Synapt

Possibly worth noting, the trigger for starting is ALT+P, not just P

... oh yeah, forgot I had to do that the first time :( Prob a good sign of needing sleep, neh.

To possibly help with this, for some reason my diag tool is now doing the same thing ever since I reinstalled w/ the dsound (pretty sure completely unrelated though), it's throwing me the "Critical Error: 0x1", but no crash of the app so much as a soft close. I can confirm as well looking at the .dll load for the process that mine is also trying to pull from .NET 4.0 instead of 4.5. Perhaps worse, when I went to look at my event viewer logs to see (despite it seemingly soft-crashing, figured I'd check), I noticed my previous crashes from the game itself. It appears the game and the actual LCPD:FR also are using .NET 4.0 instead of 4.5; Faulting application name: GTAIV.exe, version: 1.0.7.0, time stamp: 0x4bd9efbe Faulting module name: unknown, version: 0.0.0.0, time stamp: 0x00000000 Exception code: 0xc0000005 Fault offset: 0x2670397e Faulting process id: 0x282c Faulting application start time: 0x01cf4bfbfc4537ee Faulting application path: Z:GamesSteamsteamappscommonGrand Theft Auto IVGTAIVGTAIV.exe Faulting module path: unknown Report Id: cb6bf1f4-b7f5-11e3-a6b3-000854a27083 Application: GTAIV.exe Framework Version: v4.0.30319 Description: The process was terminated due to an unhandled exception. Exception Info: System.NullReferenceException Stack: at LCPD_First_Response.Engine.Main.fr2() at System.Threading.ThreadHelper.ThreadStart_Context(System.Object) at System.Threading.ExecutionContext.RunInternal(System.Threading.ExecutionContext, System.Threading.ContextCallback, System.Object, Boolean) at System.Threading.ExecutionContext.Run(System.Threading.ExecutionContext, System.Threading.ContextCallback, System.Object, Boolean) at System.Threading.ExecutionContext.Run(System.Threading.ExecutionContext, System.Threading.ContextCallback, System.Object) at System.Threading.ThreadHelper.ThreadStart()

Argh, I must have trimmed more from the log than I thought, I forgot about the ped ID thing, that happened right before the consistent-window crashes happened. As for crashing as I got shot the first time, it happened at 11:41:04 right after that super long list of "HasVehicle" errors, so maybe relevant to that, just some how didn't log. Just got TrafficFlow, and now going to switch to dsound instead of xlive loader and try to pull someone over again, will update on how it goes. Well so far so good, maybe it was something in the xlive loader. Loving the new taser gun too, admittedly had to use it on a fellow officer earlier for shooting a guy I was just about to cuff :(

So first up, a general overview of the issue. This is a completely fresh install, on a steam-based 1.0.7.0 GTA IV version, both the game and LCPD. Several times now upon doing a pullover in game and attempting to approach the window of the driver side, I've been crashing. The first time I got to the window marker at which time the drive pulled a weapon and shot me to which the game immediately crashed. The second and times since I had made the pullover but did not quite make the window marker before the game crashed. Now for the tech info; LCPD:FR: 1.0b (latest) (using xlive.dll instead of dsound). Game version: 1.0.7.0 Steam Mods: ELS v7 installed, and the >2010 Chevy Impala Traffic vehicle model, nothing else currently (though I was thinking of adding the one traffic mod back in if I can find it, to fix the 10 billion taxis issue on high-poly vehicles). Error logs are attached (trim'd the LCPDFR log since the repeat errors were identical after the 2nd one and removed my IP). I'm going to try and switch to the dsound.dll loader and see since that's technically the default one, maybe that will some how help. Also the diagnostic tool passed everything green as well. Edit: Also to comment on the FAQ topic, it states PreloadAllModels should be in LCPDFR.ini as of 1.0b, however it is not, I had to add it to the .ini manually still

Glad to see 1.0 finally came out (sadly while I was busy with life-things) but you guys really really should drop the 'automatic' installer, I know you guys prob get money from it and I understand that money helps cover costs, but OpenCandy is effectively malware now :(

