Morrowind - how to reduce CTDs?

[Guest]

Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.rpg (More info?)

I have a machine with an AMD 3400+, 1024 MB ram, and a GeForce 6600.
The game plays fine, except in case I have to reload too often
(especially when trying to make potions, which fail, and I want to try
again).

The sound suddenly stops while loading, and "Windows has encountered a
problem", crash to desktop. After that, I can restart and the game is
playing again, until another game loading dropout happens.

Does anybody know a trick to make Morrowind fail less often? TIA


Gabriele Neukam

Gabriele.Spamfighter.Neukam@t-online.de


--
Ah, Information. A property, too valuable these days, to give it away,
just so, at no cost.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.rpg (More info?)

Gabriele Neukam <Gabriele.Spamfighter.Neukam@t-online.de> once tried to
test me with:

> Does anybody know a trick to make Morrowind fail less often? TIA

One thing that helps is not to leave items lying around cluttering up the
MW database. I've heard that if you do that, it gets more unstable. So
always destroy things you pick up that you don't need. Always destroy the
corpses of critter you're done looting. Etc. At least, this is something I
remember happening a while back, not sure if they ever patched it. I'm
assuming you're using the latest patches.

I would also recommend asking this in alt.games.morrowind.

--

Knight37 - http://knightgames.blogspot.com

Once a Gamer, Always a Gamer.

 

[sarah]

Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.rpg (More info?)

"Gabriele Neukam" <Gabriele.Spamfighter.Neukam@t-online.de> wrote in message
news:d38o6n$qol$00$1@news.t-online.com...

> I have a machine with an AMD 3400+, 1024 MB ram, and a GeForce 6600.
> The game plays fine, except in case I have to reload too often
> (especially when trying to make potions, which fail, and I want to try
> again).

Failing when you make potions isn't worth reloading over.

> Does anybody know a trick to make Morrowind fail less often? TIA

Don't travel around too much in one gaming session. If you stick around the
same general area for a while, you're less likely to crash. If you teleport
from city A to B to C to D, your chance of crashing increases. Also hit the
F5 key regularly.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.rpg (More info?)

On that special day, Knight37, (knight37m@email.com) said...

> I've heard that if you do that, it gets more unstable. So
> always destroy things you pick up that you don't need. Always destroy the
> corpses of critter you're done looting.

I did. The problem is: My character is currently standing in a storage
room in the basement of the St.Olms quarter of Vivec, surrounded by
crates, baskets, urns, sacks, and I dunnowhat. Perhaps I must leave
that room first. But as soon as I restart the game, there are four rats
more that leave corpses after killing them; and my backpack is already
full to the brim. If I clear the corpses (which i always do), I'll have
to collect the meat first, and that renders my overburdened character
immovable.


Gabriele Neukam

Gabriele.Spamfighter.Neukam@t-online.de


--
Ah, Information. A property, too valuable these days, to give it away,
just so, at no cost.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.rpg (More info?)

Gabriele Neukam wrote:

> On that special day, Knight37, (knight37m@email.com) said...
>
>
>>I've heard that if you do that, it gets more unstable. So
>>always destroy things you pick up that you don't need. Always destroy the
>>corpses of critter you're done looting.
>
>
> I did. The problem is: My character is currently standing in a storage
> room in the basement of the St.Olms quarter of Vivec, surrounded by
> crates, baskets, urns, sacks, and I dunnowhat. Perhaps I must leave
> that room first. But as soon as I restart the game, there are four rats
> more that leave corpses after killing them; and my backpack is already
> full to the brim. If I clear the corpses (which i always do), I'll have
> to collect the meat first, and that renders my overburdened character
> immovable.

Does it crash when you zone?

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.rpg (More info?)

On that special day, James Garvin, (jgarvin2004@comcast.net) said...

>
> Does it crash when you zone?

Nope. Haven't seen that, yet (knocks on wood). There are sometimes
lags, though.


