Tenderfoot Thahd Locust Posted December 30, 2020 Share Posted December 30, 2020 I'm playing the GOG version on a late 2019 Macbook Pro 16" It keeps randomly freezing and crashing - sometimes it just takes a few seconds and I can play again, but most of the times I have to force quit the application to restart it. Am I the only one or does this happen to anyone else? Are there any known worokaround or is it just hoping for a recent autosave? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hatchling Cockatrice Randomizer Posted December 30, 2020 Share Posted December 30, 2020 Some of the games will occasionally stop for a few seconds while things happen In the background like monsters moving off screen or information is being loaded. I haven't seen repeated crashes requiring force quit on my older MacBook Pro 15". Are you running other programs or have them open that may be using large amounts of memory or CPU? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tenderfoot Thahd Locust Posted December 30, 2020 Author Share Posted December 30, 2020 No, nothing unusual, just a browser and a messenger - this was never an issue with any of the other Spiderweb games I have played. RAM and computing power with an i9 should be more than enough 🙂 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hatchling Cockatrice Randomizer Posted December 30, 2020 Share Posted December 30, 2020 Jeff admits that he isn't a good programmer so his games use more CPU time and resources than they need. It's why the games cause the computer to heat up. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hatchling Cockatrice Slawbug Posted December 30, 2020 Share Posted December 30, 2020 Are there any specific triggers for this behavior? If not, can you describe what you were doing the last couple times it happened? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tenderfoot Thahd Locust Posted December 30, 2020 Author Share Posted December 30, 2020 No, all completely random, but as far as I can remember it was always "inside". I don't think the CPU is really impacted - it does not heat up or power up the fan. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rotghroth Rhapsody Ess-Eschas Posted December 31, 2020 Share Posted December 31, 2020 Sorry to hear that you’re having problems, Locust! I know you’ve mentioned that the crashes appear to be random, but I just want to double-check something! Is there any indication that the crashes are more likely to happen when you’re in combat, or otherwise in a hostile dungeon? I ask this because there have been a few rare reports of strange behaviour happening for some players in such situations. It’s not a problem we’ve been able to reproduce or fix yet, unfortunately, since bug reports about it are so rare – but it would be useful to know if you’re experiencing something similar, or something else entirely! Also, are you currently playing the game in full screen? If so, could I suggest that you try running it in windowed mode for a few minutes, and see if you still get crashes? This *shouldn’t* make a difference, given your system is easily powerful enough to run the engine! But if you still get crashes running in a window, that could rule out some potential problems relating to how the game interacts with your monitor. Finally, don’t worry too much about Randomizer’s comments about program inefficiency! They’re true for older Spiderweb games, but those issues were all fixed for Queen’s Wish. That’s the same for the pauses Randomizer mentioned, too – they should all be gone in this engine. Queen’s Wish is one of Spiderweb’s most advanced engines to date, so issues like those shouldn't be the cause of your problems! Slawbug 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hatchling Cockatrice Randomizer Posted December 31, 2020 Share Posted December 31, 2020 This was the topic about CPU usage that I was referring to that got fixed in later versions: https://spiderwebforums.ipbhost.com/topic/25044-bug-100-cpu-load-while-playing-queens-wish/ This was the topic about pauses from off screen monsters, but doesn't cause game crashes: https://spiderwebforums.ipbhost.com/topic/25159-pauses-in-combat/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rotghroth Rhapsody Ess-Eschas Posted December 31, 2020 Share Posted December 31, 2020 Thanks for the links, Randomizer! Unfortunately, I think it’s unlikely that either of these issues are being experienced by Locust. The conventional GOG system automatically updates users’ games to the latest versions, so Locust should be using the most recent version of Queen’s Wish. As you mentioned yourself, the inefficient CPU bug was fixed very early in the release cycle, so it hasn’t been an issue for a long time. Likewise, the issues causing pauses in combat were also fixed in the later versions, at least in principle. Jeff did the best he could, since it was never possible to reproduce the problem on his end. That does mean that there is a small chance that something unusual is still happening in combat, perhaps an issue related to the old combat pauses. That’s why I asked Locust about combat/hostile locations – it’s good to be sure! However, I think it’s probably more likely that something else is causing Locust’s issues. