Crashing

[Becca lil Sweety]

I swear my game crashes every 5 minutes some times. I have to constantly "save" or risk it crashing and losing my progress. It's crashed at least 20 times today [not even exaggerating]

Is any one else going thru this? help lol

[Zarinthal]

i mean, you can always type "crash" into the forum search. Otherwise without knowing what your system specs are, what you've done so far to remedy, stuff like that, there's really no way to help you other than generic "check CPU/GPU temps, lower in game settings, update drivers, free up hard drive space, close background programs, are you using mods?" that every PC gamer should know by now

[tinkajob]

Originally posted by Becca lil Sweety:

I swear my game crashes every 5 minutes some times. I have to constantly "save" or risk it crashing and losing my progress. It's crashed at least 20 times today [not even exaggerating]

Is any one else going thru this? help lol

Yes...me to...how do you fix that?

[Becca lil Sweety]

Originally posted by workerj08:

Originally posted by Becca lil Sweety:

I swear my game crashes every 5 minutes some times. I have to constantly "save" or risk it crashing and losing my progress. It's crashed at least 20 times today [not even exaggerating]

Is any one else going thru this? help lol

Yes...me to...how do you fix that?

Turns out it was a computer related issue and not the game. Think it was my cpu that was giving out.

[Zarinthal]

PC does load up the CPU pretty heavy, one of the biggest struggles indie devs have is broad optimizations. There are a lot of small optimzations that can be done here and there, but the heavy adjustments take tons of time. This is why, even though adding official mod support takes a long time as well, it can really benefit an indie game in the long run because a lot of people look at how many hours people play a game to make a buying decision. A game like Planet Crafter gets that long play time from people building many bases and/or big bases, but a lot of structures and machines is what bogs down the CPU the most, so to get long play times the CPU optimization is critical. A lot of indie devs don't get that, like Astroneer which actually has a decent sized team where Planet Crafter is 2 people. Astroneer of course is voxel based proc gen fully deformable planets, so optimization takes a lot of effort, but they celebrate the most minor imporvements to performance in a way that is utterly disheartening considering they added planet scale train networks and automation, it made no sense to me because maybe 2% of their community can enjoy that level of automation for more than a few hours before their systems can't handle it based on CPU tier, it's just ridiculous how they prioritize their game development time. Planet Crafters being a 2 person team makes it tough, but the world is a smaller fixed map so I have hope that they will be able to make significant improvements.

Originally posted by Becca lil Sweety:

Originally posted by workerj08:

Yes...me to...how do you fix that?

Turns out it was a computer related issue and not the game. Think it was my cpu that was giving out.

your CPU may not be dying, just unable to keep up with how much you have built. DDR3 based platforms are going to really struggle with this game. If you are already on DDR4 or 5 and have less than 16GB RAM then that may be part of the problem. I have a Ryzen 3600 with 8X4GB RAM and it still lags pretty hard when I build a lot, but "a lot" is subjective so without seeing the list of how much of everything you have built, cross referenced with your PC specs and temp/performance metrics, I can only offer shotgun suggestions that may or may not be useful at all. One thing I like to tell people, don't run browsers or any unnecessary apps while you play, especially discord.

One solution is to focus more on rockets rather than fields of machines. Your CPU may also be thermal throttling, which is easy to check in performance software specific to your GPU, and if so (if you are comfortable doing so) cleaning out your PC case of dust, replacing CPU thermal paste (do not cheap out here, get Noctua or better, it's worth the extra money) and even upgrading the cooler, speeding up or even adding more case fans, getting a better airflow case in general, ensuring the room you game in is cool, tuning your GPU down and running lower graphics settings. Lowering the graphics settings won't directly help performance a lot (unless you have a weird CPU/GPU combo and it's actually your GPU bottlenecking, but that's unlikely in this game imo) but lower setting does mean less heat from the GPU, so if the CPU is thermal throttling, less GPU heat can help, but it may not help a lot, just an easy thing to try.

So in the end, better cooling might help, a better CPU will almost certainly help, but without being able to sit down at your computer and tool around for a while myself, there isn't much I can do unless I know your specs, cooling setup, other apps running, drive and RAM capacity/usage stats etc. A lot of people think their computer is dying when really it's just something simple (to identify) like old generation tech or needs new paste or something like that.

It could be a cheap fix, under $50 or even free if all you need is a better case, fans or thermal paste refresh. If you end up upgrading from a DDR3 platform to DDR4, you would need a new a new CPU, motherboard and RAM. If you do have a DDR3 based system and want to upgrade to DDR4, it's usually doable for less than $300, maybe only $200, as long as you have generically compatible case, power supply etc.

for instance on new egg, bare bones worthwhile upgrade in my opinion is 2x8GB DDR4 3200Mhz for $45 (make sure motherboard has 4 RAM slots, you don't save much getting 2 and the 2x16GB RAM kits offset the motherboard savings, not worth it imo)

basic B550 motherboards are $80 (b450 only saves $10 on the low end, not worth it, get the b550)

Ryzen 3600 can be had for as little as $120 (without a cooler, get a $50 aftermarket air cooler) (some people would save $20 and get a Ryzen 2600, not worth it imo the difference is noticeable, I've done several side-by-side comparisons on otherwise identical systems)

if you follow all my suggestions, it totals out around $285 before tax and shipping. You could get a Ryzen 3600 with a stock cooler which is $130 instead of $180 for the CPU and nice aftermarket cooler, but that's a $30 judgement call. End of the day it's $285 for my recommendations, or $225 for a slight step down on some outdated DDR4 tech that still runs circles around anything DDR3 based in modern games. Not sure if any of that helps, please post your FULL specs lol

