Persistent random game freezes (now with video!)

[theshim]

As promised, I'm posting a video this time!

So I'm still having the same issue with the game repeatedly locking up during normal gameplay, detailed viewtopic.php?t=50709 here, never resolved. I tried everything recommended in that thread to no avail. I note that there is another topic in the bugs forum (over here viewtopic.php?f=70&t=52734) that appears to be detailing the same issue, but never appears to have gotten a response either.

This time I recorded about 10 minutes of gameplay and in the first couple minutes you can already see the game locking up a bunch (honestly I should just delete the rest of the video but whatever). Video is here: https://youtu.be/j0BXaFUCdPk

The freeze spikes in the video are very tame, as is often the case at the start of a new character, but they often go up to 10 seconds long or more as I get into the t2 dungeons. Nothing I've tried has made a difference and I'm kinda at my wits' end here. Would really appreciate it if a solution could be found.

[leiz]

On my system 2 rows talent icons cause some lags. And maybe resizing window without restart, but i`m not shured. Try "Reset interface settings" and restart game for test this.
I did so:
1. Turn in Bandicam or Riva Tuner "show fps".
2. Run ToME on default settings.
3. New game -> Trollmire -> Talent "Regeneration" or "Heal", "Wild" -> Rest.
4. Look at fps counter: 30, down to 27-29, 30 again. Rest are quick. All are good!
5. Change 1-2 game settings.
6. Restart game!
7. Repeat 3.-4. If fps down to 15-18 and rest are long it`s bad.
Repeat until find lag`s source.

[AstralWanderer]

What are your hardware specs, and have you encountered similar issues with other games?

[Doctorwhat4]

I'm having the same problem too. I am completely new to ToME and this freezing is definitely putting me off of the game. I was just about to make a post similar to this when I saw yours.

I'm using a Windows 11 laptop and my specs are:
Processor Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-8300H CPU @ 2.30GHz
Installed RAM 8.00 GB (7.85 GB usable)

Hoping someone can explain what's happening and how I can fix it.

[HousePet]

GPU specs are needed too.

One other thing that could be checked: Is the lockup just tome, or can you switch out of tome and then open up an explorer window to look at the folders on your hard drive? (Yes, going all the way to being able to see the folder names is important.)

[Doctorwhat4]

GPU specs are needed too.

One other thing that could be checked: Is the lockup just tome, or can you switch out of tome and then open up an explorer window to look at the folders on your hard drive? (Yes, going all the way to being able to see the folder names is important.)

As a person with a similar problem, I can open the File Explorer and be able to see the names. The lockup only occurs in tome4.

[HousePet]

Thanks. I'd like to say that that helps narrow it down. But it just rules out an obscure bug from the OS.

[AstralWanderer]

For crashes or freezes, try changing compatibility settings (right-click on t-engine.exe, select Properties/Compatibility, tick the "Run in Compatibility Mode" box and set the Compatibility Mode to Windows 7 or Windows XP) - see Microsoft.com: Make older apps or programs compatible with Windows 10 for more details. If that doesn't help, try running t-engine-debug.exe instead (with or without compatibility settings).

Fluctuating framerates suggest an OpenGL problem, so a graphics driver reinstall would be a prudent step. If you are running on a laptop, check that its power settings are set to maximise performance and, if a dual-GPU system, that it is using the better GPU (Nvidia/ATI rather than Intel integrated - maximising performance should do this).

[theshim]

Right, never posted specs.

Windows 10 Desktop
i7-10700K
32GB RAM
RTX 3070 Ti (that I very recently upgraded to, with up to date drivers)

It's worth noting that I was having the exact same problems with my old GTX 1060, as well as my older CPU/RAM setup from last year. I used to run the game years ago on worse hardware with no trouble, so I'm pretty sure that's not the issue here.

I tried compatibility mode with no success.

And because I am a bloody stubborn bastard I managed to complete a run last night even with all the horrible freezes (But for real I would very much like to play the game without it being miserable)

[AstralWanderer]

Try installing Process Hacker or Process Explorer and, when a freeze happens, check these to see which processes (if any) are showing high CPU or disk I/O usage.

It'll probably be t-engine.exe, but if it is anything else, then that could point to a software conflict.

Have you tried running t-engine-debug.exe as well?

[theshim]

Okay my copy of ToME is definitely cursed at this point.

I grabbed Process Explorer, opened ToME, tried to load a game, and now the game gets stuck at 100% and won't move. Fine, I say, I'll start a new game. Nope, loading bar gets to 100% and then stops, I never even see character creation. I tried running the debug exe, same thing. I tried reinstalling, same thing.

I'm tearing my hear out a bit over here. I just wanted to play ToME

[Moasseman]

Okay my copy of ToME is definitely cursed at this point.

I grabbed Process Explorer, opened ToME, tried to load a game, and now the game gets stuck at 100% and won't move. Fine, I say, I'll start a new game. Nope, loading bar gets to 100% and then stops, I never even see character creation. I tried running the debug exe, same thing. I tried reinstalling, same thing.

I'm tearing my hear out a bit over here. I just wanted to play ToME

This generally happens with fricked* up world.teaw file. Go to %userprofile%\T-Engine\4.0\tome\save and remove the world.teaw file

E: Lol I didn't know the forums had automatic profanity filter

[theshim]

Right, that helped, but now I'm still getting the freezes.

With Process Explorer open, the game usually sits around 3-6% CPU usage, but once it freezes the game actually drops to 0% during the freeze, and once it unfreezes and the game catches up it goes back to normal. No other process is showing unusual CPU usage either.

I tried the debug exe and I'm still getting the freezes there as well.

I feel like I need to completely nuke everything from orbit at this point, but I don't know how. Uninstalling and deleting the folders doesn't seem to help.

[AstralWanderer]

...I used to run the game years ago on worse hardware with no trouble, so I'm pretty sure that's not the issue here...

I'd agree, having run ToME on a 15-year old notebook (1GHz Pentium III, ATI Radeon X200M Express) with only the loss of some graphics effects. If you can rule out hardware and other programs, that just leaves the OS. Could you try setting up a virtual system using either Hyper-V or VMWare to run an older version of Windows (7 or XP) and accessing ToME with that?

With Process Explorer open, the game usually sits around 3-6% CPU usage, but once it freezes the game actually drops to 0% during the freeze, and once it unfreezes and the game catches up it goes back to normal. No other process is showing unusual CPU usage either.

When I start ToME and load a game, everything runs ultra-fast for the first half-second before slowing down to "normal" speed (on a 4.1GHz Xeon 5650 with a 580GTX graphics card) which suggests to me that ToME adjusts its speed to suit the hardware it runs on.

Your results would seem to suggest that ToME is running far slower that it should be (do you see any high-speed effects in the first instance on loading a game?). If virtualization is not an option then maybe artificially slowing down your system may help (e.g. installing Prime95, running its Torture Test to fully utilise your CPU, then start ToME and use Task Manager to set its priority to "Below normal").

I feel like I need to completely nuke everything from orbit at this point, but I don't know how. Uninstalling and deleting the folders doesn't seem to help.

Did you delete both folders? (the main one in Program Files and the T-Engine folder in %USERPROFILE%). The second contains game data (and profiles/saved games) so a corrupted version could conceivably affect future installs.

[HousePet]

I don't know why this would only affect TOME, but if the Win10 installation was done over the top of a previous version of windows, or there has been hardware changes since installation, there can be faulty driver issues that won't appear to normal detection methods.
So, one other option is to try a 'Reset Windows'. Which I think tells it to wipe and reinstall the whole OS.