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hatchling Cockatrice Slawbug Posted December 31, 2020 Share Posted December 31, 2020 Which again prompts the question: Locust, can you describe very specifically what you were doing in-game the last couple of times this happened? 1) How recently had you clicked or typed to interact with the game? 2) What was the last thing you did-in game (moved around, entered a command, talked to someone, used a skill point, sold items, etc. etc.) 3) Were you on the overworld map, or in a zone? 4) Were you in combat mode, or walkabout mode? 5) Was a dialog box of any sort up (talking, inventory, character status, etc.) This isn't because we think you did anything wrong, of course This is to try and identify (or rule out) what's going on. Even if you don't see a pattern, the more you can share here, the more helpful it will be. Ess-Eschas 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tenderfoot Thahd Locust Posted January 1, 2021 Author Share Posted January 1, 2021 So - I was just playing for about 15 minutes, this time in windowed mode. I'm currently in Mecidi and went into Ariel Alchemicalery, walked a couple of steps and the it froze again - just to be sure I waited around 10 minutes, no change. No fight, no NPC visible, no combat mode, no kind of dialog box open. It the activity monitor it shows 185.6 MB memory usage - out of 16GB, so this should not be the issue. CPU percentage is 4.9% - so probably not causing this either. Restarted the game, the numbers are roughly the same, RAM is about 132 now Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rotghroth Rhapsody Ess-Eschas Posted January 2, 2021 Share Posted January 2, 2021 Thanks for that, Locust! This information is useful, because it eliminates a few potential causes of your crashing. For instance, it appears that your problem isn’t related to the combat or dialogue systems, which is important to know. I have another suggestion for something to try! Could you try running Queen’s Wish again with no additional applications running in the background? I appreciate that could be irritating, but all that’s needed is just to run the game for long enough to see if you still get crashes when working this way. To be clear, I’m not suggesting this because I think your computer can’t handle running Queen’s Wish alongside other programs. Of course it can! The idea here is to check to see whether there are any program conflicts taking place. In principle, one program can run code that interferes with the memory/running of another. It’s rare, since programmers obviously don’t want this to happen, but it does still happen very occasionally. Some program conflicts were discovered in early Windows versions of Queen’s Wish, and have since been fixed. But it’s possible you might have found another one on the Mac side! In the interests of gathering as much information as possible, could you also elaborate on what happens when your game freezes? Does absolutely everything freeze? Can you move the mouse? Do background sounds still play? Do any animations on screen still play? Such information is useful, because it might help us figure out what sort of crash you’re experiencing. In any case, sorry that we’re not able to solve your issues immediately! But I hope you don’t mind poking into the problem a little, with our help. We want to help you solve your problem, and that in turn might help any other users down the line who experience something similar! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tenderfoot Thahd Locust Posted January 3, 2021 Author Share Posted January 3, 2021 So - yesterday I killed basically everything that was running in the background - and that apparently did the trick - played over 5h without a single crash. Later on I started Firefox and Franz (a multi messenger) - it sometimes shortly froze at the same situations as above, but after some seconds it continued without crashing. So I guess it's payable now, as long as I kill any background programs Ess-Eschas 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hatchling Cockatrice Slawbug Posted January 3, 2021 Share Posted January 3, 2021 Awesome to hear, Locust! Would you mind sharing (just for our edification) 1 - about how many programs did you previously have running in the background? 2 - about how many tabs do you typically have open in Firefox? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tenderfoot Thahd Locust Posted January 3, 2021 Author Share Posted January 3, 2021 Puhh depends, there are some background helper apps running usually and around 5-10 other programs Firefox - usually over 50 tabs (yes, I know I have a problem ;-)) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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