July 17th, 2003 - 1830hrs

Fourteen times I've logged into SWG galaxies today.

Of those, I logged out voluntarily and of my own volition because I was done playing exactly twice.
Twice more, I logged out because, having crashed, I'd lost ALL of my toolbar and UI settings, and I wanted to reload them by copying the backed-up files instead of painstakingly having to recreate them.

That leaves TEN crashes today.

In the spirit of being constructive with my concerns, as opposed to venting my growing virtual anger... I thought I'd share with you all my experiences... each and every time the game crashes, I'll make my first stop here, to refresh my little thread, or when one of the zealous mods decides to close it on me, open a new one.

Lest you think me unhelpful, I've already posted my stats and emailed and phones and /bugreported and bug tooled many times. I've been more than helpful, and I've been more than patient. So, instead of SCREAMING into someone's ear at the very top of my lungs EVERY time my computer crashes, and I have to wait five minutes for windows to slowly trawl through disk checking to find the errors caused when SWGCLIENT_R.exe implodes, I'll spend my time here, constructively adding to this thread.

July 17th, 2003 - 2032hrs

Most recently, at 20:32 ET, my virtual self was peacefully resting on Endor, preparing to do a little harvesting while my probot watched over me. Then SWGCLIENT_R.exe locked up hard, for the tenth time today and about the 104th time since the game was released and installed on my system. What joy, once again, rebooting, hoping that this time, SWGCLIENT_R.exe didn't decide to destroy my hard drive, hoping that this time will be the last, that I'll log back in and all will be well, and I'll get to play more, perhaps actually interact with people before everything falls to pieces.

Ah well, its a foolish dream, I realize. Perhaps as foolish as spending $50 for the game in the first place. As they say, fools rush in... But whatever the case, don't be worried... I shall return to this thread again, when the game crashes again, which should be within an hour of this post.

July 17th, 2003 - 2135hrs

I am back. Back into windows. Back on this thread.

Yes, I got ten glorious minutes in SWG... and then the ELEVENTH crash of the day.

I spent more time rebooting, waiting for windows to grind through disk checking, than I did PLAYING the game. I spend a lot of time watching the disk checking screen. Its gotten so used to running, it won't even let me cancel it before it runs. And, of course, most of the time it finds NOTHING. So, while my virtual self remains on Endor waiting for some celestial alignment to allow me to do something, I'm enjoying re-reading Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson. More than 900 pages and I'll bet ya I finish it before I get my toon* back to Tatooine. So lets see... if all goes as SOE apparently planned... I'll be posting here again in about 20 to 30 minutes.

* I really hated the use of the word 'toon' to describe characters in the game. But now I've come to see the comical wisdom behind it... after all... isn't this experience some sort of animated joke?

July 17th, 2003 - 2154hrs

Silly me... Can't play because the servers are down.

Perhaps they've taken the game down to fix it... perhaps I'll be able to login and play for hours and days at a time! Perhaps all my /bug reports and emails and posts have helped make some small difference in making the game playable for all and sundry. Perhaps I'll win the lottery and...

Oh... the server is back up now. See you again in twenty minutes after that windows disk checking thing finishes.

July 17th, 2003 - 2204hrs

CRASH!

What a shock.

July 17th, 2003 - 2205hrs

Disk Checking. I wonder how much the guy who wrote the text for that screen got paid. I wonder this because I could have written it just as well. Although I wouldn't put the part about being able to cancel the disk checking when it won't let me cancel it.

11 percent compete...

Oh yeah, time to read more Cryptonomicon.

33 percent complete...

I wonder if disk check will find anything wrong with my hard disk this time.

56 percent complete...

Interesting details about NAIA in the book... you can learn a lot from books. A lot more than from watching disk checking. I wonder if disk checking is considered a feature or a bug in SWG.

98 percent complete...

The clock is approaching 22:13 as disk checking wraps up and I get back into the loving arms of Windows XP Home. Time to login to the forums... the most SWG fun I'm going to have tonight it seems. At least I'm getting some quality reading and disk checking in.

July 17th, 2003 - 2231hrs

Maybe its not just me... maybe its the whole galaxy, which at this point seems to be reloading. Again.

