Spiral Knights - Screen freezing and unfreezing, randomly teleporting.

Screen freezing and unfreezing, randomly teleporting.

45 replies [Last post]

Wed, 04/06/2011 - 15:24

Beach

Legacy Username

So, through most of the game so far I have been running smooth.

But, during stages where there is waves of alot of enemies, my main example is that arena place on the bottom of the first tier, I get this stupid screen freezing and unfreezing.

It will be in the heat of battle, and my screen will freeze, then 3-4 seconds later unfreeze, and I will have teleported in the direction I was running when my screen froze.

This has been killing me alot, because it will freeze, 3-4 seconds is enough times for the mobs following me to have me mobed in a corner.

Now, it doesn't happen that much during normal play just during that stage and other ones with waves of lots of enemies. It is playable just really really annoying, and I don't want to have this happen in major battles in higher tiers.

I have tried different window sizes, full screen not full screen, enabling vertical sync and not etc.

My system easily should be able to run this game, so I do not understand why this randomly happens.

I have windows 7 if that helps anything.

Thank you for your time and all help is appreciated.

Wed, 04/06/2011 - 18:17

Beach

Legacy Username

Its becoming more frequent,

Its becoming more frequent, happening everywhere after I play awhile.

Thu, 04/07/2011 - 01:14

Baximus

Legacy Username

Since there's a topic on the

Since there's a topic on the same problem I've been having, I might as well share a post as well.

I've been having odd fps troubles and 1-2 second lockups in some dungeons, but that hasn't been much of a problem. My fps issues have to deal with certain areas, like the deeper dungeons of Firestorm Citadel. The first stage is fine, but when I go into the second stage, my FPS drops low, and I had a major issue in the fourth, during an encounter with two Trojans. My game completely locked up along with my computer, thus rendering me useless and ultimately wiping a group with my friend since he was trying to heal in a corner while I distracted the last Trojan. I locked up for a good 15 seconds, coming back in a different part of the map on the floor. I put all my settings to their lowest and still had this problem.

I can handle the short, quick freezes fine, but the ones that last for 15 seconds, well.. I find it completely irregular, since I was having no problems at all during the beginning of the fight, only the time we were trying to recuperate to press onwards to Vanaduke.

Thu, 04/07/2011 - 07:39

Wallach

Legacy Username

I just started playing last

I just started playing last night, but I've run into this a few times myself. It seems to be something that can become more frequent the longer the client has been running. Most commonly happens on the rooms/floors that have large waves, which makes it a lot worse. I just got out of one of those rooms that you have to unlock with a few points of energy that generally have 4-5 waves of much tougher enemies, and it was occurring every 4-5 seconds and pausing for roughly 1-2 seconds every time. It seems to lock up your inputs at the time of the pause, so when it clears up you'll be in whatever direction you were headed. Was basically unplayable and I didn't bother trying to clear the rest of the floor, just closed the client.

Thu, 04/07/2011 - 14:46

Stardrinker

Legacy Username

Memory Leak

These are textbook symptoms of a memory leak in the game. Unfortunately there's no permanent solution apart from waiting for Three Rings to fix their code.

Thu, 04/07/2011 - 17:47

Dogrock

I assume all of you have

I assume all of you have tried re-installing Java?

The only hiccups I've observed is when the game loads a texture for the first time in a Depth. Other than that it's as smooth as it will allow.

Fri, 04/08/2011 - 16:04

trens

Legacy Username

And here is what it looks

And here is what it looks like .. it started sometime between Wednesday morning and now.

i7 980x
gtx 580

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eKm50Qe7SlA

Fri, 04/08/2011 - 16:56

Dogrock

Thanks for the video, that's

Thanks for the video, that's a lot easier to understand now. It's interesting because it seems to be a smaller group of users having this problem, I haven't seen it on two very different setups.

If each person could please verify that they are using the latest available video drivers and the and have updated/re-installed Java on each post it would be massively helpful. And a long with that post detailed system information as per the Technical Help Sticky we might get to the bottom of this.

