Exploring fixes for IntelGPU-related crashes

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niv
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Exploring fixes for IntelGPU-related crashes

Post by niv » Wed Jul 04, 2018 6:51 pm

Hello Arelith,

if you don't know me, I'm with Beamdog. We're hammering on the Intel crash fixes right now that too many people are suffering from. Dunshine has advised me to post in this forum directly.

While Intel itself is looking into the issue on their end, I'd like to ask brave volunteers to come forward and test something we've been working on ourselves, in the hopes of mitigating the hateful crashes on our end.

Instructions:

* Download the zip here: https://nwn.beamdog.net/nwmain_17ccbcf.zip
* Extract the containing .exe into your bin/win32 directory. On Steam, you can find it via "Browse Local Files" when going into the game properties. On BDC, you can find it by clicking "Open Game Location" under game options.
* Run that .exe instead of nwmain.exe
* On Steam, if you depend on Workshop items, you will have to rename it to nwmain.exe and launch through steam itself.

This binary is a release binary of 8176 (current stable), excepting a fix for Intel; so you can connect to Arelith, or any other server on 8176, to verify. It contains no other changes except said fix.

Please post here if you have success/no more crashes, or other feedback; and most importantly, please post here if you still HAVE crashes. What I need from you in that case is the .dmp file generated in your Documents/NWN directory.

No matter if crashing or not, please note down the Intel GPU driver and Chipset (i.e. which Intel HD you run on which driver version).

Thank you.
Last edited by niv on Thu Jul 05, 2018 10:23 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Dunshine
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Re: Exploring fixes for IntelGPU-related crashes

Post by Dunshine » Wed Jul 04, 2018 7:16 pm

Just tested this myself, since I'm one of the Intel crashers as well, and so far so good for me. Was able to go through 40 areas on different servers without crashes, where I constantly crashed before.

Only crash I did still have was when jumping between servers, but that's probably not Intel related, but something else.

Hope the rest of you crashers have similar results with this!

Xerah
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Re: Exploring fixes for IntelGPU-related crashes

Post by Xerah » Wed Jul 04, 2018 7:39 pm

I tested this myself. The biggest issues I've had were on the Cordor Northern Outskirts, the two Cordor Districts, and the Bendir.

I went through the outskirts without crashing, and the first Cordor district, but crashed in the Cultural District. Below is the dump:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/160DhBB ... sp=sharing

I disabled my other video card, and ran the exe by itself to achieve these results. These are very promising results. I have not tried Bendir or Skal.
Katernin Bersk, Chancellor of Divination; Kerri Amblecrown, Paladin of Milil; Xull'kacha Auvry'rae, Redcap Fey-pacted; Sadia yr Thuravya el Bhirax, Priestess of Umberlee; Lissa Whitehorn, Archmage of Artifice

niv
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Re: Exploring fixes for IntelGPU-related crashes

Post by niv » Wed Jul 04, 2018 7:45 pm

Xerah wrote:
Wed Jul 04, 2018 7:39 pm
I tested this myself. The biggest issues I've had were on the Cordor Northern Outskirts, the two Cordor Districts, and the Bendir.

I went through the outskirts without crashing, and the first Cordor district, but crashed in the Cultural District. Below is the dump:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/160DhBB ... sp=sharing

I disabled my other video card, and ran the exe by itself to achieve these results. These are very promising results. I have not tried Bendir or Skal.
Hey, thanks for the dmp. Looks familiar. Was this on the load screen?

Xerah
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Re: Exploring fixes for IntelGPU-related crashes

Post by Xerah » Wed Jul 04, 2018 7:46 pm

Just after wards.
Katernin Bersk, Chancellor of Divination; Kerri Amblecrown, Paladin of Milil; Xull'kacha Auvry'rae, Redcap Fey-pacted; Sadia yr Thuravya el Bhirax, Priestess of Umberlee; Lissa Whitehorn, Archmage of Artifice

Invader_Nym
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Re: Exploring fixes for IntelGPU-related crashes

Post by Invader_Nym » Wed Jul 04, 2018 10:42 pm

Xerah wrote:
Wed Jul 04, 2018 7:39 pm
I tested this myself. The biggest issues I've had were on the Cordor Northern Outskirts, the two Cordor Districts, and the Bendir.

