Tech Problem- Company of Heroes:OF

Gaffer

I just bought Company of Heroes: Opposing Fronts via Steam and added it to my retail version of vanilla CoH (they seemed to integrate okay.) In any event, I sat down to slog through the first British mission and was met with some graphical errors and poor performance.

Symptoms:

-black screen with sound
-crashing/locking up
-very poor framerate
*Artillery effects produced the most lockups

Tried:
-clearing hardisk space +defrag
-verifying steam cache files
-removing old drivers +installing new ones
-letting system cool after long day of gaming

Result:
Game loads and plays, but produces lockups when Artillery barrages connect with something (not sure what it is, but the crash isn't immediate--- it occurs after 10 minutes of nonstop fire from the 25lb guns.)

I think this crash is related to the explosion effect, but can't be sure. Some of what I did seemed to ease the earlier problems. I was able to play vCoH while the files downloaded from Steam, so i'm baffled on what to do next. I know many PAers have played/owned this game (and not finding a better tech support area in CoH forums), so this is my first try at finding a solution to this problem.

I'm going to try playing again tomorrow; if anything changes I'll update this thread. I know this was long to read, but it is hard to pigeonhole all the details (If I omitted anything useful, ask and I can post it.)


Edit: I placed the latest version of DirectX that steam prompted me to install and I lowered graphics settings to ease memory usage. Maybe try turning effects off entirely?

TychoCelchuuu

Have you updated your graphics drivers? Also, what are your system specs?

Gaffer

Hehe

Specs would help wouldn't they.... On my laptop atm but if I can remember them


3200+ AMD Venice (2.0 gHz)
8600GT w/ latest graphics drivers
1 Gig Ram dual channel (forgot make/model, but reasonably good stuff)
110 gig ATA hardrive with ~25% free (just defragged)
Socket 939 Mobo (Asus , think it's a 8AN-SLI?)

For what it's worth, performance test is good; mid 70's on high end with mid 30's under heavy combat.

When I was playing earlier infantry combat was fine; no rifles causing crashes. Methinks this is an error with the way the artillery effect is displayed (maybe just graphical display in general.) Still insight is needed.

I'm off to bed, and will check this thread in the morning.

TychoCelchuuu

Okay, go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\THQ\COMPANY OF HEROES in your registry (Start > Run > Regedit) and find your CD Key (I don't know exactly what it looks like). Write that down somewhere. Uninstall everything, then reinstall Opposing Fronts. Once it's installed there should be an option ingame to unlock the original Company of Heroes: enter your CD Key and it should unlock. If that doesn't fix things then I guess you could try some more stuff but this seems like the bets option to try first.

Gaffer

I'm going to fiddle a bit more to see what happens, but otherwise this may be the nuclear option. Also of note, I was playing Guild Wars earlier and the game crashed to desktop in less than a second (no black screen hanging). Reloaded and played fine after. Hoping this isn't a videocard issue as my last one crapped out and the current one isn't year old yet.

DeShadowC

If it is a video card issue, not saying it is, it being less then a year old means you can probably RMA it.

kaliyama

it may be an issue of overheating, instead of permanent damage? you might try opening up your case, cleaning out all the fans (including the one on the video card), and training a fan on the innards, and seeing if you still get problems.

Gaffer

Update:

I checked the Steam Forums (shudder) and one of the stickies stated that switching Steam's language from the default to another (and then back) will cause Stem to check for additional files to download. I did this and lo and behold I only had 85% next to CoH:OF. When it hit 100% I'll try to play and see what will happen.

As for the other posts, I already opened the case and hit it with the air spray + tried playing after letting the computer sit. No dice so far. Let's just hope some files were MIA and that the thing with GW was random.

Gaffer

Double Post, but an update.

With extra files game plays fine, but seems to crash upon loading missions (2 for 2 on loading the next mission after I've managed to bet one).

Drivers and Directx are current and I've had no video card problems to speak of today. Can't find any tech forums where an issue like mine has been presented or solved though .

I'll be persistent though.

Gaffer

Update 3


just tried playing Vanilla CoH mission via OF in steam; same issue happened. I think I'm going to try registering and posting at a CoH forum to resolve this. I'll keep this open if anybody else has an idea to contribute, etc. Not likely this is a hardware issue by present logic.