System freeze / BSOD in ETS2 menus with directx

[Rachentia]

Looks like others have been having similar problems, but I'll chime in with my experience too...

I've been having trouble recently with seemingly-random system crashes while playing ETS2. The entire computer will freeze up; sometimes I'll get a BSOD (0x101, CLOCK_WATCHDOG_TIMEOUT) after a few seconds, sometimes I won't. It's only happening in ETS2, and only while I'm in the game menus (incl. map). So far it's only happened while running with directx.

I've yet to find any obvious trigger - it can happen at any time when I'm in the menus; sometimes I can have been driving for a while first, other times it'll happen almost immediately after loading a profile. Nothing obvious in the game.log, and no crash.log is created.

It's only started happening in the last couple of weeks - can't remember if it started before or after 1.7.1, but definitely some time after 1.7. (Suspect after 1.7.1)

OS: Windows 7 x64
CPU: AMD Phenom X4 9550 (quad-core, 2.2 GHz)
GPU: AMD Radeon HD 6670 (1GB)
Mem: 8GB DDR2

[ArcticBliss]

A culprit just might be a defective chip, hard to say. Will the game run if you set Core Affinity to just CPU0?
EDIT: Make certain that all drivers in the system are updated.

[Rachentia]

No dice, sadly. Have tried setting core affinity to each in turn, but it's still crashing sooner or later. All drivers are up to date.

(As an aside, I seemed to get the longest run before bluescreening from core 2, while on core 0 it froze without a bluescreen. Probably red herrings?)

[ArcticBliss]

Hmmm, even with no crash logs, try to write to SCS' support mail. Maybe they can help you somehow, or at least your case can go "on record" and possibly help them avoid such issues in future code.
If 1.7.x is suspect, try a rollback to a previous version but verify game files cache first and see if it turns up something.
Happy trucking. I hope.

[Fury6]

BSODs in a mature Operating System usually come down to low-level subsystems like drivers or failing hardware. If you've recently updated graphics/sound drivers then I'd suggest reverting to the older drivers.

If you're overclocking the graphics card try reducing that (particularly the memory clock).

Depending on your motherboard you can try reducing the system clock/CPU clock and/or reducing aggressive refresh/read/write memory timings.

[edit]
As Arctic just posted, it wouldn't hurt to collect the crash logs and submit to SCS support with as much information you can.

[SeraphimGrey]

same problem over here. demo worked just fine. i will try to wipe all old data and profiles. maybe that will work.

[Kaltfeuer]

i also have that problem.
One time i got a bluescreen, the other times (5+) the system just froze (forcing me to restart pc)
Changed graphics from lowest to highest in the setting, but that didn't change it.

AMD-driver is from september (stable one) and no newer available.
Never had a single freeze in any other game (or application), even in more taxing ones.


Only thing that works is playing in opengl-mode. Didn't had a single pc-freeze for 10+hours (where in directx i had one every 1-20minutes).
But sadly directx looks better than opengl :/

[Avi the Raccoon Enjoyer]

Can everyone who has problems post their HW and GPU driver version (and when exactly was the driver updated on your system), please?

Początkowo opublikowane przez Kaltfeuer:

Only thing that works is playing in opengl-mode.

Also try this.

[viper]

I got same problem with game that freeze my entire computer. No error logs to post just freeze.

PC:

AMD Dual Core 7750 2.7 GHZ
4 GB DDR2
NVIDIA 250 GTS 1 GB DDR3

Windows 7 x64, and Windos 8.1 x64 same problem
Drivers latest vesion 331.82 , tryed even older version.

[Avi the Raccoon Enjoyer]

Can you try the OpenGL mode and see if it works?

[Gripen]

Same problem here. What I'v done - Instead of selecting "Play ETS2", when I opened the game from Steam, I select "open with directx", it works just fine now. The other 2 option are open with openGL, and safe mode. I think is a problem with the 1.7.1 patch. I use Intel i5 proc and Nvidia video card with the latest drivers instaled. My windows 7 is recent instaled.

[Kaltfeuer]

Phenom x4 9950
8GB DDR2 RAM
AMD Radeon HD 6950,Driver Version 13.9, updated 1-2 Month ago (but haven't played ETS2 before), haven't tried the newer Beta-Driver

Win7 X64
edit: selecting "open with directx" didn't solve the freezes for me

[Rachentia]

Right, here's what I've learned.

There seems to be something in the current version of the game (1.7.1) that can cause crashes on some systems when running with DirectX.

I found that updating to the current beta release (1.7.2.x) helped for me; your mileage may, of course, vary. I also found that rolling back to 1.7.0 and *downgrading* my graphics drivers to an older version helped, for those who don't want to run a beta release.

To try either of these, open the Properties window for ETS2 in Steam (right-click > Properties), then in the Betas tab select "public_beta" or your preferred release version from the dropdown. Give Steam a moment to fetch the patch, and you should be good to go. You can revert to the current release by selecting "NONE" in the same menu.

The crashes only seem to be happening in DirectX mode. OpenGL sadly doesn't perform as well (at least on my system), and has texture issues if you're using the Promod Scandinavia map, but if you can live with that then that may be the easiest solution for now.

Hope that helps.

[Gripen]

I think the crashes are some how random. Probably for those who use AMD - ATI Radeon sistems the game crash when opend with directx, and for those who use Intel - Nvidia sistems the game crash only when the normal mode is selected. I use Intel - Nvidia sistem and directx mode stopped my game to crash.

[ArcticBliss]

Hmmm, my PC is an AMD CPU/GPU machine, Win7 64. The only crashes I've had seems to be related to mods. The game has run without crashes for me for "a good while" now.
OpenGL/DX mode had next to no impact in my case BTW.

[viper]

Początkowo opublikowane przez Entimix:

Right, here's what I've learned.

There seems to be something in the current version of the game (1.7.1) that can cause crashes on some systems when running with DirectX.

I found that updating to the current beta release (1.7.2.x) helped for me; your mileage may, of course, vary. I also found that rolling back to 1.7.0 and *downgrading* my graphics drivers to an older version helped, for those who don't want to run a beta release.

To try either of these, open the Properties window for ETS2 in Steam (right-click > Properties), then in the Betas tab select "public_beta" or your preferred release version from the dropdown. Give Steam a moment to fetch the patch, and you should be good to go. You can revert to the current release by selecting "NONE" in the same menu.

The crashes only seem to be happening in DirectX mode. OpenGL sadly doesn't perform as well (at least on my system), and has texture issues if you're using the Promod Scandinavia map, but if you can live with that then that may be the easiest solution for now.

Hope that helps.

Thanks putting game to beta update made it working fine.

OpenGL mod has bad performance on my graphic card too.