I went through the outskirts without crashing, and the first Cordor district, but crashed in the Cultural District. Below is the dump:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/160DhBB ... sp=sharing

I disabled my other video card, and ran the exe by itself to achieve these results. These are very promising results. I have not tried Bendir or Skal.
Interestingly, I crash in all the exact same areas. I don't know if that's relevant to troubleshooting. I also rarely crash on the underdark server. I'm about to test the new file and will report my findings.

Invader_Nym
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Re: Exploring fixes for IntelGPU-related crashes

Post by Invader_Nym » Wed Jul 04, 2018 10:45 pm

I'm able to get into Bendir Dale now, which crashed 100% of the time previously. I'll update this to include results for other areas, but this looks promising.

I'll just summarize the areas that I've tested so far and that appear to be fixed.

Bendir Dale
Cordor (Northern Outskirts)


I still crash in the Arcane Tower. Interestingly this isn't the type of crash that occurs when trying to transition in. It's very intermittent. Sometimes I'll get tons of video lag after transitioning in, and then some time later it'll crash.

allyouneediskill
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Re: Exploring fixes for IntelGPU-related crashes

Post by allyouneediskill » Thu Jul 05, 2018 12:12 am

I logged in to test out the changes and i can get into the areas i was having issues with before. Everything worked great for the most part. However I did incur one crash (happened during gameplay and not the loading screen). I have attached the log and dmp file (i had to change the filetype for the dmp file to .log in order to upload to the forum). The only other issue was a loading screen that didn't error and just stalled in the loading screen for several minutes.

But thanks for the exe! It will save some headaches in the meantime!

Edit: Oh, turns out i can't upload attachments - let me know if you'd like the log and dump anyhow and I can log a ticket with Beamdog.


DeepDarkTruth
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Re: Exploring fixes for IntelGPU-related crashes

Post by DeepDarkTruth » Thu Jul 05, 2018 6:58 am

Just grabbed the .zip and extrated it - After failing to follow the instructions and crashing, I realized my mistake an am now having no difficulties entering Cordor, Bendir and the like. Wonderful and thank you!
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niv
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Re: Exploring fixes for IntelGPU-related crashes

Post by niv » Thu Jul 05, 2018 10:13 am

@Invader_Nym: Please upload the .dmp files for the crashes you saw! Those are very important to limit what kind of chain of events leads to the gamestate that makes it crash.

@allyouneediskill: Yes, all dmps are important. Feel free to use the BD ticket tracker to upload it.

allyouneediskill
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Re: Exploring fixes for IntelGPU-related crashes

Post by allyouneediskill » Thu Jul 05, 2018 10:44 am

Uploaded the dmp to the BD tracker, it's issue no# 37969. I'll do the same with any potential further crashes - thanks matey.

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Re: Exploring fixes for IntelGPU-related crashes

Post by Sailormoon~s No1 Fan » Thu Jul 05, 2018 11:02 am

Played a fair amount of time crash -free-! Even got to visit Cordor where most of my crashes occur and Bendir. The only place I haven't tested is Skal. All in all, it looks very promising!

niv
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Re: Exploring fixes for IntelGPU-related crashes

Post by niv » Thu Jul 05, 2018 11:03 am

Thanks for the dmp. Looks the same as the other remaining crashes so far. What exact GPU (HDxxx?) and driver version are you on?

Winter Is Coming
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Re: Exploring fixes for IntelGPU-related crashes

Post by Winter Is Coming » Thu Jul 05, 2018 12:00 pm

Seems to have fixed my problem, Cordor was previously entirely unplayable. Went through a few areas for maybe a total of 10-20 minutes without any issues. Will test some more later. Glad to see progress! :)

Brandon Steel
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Re: Exploring fixes for IntelGPU-related crashes

Post by Brandon Steel » Fri Jul 06, 2018 12:22 am

Keeps saying my nwnmain is missing despite me renaming it, am I doing something wrong?

dragonhighlord94
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Re: Exploring fixes for IntelGPU-related crashes

Post by dragonhighlord94 » Fri Jul 06, 2018 3:15 am

It works very well for me and lasted a good hour and a half before I crashed near the bank and I will post the files for the crash shortly. Now I wanna thank everyone who made this fix for this has brought me from being miserable to actually enjoying myself again.

