[TM2] Other - Game Freezes

[PsychoticFoetus]

Hi, just a query to see if this has happened to anyone else. About 25 or so times now, after a race is completed the game will freeze. I waited for an hour one time to see if it was just being slow, but finally i had to ctrl-alt-del into task manager and kill it.

This mainly happens after a race is completed, though it did happen once when I pressed Esc during the countdown at the beginning. It does not matter if I am online or not, if I am playing an offical map or not. Sometimes it will happen after the first race, sometimes I will get to race quite a few times, other times it will not freeze at all.

I have run the game with anti-virus both on and off for similar random freezes.

Changing graphical settings or turning the sound off doesn't change the frequency of this happening.

My system is as follows:

Win 7 Ultimate SP1- fully patched, Administrator
Radeon HD4600 - Catalyst Drivers 11.8
Ram 2gB
Anti-Virus/Firewall - Kaspersky Internet Security 2012, Microsft versions are inactive

Any ideas on how to stop this mindboggingly annoying game trait would be greatly appreciated.

This is getting beyond my limit of paitence. Since I first started this thread, EVERY SINGLE TIME, when I play a track or edit a track since, the game freezes. EVERY SINGLE TIME with out fail. The only time I can exit the game properly is if I don't actually Play or Edit within it. I don't know how anyone else may feel about this, but to me it is nothing more than a pointless venture.

Is there a possibility of stomping a file from the "Beta" version (where this never ever happened by the way) over the offending file in this "Offical Release to Customer" version and regain a modicum of stability? Any file, I'm not too fussed, having the game go down in flames on launch is preferable to being teased with the Attract Screen, the only part that doesnt freeze the game.

Here is a list of times when the game decides it has had enough:

Any point between the race finishing and pressing the button to continue - via controller - too many to count
Any point during the countdown - 5 times
Pressing the Save Icon after map editing - via mouse - 14 times
Pressing the Save Icon after generating the shadow map - via mouse - 4 times
Pressing Esc during the start race countdown - 1 time - via keyboard

I am at a loss I have the dreadful feeling that I have done nothing more than purchase a digital lemon and the "Happy Happy Number One A-OK " feelings I orginally had, are now long gone.

[PsychoticFoetus]

Surely there must be some word from Nadeo on this issue besides the "Reduce Graphics - Turn Off Sound" help desk rhetoric?

[kalimerre]

Try to disable sound in the launcher menu.

[PsychoticFoetus]

Hi Kalimerre,
Thanks for the reply. As I stated in my original post, I have tried playing the game with the sound turned off, unfortunately I didn't mention that I disbaled it via the launcher.

That particular bit of advice, just like the one about reducing graphic quality, did not diminish the good ole game freeze frequncy. By the way, I did try both graphic reduction and disable sound together, this did not stop the game freezing with monotous regularity at all.

Also may I point out that this combination is a crime to eyes and ears as it makes the game very, very insipid indeed.

Thankyou very much for the reply.

[v4nkw15h]

You are not the only one with this problem. I have it too.

I do not have the problem on my home desktop but I just installed it here on my new work laptop. I was happy to see the game decide that my computer was 'Very Fast' and the game installed and worked flawlessly until I complete a race at which point it freezes and requires me to End Task to close it down. I can restart races (mid race) but the moment I finish the race it freezes.

Window 7 64 bit
Intel Core i5-2410M
Intel HD Graphics 3000
4 GB Memory

Latest drivers and updates.

Considering that we have very different graphics cards I can't see that being the issue. Maybe it's a Windows 7 thing. I'll experiment with a few ideas now and see if I can track down a solution.


Edit: 10 mintues later: Problem solved I think. First I thought it was Norton Internet Security but after uninstalling it, the problem persisted. The problem was solved for me by using the 'run as Administrator' option when starting ManiaPlanet (even though my account is an administrator). It seems the game freezes while trying to save data to the hard-drive maybe. Anyway for others with the same problem, right click your Mania Planet shortcut, choose properties, Compatibility tab, and select 'Run this program as administrator'. Then it will automatically do it everytime you click the shortcut. Reply back if this solved your problem too.

Edit: Oh dear, unfortunately I spoke too soon. Although running as administrator does seem to help, it doesn't solve the problem. I'm still getting random crashes. Sometimes I can run 10 races and then other times I will get a random freeze when I try to restart a race. I'll report back if I find a proper solution

[PsychoticFoetus]

Hi v4nkw15h,
Thanks for your ideas on how to resolve this problem. Sadly since my last post I have now stopped playing the game out of sheer frustration.
No matter what I do, or what suggestion I follow the game still freezes.
The reason I have stopped playing is that the game will now freeze *whenever* I quit track. No ifs, no buts, it is a god damn guarantee.
Restarting the game to change the track I'm using is unacceptable to me.
I will just wait until an announcment is made that the issue has been resolved.
This whole saga has been particularlly depressing as I have really, really enjoyed playing the game during the now, increasingly rare times it doesn't freeze.

[foodash]

I'm still getting a lot of crashes also. Doesn't seem to be linked to any particular part of the game/race, or any particular keystrokes.

I have tried all posted solutions to no benefit, it still crashes quite regularly. In addition, as this crash technically isn't a crash [i.e. the game keeps running, you just can't see anything or do anything], it doesn't show up in the crash logs.

Is there any actual support for this game?

[Trackmaniack]

Yes. lots. The devs themselves are furiously working on trying to complete their next game, Shootmania, within the gargantuan schedule they've set for themselves. However, many many of our community members are quite active on the forums, and a good majority of them have lots of technical-related knowledge. I, unfortunately, do not. What you -can- do, however, is not complain, but continue bumping your thread, because eventually, kali, jon, Cero, or someone will hear about this that knows how to help. If it's any consolation, you guys certainly aren't the only ones with this problem, as it's been posted all over the board. If I can offer a limited opinion, I would say tweak your setting around, see what happens, run in admin mode (if you haven't already), and try disabling Kapersky. Try AVG instead--it's free, its fast, and I've (personally) heard better things about it than I have about Kapersky...

[v4nkw15h]

I think I've solved this problem as far as my machine is concerned.

Last thing on Friday I disabled EAX in the sound options and managed to play for 30 minutes without a problem. I didn't want to report a solution too quickly after having thought I'd solved it before only to find out that I hadn't.

Anyway, I was away from the game over the weekend, but I've played for about an hour without problem this morning too.

So for me it seems like my sound chip is not so happy with EAX. Realtek High Definition Audio is my sound chip by the way.

Hope that this maybe helps some others.

[bleri]

Will give this a go as nothing I've tried has sorted it for me so far.