Late bit of an update but I feel I should make one. I still cant' figure out why core affinity 'fixed' the performance issues to an extent, I think I finally figured out what it all was in general. As noted before, my first sticks of RAM were bad, so those are replaced now and good to go, then I found out roughly a week~ ago my poor 460GTX did apparently get bugged out when I moved it into this system, as I decided to do some bench marks on it and found it had insane artifacts being logged (eg; 10 second fuzzy test and I had 40k artifacts detected, lol). So that's out and a new 560 is in, so far so good, don't need to mess with core affinities anymore o.O Oh technology, how a pain you can be sometimes :|

The game mod removes the barriers obviously so you can pass between areas, however I believe the traffic-across-bridge bit is hooked into your story progression directly, not sure I'd call this one a bug -myself-, but. As for the wanted thing flickering, that's common in all of the instant-stars area (it does it at the one federal building as well), basically the places where no matter what you do, it triggers a wanted level as soon as you cross into it, again not sure I myself would call this a bug as it doesn't effect anything really, but best for the devs to state so on them. As for cars disappearing after entering the subway, which subway and where/how far into it do you go? I've admittedly never had this happen when responding to any of the callouts taking me into the general subway platform areas, but I've never went much further than that (eg; down a tunnel). I believe doing so likely makes the game start releasing some of the stuff above such as cars, resetting things, etc, memory cleanup kinda stuff perhaps?

I've been messing around with some performance testing the past week, and I'm with others, there seems to be some sort of issue with ELS v6 that's causing faults in the game engine (it's pretty easy to notice if it's that in your case, when you get the "Stoped Responding/Has Crashed" prompt, go into the more details/advanced view, and see what it lists, often you'll probably see ELS.asi listed as a module). If you're running a lot of car mods, or very-detailed car mods, the game will spawn a lot of taxi's due to the performance issues of the high-res cars, the Traffic Flow mod kinda helps it if you snag it. As for the callouts, they can be really random in all literal sense of the word, they're also based on the areas you're in at the time I believe currently, there are more, just idle sometimes and skip calls, you should see them.

Many games will attempt to launch and simply 'fail' if you don't match specs, might be worth posting your system specs as well, just to see if you reach minimum specs.

Bit late in responding to this, and I mostly only browsed through the last two pages quickly after reading the first two, but I'm with others in that she was justified. If the officer was off duty, it's odd he should be 'rushing' anywhere without any lights and such, more so that he didn't stop or apparently send notification to let her know he was going somewhere. I mean if he wasn't using his lights, he wasn't in a dire rush, so why couldn't he just pull over and be like "I'm on my way to so and so for this", etc. It took her practically five minutes to catch up to him at that to begin with and once she did it took her slightly over two minutes for him to finally pull over (which it did seem like he was 'running', considering his lane changing and her matching him identically with lights and siren going, it's hard for him to say he couldn't have noticed it for two minutes), and you can hear her trying to confirm things at that as well. Considering a lot of the unfortunate incidents within police/federal organiziations the past couple years (eg; ICE's incident just in february if anyone recalls that), I think a lot of officers of any sort are taking the 'Just incase' route these days even with other officers, especially if they don't know them personally. Short story; The guy was trail blazing it somewhere, fast enough it took her that long to catch up, and then he's gonna say he didn't notice her for the whole two minutes behind him matching is lane adjustments and not passing him even when he slowed down (slowed down being a loose phrase since she said they were still going near 80 I believe by the time he pulled over), so I think she was good in her call.

Might be nice to have an alternative control with the mouse (seeing as heads turn left/right with the view of the mouse as well), and just have the spotlight 'lock' wherever the mouse had it pointing when you exit a vehicle. Though this is just me being nitpicky about smoothness :P

Disabling explorer will effectively save you minimal memory. Honestly those things like 'Game booster' are halfway shams (some are actually even harmful). Some -can- help in some cases, but a lot of times I'd venture to even call it a placebo effect myself. All in all, ultimately, in my opinion I think the low amount of RAM you have, added to the fact it's an i5 using what shared memory it can is going to be your primary bottleneck. Try to increase the shared RAM in the manner I said, or maybe time to start looking into getting a low to mid range GeForce or something, a lot of the 400 series cards are pretty affordable on newegg now. Edit: If anything, the fact lower resolutions help some, pretty much should go to show what I've been saying is basically accurate, seeing as higher resolutions will tax more and require more, so if you get a better experience on lower resolutions, my assumption would be the available memory it has to work with, whether shared VRAM or RAM in general.