Gabriele Neukam

Gabriele.Spamfighter.Neukam@t-online.de


--
Ah, Information. A property, too valuable these days, to give it away,
just so, at no cost.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.rpg (More info?)

Gabriele Neukam wrote:

> On that special day, James Garvin, (jgarvin2004@comcast.net) said...
>
>
>>Does it crash when you zone?
>
>
> Nope. Haven't seen that, yet (knocks on wood). There are sometimes
> lags, though.

As Sarah said, sometimes when you travel too much it will crash. If you
are reloading all the time it will crash. It also seems to have some
issues with Vivic if you move from one zone to another more than a
couple of times (eg running errands). Make sure to quick save!!

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.rpg (More info?)

Bitstring <IIqdnVQm9Pa8tsXfRVn-tA@comcast.com>, from the wonderful
person James Garvin <jgarvin2004@comcast.net> said
>Gabriele Neukam wrote:
>
>> On that special day, James Garvin, (jgarvin2004@comcast.net) said...
>>
>>>Does it crash when you zone?
>> Nope. Haven't seen that, yet (knocks on wood). There are sometimes
>>lags, though.
>
>As Sarah said, sometimes when you travel too much it will crash. If
>you are reloading all the time it will crash. It also seems to have
>some issues with Vivic if you move from one zone to another more than a
>couple of times (eg running errands). Make sure to quick save!!

With the final patch it would usually only CTD for me if I pushed the
limit on graphics display (set max distance, run like heck with the
boots of speed on, with a +150 'light' spell, at night).

Drop the graphics back to 1280*1024 (instead of the 1600*1200 I really
wanted) and it would crash a whole bunch less. But hey, it's pretty
unfriendly of it still (using the right compiler I'm sure they could
have gotten it to spit out an error message 'exception xxxxx' or
something, which I could then have invoked Visual-XYZ debugger on, and
at least found an address).

The 'silently crash and die' is no help to anyone .. whoever came up
with that needs boiling in oil.

--
GSV Three Minds in a Can
SC recommends the use of Firefox; Get smart, or get assimilated.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.rpg (More info?)

Gabriele Neukam <Gabriele.Spamfighter.Neukam@t-online.de> skrev i
meddelelsen news:d38o6n$qol$00$1@news.t-online.com:

> Does anybody know a trick to make Morrowind fail less often? TIA

If you have applied all relevant patches and hardware drivers, and if you
do not use conflicting plug-ins, try turning music off. Works for me -
Morrowind is very stable on my system, I can't remember the last time it
crashed.

(System on game PC: Win200Pro SP4, 1.25 GB PC2100 RAM, GeForce3 Ti200/128,
Hercules Fortissimo soundcard, static swapfile).

--
Arcana Dragon -==(UDIC)==-
d++e++N++T+++Om-KAWML!34567'!S'!8!9!u+uC+uF+++uG-u
LB®----uAnC+nH++nP+nI----nPT-nS+++nT----o---oE---xz
http://www.phyton.dk/games.htm

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.rpg (More info?)

On that special day, Arcana Dragon, (this@ress.is.invalid) said...

> If you have applied all relevant patches and hardware drivers, and if you
> do not use conflicting plug-ins, try turning music off. Works for me -
> Morrowind is very stable on my system, I can't remember the last time it
> crashed.

I don't have any plugins at all. I tried another time, outside storage
rooms, and once even inside (my character was burdened and couldn't
move), and loading didn't crash any more.

What I had done before? I was sick of running around in a dark
environment, and had upped the gamma a notch. Suddenly, the framerate
was higher (I have the "show framerate" feature enabled in the
morrowind.ini), and it looks like the game is more stable, too.
Obviously, the brightness has some impact on the performance, although
that doesn't make sense to me.

I still had one second lags when changing to the "arena" area, cell-
wise, but the game didn't mind, and just continued.


