Vid_restart crashes game - solutions or work-arounds?

[Kurupttt]

Community!

I have a new ET install on an old laptop. The game opens and i can join a server, i can play.
Its laggy with low and unstable FPS, pretty unplayable. The default ET graphics are used, i think they are set in the usual etconfig.cfg-file.

So i want to use my low graphic CFG. I can exec my cfg, my binds and all are okay then..but my game crashes without notice on vid_restart.
This also happens when i join a server and dont even exec a cfg and just do a vid_restart right away (so nothing should change in graphics, since no cvars are changed..).
The vid_restart command seems to crash the game. 'Crash' in this sense is -> i see a black screen for a couple of seconds, then i revert to my desktop. No errors or something.

I have tried: running ET as administrator, but also in the regular way. Have tried multiple servers, multiple mods. Did uninstall/download again. Tried before exec'ing a cfg and after exec'ing a cfg. With vid_restart inside the cfg and without it being in it. With and without my original copied ETKey.

Am i overlooking things? Things i can try? 
Is there a possibility to make my low-graphics-FPS-cfg as default, so i dont have to exec and vid_restart? For instance, by replacing the standard etconfig.cfg-file. so i just cirumvent the vid_restart-issue? Appears like this will be automatically overwritten when i run the game. 
Or should i try and add all the cvar changes in the path i use to exec as administrator for instance? 

Open to all suggestions, thanks in advance!

Edited November 2, 2023 by Kurupttt

[razjee]

Are you using etlegacy or 6b ? 

[Kurupttt]

It's ETLegacy 2.81.1, the one that is most prominent on the homepage of etlegacy.com
You figure it could be worth the try to try an older version?

[razjee]

I use the latest version of etl and haven't had any problems. Maybe you have the wrong resolution set in the cfg and during vid_restart there is a crash, I had this a few times 😂, you can also try renaming the cfg to autoexec, then the cfg will load when you start the game 

[Kurupttt]

Yeah i know the issue isnt in my cfg, since the game crashes when i do a /vid_restart without exec'ing a cfg. 
I'm gonna try and see what renaming my personal cfg to autoexec does, dzieki!

[Leatherface]

And u did DL 32 bit, and not 64 bit of ETlegacy ?

 

[RendeL]

@Kurupttt if nothing else helps, could you post that cfg, so we could take a look. I was thinking same than @razjee already said, that it is a resolution issue. If you have set it in cfg, ETL recommends using r_mode -2 instead of old cvar -1 and then the proper resolution settings.

[RedBaird]

4 hours ago, RendeL said:

ETL recommends using r_mode -2 instead of old cvar -1 and then the proper resolution settings.

 

I had a recent problem with 2.6b where the r_mode -1 in all my mods' configs got reset to the default of 6 or even "".   Vid_restart and snd_restart would cause various problems, but not crashes. 

 

My etmain config was okay and still had "-1".

 

It seems that configs can get mysteriously changed sometimes.  

 

The most amusing problem that this caused was when I used et_minizer to get to the desktop and corrected the resolution there, my ET r_mode changed to "4" and ET was shown in a quarter-screen on the upper left!  😮 

[Leatherface]

I got r_mode 1 in Legacy

[Kurupttt]

Thanks for your responses and help! I'm a step further: it must be something within my cfg as suggested.

- When i do a fresh download, /vid_restart (without exec'ing a cfg) -> works
- When i do a fresh download, /exec cfg + /vid_restart works -> this works with a different cfg (took RMKS's cfg from forum to test)
- When i exec my own cfg -> it crashes (while i put in the same r_mode -2 as is stated in RMKS's cfg - doesnt work with r_mode -1 aswell..)
@Leatherface it is the 32bit version

Ergo: cfg looks to be the issue, r_mode is a question mark.  

I can merge my cfg with RMKS's one to atleast be able to play. Can alter single values until it doesn't work anymore. So that is a solution. But maybe there's a quick fix within my cfg (removing r_mode and using it in the path f.i.?)

@RendeL
My CFG:kurlan3.cfg

Note that this is the initial version of my cfg that i tried, without changing anything. I have tried removing resolution cvars and changing r_mode to -2, with that it still crashed. 

rmks.cfg

[RendeL]

Took a quick look on your cfg and not sure if there is much of an issue, tho some depends on your hardware maybe, will look a bit better if this wont fix.

 

What laptop it is:

Ati or nvidia gpu - if nvidia, set r_primitives to 0 (now set 2 and it is for ati, maybe why et lagged?)

Refresh rate set to 60 hz, try set 0 or if laptop support, set it's max value

Increase com_hunkmegs and com_soundmegs to 192 AND put these values on command line of ETL quicklaunch. Mine looks like this: "C:\Program Files (x86)\ETLegacy\etl.exe" +connect b2.clan-fa.com:27960 +com_hunkmegs 192 +com_soundmegs 192

 

Let us know if problem persists.

 

//EDIT: try set these to 0:

seta r_ext_compressed_textures "1"

seta r_ext_gamma_control "1"

And maybe try lower r_gamma value

 

//EDIT2: also you could try to gather all your binds on a separate cfg and do the same with scripts and delete those from your main cfg: binds.cfg and scripts.cfg and then exec your main cfg, if that works, then exec binds.cfg and it would leave the scripts.cfg to be the issue and you can try first scripts, then binds to crossout issues.

Edited November 3, 2023 by RendeL

[Kurupttt]

Little update! I have followed up on these things. Now i am able to exec cfg and /vid_restart, which is positive. Even with the changes my FPS still horribly fluctuates between 20 and 40. Tweaked graphics and all, yet it still won't run properly. 
It must be my laptop. It is an old puppy and even manages to lag/be slow when i open any document on it. ATI or NVIDIA? It says it is an Intel GPU. Anyways, i don't see any way working around it so i'm getting a different computer within 2 weeks. Til then, i will just warp through our precious server. 

Thanks for thinking along, i've learned some things and fixed some things. 
 

[RendeL]

I quess you must've the integrated gpu and as you said, it could be your laptop that actually is the bottleneck here.

Anyways I hope to see you soon on servers and within a new pc, maybe also on application section

[Tukkonen]

33 minutes ago, RendeL said:

maybe also on application section

 

Smooth af, but totally agree 😎

[RedBaird]

I was just thinking that you could open Task Manager (if using Windows) and get an idea if something in the background is using resources.  I keep it on the Task Bar.

 

I sometimes have playing troubles when my online back program, Carbonite, starts running in the background, even though I set it to run when the computer is mostly idle.  I guess that ET does not count as much of a load these days!  Carbonite does 'steal' network resources when it runs.

 

I opened my taskbar to get an SS, when I noticed unsual usages, for just having 32 browser tabs open. 😄 

 

 

In that instant, Carbonite was not using the Internet very much, so the Ethernet window looks fairly normal.

 

Checking the Processes page got this: 

 

 

I still didn't catch it when it was uploading or transferring information.  

 

You might not get the same results with a more modern computer, but I used this as an example of what a 'background process' could do.

 

Then there are the various forms of malware.   I don't think that a bitcoin-miner would bother trying to steal cycles from a motherboard GPU, but.   A 're-mailer' is possible.  😄  You could just have a "corrupted" program or driver, too.  

 

AH, and you are probably using higher resolutions than I am. 

 

You might consider opening the Task Manager before starting ET.  See what is 'normal' for ET and then check Task Manager when you have 'bouncy pings!'  

 

You could try running WinMtr (see FA files section) to see if some node in the path from your computer to FA-EU servers are having issues.  You could also run it for the FA-US servers as a comparison.