick of ram are in slots b1 and b2 respectively. or going away from the cpu, slots 2 and 4, as per the mobo manual. the other slots are filled with plastic dummy ram that came with my mobo. to protect connections. all unused ram and pci slots have "plugs" in them. doubt this is an issue but i'm just trying to be thorough. i read somewhere that the ram was supposed to be in slots a1 and a2 (1 and 3). i tried it. made no noticeable difference. the plan was to get another pair of sticks (to go to 16gb), but the model i currently have seems to have doubled in price since the time i bought it about a year from now. i have no idea why. 

 

• between the time the buffer to small error started and now, i "upgraded" my fans in my case. i have a coolermast HAF 922. i ordered 8 120mm fans. only stock one i kept was the 200mm intake on the front. what i swapped/ added (all 120mm) - intakes:  one bottom, two on side. exhaust: one on rear by heat sync, two on top of case. the last two are connected to my heatsync (collermaster 212) in a push pull configuration. in combination with the one rear, that makes 3 fans in series all blowing the same direction. i ordered these from a local computer store, for the money ($10 ea.) they push a lot of air. i also thought they were 3 pin, i realized upon getting home, that they are all molex. only drawback from what i can tell is that theyre always at 100% and cant be controlled by the mobo. another drawback is they have LEDs in them. granted my highly perforated case now looks pretty cool, i'm unsure if this is using too much power. 

 

• defragged harddrive (500gb 7200rpm) and moved dayz files to outside of platter. gained noticeably faster load times.

 

• i went into my bio and returned all settings to default. thus returning my clock speed to 3.5 ghz, and oddly enough my RAM clock speed to 1333... i changed this back to 1600.

 

• i tried every "dayz video optimization" tip i could find. tried every steam launch cammand. sometimes my performance improved when i didnt specifically number the ammout of ram or cpu threads i have. 

 

• -winxp command made me unable to even launch dayz

 

• unparked cpu cores 

 

• turned off all overlays. teamspeak namely. man, tried downloading that overwolf stuff. made things crazy wacky. took that crap off real quick. when evga precision was removed, i also removed that riviera statistics thing. it overlayed gpu info. 

 

• opened up firewall

 

• removed dayz and reinstalled in various fashions. including deleting everything associated with day

 

 

i think that might be everything... this is subject to change as i probably cant remember everything i've tried. 

 

 

 

 

 

other things to note:

at no time, before after or during the process of over clocking my CPU and GPU, has the temp of either reached over 60 degrees C. torture testing both has yielded over 80C.

 

only other programs that are running in the background are 

• trackir 5 (head tracking software i use for dayz)
• Strobelight beta 2. my monitor (benq 2420xlt) doesnt support "Lightboost" natively. but with this software i'm able to enable it. it give a CRT like strobing effect to my monitor. this limits motion blur and tearing drastically. this was essential when playing counterstike. but since i can't get anywhere near a consistent 120fps, i'm not sure this makes a big difference.
• microsoft security essentials. 
• steam obviously
• teamspeak usually

i have not tried re-flashing my bios with the newer version. i have been told if it's not broken dont fix it, in regards to the bios version, and to only do this as a last resort since things can go wrong easily. it's not something i've had to do in the past. but if someone thinks that this might be the issue i'm more than willing to attempt it. 

 

typing "left-shift + numpad-" + FLUSH, causes the game to stop responding and close.

 

normally, in game, i have everything on very high. clouds and shadows off. AA on normal, ATOC at all grass and trees.

 

Side note: does it help to have arma 2 and all expansions installed? i remember it helped with texture in the mod. does it help give you better foliage in SA?

 

i digress. 

 

HDR low. everything else off. maybe a little post processing or a dash of bloom and motion blur, for those good looks. 

 

with these settings, i NEVER dip below 25 fps. in dense cities usually between 30-50 fps and outside of that 60-90 usually. 

 

i'm in chicago, the server i normally play on is a hardcore one hosted on the west coast. i play often with the server owner and hes helped me try and trouble shoot things. i may suggest moving the server or changing hosts. these past few weeks and today, it was mainly this server that i have consistently disconnected from. today after a couple hours of constant crashing while trying to join "my" server, i played on a regular server for over a half hour. no issues. then switched to a different hardcore server and same thing, no issues. i did this to try and determine if it was maybe an issue with our server, or maybe the hive itself. after i was able to play on our server for almost 20 minutes, and i got optimistic it was fixed. then crash... on the next couple start ups it crashed in the menus and right when logging into the server. 

 

it may also be important to note my hardcore character has been alive since last patch. could it be corrupt? i thought that may have been the case until i was able to play with it on another hardcore server with good stability. 

 

 

if you have read this, thank you. i know it's a lot, but i have exhausted every option i can think of. i'm at about 200 hours in the game. and it kills me to be unable to play. 

i know there's a lot of info here, but i only want to be thorough. please let me know if you have any more questions for me or suggestions on anything else to try. if my google searches are any indication of the help i'll receive, i'm not too optimistic. but i have seen countless short vague troubleshooting posts about this issue and there are inevitably a ton of questions form posters and needs for clarification. i want to be completely clear on everything i've experienced and everything i've tried because i know others are facing this problem. hopefully the words and phrases used in the post will lead people to this thread. and hopefully it will be able to give others suggestions or ideas of things to try to fix this issue.

 

of course this may be just a "alpher" thing, and that's understandable, but i want to make sure we can exhaust all other possibilities.

 

 

 

thank you. stay based.

Edited February 8, 2014 by murph

[Estevacio 62]

hey man, i have read in multiple forums, steam ones, this one, googled the problem and read some more, GTX nvidia cards usually are involved with this problem, but there are some small reports of ATI ones, i have tried some ideas, most of yours i didn't try it but seems it doesn't work either!!

 

great detailed topic man!

 

btw, my dayz usually doesn't have fps problems, but normally while i rotate my view the fps gets massively low and usually that's when the game crashes!! like when loading all the textures!! also noticed most of the times it starts "signaling" when it's going to crash!!

[jbrazz 0]

its hard to reproduce when it happens all the time...you know? i cant seem to figure out the cause.

 

i think it's the gpu. but all other games i run just fine. 

 

i think youre right though, almost like theres too many textures to load so it crashes. i know what you man when you say signalling. there's that split second when nothing moves and you pray it's just a hiccup. but then blackness...

 

i'm actually going to try underclocking my gpu (something i dont think i should have to do...) and i'll report back. 

Edited February 6, 2014 by murph

[zerox024 21]

i`m having the same issue i had gtx 260 then i buyed gtx 780, still same after 10-15 minutes screen goes black , game still running

 

The game is totaly unplayable for me ...

Edited February 7, 2014 by zerox024