Overture crashing randomly

**gamercoon** · 05-08-2010, 05:58 AM

Hi,

I purchased and installed Penumbra collection 1.1. It seems to run fine for several minutes before crashing to the desktop, reporting "ERROR_ACCESS_VIOLATION in Penumbra.exe." I have tried using the other version of the libvorbis.dll module as your faq suggests, but it seems to have no effect. I have tried lowering the graphics settings, cleaning out my fans and case, etc, but to no avail. I used to have heat problems on this system, but I made several modifications to solve them, and my system runs quite cool now and I doubt that's the issue.

At first I noticed that AVG was trying to run a scan when the crashes occured, and even though I told it to stop all scans, it was doing it again after each crash. I eventually disabled the AVG service and stopped it running all together, but the crash still occurs.

I updated both my video and sound drivers (they were in fact, quite out of date) but the crash still occurs.

Here are my system specs:
Windows XP 32-bit SP3
AMD Athlon X2 Dual Core 4200, 2.21 Ghz
2GB RAM
nVidia GeForce 7900 GS, primary, one monitor attached (ViewSonic VX924)
nVidia GeForce 9400 GT, secondary (use for attaching TV via HDMI), all heads diabled.

Please help, this game looks great and I really want to play it!
-Gamercoon

**gamercoon** · 05-08-2010, 08:41 AM

Here is the hpl.log file from one such crash, as I attempted to enter the 'storage room' (it crashes in all sorts of places though).

Spoiler below!

ADMIN: Used spoiler tags for log, to make thread more readable.

**jens** · 05-08-2010, 10:14 AM

Does it crash randomly during playing of a level or does the crashes only occur as it loads a level?

**Server Error** · 05-08-2010, 01:02 PM

I have the same problem, but it just Crashes randomly for no reason, and Jens it's not when you're loading a level, it's just at any particular time during playing.

I have also updated all my video and sound drivers and download the libvorbis.dll module and placed it in the redist file, without any improvement in the game.

**Sajber** · 05-08-2010, 01:08 PM

I have the exact same problem. Bought Penumbra collection for $5 after i bought the Humble Indie Bundle.

**jens** · 05-08-2010, 01:18 PM

What graphics card do you two have and are you also using Windows?

Also after a crash (and only then, else it is not useful) go to My Documents/Penumbra Overture/Episode1/ and take the hpl.log, zip it and upload it here.

Finally, does using this exe help http://www.frictionalgames.com/forum/thread-3328.html ?

**Sajber** · 05-08-2010, 01:26 PM

I run windows XP and have a Nvidia Geforce 7800GT.

Here is my log file as well.

**jens** · 05-08-2010, 01:38 PM

Oops, I wrote the path to black plague, see the new path to get the correct hpl log for overture and make sure it is after a crash.

**Sajber** · 05-08-2010, 02:21 PM

The exe you linked to seamed to have fixed it. Thx

**Server Error** · 05-08-2010, 02:28 PM

I can't run the .exe says,

"This application has failed to start because SDL.dll was not found. Re-installing the application may fix this problem."

I run on Windows XP aswell and my graphics card is a NVIDIA GeForce 8400 GS.