When the game crashes how do i know whether it's a bug or my pc ?

[DonaldDuck]

When the game crashes how do i know whether it's a bug or my pc ?

I can't play Ark with zero crash, is it Ark or my pc ? I'm not talking about pc spec, just stability running the game crash free. And I'm not talking about short session like 1 or 2 hours of game time, but all day long, I might be afk once in a while but I left the game always running sometimes alt-tabbing doing something else in other window or just hover my mouse to my second monitor.

I know when it's 100% my pc like bsod or if I accidentally kicked my pc causing it to boot (just an extreme example, never actually did it ) , that's for sure is my pc's  or my fault, but often the error is like this, a window pops up with texts referring to files not in my hdd and when I press ok the game quits by itself. I forgot to screenshot but I bet most ppl with a lot of game time in Ark  ever saw similar crash.

 

How about dedicated server, it can run 24/7 until maintainance without a single crash (it happens but it can actually run 24h without crashing), is that because a dedicated server doesn't render the gfx ? (cmiiw)

[Aylana314159]

Are you talking about single player mode?

 

I personally just run a dedicated LAN server on a separate PC. Then the client is completely separate from the game saves.

 

If you are encountering frequent crashes its likely you have settings that need to change or you are running too many background programs.

[DonaldDuck]

5 hours ago, Aylana314159 said:

Are you talking about single player mode?

 

I personally just run a dedicated LAN server on a separate PC. Then the client is completely separate from the game saves.

 

If you are encountering frequent crashes its likely you have settings that need to change or you are running too many background programs.

Both SP and MP. 

It's not that frequent though but Ark is a game with long invested time, during that long invested time it will eventually happen once in a while, when it happens I always lose some few minutes of progress, quite a lot can be done in 20 minutes, which I think is the interval of SP saving the game.

With that setup do you never have any crash not even once on both server and especially client ?

I have an old pc lying around collecting dust , i7 920 I forgot 8 or 16gb ram, would that be enough to run a LAN server ? but it only has small SSD 64gb, so the game will have to be installed on normal hdd.

 

 

-edit

The game just crashed, here is an example of it. Some lines refer to files not in my hdd. Like

[H:\trunk\engine\source\runtime\core\public\containers\set.h:911]

[H:\trunk\engine\source\runtime\slatecore\private\widgets\swidget.cpp:319]

et cetera, I don't have that folder in my hdd. I don't even have drive H:

 

What I just did before it crashed was, I just remembered I haven't enabled transporter mod, and was about to, so I exited to main menu, suddenly it crashed. I am going to reload the game, hope the savegame isn't corruped. How come exiting to menu produced crash ?  

 

And one thing leads to another, I use an old usb soundcard onkyo u55sx and it sometimes makes garbled sound randomly especially lately when running Ark, and once it's acting up like that I have to change bitrate/sample rate in windows audio properties, BUT Ark cannot regain sound once sound device is reset or changed, all other games I've played can do that, and readjust its garbled sound after I refresh, but not ark, some ppl also complain the same problem on steam when they change to headset , ark loses its sound, it's a simple technical thing but Ark doesn't have it even after 4 years, the players have to restart the game which takes a few minutes instead. And why is it named ShooterGame O_o ? I can write a lengthy complain about Ark but I can also write a lengthy page praising it.

 

 

[Jemcrystal]

Neither.  It's the Unreal engine the game was made on.  This is why we always go Unity, children.  Or build the engine yourself if from [][][].  Turn your graphics down.

[DonaldDuck]

7 minutes ago, Jemcrystal said:

Neither.  It's the Unreal engine the game was made on.  This is why we always go Unity, children.  Or build the engine yourself if from [][][].  Turn your graphics down.

I thought UE is the engine for the big boys :D. I don't think changing gfx setting will make the crash go away, I ever play for months using low memory setting when running the game on legacy server, and it also crashed once in a while.

 

The problem with software bug is there is hardly a bull's eye solution, it's always shotgun, turn your gfx down, update your driver, kick your pc, etc etc, and at the end of the day the bug can still find its way to creep in 

 

btw do you never have any crash not even once ? or you made peace with it.

[Jemcrystal]

I don't crash much.  Multiplayer.  I have no idea why I don't have problems like others do.  I used Nvida optimize then turned down a few settings.  I have a harder time keeping my iphone (actually roommate's iphone) or steam's interface open than this game.  Maybe it's those elderly grandma's praying to Jesus to keep my undead self running threw an extra holy charge on the pc as well.  Keep my drivers and my java updated.

