Bluescreen at first loading screen

[JINORU]

The game just bluescreens my computer at the initial loading screen with something about MEMORY_MANAGMENT and a driver called ACE-BASE.sys. I've done this three times. Two on the non-steam version and once with steam. Same place, same crash error.

I've looked all over the internet for insight and there's not much. I'll submit a thing to support later if I care enough lol

[Meowish]

You probably have one of Tencent's game/app opened in the background that has an outdated ACE-BASE.sys driver. ACE is Tencent's Anti-Cheat Expert.

Tencent's ACE is kernel level anti-cheat so it may run even without the games running. You might have to uninstall those Tencent Apps, even then the ACE might still remained in your system, so you have to use something like "Driver Sweeper" to 100% get rid of it.

miHoYo has their own Anti-Cheat known as the mHYAC that isn't a kernel based AC but user-based. But still, it may conflict with other AC.

[JINORU]

That doesn't make sense.

[Meowish]

Originally posted by JINORU:

That doesn't make sense.

Tencent's ACE-BASE.sys is kernel based Anti-cheat, it runs as soon as you start up your o/s.

Kernel-Level Access = The Anti-Cheat have 100% permission over all the data and processes on your PC, it has access permission as high as your O/S, high privacy concern design. To put it simple, the AC have rights to delete even your O/S if it wanted to.

User-Based Access = It requires Admin permission to access those information it needed, less privacy concern compared to Kernel-Level.

It's also worth noting that not all Tencent's games are published under the name Tencent, so you might not even know if the game is developed by Tencent...
To list a few that uses the ACE-BASE.sys:
- PUBG Mobile
- Arena of Valor
- Call of Duty: Mobile
- Honor of Kings
- Game for Peace (Peacekeeper Elite)
- Valorant Mobile
- Clash of Clans
- QQ Speed
- Monster Hunter Online (China only)
- Crossfire X
- Blue Protocol Mobile

[JINORU]

Buddy, Honkai 3rd Impact uses Tencent Anti-cheat Expert. I dont play any tencent games and I don't see any service running related to Anti-cheat expert on my system or even in my services list.

So unless you've got some verified info in a link I can read on this I'm calling BS.

[Meowish]

Just did a quick look at your owned game list, and yes, you do play Tencent Games.

Edit: and oh, here's your link:
https://intl.anticheatexpert.com/#/index

[JINORU]

And you know that they use ACE?

[Meowish]

Originally posted by JINORU:

And you know that they use ACE?

https://intl.anticheatexpert.com/#/index

[JINORU]

Not seeing any game I've played on that site. I'm glad to be wrong but I'm just not seeing the connection here. Occams Razor, Honkai 3rd Impact has a version of ACE that doesn't work on my Windows 11.
The bluescreen happened a minute after the ACE-BASE.sys appeared in system32, which is the time when Honkai 3rd Impact was started.

[Meowish]

Well, wish i can help you more on that, Honkai Impact 3rd do uses ACE in the past afaik but have then used their own in-house developed AC after users complaining that the AC runs even after the game is turned off:
https://web.facebook.com/HonkaiImpact3rd/posts/about-our-anti-cheat-system-on-the-pc-client-dear-captains-we-have-received-feed/732465637364053/?_rdc=1&_rdr

And certain bluescreen problem is there on the Steam launch due to the new AC they are using at that time (it used to be Kernel-Level AC developed by Tencent as well), but they've since changed that and developed a none Kernel AC from what i know...
https://steamcommunity.com/app/1671200/discussions/0/3162084075883153955/

so am not sure what caused your ACE-BASE.sys error since i assumed your HI3rd is a recent install, which couldn't have those problems from the past. Unless HI3rd decided to use ACE again...

edit: nvm double checked, HI3rd do have that ACE folder in their game install.

Thrown the question on Bard and it tried to argue though...
https://g.co/bard/share/54007509c64b

[Meowish]

Which brought us back to point zero...

If you decided to continue playing the game even knowingly it uses ACE...

Here's some trouble shooting advices on it:
1. ACE-BASE.sys could be outdated. (Which is unlikely since you recently installed the game)

2. There's a bad sector in your RAM causing memory error. Which is hardware problem. Thus that Memory Management error. Insufficient RAM may cause this as well.

3. Your other drivers are outdated and conflicted with the ACE-BASE.sys driver, updating all your drivers to the latest version might solved it.

4. You might have a memory editing tool running in the background causing the AC to be triggered and tried to fights it for memory control permission and resulted in the BSOD crash.

5. Same reason as 4, but caused by your Anti-Virus that tries to fights the ACE and prevents it from running.

6. ACE are also known to have problem with Memory Compression on the RAM (Win10, Win11)

7. It's also known that ACE conflicted and crash when Memory integrity setting turned to On in Windows Security.

[JINORU]

Thanks for looking into it anyway. I haven't been able to play the game at all lol. I tried the steam version and the version downloaded from their site, exact same crash. Guess it is Memory Integrity, so they haven't updated the acebase driver in their installation depot to be compatible, if that's even a thing ACE has worked through. whoops.

[Meowish]

Originally posted by JINORU:

Thanks for looking into it anyway. I haven't been able to play the game at all lol. I tried the steam version and the version downloaded from their site, exact same crash. Guess it is Memory Integrity, so they haven't updated the acebase driver in their installation depot to be compatible, if that's even a thing ACE has worked through. whoops.

You're welcome. The only work around I know right now is turning off Memory Integrity to let Anti-Cheat through, and it seems to be the only solution for most Kernel based AC out there with BSOD problem... EAC, ACE etc etc... but i won't recommend turning your security off just to play a game... In fact, not going to recommend any Ring 0 Permission Kernel-Level Anti-Cheat games at all to be honest, though they promised they won't do anything bad, we can never know what they are doing in the background due to they have 100% permission to do anything and collect any types of information on the PC... and ACE is known to stay even after we uninstall the games that used it, so it's really a bad bad idea to play these games imo.