Consistent Crashes with Update

[Flappie]

What you describe does not look like a memory leak. A memory leak lives on its own, you should not need to cycle the F2 view. When you cycle the F2 view, you ask DCS to load models in high-res (since they are seen from up close). If there are many different planes with different textures in the mission, the RAM will be filled with textures and high-poly models, yes. What should happen is that DCS should empty this unused memory after a time. What you describe seems to indicate it does not.

Anyway, the problem @cnoblenyc is having is that most of the time DCS can't even load a mission, so it's probably something else than what you are seeing.

Edited June 2, 2024 by Flappie

[FusRoPotato]

30 minutes ago, Flappie said:

A memory leak lives on its own

This isn't true. By definition, this is a memory leak, although it might not be the kind you're used to seeing. It occurs when memory allocations are not properly managed, and the garbage collection process fails to remove data from the paging file as it does from RAM. This can happen if the system is designed to pull data from game files again later instead of retrieving it from virtual memory. There's no need for the system to continuously store additional data into virtual memory by rotating between the same F2 aircraft views over and over again. What @cnoblenyc is seeing is a memory access violation. If it's trying to pull data from garbaged ram, finds out it's not there but supposed to be in virtual, then finds out it's not there either because it ran out of space, C0000005 will happen. Considering the unusually large amount of virtual memory DCS allocates when loading into a mission, having the error occur right away isn't surprising, especially if the disk their virtual memory is stored on has been filled accidentally by video or track records for example.

Edited June 2, 2024 by FusRoPotato

[Flappie]

I stand corrected.

[cnoblenyc]

On 6/1/2024 at 12:34 PM, Flappie said:

 

You should check Windows Event Viewer (System and Apps logs) at the time of your DCS crashes. You may find interesting messages..

Nothing new. I launched DCS at 7:28.

 

On 6/2/2024 at 3:28 PM, FusRoPotato said:

 

@cnoblenyc FYI, windows key -> Event Viewer -> Windows Logs -> System -> right-hand-side Filter Current Log -> Check Warnings and apply. Look for source types Resource-Exhaustion-Detector. If you see something like that, try increasing your virtual memory using the guide pinned at the top of this forum.

 

 

I don't see anything related in the even log

I ran PerfMon.  Current Pagefile is set to 32gb. Seems it crashed at ~11gb.

Another run: (Added Committed Bytes) Obvious where it crashed., eh?  

null

 

 

 

 

On 6/2/2024 at 3:52 PM, Flappie said:

 

Anyway, the problem @cnoblenyc is having is that most of the time DCS can't even load a mission, so it's probably something else than what you are seeing.

 

 

The behavior (after completely rebuilding the rig - including removing all but the essential hardware and buying a new 4070 GPU... - is I can generally launch a flight, but no matter what settings, I can fly for only under 2 mins.  Then it crashes.  Sometimes with a dump (pun intended here...  ) but lately, usually not.

Last 3 dumps attached for your viewing pleasure.

dcs.log-20240608-133440.zip dcs.log-20240608-143001.zip dcs.log-20240608-144505.zip

[FusRoPotato]

Try a preload radius of 30k instead of 150k. I had a similar problem with an Nvidia card, and I assumed it was because it attempted to utilize shared vram when it was ready allocated to something else. Your settings looks like they'd often breach past your 12 gigs of dedicated vram. Another thing to try might be to use DLSS to reduce vram usage.

[cnoblenyc]

7 hours ago, FusRoPotato said:

Try a preload radius of 30k instead of 150k. I had a similar problem with an Nvidia card, and I assumed it was because it attempted to utilize shared vram when it was ready allocated to something else. Your settings looks like they'd often breach past your 12 gigs of dedicated vram. Another thing to try might be to use DLSS to reduce vram usage.

On preset "LOW", its set to 100.  Same issues.  It had been running fine for the last couple yrs without DLSS and in preset "high" and with a RTX3070.  Same issues with the new RTX4070.  MSFS, which is very taxing on this rig, can go for hours (literally) of flight without a glitch... 

Appreciate everyone's help!  Seems tech support has essentially given up on this now.. not sure what's left to try.  

[FusRoPotato]

All of your crash logs say its set to 150,000, so there is a discrepancy between what your menu says and what your game is actually running.

['preloadRadius'] = 150000;

[cnoblenyc]

13 hours ago, FusRoPotato said:

All of your crash logs say its set to 150,000, so there is a discrepancy between what your menu says and what your game is actually running.