Xerah
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Re: Exploring fixes for IntelGPU-related crashes

Post by Xerah » Fri Jul 06, 2018 3:27 am

So most that are still crashing are doing so in the Culture district. Can someone test out Skal too?
Katernin Bersk, Chancellor of Divination; Kerri Amblecrown, Paladin of Milil; Xull'kacha Auvry'rae, Redcap Fey-pacted; Sadia yr Thuravya el Bhirax, Priestess of Umberlee; Lissa Whitehorn, Archmage of Artifice

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Re: Exploring fixes for IntelGPU-related crashes

Post by Queen Titania » Fri Jul 06, 2018 4:07 am

Xerah wrote:
Fri Jul 06, 2018 3:27 am
So most that are still crashing are doing so in the Culture district. Can someone test out Skal too?
I had no issues on Skal in my DM Client Test.
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niv
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Re: Exploring fixes for IntelGPU-related crashes

Post by niv » Fri Jul 06, 2018 12:49 pm

@dragonhighlord94 We appreciate that, thank you.

Thanks everyone for providing feedback. It's hard to judge how effective a fix is from the set of responses we got so far, but it seems to be doing a lot of good for one specific crash almost everyone was seeing.

As should come as no surprise to anyone, we'll be packing this up for a stable patch. Work on ferreting out the other crash cases on Intel will continue.

Please keep posting feedback and, especially crash dmp files. Both is invaluable in making judgment calls and figuring out what's going on.

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Re: Exploring fixes for IntelGPU-related crashes

Post by Swords to Rust » Fri Jul 06, 2018 1:14 pm

I've had no crashes after installing this patch. Before this I had to completly avoid Cordor and Skal, but only had the occassional crash on other areas.

I've had some of the pre-crash sympthoms (game runs very slowly, weird graphical glitches in the chat window) in the Cordor: Cultural District area but I lost that after transitioning to other areas. Normally those kind of glitches would lead to be crashing 10 seconds later. I've not seen this in other areas.

I will also note that my playtime has been very limited so I can't say if this is 100% effective, but where before some areas crashed me on transition or within a minute of loading, its obviously a very big improvement.

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Isildur558
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Re: Exploring fixes for IntelGPU-related crashes

Post by Isildur558 » Sat Jul 07, 2018 5:04 am

I was constantly crashing prior to using this, mostly in areas like Skal and Cordor (mostly the Industrial District); and after setting everything up (I used the updated .exe from your Steam announcement about the new development build posted today) I had no issues in any of the areas I originally had issues in. I haven't tried Cordor yet, and will update my post on this thread once I have.

Thanks for all the hard work!

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Re: Exploring fixes for IntelGPU-related crashes

Post by Ozzy.nl » Sat Jul 07, 2018 10:17 am

I have a question here. Does this also fix the slowdown of the game some of the intel gpu gives besides the crashes?

EDIT:

After running the game with the fix the game does seem to run a lot smoother with FPS between 13 and 20.3 I can now enter Cordor outskirts and goverment district maps without crashing after the loading screen so the fix for me seems to help.

I am running a HP probook 630G.
The intel GPU is a HD graphics 520 driver versionn 20.19.154483
Last edited by Ozzy.nl on Sat Jul 07, 2018 1:00 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Exploring fixes for IntelGPU-related crashes

Post by Sailormoon~s No1 Fan » Sat Jul 07, 2018 12:52 pm

Update! While the fix works wonderfully most of the time it's not uncommon for me to transition into an endless load screen. Only seems to happen in former crash areas Bendir/ Cordor and forces me to use task manager to close it.

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Kreydis
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Re: Exploring fixes for IntelGPU-related crashes

Post by Kreydis » Sat Jul 07, 2018 5:30 pm

Sailormoon~s No1 Fan wrote:
Sat Jul 07, 2018 12:52 pm
Update! While the fix works wonderfully most of the time it's not uncommon for me to transition into an endless load screen. Only seems to happen in former crash areas Bendir/ Cordor and forces me to use task manager to close it.
It happens a lot to me, and I'm not even on Intel. It's only really the same Cordor areas. (Nomad, Bendir's hawk's inn nest. ECT.) so I don't think it's tied directly to the intel but, but more or less something getting stuck in the loading process for everyone.
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