Gabriele Neukam

Gabriele.Spamfighter.Neukam@t-online.de


--
Ah, Information. A property, too valuable these days, to give it away,
just so, at no cost.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.rpg (More info?)

> I did. The problem is: My character is currently standing in a storage
> room in the basement of the St.Olms quarter of Vivec, surrounded by
> crates, baskets, urns, sacks, and I dunnowhat. Perhaps I must leave
> that room first. But as soon as I restart the game, there are four rats
> more that leave corpses after killing them; and my backpack is already
> full to the brim. If I clear the corpses (which i always do), I'll have
> to collect the meat first, and that renders my overburdened character
> immovable.

You could always EAT the rat meat. I make a habit of eating everything I
kill if possible. Sometimes you get negative effects, but they're usually
very short-duration, and every time you eat something, it improves your
Alchemy skill too, so there's a nice bonus.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.rpg (More info?)

"Knight37" <knight37m@email.com> wrote in message
news:Xns96336F9F49AB6knight37m@130.133.1.4...
> Gabriele Neukam <Gabriele.Spamfighter.Neukam@t-online.de> once tried to
> test me with:
>
>> Does anybody know a trick to make Morrowind fail less often? TIA
>
> One thing that helps is not to leave items lying around cluttering up the
> MW database. I've heard that if you do that, it gets more unstable. So
> always destroy things you pick up that you don't need.

Alright I give up. I can destroy the corpses, but that is about it.
How do you destroy items you find in Morrowind?




Always destroy the
> corpses of critter you're done looting. Etc. At least, this is something I
> remember happening a while back, not sure if they ever patched it. I'm
> assuming you're using the latest patches.
>
> I would also recommend asking this in alt.games.morrowind.
>
> --
>
> Knight37 - http://knightgames.blogspot.com
>
> Once a Gamer, Always a Gamer.
>

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.rpg (More info?)

> > I have a machine with an AMD 3400+, 1024 MB ram, and a GeForce 6600.
> > The game plays fine, except in case I have to reload too often
> > (especially when trying to make potions, which fail, and I want to try
> > again).
>
> Failing when you make potions isn't worth reloading over.

Definitely not. If your system is anything like mine (and it is actually
pretty close), it takes about 10 minutes to clear the data, load the save,
initialize the data, and load the area again whenever you reload. In those
10 minutes, you could have easily replaced all the ingredients wasted, and
given 10 more attempts at creating that potion. Reloading frequently often
causes crashes, so try to do it as little as possible.

> Also hit the F5 key regularly.

This, of course, won't have any effect on how often the game crashes, but at
least when it does crash (and it will crash, there's really no way around
that one), you won't have lost too much progress. I honestly can't remember
the last time I actually quit the game legitimately. I just play until it
crashes. If it's bed-time by then, I go to sleep. If not, I'll go grab a
snack or something and let the computer (and my temper) cool down a bit
before starting again...

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.rpg (More info?)

"Arcana Dragon" <this@ress.is.invalid> wrote in message
news:42590099$0$202$edfadb0f@dread11.news.tele.dk...
> Gabriele Neukam <Gabriele.Spamfighter.Neukam@t-online.de> skrev i
> meddelelsen news:d38o6n$qol$00$1@news.t-online.com:
>
>> Does anybody know a trick to make Morrowind fail less often? TIA
>
> If you have applied all relevant patches and hardware drivers, and if you
> do not use conflicting plug-ins, try turning music off. Works for me -
> Morrowind is very stable on my system, I can't remember the last time it
> crashed.

Thanks for that information. I turned off music at the slider, and now no
more crashes.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.rpg (More info?)

Gabriele Neukam <Gabriele.Spamfighter.Neukam@t-online.de> skrev i
meddelelsen news:d3blh0$d4t$05$1@news.t-online.com:

>> you do not use conflicting plug-ins, try turning music off. Works for
....
> What I had done before? I was sick of running around in a dark
> environment, and had upped the gamma a notch. Suddenly, the framerate
....