Fri, 04/08/2011 - 17:51

Wallach

Legacy Username

I'm on the latest version of

I'm on the latest version of Java and am running the latest official Catalyst release (not the latest beta/preview drivers).

I can't reproduce the issue without having the client run for 3+ hours. I've just been closing and restarting the client every hour or two to prevent this issue.

Fri, 04/08/2011 - 20:13

Manta

Experiencing the same as

Experiencing the same as described above.

I'm enjoying the game so much, and I keep reviving and spending my precious energy...but it's getting expensive...please fix

Fri, 04/08/2011 - 21:46

#10

Franpa

Legacy Username

http://forums.spiralknights.c

http://forums.spiralknights.com/en/node/2365#comment-14771 (Post #6)

Exactly what I experience except not as frequently. It can also happen when changing weapons with Spacebar and Mouse Wheel but it isn't as extreme and is predictable.

Core i7 920 @ 2.66GHZ, ASUS P6T Mother Board
6 gig DDR3 1600 RAM
500g SATA2 HDD
Auzentech Forte
Gainward Geforce 250gts "Deep Green" 1024MB PCI-E (267.24 drivers, latest introduce graphical oddities)
Windows 7 Home Premium x64
Thermaltake 750watt Toughpower Power Supply
Thermaltake Armor+ MX case.
Very latest Java x86 and x64

Sat, 04/09/2011 - 12:32

#11

jaybud4

Legacy Username

I get this too.It would

I get this too.
It would appear to be a textbook memory leak, although without any way to enable any sort of debugging information (see below), that's about the extent of what I can say about it.
It starts occurring roughly 4-5 floors in, and gets steadily worse until the client crashes. Once restarted, everything is just fine.

I was going to try changing the garbage collector at runtime to see if I could fix it that way, but apparently you don't allow that.

jvmarg = -XX:ParallelGCThreads=2
jvmarg = -XX:+CMSIncrementalPacing
jvmarg = -XX:+UseParNewGC
jvmarg = -XX:+UseConcMarkSweepGC

I noticed you have a debugging line in there too...
# jvmarg = -XX:ErrorFile=%APPDIR%/hs_err.log

Unfortunately, getdown.txt is simply reverted at launch, so I have no way of actually doing either of those things.
EDIT: Yes, I have the latest video card drivers, and I just reinstalled Java, so I'll be testing that shortly, although I doubt anything will change.
Relevant rig information:
i7-860 x4 @ 4.0 GHz
NVIDIA GTX-470
8 GB DDR3 RAM

EDIT3: And another edit because reinstalling Java did absolutely nothing. It worked for a while, but it came back eventually. I can't reinstall Java every 3 hours, so clearly there's something wrong here.

Sat, 04/09/2011 - 09:36

#12

Zirkus

Legacy Username

I seem to only get this...

After long periods of playing the game. I have large amounts of free time to play games, and after the client has been open for 2-3hours i start getting random 1 second lag like was shown in the video. So im tempted to agree with the memory leak explanation.

Sat, 04/09/2011 - 18:22

#13

trens

Legacy Username

This is really minor now that

This is really minor now that I know how to avoid it, but when you lose 10 energy because of a bug. The game is technically charging you money for there being a bug in the game.

You cannot reconnect if you lose connection or restart the client really quick.

Sat, 04/09/2011 - 22:31

#14

Franpa

Legacy Username

You should be able to Trens

You should be able to Trens if your connection is lost or the game crashes (Note: Not Alt-F4). You have to be in a party greater then one however, or so I hear.

Sat, 04/09/2011 - 23:40

#15

trens

Legacy Username

I want to correct myself, now

I want to correct myself, now it is starting as soon as I join a level with frost or fire.

I have reinstalled the game, everything is up to date, and everything is way beyond the specs required.

Sat, 04/09/2011 - 23:49

#16

Kyajin

I get this sometimes too, and

I get this sometimes too, and it also seems to happen after leaving the client on for awhile. A restart usually helps the problem significantly.

