Bug fixing a map

Hi,

I’ve had a bug report about my map regarding a crash to desktop when approaching a certain area of the map in a modded vehicle (K5 chevvy).

I can’t recreate this crash with vanilla vehicles and I’m yet to recreate it with the K5 chevvy even though I’ve tried. Obviously this could be a problem on the user end but I’d like to do everything I can to rule it out as a map bug. Where and what should I be looking for in the map files when bugfixing?

Towards the end of making the map I started to get ‘out of video memory’ crashes when reloading the map which I put down to the size of the map and the amount of content in it. Is there a way I can clean this up in the map files too, in case it’s this causing the problem? The out of video memory error doesn’t prevent the map from being played and I can still reload the map in the editor after the crash so I’d hoped it was just an annoying but-not game breaking bug and ignored it.

Any advice would be much appreciated.

Thanks

last edited by A Former User

@Torridon88
Do you know whether the user who reported that error has the memory increase fix installed?

@mexican_420

I’m ashamed to admit I don’t even know if I have the memory increase fix installed, what is it? I’ll ask the user once I know what it is I’m asking about! Thanks!

@torridon88, Do you have custom made objects in the map? That could be why it froze on you. If you do, check your MeshCache folder and see what objects were converted and remove them all. Then try again to see if that's what did it. On some maps, when they lag or freeze, it's because the user made objects need to be converted buy the game and that's what makes it lag.

Also, if you do use user-made objects, by all means run your map fully until all objects are converted, then take the converted objects from the MeshCache folder and place them in you map folders so they don't need to be converted again ,as well as any textures from the TextureCache folder.

Many people don't realize this and release their maps with .x files and is why many of these maps lag for others because they didn't know about this.

Also, if you have any user made objects that have too many polys, it'll do the same. I just made a rock for Kent_Bobo and the game froze on me too. It loaded the very first time but the textures for my other models didn't show up. After that, the game just froze because the rock had almost 90k polys. I read that models need to be under 30k polys to work correctly.

last edited by Tattoo

@tattoo thanks for the reply but no the map uses no custom objects. I haven’t got any installed in the editor either, everything is completely vanilla. As I said I’m not getting the crash when I play, but the user is and has managed to repeat the crash more than once. I want to fix it if it’s a problem specific to my map so any other suggestions of what might be causing it would be great!

@tattoo do you know if the editor has a limit on the number and density of distributions? It’s a detailed map so there’s a lot of scenery

@torridon88, I'm sorry, no, I wouldn't know that. I haven't made any very dence maps at all. I just made a couple for testing models I made, all flat ground. lol

@torridon88,Actually, I do remember someone made a map for ST that was very dense and I couldn't run it at all so it very well may be that you have too much in one area. Maybe ask that person that reported the problem to try the 4 gig patch and see if that helps.

last edited by Tattoo

Right, slightly more information on the situation around the crash. The user is on steam so his game is up to date. He’s experienced the same crash around 45mins to an hour into playing the map, on multiplayer. It’s happened twice around the same time into the map. I’m just testing now and still haven’t experienced a crash yet but I’m on single player. Does anyone know if this could be a memory leak since it happens after a certain time? Is there anyway I can clean up the map files to correct it? Thanks again.

@torridon88, Does this happen right before it turns to night? This is what spun has reported when his game crashes. So it may not be a map problem.

@tattoo user isn’t sure but I playtested the map for over two hours tonight without crashes. Using vanilla only trucks as a reference, I’ll try again tomorrow with the modded vehicle he’s using and see if I get the same crash. Starting to think it’s not a map bug and more likely a mod or multiplayer bug. Thanks for all the help.