[DonaldDuck]

2 minutes ago, Jemcrystal said:

I don't crash much.  Multiplayer.  I have no idea why I don't have problems like others do.  I used Nvida optimize then turned down a few settings.  I have a harder time keeping my iphone (actually roommate's iphone) or steam's interface open than this game.  

That's why I also ask whether you made peace with the crash lol, but if it's stable then good for you. It's actually not much but since I and lots of other ppl run the game all day long, the chance of it crashing is open all day.

 

But I never had one day free of crash, it crashes daily sometimes once or twice sometimes more.

[Aylana314159]

Crashing can corrupt single player saves, part of why I run LAN dedicated on another PC (older i5, 16 GB ram). You can run off a mechanical harddrive, but things like spinning up the server will be slower. I only run my server when playing. The server files aren't nearly as big as the client files.

[DonaldDuck]

1 hour ago, Aylana314159 said:

Crashing can corrupt single player saves, part of why I run LAN dedicated on another PC (older i5, 16 GB ram). You can run off a mechanical harddrive, but things like spinning up the server will be slower. I only run my server when playing. The server files aren't nearly as big as the client files.

Are you playing with friends or family in your LAN server or play solo ? If you only turn the PC server on when playing then it's almost like playing single player then, most of why ppl play on dedicated rented server is to make everything running 24/7. 

 

Btw could you screenshot how a ark dedicated server running like ? does it render the gfx too  or just in text mode ? I think games can run with null gfx to minimize resources.

[Aylana314159]

4 minutes ago, DonaldDuck said:

Are you playing with friends or family in your LAN server or play solo ? If you only turn the PC server on when playing then it's almost like playing single player then, most of why ppl play on dedicated rented server is to make everything running 24/7. 

 

Btw could you screenshot how a ark dedicated server running like ? does it render the gfx too  or just in text mode ? I think games can run with null gfx to minimize resources.

I just play solo. It's over LAN and not the internet. Since I have a spare old PC that I use most as a music player.

 

I could leave it running 24/7, but I travel for work and don't get to play everyday or sometimes every week. So starting and stopping the server is my choice, sometimes I leave it running all weekend if I am not out of town. 

 

SP mode has so many longstanding bugs and file corruption issues, its just not worth it to me. ASM (ark server manager) makes it simple to configure, run, and backup my files.

[Jemcrystal]

Gonna put out how to optimize in case anyone wants it: 

As far as single player everyone's game crashes.  I used to keep a backup of my single player game but it took way to much time to copy files over.  Still did it anyway.

 

[DonaldDuck]

Crashed again, this is the 2nd time today running the game for 9 hours, so maybe twice today coz I'm done for today. Tomorrow I'll post it again if I play for long and crash again. 

There is no day without crashing when playing ark as far as I remember, be it SP or MP.

[TheDonn]

Welcome to ARK.  Crashes happen so much that it is not a situation of "this hardware has issues," it is a situation of "the game has issues.

As some have said, try tweaking specific graphics settings and see if you crash less.  You will not have zero crashes, as soon as you get comfortable and think you are crash-proof an ARK update, GPU driver update, or operating system update will get you back crashing again.  But you can crash fewer times.

***One person saying "I never crash" is not evidence that ARK can be played crash-free, even on an identical set of hardware to the supposed crash-free person.***

[FeyGriffin]

1. Verify your game files - the game updater is not 100% reliable (what is ? ) and updates may trash a perfectly good installation

2. If you're playing SP or Unofficial, ALWAYS wait for any mods to update before launching

3. Scan your PC for malware

I still get the odd crash (usually D3D related), but it's probably about 1/month & I'm usually in game for at least 4-6 hours/day. More RAM also helps - used to get more crashes with 16Gb than I do with 32Gb, but this could also be down to patches that came out in the same time frame.

[DonaldDuck]

14 hours ago, TheDonn said:

Welcome to ARK.  Crashes happen so much that it is not a situation of "this hardware has issues," it is a situation of "the game has issues.

As some have said, try tweaking specific graphics settings and see if you crash less.  You will not have zero crashes, as soon as you get comfortable and think you are crash-proof an ARK update, GPU driver update, or operating system update will get you back crashing again.  But you can crash fewer times.

***One person saying "I never crash" is not evidence that ARK can be played crash-free, even on an identical set of hardware to the supposed crash-free person.***

Thanks, this is kinda the answer I was looking for, aim for crash less not crash free. Because I thought it was my pc, I just reinstalled my windows the other day because of too frequent bsod which was obviously my system, but even with fresh windows installation (no more bsod, very rare), latest drivers of everything, Ark still crashes. So I'll just make peace with it and always be ready for the next crash.

Today it's been good though, 4h with no crash.