Fatal Error upon Zoning into Tranquil Sea

I believe Shader 3.0 is utilized and required now for the new overland zones, which requires a compatible graphics card/software

Sorry I refuse to play the "its your system, not the game" boondoggle with you.

Up to the release of AoM I had 0 issues with this game. All my software and drivers are up to date and not one single one of my other games are experiencing issues.

I have been the head of the IT department of a mid-sized company for over 15 years and have been working with computers since the TRS-80 days.

Yes you might be correct when it comes to "Joe-six pack" users and their Intel 4000 IG solutions. But I don't fall into that category.

I have been playing since 2005, and never before have I crashed so much in the last month or so in this game.... usually during zoning and sometimes just running around. I am now also forced to run on extreme performance if I want to minimise these crashes.

This is unprecedented for me (High Performance and Balanced were my usual settings).

Time for SoE to start manning up and admit they are at fault for the cause of these problems. I am a full time gamer and EQ2 isnt the only thing I play, and every other game on my system works flawlessly.

As most of my crashes appear to be memory related, I am going to suggest as I did before and say that this is some kind of memory management issue, maybe they tried to optimize it for better performance but it had the adverse effect of consuming more RAM in way that causes client instability, and eventual crashes which dump outofmemory.txt files to your Everquest 2 root folder.

I respect your expertise, and surely you know that the most up-to-date drivers are not always the most stable, nor does installing them guarantee compatibility with an older game like EQ2. I responded to your post with the intention of helping you fix your fatal error (some people are crashing every time they load into either Tranquil or Phantom Sea, I assumed you were too by listing your system specs). Indeed, the optimization was great for pre-AoM and the devs have also been working on reducing the RAM requirements of the new zones (during and after Beta). From the amount of people I have seen running around Altar of Malice, I think it would be fair to say that the majority of players have not suffered from debilitating crashes. If you have specific grievances or ideas about what may be causing your problems, I urge how to get in contact with SOE's technical support, especially given your IT experience.

Personally, I solved my issue by uninstalling the newer software and replacing it with the older ones (I believe the key step was uninstalling all of the C++ Redistributables on my system and replacing it with x64 and x86 ones relevant to EQ2). I have been running Altar of Malice smoothly since fixing the fatal error crash.

DIag, how much memory do you have in your system?

The only way I would even consider trying that is if I only played EQ2. Since I do not. I'm not going to make all my other games not work just to fix EQ2. Especially considering I was having 0 issues before the release of AoM. 0 issues and then the game updated to install the Expansion then CTDs all over the place. Which logically means that there is a bug in the programing of the newer game engine. I'm not just CTDing when zoning into the new area, its now doing it all over including my house in Qeynos and our Guildhall in Freeport.

My system:

Intel i7 Ivy Bridge - Water-cooled
Kingston Hyper-X DDR3 16 gigs
MSI Mainboard Z77 MPower
2 x MSI Nvidia 760 in Sli
Corsair AX860i Power supply
Corsair GS 240 Gig SSD - windows
WD Black 2TB HDD - games and programs

EQ2 standard installation with EQ2 maps and Profit UI
Running Extreme Quality (Custom, no flora) @ a steady 40+ FPS

And another bit of info as I reported this very problem during beta.

In beta I crashed, I would switch back to my live server install and once again have 0 issues. I wasn't the only person who reported this during beta and I did pass my DXDIAG along to the Dev in charge of the graphic updates. That they decided to release the expansion without fixing the bug first means either they were pressed for time, or IMHO couldn't find it. That they still haven't fixed it means to me that they are still looking for it.

And regarding all the people you see running around in AoM, a bunch of my friends (who don't use the forums) are also having the issue, we suck it up, restart the game and carry on. I'm willing to bet a lot of those other people are doing the same.

3GB RAM with 8GB paging file set.

Bear in mind years ago I used to play on an old Celeron D, XP PC with 1.5GB RAM and not so much as a sniff of a memory related crash did I ever have with that.

Yes. That there are people running around the zone and not posting on here doesn't mean the problem isn't more widespread.

My daily routine went something like this: Use bell in guild hall to travel to the tranquil sea. Fatal error. Shut game down, restart and have my character on the docks. Run around zone questing or harvesting, game closes without any error or warning, just poof it's gone. /sigh, consider taking a hammer to it but simply wanting to just play the game decide to restart again, carry on and wait for the next random shut down. Rinse and repeat.