['preloadRadius'] = 150000;

I didn't explain properly, apologies.  When I re-built and reinstalled everything, I left it at defaults.  We've tried changing the settings many times:

 

On 5/28/2024 at 9:31 PM, cnoblenyc said:

Change the pagefile - although it was managed by the system as it was.  The Preload Radius settings were the defaults.  I changed them to presets "Med" and "High" ....  No luck at all.  Crashed ever time.

Hours trying to get this to run ... very frustrating.... but I really appreciate your help and time.  Thank you.

dcs.log-20240529-025805.zip 1.03 MB · 12 downloads dcs.log-20240529-041534.zip 1.86 MB · 11 downloads

 

I changed back to "LOW" again and ran it..  no dump, just a straight CTD in both Single and Multi Thread  (see attached)

 

 

MT - dcs.log ST - dcs.log

[cnoblenyc]

Somethijgn different.

I started a sortie with he F/A-18C "Cold & Dark" in the Marianas.  (aka: On the carrier).  I just let it sit there (played with some buttons / dials).  After 10 mins, it still had not crashed.  I went back to the menu.. that's when the crash happened.

dcs.log-20240609-234946.zip

However, the dump seems to be the same Bat Error, Same Bat Code.

[FusRoPotato]

The small size of your private bytes is very different from my own and the report of a friend of mine. It's curious to me how it plateaus so quickly and at such a small value.

The heap corruptions occurring suggest that something is interfering with how your game is accessing or writing to memory. This could be due to an antivirus conflict or interruptions in page file access and writing.

One thing you could try is to apply your page file to a different drive, ideally a faster one. I might recommend your drive D since it's NVME and not your system drive. If you are already using D, try C. Typically a good practice is to set the minimum to 1.5x (48,000) your ram, and the max to 3x (96,000). This is good for capturing memory dumps on a 32 gig ram system.

If you have antivirus, maybe add the game related folders to an exclusion.

Oh, and set your radius to 30,000 instead of 100 or 150,000. I've seen instability issues in the past at both extremes.

Edited June 10, 2024 by FusRoPotato

[cnoblenyc]

Hi FusRoPotato,

First - thank you for the continued help.  If you read any frustration into my replies, certainly NOT aimed at anyone.

So...

 - Both C (Where DCS is installed) and D are both WD Black SN750 NVMe drives.

 - Folders and process had been added to A/V (Windows Defender)

- Changed PF to different drive. However, it's important to note that when I rebuilt, I purposely re-installed the OS onto a different drive. (Had previously been on a Samsung SSD 850 Pro)

- Changed PF to D drive and set to 32000 and 96000

- Kept presets at "LOW", but changed preload to 30000

- Launched at ~12:30 F/A-18C "instant action" with "Ready on ramp"

- Pressed buttons (TCN, ILS, freq change, lights, DDI/UFH/AMPCD buttons, extended probe, etc, etc..)

- Toggled through all available view (Cockpit, arcade, flyby, arcade, chase, wingman, etc.. etc..

- Moved control surfaces (flaps, hook, refueling probe, etc..)

- at 1305, pushed throttle forward, taxi'd to rnwy, and sat for 5 mins.

- at 1310, pushed throttle forward... took off.. airborne... CRASH. 

NOTE:  Removed joystick and used keyboard only to rule that out...)

- CRASHED - dump attached.

Stable for over 30 mins... until it actually started flying...

dcs.log-20240610-171300.zip

Edited June 10, 2024 by cnoblenyc

[aaronwhite]

Your issues are appearing to be pretty similar to what I'm running into. I've thrown a few threads together now, and seems at the moment that running single-thread specifically through the .exe in the /bin directory and turning off SSAO and SSLR seem to be helping, but I'm still not entirely sure. It's certainly confusing, because I'm able to run the game with the settings below and I think the lowest FPS I've seen while running with the FPS counter up has been high 80's, while it's usually comfortably hovering around the ~120 mark, without too much struggling as far as I can tell from not hearing my fans spinning up through my headphones. 

I've played with performance monitor up and watched the in-game FPS counter and resource monitor and for the life of me can't figure out what's causing these crashes. But so far the settings below seem to help, along with specifically selecting the black DCS single-thread .exe launcher. I guess I'm hopeful that if it was working previously, it's something that might start working again, because DCS was the thing I was most excited to get my new computer for, and so far it's been tough to enjoy the game with the constant crashing and trying to chase down bugs.