Sun, 04/10/2011 - 01:18

#17

trens

Legacy Username

I noticed something while on

I noticed something while on the level before the Jelly King. The banners will flicker and show different textures.

Sun, 04/10/2011 - 10:31

#18

zeroDOTjon

Legacy Username

similar issues

I've been having similar problems, except when mine freezes it crashes my video display drivers and everything resets to minimum resolution and 8 colors. I have no choice but to reboot my machine when this happens but oddly enough it won't let me select shut down from the menu. I have to hold the power button in until it turns itself off.

I have all my graphical settings set to the minimum so I don't lag.

I have Win XP SP2. My machine's not the best, but it runs plenty of other games (on lower graphics settings). I play League of Legends, Final Fantasy XI (on max graphics but no shadows), a heavily modded and re-skinned Quake, etc etc and never have issues like this.

I'm also very VERY anal about making sure everything on my PC is current and compatible with whatever I'm dong. On paper, I shouldn't be having these problems.

Anyone having similar issues?

Sun, 04/10/2011 - 10:34

#19

Benamas

Legacy Username

> making sure everything on

> making sure everything on my PC is current

> XP SP2

i'm sensing some sort of disconnect here

Sun, 04/10/2011 - 12:08

#20

trens

Legacy Username

ZeroDotJon, No one is

ZeroDotJon, No one is supposed to be having these problems.

Sun, 04/10/2011 - 12:18

#21

Dogrock

I've been having similar

I've been having similar problems, except when mine freezes it crashes my video display drivers and everything resets to minimum resolution and 8 colors.
That is almost certainly a display driver issue. Make sure you are up to date in drivers published by the chipset manufacture, not your PC brand.

I'm trying to tease out this on my PC, unfortunately I just don't have the stint of time to play the 2+ hours at once where most people are reporting this.

Sun, 04/10/2011 - 23:29

#22

zeroDOTjon

Legacy Username

"> making sure everything on

"> making sure everything on my PC is current

> XP SP2

i'm sensing some sort of disconnect here"

haha I see what you did there.

I meant current as far as my PC goes. I'm not about to "upgrade" to a newer windows when this one works just fine... not to mention the cost...

My display drivers are current, I made sure of that just the other day because of small tearing issues I was having with another game. I also checked to make sure it wasn't a heat issue. I'm not sure what the problem could be.

Shortly after my previous post, I logged in again and got that same crash on the loading screen at 98%. 10 minutes later I tried again just to see what would happen and I logged in and played with no problems for an hour and a half before everything just froze. No graphical shenannigans this time, just locked up and I had to force shutdown again.

It's not like this game is even that resource intensive either. =/

Sun, 04/10/2011 - 23:48

#23

Akiyama

Legacy Username

Yeah. First post here.. but I

Yeah. First post here.. but I figured I'd chime in on this problem.

My system specs, not that it matters..

AMD Phenom II X3 720 @3.0GHz
4GB DDR2 RAM
EVGA GTX 460 1GB variety

I'm thinking along the lines of a memory leak as well.. and quite bad. Granted it's not as bad as Firefox tends to be, but still bad enough that it needs you to basically restart the client every hour and a half+. Just earlier, I was doing a Jelly King run, and we finished. When I got on the elevator to head back to Haven, my game just.. stopped when I hit the X button to signal I'm ready to head up. It's done that before; just stop responding. The game itself was still running (I could tell by the animation in the background continuing) but nothing would happen. It's as if I were disconnected from the server, so I had to x out of the game completely. Nothing gained, nothing lost, though, and obviously kept all my stuff.. but it's just a minor annoyance.

The other problem, the one others are talking about.. I'm also experiencing. Depending on the dungeon, my game runs fine. I actually switched from running V-Sync, to not.. just to mess with it. I keep V-Sync on, though because I don't see the real reason to go above 60 FPS in the game, especially since it's not graphically intensive. But in most dungeons, I easily cap at 59.9/60 FPS, and then in some dungeons.. I hover around 40-45, which of course is still okay.. but slightly weird considering the power of my video card. Not really an issue, though.

