[SOLVED] Lockups and Exception Access Violation, BoBP Map

[Stoopy]

For quite a while now I've been trying to troubleshoot a problem that happens on my system when flying in the Battle of Bodenplatte map in either single or multiplayer, and would appreciate any input, ideas or general commiseration from anyone having similar issues:.

 

There are two scenarios in which this happens:

1) After flying for lengthy times (45 minutes to an hour) on this map with no action in SP or MP, IL2 will simply crash and exit to desktop.  

 

2) When flying in MP, at low altitudes and over a target or city, just as I encounter and engage another aircraft or drop bombs,  IL2 will again crash or exit to desktop, and may or may not show an error message. Usually it doesn't, but i just recently captured an error message, shown below.

 

In this most recent example, I was flying online in Combat Box in the Battle over Eindhoven map, over the German Defenses in 1412.  I'd been flying around over that town for a good 10 minutes when the target area on the south-east side came under attack.  Spotting two P-38's, I dove down for a run, and just as I leveled out right over the town and the lead P-38 broke into me, I was just about ready to pull the trigger and "DOINK" (insert sound of Windows Error Message here) the program locks up.  I had to press CTRL-ALT-Del to call up Task Manager and was able to get a screenshot of the error message:

 

 

 

I'm assuming this is a memory access violation and the model file "10town_eu_lrg_block_07_02.mgm" is accessed in memory and not from disk since no file with this name exists in any of the folders in the game.  Also, I'd been flying over the town for some time but not at low level, so although I'd think the game would have loaded any data files needed long before my diving attack.

 

At other times the game just exits to desktop with no error message or feedback.  Also, I have enabled the collection of any crash log files and never find any.

 

I've been troubleshooting this from a system resource perspective and a screenshot of CPU and GPU performance stats at the time looks healthy - temps and load at or under 80 degrees C and 80 % respectively:

 

 

System specs are:
i7-4790K w/16Gb RAM, NVidia GTX970 card, Windows 10.  Frames are locked at 60 FPS with VSync enabled in NVidia driver settings.  Sharpness and AA etc are handled in the NVIDIA system settings per Geronim0's graphic settings guide, and I'm using a current version of ReShade.  Windows 10 "Game Bar" option is disabled to rule out any conflict with system resources.  

 

I've backed down my graphic options significantly to rule resource issues.  Current settings are:

 

 

Any assistance or suggestions are welcomed - thanks in advance.  I never get beaten down by this stuff but this one is kicking my butt, and I'll admit, making me spend more time with my guitar or watching Women's Curling since the appeal of IL2 is wearing thin with this going on.

Edited February 19, 2020 by =[TIA]=Stoopy

[LLv34_Temuri]

@=[TIA]=Stoopy Did you find/get a fix for this issue? A friend is having similar issue, but on the Kuban map.

[Stoopy]

1 hour ago, LLv34_Temuri said:

@=[TIA]=Stoopy Did you find/get a fix for this issue? A friend is having similar issue, but on the Kuban map.

 

Not quite yet but I have found ways to mitigate it so it occurs less.  My last change involved setting the il2.exe executable to Run as Administrator in Windows10. 

 

Things were good for a few days so I went online   and flew for a while, announcing to some squadmates and friends that I'd finally fixed the problem.  30 minutes later I get a crash to desktop (on the Rhineland map, same mission).  So every time I declare victory I get taught a lesson.

 

Hoping that Santa brings me a new video card for XMas as I know that is my systems' particular bottleneck.  I hate to throw hardware at a problem but that's what I'm down to now.

 

[Stoopy]

Problem solved but it took a few iterations of hardware replacement to find the actual culprit:

 

After replacing my NVidia GTX970 graphics card with a GTX1660Ti , the problem seemed to have resolved itself so I chalked it up to an aging graphics card.

So then I got all cocky and optimistic and bought a VR Headset.

 

Although every single title and application except IL2 ran just fine, I had nothing but problems with IL2 in VR, and could only run in very low resolution modes without getting error messages in the first few minutes.   But, the upside was, at least I could consistently duplicate the problem!

 

Based on some advice in the VR forum regarding benchmarking, it seems my RAM was a choke point in my system, so I bit the bullet and bought faster (for DDR3) RAM.  

 

Happy to report that after swapping my 16Gb of older DDR3 2133Mhz  DRAM for 32Gb of DDR3 2400Mhz DRAM, things are now completely stable and I can push IL2 in VR far beyond what was tolerable before, no memory errors or access violations occurring now.   In 2D mode, no issues either.  Benchmarks and frame rates increased by a healthy measureable amount too. 

 

 

 

 

Edited February 19, 2020 by =[TIA]=Stoopy