Random crashes/freezes

MrPi · 10-19-2014 11:59 AM

Recently I merged to the October build. Last time I merged before was in July, so 3 months inbetween.
With the latest build I am experiencing random crashes and freezes. I tried to localize them, but I suspect it has to do with rendering, because on one test machine the entire graphics driver crashed.
When the freezes happens during debugging, no breakpoint is triggered. I tried to break into the code anyway, but I was only in assembler code and after "jumping out" a few times, it ended in some threading code.

I really urge you to not dismiss this if you can't reproduce it. I didn't change anything on the rendering part of the engine. Has there been any significant changes that could cause this? Is anyone else having problems?
So far this is on Windows only.

MrPi · 10-19-2014 01:34 PM

With the most recent version it seems to be better. I will watch it some more and report my experiences here.

**Esenthel** · 10-20-2014 08:16 AM

If you're still experiencing freezes, please let me know if setting:

Code:

#if defined DX9 || defined DX10 // this cannot be done on OpenGL

   #define MT_FLIP 1 // if use Multi-Threaded flipping which performs 'D.flip' on the secondary thread, allowing the CPU 'Update' to run while flipping is still executing, this will improve performance only if the 'Update' is time consuming, however the performance benefit will not be full if the user tries to modify the GPU data (by using D._cs, which will have to wait until flip has finished)

#endif

MT_FLIP to 0 in "Misc/States.spp" will help.

Please let me know are you having issues in DX9/DX10+ or both.

MrPi · 10-30-2014 05:26 PM

To update, yes this removed the crashes and lockups so far. I only tested with DX10+.

**Esenthel** · 11-11-2014 09:50 PM

Hello,

I've been trying to reproduce the problem with latest version of the engine, DX10+, MT_FLIP 1, by opening 3 windows of my game, and doing combinations of Alt+Enter, Alt+Tab on all windows for last few minutes, but I receive no crashes.

I have Windows 8.1, GeForce 650m GT + Intel HD 4000 laptop.
I've just opened another 3 windows, this time using the integrated GPU, and no crashes so far.

Does the issue occur on any specific configuration? Radeon/GeForce/Intel, any specific Windows version?
Does updating Graphics Drivers help?

MrPi · 11-11-2014 10:28 PM

I have a GTX 570, Windows 7. Crashes appeared both on DX9 and DX10+.
It never crashed again after doing the change mentioned before. That's all I can say right now. It also might have to do with what I'm doing in the game. I mainly do these:
- fullscreen image renders through VI
- lots of UI drawing
- only minor 3D mesh rendering

**Esenthel** · 11-11-2014 11:14 PM

Esenthel Editor "Esenthel.exe" is DX9, does that mean that Editor provided in the Binary version also crashes for you?

What MT_FLIP does is that it performs some D3D operation on secondary thread which is surrounded by a critical section for graphics drawing,
a crash could occur if you would try to access drawing functions not inside 'Draw', but for example inside 'Update'.
'Draw' function is already surrounded by the same critical section as MT_FLIP, so it's safe.

Random crashes/freezes
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