Either way, what will happen after a while is I'll be fighting something, slashing away, when suddenly the game has a hiccup and I teleport in the direction I was moving/swinging my sword. It's sort of a problem when I'm in the middle of my guard right before one of those tree golem things are swinging it's big arm at me, and it hiccups, causing me to get hit. I can usually still play around it and ignore it, but it's become a rather big nuisance.

My thinking behind it, though.. is since the game hasn't been up and running 'fully released' for too long, so it's understandable why it hasn't been fixed, and I have complete faith in Three Rings solving the problem.

Oh, and I run the game in windowed mode, high settings, only v-sync enabled on Advanced settings. Like I said; all these people with extreme settings, 8 GB of RAM, super powerful video cards, etc.. shouldn't be having problems with a game like this. Here's hoping for a fix!

Oh, and yes, I'm updated on my latest drivers/Java/all that jazz.

And sorry for the wall of text.

Mon, 04/11/2011 - 07:46

#24

Yoten

Legacy Username

Chiming in that I have this

Chiming in that I have this problem too. I've heard many of my guildmates complaining about it too, but I don't know their setups.

Windows XP 32-bit
Intel core 2 duo, 2.66 GHz
ATI Radeon HD 5870
Video drivers and Java up-to-date.

I posted about this earlier at http://forums.spiralknights.com/en/node/2260 , and I still think the issues are related. Performance degrades over time if the client is running for a few hours, and if I keep playing even beyond that it will eventually just crash to the desktop during a loading screen without any kind of warning or error message.

Mon, 04/11/2011 - 12:46

#25

Clubsdeuce

I am having this exact same

I am having this exact same issue as well and it only fixes itself if I close the game and come back. I have to run with my guild and tell them every 5 floors that I have to log out and back in for this game to work properly with no lag. Works almost every time but really is annoying.

Specs
Windows XP 32-bit Service Pack 3
AMD Athlon(tm) 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 3.10 GHz
3.25 GB of RAM
ATI Radeon HD 3200
Over 300 GB of hard drive space still free
Video drivers and Java are up to date.

Mon, 04/11/2011 - 14:03

#26

Deslare

Legacy Username

Same issue Intel Core 2 Duo

Same issue

Intel Core 2 Duo 1.6
GeForce 9600GT
2GB Ram
100 GB free

Uninstalled Spiral Knights, updated my drivers, uninstalled all of my Java versions and installed the new one, installed Spiral Knights. Still getting this issue.

Tue, 04/12/2011 - 08:00

#27

durikiu

Legacy Username

Same problem. ACPI

Same problem.

ACPI multiprocessor PC
GeForce 8800 GTS
3.25 GB RAM
Running in lowest visual settings
X00 GB free, where X > 1.

Other than the memory leak, this is a great game, hope to see it successful.

Tue, 04/12/2011 - 16:02

#28

Benamas

Legacy Username

> I'm not about to "upgrade"

> I'm not about to "upgrade" to a newer windows when this one works just fine... not to mention the cost...

SP3 is free

Wed, 04/13/2011 - 18:12

#29

Reekusan

Legacy Username

Same problem, all drivers are

Same problem, all drivers are current, Java updated, specs far above minimum, and tried setting the graphics low but still no luck :/

Wed, 04/13/2011 - 19:10

#30

jaybud4

Legacy Username

Helping out

jvmarg = -XX:ParallelGCThreads=2
jvmarg = -XX:+CMSIncrementalPacing
jvmarg = -XX:+UseParNewGC
jvmarg = -XX:+UseConcMarkSweepGC
I noticed you have a debugging line in there too...
# jvmarg = -XX:ErrorFile=%APPDIR%/hs_err.log
Unfortunately, getdown.txt is simply reverted at launch, so I have no way of actually doing either of those things.

