(32-bit OS Users) Work Around for constant crashing after 5-30 minutes of play

Why u guys running a 32bit OS in the first place? Especially with that kind of hardware? I would do a profile migration and just install the 64 bit version. The CD Keys are the same between the 2. Meaning if u have a 32 bit install, you can install the 64bit edition using the same key.

Why 32bit?

Erm, because no game has been worth the expense or effort of upgrading maybe?

I mean seriously. In the past year, of all the games I've played, none of them have *needed* 64bit. The majority of developers are still managing to squeeze fantastic visuals and performance out of 32bit systems. Personally, the only reason I even have 4GBs of RAM is because my motherboard died, and I had to get new RAM for the new mobo's slots.

Is everybody forgetting how gorgeous Crysis still looks, considering it's a 5-year-old game?

Alright, so I'm having the same sort of problem, I'll play for a little while and it'll freeze up on me, and in addition I'm an outright amateur with general computer stuff, so I don't touch anything important basically. I'm running windows xp service pack 3 32 bit with an intel core 2 duo E7500, plus 3.25 gb of ram and a Nvidia Gforce gtx 550 ti. I get the felling jacking the ram up a few gigs will clear this up, but still, anyone got any advice?

Running Windows 7 32 bit, more than ample system to run this game max everything.
Was Having lock ups every 10 mins, first I did the CMD step with no luck. Then did the beta drivers and allocated more virtual ram which seemed to do the trick for me. Thanks for the troubleshooting steps!

I tried A), and this is what i got

-the boot configuration data store could not be opened
-Access is denied

what's wrong?

You clearly don't understand page file. If your computer runs out of pagefile, it doesn't start using available ram. It starts thrashing the hard drive.

Ok just one quick question before i mess around with my memory. In case there occure any problems, how can I undo these changes?

Would this work? /set IncreaseUserVA 2046


The word "Increase" irritades me because it´s acutally a decrease.

Thank you so much for discovering this solution. My friend's been playing it for over 30 minutes without a single crash, which is already very good considering he kept crashing every 10 minutes of the game.

This is definitely working. Thanks again! :} We can finally play together in peace.

Hi Veratu,

I'd just like to report that I have the exact same issue that MXXVI posted:

“Well, it seems the game doesn't actually like that configuration: after setting the /3GB switch, the launcher decided that my graphics card was no longer adequate (even though it blatantly is). I can only assume the graphics card drivers didn't like being deprived of that RAM...because as soon as I restarted *without* the switch, the launcher is fine again >.<”


I have WinXP Pro SP3 (32-bit), Intel Core2Quad (@2.66GHz), 4GB of RAM, and an ATI Radeon HD 4870.

I enabled the /3GB switch by editing boot.ini, and after rebooting successfully and choosing the 3GB boot option, the PS2 launcher told me my card wasn't capable of running the game. I've been playing it for hundreds of hours with no issue besides the RAM-related crashes before using this switch. I'm not using crossfire, just the single card. Here's the messages it returns:

"Your graphics card is not capable enough for this game (VendorID=0x1002, DeviceID=0x9440, Name=ATI Radeon HD 4870)"

I think if you guys had any way of resolving this error on the launcher, we 32-bit users could use this as a band-aid solution quite happily until your more long-term solution can be realised! Unfortunately this is the only way for people with XP Pro to fix it that I can find, because bcdedit isn't an option.

Can you allow us to disable the hardware check on the launcher perhaps? Surely if it won't run, it won't run. What's the harm in letting us try and avoiding this erroneous message getting in the way?

I hope this helps. If you want me to post dxdiag or something I'd be more than happy to do so.

QUICK UPDATE - I have discovered that activating the /3GB switch disables a portion of directx in some way. You can see this by the fact that in the display tab in dxdiag, many buttons are greyed out. The following features are listed as not available:

DirectDraw Acceleration
Direct3D Acceleration
AGP Texture Acceleration

It seems that unfortunately, this switch prevents certain directx features from working correctly, which I guess affects the functionality of the graphics card.

Does this mean people using XP Pro are screwed?

Im a 64 bit user and have similar problems.
Since one day i have to challenge crashdowns. after about 2 minutes ingame a windows notification on desktop appears which tells me not having enough virtual memory (4 GB RAM, Planetside2 never before made trouble). After an amount of total random minutes (usually around 10, but sometimes 30 or even an hour) the game fully crashes down.

No matter how much space I give to the page file it wont help. I already got the nVidia beta driver (got a GT 240 and tried the 310.61, now downloading .64) and still the problem.

Interesting fact is that since I got this problem, everytime I start my computer the windows settings to manage the virtual memory appears (the window JojoTheSlayer is describing in his first post under A, step 2.

There was a windows update i did on yesterday (around 1:00 AM). Since the day I have this problem but no chance for system recovery: I can only find the 2nd decembre to chose as recovery date and in the end the whole recovery has not worked. A windows notification apears like "oh noes, something went wrong. maybe you got an anti virus program. turn it off and try again" I turned it off and tried again - same happened -.-

If you are apprehensive about trying to change stuff with your computer you should at least read the OP properly first.
Before I test stuff I usually google the subject and read a bit about it. Which I also did for bcdedit. However, you didnt even read the first post properly before you said you where worried and claimed stuff that isnt correct...


