Spore Space Freeze

[applebeer]

Ok, this is really driving me insane. usually I can search the internet and find at least 1 other person who has this problem but apparently i'm the only one?

Here's the problem, I played spore all the way threw to space with no problems whatsoever, I was on the beta nvidia 177.92 driver at the time. Once I got to space it was ok for a little while, but after space started getting big and all the planets getting taken I would go down to the planet and do something, but on my way back out of the atmosphere it will freeze! Sometimes it will be the first planet I try to get out of, and sometimes it will be the 15th or 20th planet. It will freeze and the only thing I can do is crt alt del, and kill it.
now i am not a complete moron, I know games crash and the beta driver can suck, but I have tried everything I can think of.

I tried setting the gpu to single, i tried turning sli off, the in game settings to low, compatible for xp, admin rights on, windows firewall has it as an exception,

then i went back to the nvidia 175.19 driver and tried it all that again, also tried modifying the config file so the game would accept the 175.19 driver and allow the sli to work, but still froze. It will always freeze when exiting the atmosphere and of course you cant save the game unless you are in space already!

All my drivers are up to date, and all my other games work perfectly, including crysis. I am asking here and not going to ea because here I might actually get an intelligent answer.

is there anything else worth trying? or just wait for more patches/updates to come out...

here are my comp specs,

Windows Vista Ultimate 64bit sp1
Pentium XE 3.75ghz
2 8800gt 512mb in sli
250gb hdd
dvd/cd rom
4gb ram
creative xfi-fatality gamer
on an evga 680i sli mobo


edit: found more of the same problems on the spore forums, no real answers though

 

[dtq]

When you say freezing, do you mean the game completely locks up and you cant do anything, or is the bug where you get stuck on a planet and cant get out of the atmosphere but can still move around the planet?

I do get stuck on planets from time to time, every time its happened eventually after going up and down a lot and moving all over the planet I eventually get out of the atmosphere, but Ive not found a definite trigger for what releases me again...

 

[applebeer]

thanks for replying,

by freezing I mean the game locks up, its kind of hard to explain, Its a lot like the glitch that many people have where you have to push ctr alt del and the esc to resume playing, but when I get back in the game its still froze.

i fly out of the atmosphere and it will freeze, but the sound and everything will still be fine, its wierd, the game continues to play but only my ship is frozen, i cant move it at all, the camera is frozen, like its still trying loading space but it wont take me there ever.
am i making any sense?

I can even push esc and change the settings and click on communications with the planet i am on, but my ship wont move no matter what i try.

I would think its my hardware causing some problem, but i have zero problems whatsoever on any of the other games i play...

its never an easy problem with ea...


EDIT: I found that if I use the paint planet option it allows me to fly around for a little bit while the planet is being painted, but as soon as its done I go right back to not being able to move.

 

[chevy409]

I have the same exact problem. It's only on my home planet though. What happens is my home will be getting attacked or raided, I come to the rescue, then if I repair building or pick up the dropped cash, the game will do the freeze as soon as I try exiting the atmosphere. Sometimes (very few times) I've been able to win a fight then leave the planet without freeze only if I immediately fly away without doing anything like repair my colonies. Very, very annoying. This problem is incredibly consistent for me, meaning it will do the freeze probably 9/10 times. I'm on a brand new machine, Q6600, Asus 4850, 850 PSU, 8GB ram, the rig works fine with everything so I have to believe it's a game related problem. Running Vista 64-bit Ultimate.

 

[applebeer]

Yea mine happens mostly on home planet also, but it also does it when I get done destroying an enemy planet.

Also reinstalling the game does nothing so don't bother wasting time.

I guess I will have to wait for them to patch the stupid game...


There is nothing I love more than to buy a game and not play it...

 

[chevy409]

Just so everyone knows, you are not alone in this ridiculous problem: http://forum.spore.com/jforum/posts/list/151.page

 

[werty]

I've installed the SPORE update patch as a first attempt to get rid of the game freezing. But unfortunately it didn't help much.

If you're on Vista 64 and the freezing occurs in space stage (eg. when zooming out from planet to star system), try deleting the following files from the folder
c:\Users\<username>\AppData\Roaming\SPORE

(make sure to make a backup first for these files, just in case this doesn't work for you)

GraphicsCache.package (and any other GraphicsCache.*.package if present)
Planets.package
Pollination.package
RigblockInfo.package
Temp\*.*


Don't delete any other files (don't delete EditorSaves.package)
The above files will be recreated when you start the game.
The actual game progress seems to be stored in the "SPORE\Games" subfolder, so by deleting the above files you won't loose your gameplay progress. But again, make sure to BACKUP the files you're deleting, just to be safe!

For me this seemed to do the trick; I haven't had a game freeze since I cleaned those files.

My comp specs:

Windows Vista Ultimate 64bit sp1
Pentium E8400 core 2 duo @3GHz
video 8800gt 512mb
4gb ram

Game video settings: the graphics cache is set to default (1024MB) and all graphics details are set to highest level.

 

[Guest]

mine is almost like the above, except its when I try to zoom on one particular planet. I thought it was because I was about to finish off the trogg empires last planet. Everytime with out fail it freezes when it loads to the planet (which usually takes less than one second). I am going to give this a shot hopefully it works!

 

[Proxyblue]

problems like freezing at a specific point that are not attributed to vista 64-bit user files can be traced to a corrupted Spore_Audio1.package or Spore_Audio2.package, many of the game disks released had these corrupted files and cause freezing when the game tries to load a sound that it doesn't have, mostly when advancing through stages, this is almost the only cause for freezing on xp computers. Extracting the files directly from '(cd drive)\Spore\Data' may work but the best way to solve this is with a new disc or disc image.

Happy Gaming!

 

[AdgeandBinky]

I have the same problem except that it happens even earlier!! It happens in my civilization stage- but it's a new computer and everything has been updated etc. Does anyone have any tips (files that can be deleted) if your stupid vista screws up at the civilization stage?
Thanks!

 

[AnonymousMe]

Me too, mine freezes when going onto an enemy planet. All the sounds still work, and the spore button makes sound when pressing it, but the screen freezes. It really sucks, plz help.

 

[AnonymousMe]

Dang, I tried the things above but none of it worked. 🙁 I really hoped it would. 🙁 I played this game for a long time and i had to un-install and re-install it because of a dumb patch and it which deleted all of my saved games, even the ones where I had talked with the Grox a few times. It never did any freezing before I had to uninstall. I am running a Vista 64 (Dang Vista ) , and I really hope someone can help me. I think I know why it did this, I renamed a few planets and used some cheats on it and that might have caused it to mess up(bad cheat codes). I also haven't installed any patches and that might help me. Please help.

 

[AnonymousMe]

Nvm, I had to reinstall it anyways.

 

[AnonymousMe]

DANG IT CAME BACK! oh well, i'll delete the game 🙁
BOOM lol

 

[Mousemonkey]

This topic has been closed by Mousemonkey