Is there any way this could be unlocked? I suspect that, if the GC optimizations don't fix it, your error logging might help pinpoint the issue...

Thu, 04/14/2011 - 07:06

#31

trens

Legacy Username

Jaybud4, let us know if you

Jaybud4, let us know if you figure anything out!

Thu, 04/14/2011 - 13:14

#32

Ufana

I'm getting the same. Also

I'm getting the same.

Also (hope this isn't unrelated): Sometimes it's looking totally out of sync. Player movement is slowing down and then getting really fast. Looks like really bad clientside prediction and bad internet connection. Except that it's not ;)

I'm on arch x86_64, everything fine & up to date with my machine and java. Tried a few older kernels, older java versions: same error.

Fri, 04/15/2011 - 17:02

#33

Tekofe

Legacy Username

Same problem here. It's

Same problem here.
It's getting quite frustrating, so I'll just refrain from playing until this is fixed.

Sat, 04/16/2011 - 02:20

#34

Ufana

After looking at it more

After looking at it more closely and some feedback by other players on my team when it happens, this looks like two different problems to me. Unless (2) is just a more extreme version of (1) - not sure.
1) Periodical "blackout", small sliding - mostly just "stuttering", character continues to walk into the direction of key pressed which is not shown until the "flash" stops. Chat & sound stutter too, world & other players seem stuck too. Almost possible to foresee the next "flash" & act accordingly. The other players movement looks affected too sometimes (but isn't in their client).
2) Video / own position all "out of sync". Sound & chat mostly work, also what's going on in the world is mostly displayed accurate - except for the own position / movement which seems to reset randomly. Other players look as if they're moving normally and almost in realtime - they can point out your real position to you by standing on you or help you navigate by pointing into the right direction. You also can sometimes guess where you're really standing by looking at where monsters aim/hit.

Anyway... I'm not entirely certain if the two are the same and of which one you're speaking here, so I opened another "bug" here for (2) with link to a screen cap.
http://forums.spiralknights.com/en/node/3501

[i](Doesn't this game have a real bugtracker? I'm not used to doing this in a forum, sry... so messy)[/i]

Sat, 04/16/2011 - 09:02

#35

Chrisisaguru

Legacy Username

A temporary fix (for me at least)

I had this happen a lot last night but found that going to task manager and forcing the jave.exe to end process and restarting spiral knights fixed this, at least until it happens again. At least it will work as a band-aide until this is resolved.

Just to note my specs: (this was the first time I exp this as well)
PhenomII x6
Radeon 5770 1gb

Mon, 04/18/2011 - 17:52

#36

Barcs

Legacy Username

Surely this knocks you out of

Surely this knocks you out of whatever dungeon you're in? No? When you restart are you the same place you were e.g. safe to do as long as you've killed any mobs nearby?

Fri, 04/22/2011 - 06:28

#37

NaFiann

Legacy Username

Same problem occurs on linux

So yeah, definitely a client problem then..

It looks like the run script appends its arguments as arguments for java, so I might be able to try the options jaybud4 listed. Will report back if I have success doing this.

[EDIT]

well, I've run it with multiple variables, but it looks like the main executable splits off in another process which only uses the variables listed in getdown.txt (at least that's what it looks like). So I'm getting error reports, but nothing interesting. Can't increase the heap size, or change garbage collector. So looks like we're at the mercy of the devs here.

Fri, 04/22/2011 - 08:41

#38

Toomah

Legacy Username

Same freezing problem on OSX

I also get hit with the same 2-4 second freezing issue, resulting with me ending up moved in whatever direction I was facing at the freeze. This occurs, sporadically, when any of the above conditions is met (fire/ice, 2-3+ hours of play, 4 or so dungeon levels deep, etc).

Java is up-to-date.

