Crash to desktop every 10-15 minutes

[Goody1981]

Hi guys, hoping some legends out there can help me sort out my KSP. I have experienced this problem for a while, but it seems to have gotten worse with the new DLC (Breaking Ground). My game just constantly crashes to desktop. Most often it occurs on during a scene change (either VAB/SPH to launch, or when I recover a vessel at the end of a flight). It happens every 10-15 minutes - so frustrating since I want to be playing with the new robo parts! I am not a computer guy really, so I don't know if this is a really obvious problem like not enough RAM or something.

My thanks in advance to anyone who answers

(Following instructions follows)

KSP version: 1.7.1.2539 x64

Explanation: As above, regular CTD on scene change (maybe every 3rd scene change)

Output log: https://www.dropbox.com/s/4yjul6xfx6wrw7r/output_log.txt?dl=0

Error log: https://www.dropbox.com/s/8h99c65nfvypyza/error.log?dl=0

System information: https://www.dropbox.com/s/19182rsb40xq5wr/DxDiag.txt?dl=0

Is my KSP clean?: Completely stock, freshly verified on GOG... so I'm pretty sure yes

 

As this is not save/craft specific (happened in previous saves), I haven't attached a save file or a craft file. But please let me know if there's more info I can give. Thank you!

[Tonka Crash]

@Goody1981 The output_log.txt indicates you are out of memory.

DynamicHeapAllocator allocation probe 1 failed - Could not get memory for large allocation 8388608.
DynamicHeapAllocator allocation probe 2 failed - Could not get memory for large allocation 8388608.
DynamicHeapAllocator allocation probe 3 failed - Could not get memory for large allocation 8388608.
DynamicHeapAllocator allocation probe 4 failed - Could not get memory for large allocation 8388608.
DynamicHeapAllocator out of memory - Could not get memory for large allocation 8388608!
Could not allocate memory: System out of memory!

8GB is on the low side for this game. It used to be enough for a stock game, but I'm guessing that's not the case with the expansion packs added in. I'd try to go to 16GB or 32GB if you can. I run about a 120 mods and routinely see around 24GB allocated out of 32GB on my PC.

There is a mod Making Less History that strips some of the Making History features to free up memory that might help. You have to hunt a little in DMagic's thread since he uses the one thread for a bunch of unrealated mods he's made.

 

[Goody1981]

4 minutes ago, Tonka Crash said:

The output_log.txt indicates you are out of memory.

Hi Tonka Crash,

Thanks very much for your help mate - guess that's what I get for having a 4 year old PC  . I'll give the DMagic mod a go as well. Thanks again for your prompt response - champ

[Tonka Crash]

Just now, Goody1981 said:

Hi Tonka Crash,

Thanks very much for your help mate - guess that's what I get for having a 4 year old PC  . I'll give the DMagic mod a go as well. Thanks again for your prompt response - champ

There are a lot of people on here running what most gamers would consider ancient hardware. The hardware requirements don't really force the latest and greatest, but it is a memory pig. 

[Goody1981]

8 minutes ago, Tonka Crash said:

The hardware requirements don't really force the latest and greatest, but it is a memory pig. 

So I’m discovering... one more question please if you don’t mind indulging this computer-noob

So is that 8Gb-ish limit something that will happen every session eventually? Like KSP is storing information constantly and the memory is slowly being filled up and then once it hits 8Gb that’s it? I’m guessing no, otherwise everyone would crash eventually. 

Is it more just a matter of trying to do too many things at once, and mine can only handle 8Gb of “things”, where yours can handle 32 Gb of “things”?

[Tonka Crash]

@Goody1981 I don't really know. In the past KSP has suffered from memory leaks where eventually it would run out of memory for everybody that played long enough, but I haven't seen anyone complaining about that recently.

It may be that as you do things the game just keeps adding some assets in memory that it doesn't free up anticipating it will need it again and eventually it just runs out of room on 8GB where my PC has room for that.