You keep saying how things work fine, but if that were the case, you wouldn't be here :P And what CPU exactly, you say "Quad core", but that could be either an i5 or an i7 really. And you list off only 4GB of RAM, which if you have a current Windows release such as Vista or 7, Aero alone will generally reserve 1GB of that for itself, plus when you factor in general application overhead from other things, and the fact that GTA will take up 2-3 GB itself pretty easily at higher loads, even if you do raise the GPU accessable RAM in the BIOS/UEFI, you're probably not gonna have a lot of extra room to work with I think.

Issue with modded cars, is most of the modded cars add a lot more to the game than the 'standard' cars, which can kinda increase the load the system needs. Now, the main issue with having an Intel Integrated in the CPU, is, it's not just the integrated GPU, it's also what CPU, and how much RAM you got in general. If you got an i3 or i5 sandy bridge w/ the HD3000 integration, the overall performance is going to be notably different than someone with the HD3000 on an i7. How much system RAM you have is going to factor into performance as well obviously, since it does not have it's own VRAM like a 'standard' GPU would (nVidia/AMD), that HD3000 is effectively sharing the RAM of your system and is set to a specific amount. If you know how, I'd suggest checking your BIOS/UEFI, see if you can't "Increase" the shared memory to your GPU (which normally you should be able to), assuming you have a fair bit of RAM in your box. It could probably help, I know in this system I got here, even though I don't use the integrated memory at all, the UEFI was defaulted to only 128MB of shared RAM in the settings, so it's probably worth a look.

Unr3al: The original Deus Ex games played pretty well on my Core 2 box, though I basically modded mine up as well. As for AMD, AMD basically has been playing catch up with Intel on 90% of their chips ever since the original Core 2 arch came out from Intel, that was a major boost in their performance and gaming (where as for years before, AMD basically led the way in game performance). Ever since then only a few decent AMD gaming chips came out that were better and/or more affordable for what they gave. AMD's true crash finally came when they overhyped the bulldozer cores, it came out and the only thing people could think was "You guys serious?", after that they pretty much anounced they're phasing out entirely desktop CPU's and going to focus on mobile devices and server processors indeed. As for anyone looking to upgrade, the new Ivy Bridge chips are out, and roughly the same price as the Sandy Bridge chips, go for them if you can, even at the same price they're notably higher performance and even less power thanks to the new core size. Edit: On a side of bad news, my 16 gigs of memory is bad, shoulda memtested it sooner. On a side of good news, by the end of the week probably, my 16 gigs will now be 32 gigs, lol.

Chad: Get a Zalman, pretty much -any- Zalman cooler with the tube+fin design will dissipiate heat like crazy. My zalman 120mm on my E8400 had it running between 3.6GHz-4GHz and never going over 50C usually. On this I have a zalman 132mm cooler on top of my 2500K, and it peaks out about 40-45C per core at max so far (though in the summer that will probably go up a bit as we get really humid summers here).

2600K is the i7, I was -gonna- get it, but the only major differences were the HT in the long run, which, while nice, wasn't worth the $100 at the time I felt :P And yes, more so when we'd have to continously tell people they had to basically gimp the game because the comp was too 'modern' for it, lol. Some games have started going with 64-bit versions too, just not many.

As noted in my other post, i5's have no HT, so neg. And to be honest the whole "Set core affinity" fix has been around for many games since the early 2000's. Speaking as one of the guys from the America's Army Game project, we had to for many years before our 2.7.0 release, tell people with more than 2 cores, to set their affinity to only two (though back when the game was still pre-2.7, a lot of people had the HT on Pentiums, which was horrible compared to the HT in the Core i*'s), and people on the Pentium HT models we had to tell to set to a single core (because as noted, HT in the P4 was horrid), else the game would perform horribly. Mostly it was due to issues in the Unreal Engine itself, but still, a lot of games simply weren't "Optimized" for more than two cores, and some still aren't. Even with as predominant as 64-bit is starting to push, many game developers still release things in purely 32-bit builds, given with LAA and sometimes DX11 support, you still don't see many with separate 64-bit binary support included... Edit: It is effectively going on 7 AM here, so I'm gonna finally crash for a bit, lol, be back a bit later.