[Becca lil Sweety]

Originally posted by Zarinthal:

PC does load up the CPU pretty heavy, one of the biggest struggles indie devs have is broad optimizations. There are a lot of small optimzations that can be done here and there, but the heavy adjustments take tons of time. This is why, even though adding official mod support takes a long time as well, it can really benefit an indie game in the long run because a lot of people look at how many hours people play a game to make a buying decision. A game like Planet Crafter gets that long play time from people building many bases and/or big bases, but a lot of structures and machines is what bogs down the CPU the most, so to get long play times the CPU optimization is critical. A lot of indie devs don't get that, like Astroneer which actually has a decent sized team where Planet Crafter is 2 people. Astroneer of course is voxel based proc gen fully deformable planets, so optimization takes a lot of effort, but they celebrate the most minor imporvements to performance in a way that is utterly disheartening considering they added planet scale train networks and automation, it made no sense to me because maybe 2% of their community can enjoy that level of automation for more than a few hours before their systems can't handle it based on CPU tier, it's just ridiculous how they prioritize their game development time. Planet Crafters being a 2 person team makes it tough, but the world is a smaller fixed map so I have hope that they will be able to make significant improvements.

Originally posted by Becca lil Sweety:

Turns out it was a computer related issue and not the game. Think it was my cpu that was giving out.

your CPU may not be dying, just unable to keep up with how much you have built. DDR3 based platforms are going to really struggle with this game. If you are already on DDR4 or 5 and have less than 16GB RAM then that may be part of the problem. I have a Ryzen 3600 with 8X4GB RAM and it still lags pretty hard when I build a lot, but "a lot" is subjective so without seeing the list of how much of everything you have built, cross referenced with your PC specs and temp/performance metrics, I can only offer shotgun suggestions that may or may not be useful at all. One thing I like to tell people, don't run browsers or any unnecessary apps while you play, especially discord.

One solution is to focus more on rockets rather than fields of machines. Your CPU may also be thermal throttling, which is easy to check in performance software specific to your GPU, and if so (if you are comfortable doing so) cleaning out your PC case of dust, replacing CPU thermal paste (do not cheap out here, get Noctua or better, it's worth the extra money) and even upgrading the cooler, speeding up or even adding more case fans, getting a better airflow case in general, ensuring the room you game in is cool, tuning your GPU down and running lower graphics settings. Lowering the graphics settings won't directly help performance a lot (unless you have a weird CPU/GPU combo and it's actually your GPU bottlenecking, but that's unlikely in this game imo) but lower setting does mean less heat from the GPU, so if the CPU is thermal throttling, less GPU heat can help, but it may not help a lot, just an easy thing to try.

So in the end, better cooling might help, a better CPU will almost certainly help, but without being able to sit down at your computer and tool around for a while myself, there isn't much I can do unless I know your specs, cooling setup, other apps running, drive and RAM capacity/usage stats etc. A lot of people think their computer is dying when really it's just something simple (to identify) like old generation tech or needs new paste or something like that.

It could be a cheap fix, under $50 or even free if all you need is a better case, fans or thermal paste refresh. If you end up upgrading from a DDR3 platform to DDR4, you would need a new a new CPU, motherboard and RAM. If you do have a DDR3 based system and want to upgrade to DDR4, it's usually doable for less than $300, maybe only $200, as long as you have generically compatible case, power supply etc.

for instance on new egg, bare bones worthwhile upgrade in my opinion is 2x8GB DDR4 3200Mhz for $45 (make sure motherboard has 4 RAM slots, you don't save much getting 2 and the 2x16GB RAM kits offset the motherboard savings, not worth it imo)

basic B550 motherboards are $80 (b450 only saves $10 on the low end, not worth it, get the b550)

Ryzen 3600 can be had for as little as $120 (without a cooler, get a $50 aftermarket air cooler) (some people would save $20 and get a Ryzen 2600, not worth it imo the difference is noticeable, I've done several side-by-side comparisons on otherwise identical systems)

if you follow all my suggestions, it totals out around $285 before tax and shipping. You could get a Ryzen 3600 with a stock cooler which is $130 instead of $180 for the CPU and nice aftermarket cooler, but that's a $30 judgement call. End of the day it's $285 for my recommendations, or $225 for a slight step down on some outdated DDR4 tech that still runs circles around anything DDR3 based in modern games. Not sure if any of that helps, please post your FULL specs lol

After time Planet Crafter was not the only game starting to show issues and crash on me.

My husband worked in tech, he went thru all the processes to determine what the cause was. Sent it to the computer store he used to work at and they confirmed it was the CPU and once we replaced it, all issues were resolved. I had warranty so I got a new CPU for free.
For Reference:
CPU was Ryzen 3600X, Now Ryzen 5600G
Ram: 32G of 3200mhz Corsair DDR4
GPU: 1060 6G ASUS
Cooler: H100I Corsair Liquid COoler

[joridiculous]

crazy how much problems people (gamers) have with new hardware.
im chugging along on my steam powered ancient skylake and a 1080ti with no specific problems in games (apart from the obvious when its not powerful enough for the power hungry newest games i want play regardless).

Originally posted by Becca lil Sweety:

My husband worked in tech, he went thru all the processes to determine what the cause was. Sent it to the computer store he used to work at and they confirmed it was the CPU and once we replaced it, all issues were resolved. I had warranty so I got a new CPU for free.
For Reference:
CPU was Ryzen 3600X, Now Ryzen 5600G
Ram: 32G of 3200mhz Corsair DDR4
GPU: 1060 6G ASUS
Cooler: H100I Corsair Liquid COoler

Great you got it sorted both with what it was and getting it replaced for free