Do you have music (not sounds, only music) turned off? If I turn on music
(MP3's) the game tends to ctd, when it's off, it's stone stable.

--
Arcana Dragon -==(UDIC)==-
d++e++N++T+++Om-KAWML!34567'!S'!8!9!u+uC+uF+++uG-u
LB®----uAnC+nH++nP+nI----nPT-nS+++nT----o---oE---xz
http://www.phyton.dk/games.htm

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.rpg (More info?)

i own a yacht wrote:
> Gabriele Neukam <Gabriele.Spamfighter.Neukam@t-online.de> wrote:
>
>
>>Does anybody know a trick to make Morrowind fail less often? TIA
>
>
> i wish i had a ctd problem with morrowind. it just hardlocks on me
> instead.

You probably have a mod or two that conflict????

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.rpg (More info?)

"Mark Earnest" <mark45@SPAMLESSairmail.net> skrev i meddelelsen
news:115k494s4k0hda9@corp.supernews.com:

> Thanks for that information. I turned off music at the slider, and
> now no more crashes.

You're welcome. Happy gaming!

--
Arcana Dragon -==(UDIC)==-
d++e++N++T+++Om-KAWML!34567'!S'!8!9!u+uC+uF+++uG-u
LB®----uAnC+nH++nP+nI----nPT-nS+++nT----o---oE---xz
http://www.phyton.dk/games.htm

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.rpg (More info?)

On Sun, 10 Apr 2005 22:23:29 -0500, "Mark Earnest"
<mark45@SPAMLESSairmail.net> wrote:

>
>"Knight37" <knight37m@email.com> wrote in message
>news:Xns96336F9F49AB6knight37m@130.133.1.4...
>> Gabriele Neukam <Gabriele.Spamfighter.Neukam@t-online.de> once tried to
>> test me with:
>>
>>> Does anybody know a trick to make Morrowind fail less often? TIA
>>
>> One thing that helps is not to leave items lying around cluttering up the
>> MW database. I've heard that if you do that, it gets more unstable. So
>> always destroy things you pick up that you don't need.
>
>Alright I give up. I can destroy the corpses, but that is about it.
>How do you destroy items you find in Morrowind?

The simplest way is to kill something and then leave the items on the
corpse. When it disappears in a few days, they go with it. Of course,
this is incompatible with the 'remove body' command. If you're always
removing corpses, it's simpler to just sell everything you don't need to
the nearest random merchant.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.rpg (More info?)

"Greg Johnson" wrote...

In reply to...

>>Alright I give up. I can destroy the corpses, but that is about it.
>>How do you destroy items you find in Morrowind?
>
> The simplest way is to kill something and then leave the items on the
> corpse. When it disappears in a few days, they go with it. Of course,
> this is incompatible with the 'remove body' command. If you're always
> removing corpses, it's simpler to just sell everything you don't need to
> the nearest random merchant.

Thanks, I've already played a hundred hours or so and never realized that
corpses disappeared on their own. Just hope no plot or quest items
disappear that way.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.rpg (More info?)

On that special day, Darrel Hoffman, (i.dont@think.so) said...

> If your system is anything like mine (and it is actually
> pretty close), it takes about 10 minutes to clear the data, load the save,
> initialize the data, and load the area again whenever you reload. In those
> 10 minutes, you could have easily replaced all the ingredients wa

Heh, I've got an AMD 3400+ for some reason. I bought it order to be
able to *play* the game, using every feature of it. My reload times
last about ten to fifteen seconds, with usage of the F9 command


Gabriele Neukam

Gabriele.Spamfighter.Neukam@t-online.de


--
Ah, Information. A property, too valuable these days, to give it away,
just so, at no cost.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.rpg (More info?)

On that special day, i own a yacht, (me@privacy.net) said...