Actually, no it's not - if the failure points to a drive on the server it can NOT be a local machine issue - it has to be in the code

Um, worked fine before the update, all other games work just fine, so who's fault is it? Mine? Upgrade when everything else works just fine EXCEPT this game?'

Ok. I'll upgrade - just send me a check for what $1500 should do it for a decent laptop to run the game?

Are you serious?

^ this
Plus I now have to mentally prepare for taking my crafters to do the daily. Have to restart every time I change toons to take them to Tranquil is tiring.

I have no issues with various other games either.

OK, I am the OP, and my fatal error was also pointing to the G drive....fixed my software, voila! No more crashing, which would suggest that the problem was on my end and software related.

Different fixes seem to be working for different people. I might try rolling back my vc driver next. Either that or tear my hair out.

many of us have tried using the various methods described here - to no avail

It doesn't make sense that it's all our machines - after doing everything suggested here and still no resolution

I'm not trying to argue with you Ketu - but the rest of us need help and we're not getting it!

https://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/index.php?threads/direct-x-error.553076/

Again, I have to recommend working with technical support. They will be able to determine whether/how you can fix your issues on an individual basis if you submit your specs to them, a must for etiology. Unfortunately, it is a possibility your system simply needs to be upgraded or replaced. Best of luck!

Because buying a new gaming PC for a game that came out in 2004 makes a ton of sense. The mission of the developers was to make the game run better on (not so) current hardware. When a change goes live that makes it worse, then I'd say that something went horribly wrong.

I did work with tech support when the issue first presented itself at Expac release. Their ultimate answer to me was to boot my machine, run MSCONFIG and turn off everything that starts when the system comes up normally and run the game that way.

For very obvious reasons - that isn't a solution even IF it fixed the problem (which I doubt).

Me: Hello ISP Service Person, I just ran a diagnostic program on your DSL DSLAM outside my house and detected that it has been damaged, probably by water or condensation. This is the reason my Internet connection goes out every time it rains.

ISP Service guy: Please reset your router Mr. Adams.

Me: I just told you that the DSLAM is damaged, it is not my router and no I am not resetting it.

ISP Service guy: I'm sure its your router Mr. Adams so please reset it.

And so on and so forth... 20 mins later I've hung up and NOT reset my router. I call ISP 2.

Me: Hello ISP 2, ISP 1 doesn't want to fix my problem, how much does your service cost? And if I switch can you please run a diagnostic program on the DSLAM I'm connected to, I have an issue that every time it rains my Internet goes out.

ISP 2 Salesperson: Sure Mr Adams we can do that. And welcome to our service!

1 week later ISP 1 has a van parked out in front of my house when I get home from work.

I go up and talk to the technician , "Hey whats up?"

ISP 1 Technician: Oh the DSLAM is bad, looks like water got into the box and destroyed it, its a wonder your internet worked at all.

Me: Uhhh Huh, well I wish you a wonderful evening... and I walk to my house door whistling. I've been with ISP 2 ever since.

After spending 4 hours on all of the tips I'd found on the forums and various other sites, I found the problem to be with one of the drivers/programs associated with my graphics/DirectX. Apparently, there was a windows update that borked the file all to hell, something I never would have known unless the game would have thrown the error. DirectX didn't even pick it up, nor did two other programs that I ran as well. The only reason I even found it to be the problem was because one of the other programs said that there was another driver out of date, I went to get that driver and the website detected the other one as well. At least I got the issue fixed.

Paws, it would have been great for you to have mentioned what file you fixed in your post, for the rest of us.

D'oh! I meant to do that too! It was a gfxui associated file, and I do remember that at one point several months back I did see an update in Windows Update that stated it was for my graphics. It's odd, I know, that the file did not give me any problems until I zoned into AoM but I can tell you that the game looks tons better. Since I'd just come back from a break due to moving, I don't think I'd realized how the game had used to look.

Glad to hear it fixed it for you! Paws fix was only for the integrated intel graphic cards. The gfxui is the intel version of the catalyst menu for AMD cards and the Nvidia control panel for Nvidia cards.

Paws, its always a good idea not to let windows do graphic driver updates (as you found out the hard way) always get them from the Intel website directly.