Computer shuts down suddenly while playing fleetops

posted on July 27th, 2009, 3:14 pm

Hi to everybody,
even though this is my first post in this forum I have been following the progress of this project ever since beta 2. So first of all congratulations to the fleetops team for making such a great mod (which is much too small a word for what you have achieved) for one of my favorit games. I have been playing fleetops wiht pleasure for quite some time.
But now here comes my problem. The problem occured ever since version 3.06 which otherwise was a great step forward (I am especially impressed with what you have achieved with the rank system). But now after playing fleetops for 10 to sometimes 60 minutes my notebook suddenly shuts down without any warning. Before the shutdown (computer goes immediately dead) there are no performance problems at all. I can fluently play fleetops on max details with 7 ai merciless.
First I thought it was overheating. But I can reboot the notebook just after the shutdown without any problem and continue gaming or working (but only after unplugging it from the electricity for one second). May it have something to do with the memory getting full by some bug in the program? Has anybody else experienced similar problems.
It would be really great if this problem could be solved. Because right now playing fleetops is rendered nearly senseless for me.

My computer stats
Toshiba Satellite M60-139
1 Gb ddr2 ram
1,7 Ghz Intel Centrino (the first generation i think)
Radeon Mobility X700 128 Mb
Windows XP German

I appreciate your answers and help
Zolartan

posted on July 27th, 2009, 3:30 pm

It is possible that it ran out of battery. I recommend eepng the laptop constantly plugged in. If this happens even f plugged in than you could have overheated the processer forcing the computer to go into emergency deactivation. Or it could be that the power plug-in may be intermitent. Check both possibilities.

posted on July 27th, 2009, 3:31 pm

Doesn't look like you meet the minimum specs  :sweatdrop::

Pentium 4 (2.5 GHz) or Athlon 2000+
512 MB RAM
Windows XP
256 MB Video Card
CD-ROM drive
1 GB hard-disk space

Gamer, he said it was plugged in and working fine normally...

posted on July 27th, 2009, 3:51 pm

Doesn't look like you meet the minimum specs  :sweatdrop::

Pentium 4 (2.5 GHz) or Athlon 2000+
512 MB RAM
Windows XP
256 MB Video Card
CD-ROM drive
1 GB hard-disk space

Gamer, he said it was plugged in and working fine normally...

Not sure how big the jump was in sys reqs. between 3.0.6 and previous versions but im going to go with dominus on this one. Time for an upgrade my friend 

posted on July 27th, 2009, 3:55 pm

Also , you mention 3.0.6 but have you tried 3.0.7? If you play against the AI a lot there is a bug in 3.0.6 that results in explosions remaining that may decrease system performance over time, and if your system is already on the low end of the requirements this may be pushing it over the edge. If you haven't already try 3.0.7... if you have already then sorry just a suggestion

posted on July 27th, 2009, 4:10 pm

Thanks for the fast replies.

It is possible that it ran out of battery. I recommend eepng the laptop constantly plugged in. If this happens even f plugged in than you could have overheated the processer forcing the computer to go into emergency deactivation. Or it could be that the power plug-in may be intermitent. Check both possibilities.

The notebook is constantly plugged in. And as I said first I thought it might be overheating, too. But I can restart the computer immediatly and continue working or playing (also games like Anno 1701). If it were overheating it should take the computer some time to cool down before you can reboot it I think.

Not sure how big the jump was in sys reqs. between 3.0.6 and previous versions but im going to go with dominus on this one. Time for an upgrade my friend 

Yes I realized that I only have half the video memory (128 mb instead of 256 mb). But the thing is that the game still runs very smoothly and without any performance problems before the shutdown. Normally if a game is too straining for my old notebook the game will run very slow and on small graphic details etc. But this isn't the case with fleetops...
So it would be great if there was another solution to the problem other than me buying a new computer...  

Also , you mention 3.0.6 but have you tried 3.0.7? If you play against the AI a lot there is a bug in 3.0.6 that results in explosions remaining that may decrease system performance over time, and if your system is already on the low end of the requirements this may be pushing it over the edge. If you haven't already try 3.0.7... if you have already then sorry just a suggestion

No I have 3.07 allready. But I thought it might have something to do with the explosion bug. Perhaps the explosions objects still are not deleted properly as in 3.06 and just don't show up any more in 3.07. So they would still consume memory... But this is just a guess...

posted on July 27th, 2009, 4:33 pm

No I have 3.07 allready. But I thought it might have something to do with the explosion bug. Perhaps the explosions objects still are not deleted properly as in 3.06 and just don't show up any more in 3.07. So they would still consume memory... But this is just a guess...

Not likely, I was having issues with the explosion bug also but it's surely been squashed. Probably another issue that's exacerbated by the lower-end hardware. I'm thinking the way textures are loaded and un-loaded has changed in recent versions so it may be that your 128MB of Video memory is causing the biggest issue. Unfortunately with Laptops its not as simple to just swap the video card....

posted on July 27th, 2009, 4:46 pm

Possibly try reinstalling FO... sometimes that tends to fix odd bugs 

posted on July 27th, 2009, 4:48 pm

Possibly try reinstalling FO... sometimes that tends to fix odd bugs 

Ok I'll try that. Though it would be strange if it fixed the problem.but who knows...

[Sideeffect]

posted on July 27th, 2009, 5:46 pm

Last edited by Sideeffect on July 27th, 2009, 5:50 pm, edited 1 time in total.

This sounds more like a system stability issue rather than a game problem.  It is most likely caused by heat if you have an outlet fan make sure it is free from obstruction and raising a laptop to allow heat to circulate underneath often helps.

You can control the voltage and clock speed of your centrino processor as well as monitor the temperatures of the CPU and disk drive using Notebook hardware monitor. http://www.pbus-167.com/

Lowering the voltage of the CPU can greatly decrease its heat output but you must insure that it is stable using stress tests such as CPU burn in or Prime95.  You can also lower the 3D clocks of your ATI card using notebook hardware monitor or ATI tray tools which could fix the problem if the GPU overheating was the cause.

The most important first step is to diagnose the problem by process of elimination.  You can use Memtestx86 to test the Memory,  IntelBurnTest to test the CPU stability and heat generation.  3DMark 2006 is a good stress test for the GPU.