> > Does anybody know a trick to make Morrowind fail less often? TIA
>
> i wish i had a ctd problem with morrowind. it just hardlocks on me
> instead.

You have my sincere commiserations. That game needs a machine two years
ahead of its release time. Wonder how Oblivion will be like.


Gabriele Neukam

Gabriele.Spamfighter.Neukam@t-online.de


--
Ah, Information. A property, too valuable these days, to give it away,
just so, at no cost.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.rpg (More info?)

Gabriele Neukam expounded thusly:
> On that special day, i own a yacht, (me@privacy.net) said...
>
>
>>>Does anybody know a trick to make Morrowind fail less often? TIA
>>
>>i wish i had a ctd problem with morrowind. it just hardlocks on me
>>instead.
>
>
> You have my sincere commiserations. That game needs a machine two years
> ahead of its release time. Wonder how Oblivion will be like.
>
I dunno... I played it for years on a 512 meg P3 866 with NVIDIA
GeForce Ti200 without crashes. FPS Optimizer for adjustable view
distance definitely added value for framerate.

-mb

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.rpg (More info?)

"Gabriele Neukam" <Gabriele.Spamfighter.Neukam@t-online.de> wrote in message
news:d3e4ca$lq9$02$3@news.t-online.com...

> You have my sincere commiserations. That game needs a machine two years
> ahead of its release time. Wonder how Oblivion will be like.

You know, ironically, Morrowind was by far the most stable when I was
running it on a P2-400with 256 MB or RAM and a 128 MB Radeon 9000.

Other than the video card, my system's completely different now (Athlon XP
2200+, 512 MB RAM, etc), and the game crashes once every couple of hours.
It's better with the music turned off and view distance around 50%, but it's
still annoying that it crashes more often now than it did on a system that
was 100MHz slower than minimum spec.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.rpg (More info?)

On Mon, 11 Apr 2005 00:53:37 -0500, "Mark Earnest"
<mark45@SPAMLESSairmail.net> wrote:

>
>"Greg Johnson" wrote...
>
>In reply to...
>
>>>Alright I give up. I can destroy the corpses, but that is about it.
>>>How do you destroy items you find in Morrowind?
>>
>> The simplest way is to kill something and then leave the items on the
>> corpse. When it disappears in a few days, they go with it. Of course,
>> this is incompatible with the 'remove body' command. If you're always
>> removing corpses, it's simpler to just sell everything you don't need to
>> the nearest random merchant.
>
>Thanks, I've already played a hundred hours or so and never realized that
>corpses disappeared on their own. Just hope no plot or quest items
>disappear that way.
>
The one that often gives people trouble is the Bonebiter Bow of
Sul-Senipul. If they kill the ghost and don't think to search it, _then_
get the quest a while later, it's quite possible to be stuck in an
unwinnable condition. Then you have to use the console to re-add the
bow.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.rpg (More info?)

> > If your system is anything like mine (and it is actually
> > pretty close), it takes about 10 minutes to clear the data, load the
save,
> > initialize the data, and load the area again whenever you reload. In
those
> > 10 minutes, you could have easily replaced all the ingredients wa
>
> Heh, I've got an AMD 3400+ for some reason. I bought it order to be
> able to *play* the game, using every feature of it. My reload times
> last about ten to fifteen seconds, with usage of the F9 command

Must be the processor, then. I've got an AMD 2700+, which is considerably
slower, I guess. I beat you in the ram department, with 1.5 GB, but
apparently that doesn't help load times. Might also depend on the HD speed.
I've got a 7200rpm drive on a 133MHz IDE bus. I understand there are faster
drives coming out now that I could take advantage of. I notice that the
longer you play a single character, the worse the load times get. The more
stuff you do, the more areas the save game has to keep track of, so it uses
more memory, takes longer to load, and crashes more frequency. In my
experience, character stability starts to break down some time around lvl 30
or so.