The bugger crashes too often.

[Joistikas]

A very wonderful game. Except that it crashes just when I'm about to get into the game.

Started the Nathaniel Hawk storyline as a pirate. Game crashes when you die, and try to quickly reload, might even ruin save game too. Game crashes when you try to loot bodies in a boarded ship. Game crashes about anytime soon.

 

[Hylie Pistof]

If POTC crashes that much on you, then it is most likely either a bad download and/or install, or a hardware problem. You should never get more than one random crash a day.

 

[Joistikas]

Sorry mate, I just remembered that the laptop crashes on all Potc, build 13 and 14 alike. being it a hardware problem I suppose there's no way going around.

 

[Thagarr]

We have seen all kinds of hardware issues over the years mate, you would be surprised at the workarounds we have actually made work. However, without knowing the mod version your running or what your hardware is, there is really absolutely nothing we can do to help.

 

[Red Back Dude]

Spoiler

Ok so it crashes on an unknown laptop of an unknown age with an unknown version of the build...

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Log files might help too.

 

[Grey Roger]

There's definitely something suspicious about the laptop if it crashes with Build 13 as well. That was pretty well rock solid for me. Build 14 routinely crashed if I looted bodies or chests on ships, but that's almost cured with the current version, Beta 3.3.

What graphics does the laptop have? Intel, AMD, Nvidia? Do you have an up to date driver installed?

Which operating system is the laptop running - Windows XP, Windows 7, Windows 8? If Windows 7 or Windows 8, where have you installed the game? If it's in "C:\Program Files" or "C:\Program Files (x86)", that may be causing trouble - create a different folder e.g. "C:\Games" and install both the stock game and the Build Mod into that.

 

[Joistikas]

Alrighty, here is me computer specs and log files. I reinstalled beta 3.3 today, the game crashed just when I turned on world map. Game is intalled in D instead of C disk.

 

[Grey Roger]

Uninstall PotC completely. Install the basic game from CD's and see if that works. If so, then try adding the Build Mod.

 

[Thagarr]

Thanks for posting your specs mate, that makes things MUCH easier!

From what I have been able to find, it is most likely a memory issue. Your computer has 2 gig, but that memory is shared with your video card, Windows sucks at memory management to begin with, and when you have to share that memory with a video card it is even worse. Check your BIOS settings and see what the shared memory is set at, it should tell you somewhere in there. Increasing the shared memory for your video card will leave less for Windows though, so it is a pretty nasty catch 22. Make sure when you run the game that you are not running anything in the background in Windows, that includes virus checkers and firewalls, basically anything that isn't absolutely essential for Windows to run. It's best not to be connected to the Internet while playing, especially with all those disabled.

I am surprised you were able to even get Windows 7 running on that machine!! This game would run MUCH better on Windows XP! If you are still using the stock hard drive that came with your laptop, make sure you defrag it before you play this game, if you have changed to an SSD, ignore that advice. Another thing you might try is installing DirectX 9, it will install just fine on Windows 7, and offers much better backwards comparability than DirectX 11. You can get it HERE!

What Grey Roger suggests is a very good place to start, make sure it will run the stock game before you install any mods.

 

[Hylie Pistof]

Yes, this is a hardware problem. A 1.6 ghz cpu and 2 gb of ram combined with win7 spells disaster for gaming. I am on win8.1 now and it is using 2.4gb of ram just sitting here. POTC crashes because it runs out of resources.

Have you tried Enditall? That will shut down all unneeded programs. I use IOBit Advanced System Care which has something called Turbo Boost in it. I just turned it on and my ram use dropped from 2.4 gb to 1.4 gb.

 

[Grey Roger]

Another thing you might try is installing DirectX 9, it will install just fine on Windows 7, and offers much better backwards comparability than DirectX 11.

I would be reluctant to do this. DirectX 9 might be backwards compatible but it's not forwards compatible, and any applications you currently have running which require DirectX 11 will not work if you install DirectX 9. Besides, I haven't touched DirectX, I'm using what was bundled with Windows 7, and Build 14 Beta 3.3 works just fine on my PC.

2GB is indeed inadequate, especially since PoTC leaks memory all over the place. Get yourself some more RAM. Not just PoTC but your entire system will thank you for it! You also don't have much hard drive space left, especially on the C: partition. Clear out temporary files and any other junk. Then defrag it. (We can rule out a SSD because Dx Diag says you have a ST9120822AS, which is a Seagate 120GB hard drive.)

 

[Grey Roger]

Have you tried Enditall? That will shut down all unneeded programs. I use IOBit Advanced System Care which has something called Turbo Boost in it. I just turned it on and my ram use dropped from 2.4 ghz to 1.4 ghz.

GHz isn't a measure of RAM, it's a measure of frequency. Applied to a PC, it probably means CPU speed, and anything which drops it from 2.4GHz to 1.4GHz is to be avoided like the plague!

So I haven't tried Turbo Boost, but I do use IOBit Advanced System Care, along with Smart Defrag 3 from the same company. You need to be careful when you're installing them because they try to sneak a bunch of other things in and mess with your browser, and the most common "fault" reported by the free version of Advanced System Care is that I'm not using the full version. (I also tried installing Advanced System Care on my work PC. It didn't speed the machine up but did alter one of the services settings so the machine couldn't log onto the network.)

 

[Thagarr]

I would be reluctant to do this. DirectX 9 might be backwards compatible but it's not forwards compatible, and any applications you currently have running which require DirectX 11 will not work if you install DirectX 9. Besides, I haven't touched DirectX, I'm using what was bundled with Windows 7, and Build 14 Beta 3.3 works just fine on my PC.

DirectX 9 will work just fine alongside DirectX 11, which is what is built in to Windows 7, in fact it gave me some great performance improvements running CoAS! The engine was originally written for DirectX 8, and 11 doesn't handle some of the engine calls properly, 9 does. The difference can cause instability and crashes in Windows 7.

 

[Hylie Pistof]

GHz isn't a measure of RAM, it's a measure of frequency. Applied to a PC, it probably means CPU speed, and anything which drops it from 2.4GHz to 1.4GHz is to be avoided like the plague!

So I haven't tried Turbo Boost, but I do use IOBit Advanced System Care, along with Smart Defrag 3 from the same company. You need to be careful when you're installing them because they try to sneak a bunch of other things in and mess with your browser, and the most common "fault" reported by the free version of Advanced System Care is that I'm not using the full version. (I also tried installing Advanced System Care on my work PC. It didn't speed the machine up but did alter one of the services settings so the machine couldn't log onto the network.)

Oops! Typo........Yes ram use is measured in gb and mb.

I have installed DX9 and it does make a difference in old games while new games run just fine.