If you have disk space to spare you might also try manually setting your paging file to be larger instead of letting windows manage it by default. I think it was around 11gb when your game crashed. I'd try to set it around 20GB and see if that helps.

Control Panel -> System -> Advanced system settings -> Advanced tab -> under Perfomance select Settings -> Advanced Tab ->  under Virtual Memory select Change. Uncheck Automatically manage paging file size for all drives. I haven't messed with this since XP, but back then I used to set this to 2xRAM+10%.

If you have multiple disks put this on a different disk than KSP.  That way the game isn't trying to read/write both game assets and virtual memory to the same disk at the same time.

But really adding RAM is your best bet even to an old system.

 

Edited June 1, 2019 by Tonka Crash

[Goody1981]

Ok great thank you!

[Fraktal]

8 hours ago, Tonka Crash said:

It used to be enough for a stock game, but I'm guessing that's not the case with the expansion packs added in.

No, there's something else going on. I run the game on 4 GB and it works fine for the most part - but when I fired it up today, it became borderline-unplayably laggy to the point where it had 5+ minute loads, the entire window flashing while the game is frozen, Windows repeatedly graying out the screen and throwing up the "application not responding" popup, and the game window minimizing after long flashing sessions. At one point, I Alt-Tabbed out to Task Manager in the middle of one of these seizures without pausing the game; it showed 24% CPU usage, 85% RAM usage and 100% disk usage of the Windows system process hogging the pagefile to the point the game completely froze for nearly 10 minutes because it was waiting for drive access.

Even quitting the game took 30 minutes to even show the menu and after clicking Quit, it brainstormed for a few seconds then crashed with this stackdump:

Quote

0x00007FFF3DE623D3 (mono) g_free
0x00007FFF3DE984EB (mono) mono_gc_is_finalizer_thread
0x00007FFF3DE98611 (mono) mono_gc_is_finalizer_thread
0x00007FFF3DF03B87 (mono) mono_thread_interruption_request_flag
0x00007FFF3DFB8E77 (mono) mono_unity_class_get
0x00007FFF6D004034 (KERNEL32) BaseThreadInitThunk
0x00007FFF6ECE3691 (ntdll) RtlUserThreadStart

I didn't even install Breaking Ground, yet something evidently changed in the executable, as it never did this before.

[Guest]

deleted

Edited March 29, 2020 by Guest

[Fraktal]

Was that answer meant for Goody1981 or me?

[Goody1981]

9 hours ago, <noname> said:

This does look to be a memory crash, but it's not KSP that is using the majority of the memory. Most of the memory has already been allocated before KSP was started. If it were me, I would shut down the antivirus and try again. If that don't work, you will need to find whatever is eating all your resources, whether it be a web browser with a million open tabs or just a ton of crap open in the background. Something is causing you to run out of memory, and KSP is not the sole reason. Something else is eating or denying resources.

@Fraktal I'm assuming this is responding to my original post .... thanks @<noname> - I will have a crack tonight and see if that makes a difference. Thanks again to all responders - the help on this forum is amazing.

[Guest]

deleted

Edited March 29, 2020 by Guest

[Goody1981]

9 hours ago, <noname> said:

I was looking at logs in the op. Two things stuck out. One was out of memory crash and two was the fact that there was an Avast directory mentioned in one of those logs after the crash. I was thinking Avast was denying memory allocation for some reason. When downloaded from the ksp store or from gog, the ksp_64 executable can look like an unsigned binary to some anti-virus, meaning it may get denied permission to read-write files or allocate memory. Turning off the anti-virus can be quickly tested. If that don't work, then I'd start watching the system monitor for unneeded crap that can be shut down before starting ksp. On my system, I have KSP with both dlc's installed, and it only uses 3.1 GB. Goody1981 should be able to get the game to run stable on his 8 GB ram with the right tweaks.

Thanks again - I tried what you suggested (got rid of Avast, just using Windows Defender) and played last night for two hours no crashes. Seems to have sorted it!