Constant Freezing

[WhatsUp]

I'm really hoping this isn't an overheating issue. Windows 8.1 (6.3 build 9600) and fully updated. It's a fresh copy of Enemy Unknown handled through Steam.

Machine is a Satellite P50T-B
http://www.toshiba.ca/productdetailpage.aspx?id=2147498972

I can get anywhere from about ~20min to 1.5hr worth of game play in before the game completely freezes. Everything just stops moving. The only thing that remains unfrozen is the cursor; alt-tabbing will change the cursor from the game cursor into the system cursor, but the game window will not minimize or lose focus. Start has the same effect.

Ctrl-alt-del makes the cursor disappear and the computer completely stops responding to any keyboard or mouse input. I don't know if the system actually halts or if the issue is with the frozen game window refusing to lose focus when Windows attempts to switch desktop modes...

After a restart, there are no relevant events logged short of the "unexpected shutdown" type from me having to force the computer to restart.

The game always freezes during a mission, it usually happens immediately after or during an attack, and there is no indication of it being about to happen. It only seems to happen when it's my turn still. I've tried with all video options reduced fully, different resolutions, third person camera disabled and action camera disabled. The switchable graphics are configured to ensure the game is handled by the on-board R9 M265X... There was no noticeable difference at all. It seems to happen in shorter succession if I leave little time for the laptop to cool down, which kind of worries me about this being a thermal issue...

I alt-tabbed between the game and CPUID's HWMonitor software at intervals while everything was still functioning properly, and the highest peak temperature I managed to read was 94 Celsius on core #0 with the other 3 in the same ballpark. They were averaging 88-89 degrees... I have no idea at what temperature this CPU (i7 4710HQ) starts throttling itself, but it's listed with a maximum operating temperature of 100 degrees Celsius. 94 is damn close, but it is a laptop. It doesn't feel any hotter than when its playing other games... I don't know.

This is the only game that given me any kind of issue, and this machine has played games with similar and more demanding hardware requirements for hours on end with no issues to report... The freezes happen after the same kind of action in-game, and only when it's still my turn.

[ICEMAN]

Same..

[ICEMAN]

Bump..

[Eyeblight]

yep been running into this one myself, except it happened while i was switching weapons the most recent time

[Mhblis]

@whatsUp have you tried running it in windowed mode in high resolution?
It sounds odd and it isn't a great fix but I've had the same issue running Diablo 3 and Forced. Both times running the game in windowed mode solved this issue.

or

Turn off visue options one at a time till you can pinpoint one that causes you issues. Usually I find Bloom causes my freezes.

or

Also what action is causeing you to freeze. I've had it once with Xcom Enemy Unknown never in Enemy Within. That time one of the monsters had spawned outside the reachable map area so each time I fired a weapon triggering overwatch from it my game froze up. It had spawed ontop but inside the small bubble at the top the scout ship.

This outside the map spawn causing freezes and crashes was reported quiet often in the early days of Enemy Unknown. Though I know somewhere they noted they had fixed it to the best of their ability. Can't remeber if it was a patch or in the expansion release (EW). Was also a regular problem early in LW Mod development.



One of my best pieces of advice is to run two saves. One for base events and a seperate one for combat. Thus if you run into somehting like this you can reload to before the combat thus not loosing too much time.