MacBook Pro
Mac OS X version 10.6.7
2.6 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
4 GB 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM
NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT (4-lane, 512 MB VRAM)

In-game settings:
Display Mode: 1920x1200x32 0Hz
Fullscreen: On
Graphics Quality: Low (just in case it helps having it turned down, but it doesn't, the game runs the same on Medium or High)
Vertical Sync: On
Compatibility Mode: Off
Render Effects: Off

Sun, 04/24/2011 - 22:33

#39

cryptomancer

Legacy Username

Same thing as everyone else

I absolutely hate this. So the group of us have this issue, and when I describe it to others most claim they've never had this happen. Same usual tech support rigamarole as everyone else: java, drivers, settings- it doesn't work. There's something seriously wrong going on, either with the client, or with Java itself. If this happens to me during a trip through the clockworks, if it wasn't in a place I could already afk safely, I'm Fd. If I die, I can't even click "get up" until it passes- and most of the time this lasts long enough that it auto times me out and ports me back to Haven. Thanks, my time and ce were completely wasted those runs, because the client decides to start choking on frames/packets/java.

So when are we going to hear from anyone of note that this is even an acknowledged issue?

Sun, 04/24/2011 - 23:33

#40

Providence

Legacy Username

I'm sorry that you're not

I'm sorry that you're not satisfied with the community help here. The devs drop by and comment when they can, but that is very rare--if you are having problems and want a direct, personalized response from Three Rings, you should contact them through the support portal. This forum is for regular players to help each other with common problems. Uncommon, or unsolvable problems should be reported to Three Rings.
http://wiki.spiralknights.com/Support_Portal

Sun, 04/24/2011 - 23:35

#41

Jalok

I get the same problem too.

I get the same problem too. The game would hic up a couple of times throughout in the levels. Freeze and Un-freeze. Usually occurs when a lot is going on or enemies spawn. I think it is a saying that my computer took a dump?
I don't know. I think it is a java thing. Minecraft would do that hic-up too at times.

Wed, 04/27/2011 - 14:19

#42

jooozek

Legacy Username

It happens to me too, usually

It happens to me too, usually i manage to get through one tier run with maybe 1 or 2 freezes but after that its few freezes per floor. Restarting the game helps.

Wed, 04/27/2011 - 15:55

#43

DaddyZebra

Legacy Username

Tried everything

I have a nearly identical computer that Toomah has, a 15 in Macbook Pro. My windows partition has no problem playing the game. However, on the mac side, I have slowdowns, stutterings, and the likes. Sent a report to the suport portal. Sadly, they are unsure as to what to do to fix the problem.

I have started up in safe mode and tried to open the game. But I can't even open it. There is something wrong with the game not being as good for the mac or apple's version of java does not work just as well.

Adjusting java's preferences did nothing to help. Also, increasing the fans' speed did nothing as well.

I don't know what else to do but complain to Apple, Java, and Three Ring.

Fri, 04/29/2011 - 01:31

#44

cryptomancer

Legacy Username

What help?

"I'm sorry that you're not satisfied with the community help here."
This is a thread of me-too's and straw-grasping. There's a serious issue, affects enough people, and there is no solution, no workaround. I daresay it's beyond the "community" to fix it. And that's precisely my point. If going through normal support had a solution, you'd think it'd be here by now, but there isn't, and it ain't. So what are you sorry about, then? Hm?

Fri, 04/29/2011 - 18:08

#45

Toomah

Legacy Username

Touchy...

I'm willing to bet that this is a known issue, and one that's being addressed, so the best we can do is give as much info to 3O as we collectively can.
It's unfortunate that they have yet to acknowledge this issue, but even if they did, what would that accomplish other than getting them flamed for not being *right* on top of it and fixing it *yesterday*? I believe they are doing the right thing by using the 5 minutes it would take to reply to us to instead keep up work on a fix. We've all seen what kind of "special" individuals post on these forums complaining about how broken the game is, how CE's "*too* haaaaard to geeeeetttt (wah)"; imagine giving them one more thing to cry SK-apocalypse about?

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Screen freezing and unfreezing, randomly teleporting.