Neg, just a noose override model, for some reason the bottom parts of my feet/heel don't collide with the inside properly, admittedly I can't recall if this has happened with this model in the past, this is the first time in nearly 4-5 months since I even played. And the one thing worth remembering is, hyperthreading != Cores. i5's generally have no HT, and while i7's have HT, HT's can sometimes give better performance than a true extra core since they're just an extra thread on the core itself, where as actually trying to utilize multiple physical cores, can be an issue. The reason I think resolving the affinity to 2 cores is working is because like I originally noted, when using all 4 cores, GTA IV was effectively maxing out the loads, and I mean literally pushing 100% total for -it alone-, my guess is chances are the system was kind of trying to 'fight' to offload some performance to other applications in the background (such as Firewall, Antivirus), and that's where the performance drag was. I could probably put it at three cores and be okay even really, since the things I got in the background definitely could utilize a single core all on their own.

I'm well aware of what a lot of 'overclockers' will claim, but much like you, I've been dealing in comps for a long time and my experience tends to diverge heavily compared to what most people seem to believe (in that you need extra CPU clock to 'handle' a higher end GPU). And I didn't say the 32-bit + VRAM was bottlenecking, I said it -should- bottleneck far more than this system would (While PAE can give access to the full 4GB of RAM through virtual routing of the CPU, it in itself can be slight overhead in aspects like this). And while it's -rare- for GTA IV to hit over 2GB of system RAM, it is far from impossible (right this very moment, the game is using 1.6GB exactly in system RAM, and 718MB of the GPU's available RAM). GTA IV is still however, a 32-bit application compile, and even with LAA, will max out at 3GB actual memory space, though I'm not concerned about hitting that really. You really seem to just be quoting me on stuff I've already pointed out, dunno why, not sure if you're just ignoring half of what I'm saying or breezing through it without understanding, lol. Long story short, my theory was correct after all, adjusting the affinity to use only two cores solved everything, performance is working pretty much as it should be and I'm no longer having odd rendering bugs as well (eg; alt tabbing out and back in cause the entire world to de-render). Edit: Though I now seem to be flintstone'ing it, as my feet are protruding through the bottom of the vehicle most of the time, lol

Explain exactly how, a processor on a by far better core design (Sandy Bridge) is even remotely a bottleneck compared to a Core 2 Duo on the Wolfdale model? I never said a 'Better GPU means better performance', at all, at any point. What I did say, is that this exact same card performed without any FPS loss at all on by all means a far inferior system (4GB RAM tops, in a 32-bit environment, even with GTA's LAA, factoring in the memory overhead of my GPU, I should have by far been bottlenecked more severely on the old box). The entire sandy bridge model in general will still outperform the abilities of of my old E8400, even considering I had that overclocked. I should not have to OC/Turbo this chip at all to even remotely match it, as it natively would surpass it.

Dude if my 9800GTX+ on an E8400 ran things fine, plus the same card on the same old box did, pretty sure it's not my card, lol. The 400 series were the first major stepping release from nVidia in awhile, using the Fermi core, in the grand scheme of things, the 500 series isn't exactly a dramatic difference from my 460, lol. "amd athlon" doesn't really tell alot either, as there are multiple types of athlon release models (Athlon XP, 64, X2, II). Main thing I'm noticing that GTA IV seems to tax all the cores of my CPU to their max, which is odd as it never really did that on my E8400 even, I'm wondering if it's not quite quad-core optimized, I might try tweaking the core affinity some, reduce it to just 2, perhaps it's so unoptimized (which we all know GTA IV kinda is in the long run) that it's actually creating it's own bottleneck in trying to use more than 2 cores...

I only have one modified car I put in mine so far, and it's a noose model replacement at that, so it wasn't even being 'used' outside of my vehicle at the time. Edit: Asuna: Yeah, 300 min, 200 series cards were mostly rebranded/upgraded 8 and 9 series things, but 300w is still pushing it a bit depending what else you got.

I'd suggest being massively careful with the 300w PSU, most current nVidia cards spec that you should have at -minimum- a 450-550w or higher depending if it's lower or higher end (that's just factoring in all other system overhead on average power pulls, but 300 could be cutting it pretty rough, end up underpulling to one hardware item or another).