I guess a quick summary of what I've tried so far: Downgrading GPU drivers (included also stress testing the GPU, and finally updating the drivers back to the current release), creating a ton of page file space between my 3 physical SSD's, moving the game from the C drive that's an NVME to a different SSD to make sure that wasn't an issue, running the game as Admin, excluding Saved Games and the DCS directory from Defender, I think 3 or 4 fresh installs and probably double that number of repairs. 

Edited June 11, 2024 by aaronwhite

[diamond22]

6 hours ago, aaronwhite said:

I guess a quick summary of what I've tried so far: Downgrading GPU drivers (included also stress testing the GPU, and finally updating the drivers back to the current release), creating a ton of page file space between my 3 physical SSD's, moving the game from the C drive that's an NVME to a different SSD to make sure that wasn't an issue, running the game as Admin, excluding Saved Games and the DCS directory from Defender, I think 3 or 4 fresh installs and probably double that number of repairs. 

 

Definitely not an easy road for all of us... 

I too have tried many of your suggestions but the CTDs are still random, especially in MT mode.

Edited June 12, 2024 by diamond22

[aaronwhite]

10 hours ago, diamond22 said:

Definitely not an easy road for all of us... 

I too have tried many of your suggestions but the CTDs are still random, especially in MT mode.

 

Yeah, I've just completely abandoned MT for now. I think the number of times I got more than 15 minutes of flight out of MT was maybe 2 or 3? The rest pretty consistently crashed. 

Oh well. I'll keep trying for a bit, and if it doesn't get better with the next update, I'll probably just have to shelve DCS for a little while and try another time.

[cnoblenyc]

So.....

Before continuing to read this... I'd recommend sitting down.  (And taking notes.... particularly if you're married - more on that in a moment...)

Bought a whole new rig.  And when I say "whole", I mean a whole new rig.   Case to fan to memory to CPU to NVMe ... not a single component was re-used, not even a cable.  Works great in MT with "High" presets.  Haven't had a crash in over 20 sorties!

What did I do with the old rig you ask?  Good question.  I decided (since no other app had an issue on the hardware) to replace the multi-media server in the house. (Think PLEX home cinema, music, vids, etc.)  I figured since I just installed the OS, I'd leave it and just add Plex, VLC, etc., etc.  Now remember I said this is useful particularly if you are married, right?  NEVER launch DCS in the living room (on the old rig that "you just had to replace") with the battle-axe at home.  Why you say?  Because DCS just ran... and ran... and ran.  30 mins later... still running.  I cannot get the old rig to crash... and I NEEDED IT TO! I've rebooted, changed the presets back to "High", broke the sound barrier down the Las Vegas Strip... just won't crash and in MT at that!

On a technical note:  I have NOT the bloody foggiest idea why it decided to run in a different room.  The ONLY difference is instead of an ASUS monitor, its running on a 75" Sony TV.  I literally unplugged it, carried it to the living room, plugged it into the power and the TV, and turned it back on.  Literally is being used correctly here... that is ALL I did.  If I discover anything new as to potential reasons, I'll post a follow-up.  I do suspect it has something to do the the monitor's G-Sync... 

So now my wife thinks I planned this.  Married folks:  Uninstall DCS on the old rig just in case you're tempted to "prove it still doesn't work".

On an unrelated note: Does anyone know a good divorce lawyer?? (Asking for a friend....)

 

 

 

 

Edited June 19, 2024 by cnoblenyc

[Flappie]

Maybe an unstable power socket? I know some devices such as halogen lamps can disturb the power circuit for other devices. That is just an example.

[cnoblenyc]

7 hours ago, Flappie said:

Maybe an unstable power socket? I know some devices such as halogen lamps can disturb the power circuit for other devices. That is just an example.

One of the things we did was to unplug it from the APC UPS and directly into the wall (separate socket) to no avail.  I plugged the new rig in with the same pwr cord (I have it all in a wire management sleeve) so have to rule that out.  And if it were a power issue, we'd have seen it with things like MSFS most likely.

It's truly perplexing... and frustrating AF.  I may bring the old rig back into the game room and plug it in and see if it still fails....

 

[maxTRX]

21 hours ago, cnoblenyc said:

...On an unrelated note: Does anyone know a good divorce lawyer?? (Asking for a friend....)

 

 

 

 

 

There are tons of them in the Razbam thread.  They might be able to help with marital issues and...  I think they also know how to fix the Mudhen radar