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[Xandorius]

Hello,

I have a Microsoft Surface Pro 7, one of those 2-in-1 laptop things. It has an i5 and 8gb of RAM and the Intel iris integrated graphics card.

Anyone able to get starsector to work on one of these things? I installed vanilla, everything worked great, but then I started to get the game freezing during battles. I think it's when the battles reached a certain size or when there was a certain number of ships/fighters on the map. It runs in the command/tab screen, the overland map is fine, just battles themselves. The game doesn't seem to crash, just freeze and require a manual close.

I think it's probably the integrated graphics that is the problem, but I'm a little surprised the iris can't handle something like this. When it doesn't freeze its listing 60fps at 30-50% idle typically.

For comparison the surface runs games like rimworld, darkest Dungeon, and slay the spire without issue.

Thanks for your help and any suggestions! Game is great when it works!

[Alex]

Hi - just to make sure, is this vanilla or with mods? If you're running with mods, between the OS, the game, and the integrated card using ram as well, it'd be pretty easy to go through the 8 gb and for the system to start paging things on the harddrive, which might explain the freezing. If this is vanilla, though, then that would indeed be a bit odd. Are your graphics drivers up-to-date?

[Xandorius]

Hello,

Yeah its a fresh install with no mods downloaded/applied. The game ran fine for quite a few hours. The freezing seemed to creep in once I got my first Heron - so I think when carriers with fighters started being common?

I haven't changed or tweaked anything yet. Any suggestions?

[Alex]

Hmm. I doubt it would go from "fine" to "freezing" due to just a few carriers and fighters. Also, if it's running fine in the command screen (tab screen in combat), that's an indicator it's probably not a problem with the number of things in combat, since it just renders more things in that mode - it's "regular combat PLUS the map UI on top of it". So it really doesn't seem like it's related to having some more ships/fighters deployed.

Are there any errors under System or Application in the windows event viewer? Do you have any other software running? In particular, MSI Afterburner or anything similar, or an anti-virus. If so, I'd try turning these off. I'd also try running the game in admin mode, and in compatibility mode for Windows 7 or XP.

Might also be worth looking at assorted system resource use - RAM, CPU - when it freezes. And, again, making sure that your graphics drivers are up-to-date.

I'd also suggest rebooting, if you haven't already. It kind of sounds like something on your system changed between when it was running well and now, and if that's the case, a reboot might fix it.

[Xandorius]

Hello,

So with some further testing it does freeze in combat with the command screen up. Seems to freeze later than if I tab out of it immediately.

No other programs are running, antivirus off, and graphics are up to date. No error in the log yet. If I alt-tab out of the game and try to get back in it will hang on a flickering starsector loading screen.

In the task manager it looks like Java is using the maximum allotted 1.5gb ram. But nothing else stands out.

How do I check the event viewer? Sorry, I'm not super familiar with troubleshooting programs.

Thanks for your speedy help! Much appreciated.

[Alex]

In the task manager it looks like Java is using the maximum allotted 1.5gb ram. But nothing else stands out.

That's not a problem, as long as your system has some free RAM. Basically it'll grab all the ram that's allocated to it, but since it manages it internally, that's not a signal that it's actually *using* all of the ram that it's taken from the OS, if that makes sense. So from Java's point of view, it's grabbed the allotted memory, and most of it is most likely "free" as far as the game is concerned.

How do I check the event viewer? Sorry, I'm not super familiar with troubleshooting programs.

Windows key - S, then type in Event Viewer and run it. Once that comes up, expand the "Windows Logs" section on the left, and check under both Application and System. What you're looking for is errors that have the same timestamp as the game freezes. Whether or not there are any could really go either way.

Hmm. Something else worth looking at - what are the power saving settings like on this? Maybe at some point it's deciding to go into power saving mode or whatever, and I can see how that could make the game freeze. So: I'd recommend checking and making sure that anything power-saving-related is turned off.

[Xandorius]

Windows key - S, then type in Event Viewer and run it. Once that comes up, expand the "Windows Logs" section on the left, and check under both Application and System. What you're looking for is errors that have the same timestamp as the game freezes. Whether or not there are any could really go either way.

[/quote]

Ah hah, that appears to be getting some results. In the windows event viewer each time it freezes I see the same set of results...

"The description for Event ID 513 from source SurfaceOemPanel cannot be found. Either the component that raises this event is not installed on your local computer or the installation is corrupted. You can install or repair the component on the local computer.

If the event originated on another computer, the display information had to be saved with the event.

The following information was included with the event: "

That's not super informative but it is the same event ID 513 each time. A quick google search wasn't too enlightening.

[Alex]

Yeah, not sure what it means, either...

Have you tried my other suggestions? Rebooting, running in admin mode, and looking at power saving settings?

[Xandorius]

Yeah, not sure what it means, either...

Have you tried my other suggestions? Rebooting, running in admin mode, and looking at power saving settings?

Hello,

Tried all of those options and it didn't solve the freezing problem. Also tried various 'compatability modes' which didn't solve the problem but did introduce other problems that have been addressed/solved elsewhere on the forum.

I did figure out that event ID 513 relates to drivers, so I updated all of those. Now I don't get an error in the Event Viewer anymore, but instead a 'warning' : Display driver igfxn stopped responding and has successfully recovered.

That driver has to do with the Surface Pro's Intel Iris integrated card. I checked and it's currently the most up to date. Maybe there's an incompatibility between the driver and the game?

Any further suggestions? I appreciate the help and am very interested in getting this up and running.

[Alex]

Hmm. After a bit of searching for similar stuff, here's someone that did a clean reinstall of the drivers (their setup is a bit different, with multiple graphics cards), and it seems to have helped them.

Basically, given the error, I think it's three things it could be:
1) A bug in the latest version of the driver. So, some future update of the driver might fix it, or it might not. Occasionally, using an older driver version actually resolves an issue in a case like that.
2) Corrupted graphics drivers (which is the case that a clean reinstall of these might fix)
3) A hardware problem such as the graphics card starting to go bad

And these are pretty much the only possibilities that come to mind. I mean, some kind of not-specifically-graphics-drivers-but-affecting-the-graphics-drivers system corruption is also an option, but that seems less likely.

[Xandorius]

Hello,

Thanks for all of your help - so far I think I've narrowed it down to a driver issue. The newest driver is from 2020-05-05 from Intel for the Intel Iris (the card in the Surface Pro).

Seems like I might be out of luck getting Starsector to work on the Surface Pro 7 for the time being. I'll wait for a bit and see if any new driver updates fix it.

I appreciate all of your help and brainstorming. Looking forward to the future of the game!

[Alex]

Sorry we couldn't get it sorted out - thanks for your understanding!

[Aetius]

Hi Xandorius, did you managed to solve this issue? Do you have it at any other games?

I have brand new Surface Pro 7 from two days. It's great but I have exacly the same issue with Starsector. I am very worried,  it is the only game that I have played for last few months

[Xandorius]

Hello,

Unfortunately this issue seems to persist. All the newest Windows updates are installed, same symptoms as described before. Out of ideas for now so hopefully further updates/patches can assist.

Thanks anyway!

[robepriority]

Has anyone *not* encountered this issue with an Intel iris graphics driver?
This is the 3rd thread pertaining to graphical hangs.

http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=19152.0
http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=19157.0