Is there a chance of issues?
Well, yes, its a computer. The risk is very minimal though if you have 4 gigs hardware ram.
Crossing the street also has some risk.


Would 2046 work?
No, default is 2gigs. 2024 "is" 2 gigs. The increaseuserVa option in laymen terms sets the balance in % between normal programs and kernel programs. Kernel being critical for the OS. Default is 50/50 at 2gigs. You change that to 75/25 with 3072. As long as kernel programs have enough ram to run there is no issues. If they dont, you crash. The amount of hardware ram you have is technically irrelevant, but if you put a programs access to more than you have, combined, you crash if ether needs/wants more than you have and tries to use it. So you need 4gigs hardware ram on 32bit OS for this to run stable.


Increase = decrease?
No, if you took the time to read the OP you would have understood that you where wrong.
2 gigs is default. 3072 increases program ram access to 3gigs. You would also have noticed that the (R) parts text explains how to revert / remove the changes.


FYI, you can ONLY do this on a 32bit OS!

I am a layman myself, not an expert, but in layman terms. Applications at the front. As in a game you are playing. Dosent use virtual ram. Virtual ram is more for the background stuff. As in if you alt tab to use other stuff loaded into ram it would take longer because that was stored in virtual ram.

You sett a large page file to make sure everything the computer wants to put there has space to do so. The more a front program demands, the more OS wants to put back stuff in virtual ram. The only negative effect of having a large page file is that its mostly not needed and, to those with little storage, a "waste of hd space". Run out of ram though, be it virtual or hardware. You crash!

The exception to performance impact being some streaming games where you stream from the hard drive in a way that uses virtual ram. In those cases one might want to contemplate creating a bootable ram disk where virtual ram is assigned to that drive effectively *tricking the OS to use hardware ram as if it was virtual ram. That solution being about 3x faster than average SSD. The only game I have heard this having an effect, even then being debatable, is in Arma 2 flying a super sonic jet over a extremely populated huge map world with state of the art OCed hardware and 10Km render range (PS2 can scale down to about 10m in comparison)... Large VR is a none issue for 99% of games.

* There are reasons why some people dont just want to turn the page file off. Using hardware ram as virtual ram in this way has some minor OS cons. Some Windows functions store reports in VR. Hardware ram info is lost when power is cut. So for example blue screen of death reports, not the visual of the blue screen, but the actual readable log file will therefore be lost after reboot.

In (B) step - for which partition should i increase page file? the one i have ps2 installed on?

Alright I noticed right now that, every time I start my computer, the properties of the virtual memory is on "no part file". If I click on "managed by system" or fill in 10000 mb manually (and 200 mb minimum) it says to me that there already a file "c:\pagefiles.sys". If I say no nothing changes and if I click on overwrite the system needs to restart. after restart properties are on "no part file" again. my pc hates me SINCE a windows update BECAUSE Id like to play PlanetSide2...

Start_Programs_Accessories_Command Prompt. Right click "Command Prompt" and select Run as Administrator.
It should open CMD at administrator level IF you have access to do so.

I think Command Prompt is in accessories by default, but I might have moved it at one point. My Os is like 3 years install old... Anyway, you need to run CMD in admin mode to have access to change settings using Bcdedit.exe.

? what?
On what drive you have installed PS2 on is irrelevant for the OS virtual ram.
Normally you do not have virtual ram divided between more than one drive. Actually not having it on the same drive/partition as loaded OS is ineffective and might slow your system down.

If you have more OS partitions, not to be confused with having more than one hard drive, on different drives you need to do it on the one you have loaded and use for PS2.

Your question is so strange I think you might have misunderstood something tbh...

Try setting it to 2500 and see if Dxdiag gives you the same issues.
Worth a try...

....really I use over 2000mb all the time

Try setting VR to let Windows decide and reboot.
Go back to the VR Window and there should be a grayed out area with numbers on what Windows have currently set as VR.

Now try to set it to manual again using the same value in both boxes.

If that dosent work you might have an issue with something interfering with changing the value of VR.
This is what I found on the issue.

LINK 1
LINK 2

I don't see any way of doing this with an ATI/AMD video card and WindowsXP pro.

I tried but it just makes the entire system run at a snail's pace and not recognize the Video Card at all because the Kernal required for the Video card is over 1050mb and it doesn't seem to want to share that with the OS. The /USERVA switch sort of worked but apparently I would need atleast 6gb of RAM to pull this off and my board only supports up to 4.

This is a case where 32 bit 4GB ram users just need a setting in the UserOptions.ini to choose their own Memory block Maximum and have the game purge old Memory/Cache out whenever the Client stops looking around so much. Because in nearly all cases, it's all Texture/Map data for areas you're 1000's of KM's away from by now (or is in an entirely different Continent) and thus not even utilizing anymore.

Unfortunately, if you have windows xp 32 bit, you cant add any more ram, since your system wont support it. (max = 4GB).
The best you can do is try the /3GB switch, and use the /userva to fine tune the amount of memory you want to reserve for applications until you find a solution that works best on your PC.

If you have a 64 bit system, the easiest solution for you would be to just add some RAM, its pretty cheap to upgrade to like 8GB, and it will solve most your problems instantly without having to change any settings. 64 bit XP recognizes up to 128GB RAM.