The good thing is that a lot of people are NOT having problems. They're able to play for endless hours, shoot up the skill trees, get dozens of giant flea-like pets and mondo-killer droids, massive mansions filled with oodles of furniture and plants and crafting stations. Then, when they have a moment, they go post that people who have crashes should complain or rant about it. God love 'em. Cause I sure don't.

Hrm... how long DOES it take for a galaxy to reload? And does that count against my harvestor and home maintenance time? Do I pay for server reloads?

Wax on, Wax off

July 17th, 2003 - 2248hrs

My virtual toon turns to my virtual probot and says, "Probot, we gots to get out of this place for sure." We make a mad dash through across the forest moon, reach the smugglers base and...

July 17th, 2003 - 2253hrs

Yes, Ladies and Gentlemen, we have hit thirteen. Thirteen ugly crashes in one single day's attempt at playing SWG. Lucky thirteen.

July 17th, 2003 - 2254hrs

Welcome to Disk Checking. The captain has extinguished the fun sign, which means you can sit here and watch us search for disk errors caused by the crash.

At this point, I blink because I think Disk Checking is mocking me. Normally, I see this:

One of your disks needs to be checked
for consistency. You may cancel
the disk check, but it strongly recommended
that you continue.

What I thought I saw was this:

One of your disks is getting thrashed by
Star Wars Galaxies. You may cancel
your account, but it is strongly recommended
you feed the SOE beast more money.

I blink, and its gone. But I swear it was there.

July 17th, 2003 - 2303hrs

Disk Check is complete. Our tray tables upright and our seatbelts buckled, we re-enter Windows. Will we try to play SWG some more? Will the servers be up? Is there hope? Stay tuned, bat-friends, same bat-forum, in just about half-an-hour

July 17th, 2003 - 2323hrs

CRASH! This time, its one of the new ones, a crash I haven't seen until today. I click on something in the UI, in this case the ticket taking droid on Endor, and BAM. The monitor shuts down. Only its not my monitor, its the videocard. Basically, its just gone dead. Windows is still running. I can tell this because by mobo has a nice status display. SWGCLIENT_R.exe has somehow turned off my videocard. My only option? Reboot!

July 17th, 2003 - 2324hrs

And yes, my videocard is just fine. Now on to Disk Checking! Thank god, hadn't seen it for so long. This time it actually finds an error! Seems my SWG .uis file has had its first allocation unit truncated! Good to know. And fortunately for me, one of the files I keep backed up so I don't have to RESET ALL OF MY OPTIONS/UI/TOOLBARS every single time I crash.

July 17th, 2003 - 2332hrs

23:32 ET. Returning now to windows, I'm left to ponder whether I should really try this AGAIN. I mean, jeez, fourteen nasty, disk churning crashes in one day, am I that much of a sadist that I would put my machine in jeopardy AGAIN to play this game?

And I'm left to ponder why my GeForce 4 4200ti, with the very latest Nvidia drivers, in a system that runs every other piece of software I have, is the source of my crashes. I believe this is the case because my crashes come in two varieties. The one where the videocard is turned off. And another, where I get a windows hardware failure message when I reboot, a message that points to a file that indicates the videocard got stuck in an infinite loop. And yes, I've sent those files dutifully off to SOE so they can tech support my problems away.

I'd really appreciate it if someone in a position to know would tell me that this is a problem that the development team is aware of and will address. I don't expect this to happen, but it would be nice.

July 18th, 2003 - 0048hrs

Returning, finally, from the Hell of Ewoks, I arrive at Bestine, home sweet freakin' home, and guess what... 23 uninterrupted minutes of playtime, culiminated in nearly 14k of quick resource sales, and yes, no CRASH! Did I finally pay off my game-karma debt? Did the devs push some update when radiant was down? Did hell freeze over? I don't know, and I don't care. For I was able to use the /logout command and determine my own game destiny. My toon now happily camps at the Bestine Bank, waiting for tomorrow's dash to the various harvestors and generators. What will tomorrow bring? Will I be able to play for long stretches, or will my friend Disk Checking and I spend long minutes glowering at each other through the glass wall that seperates us? Only time will tell, but I will say this... when I crash tomorrow... I shall return.

July 18th, 2003 - 0855hrs

Again this morning... more than an hour of uninterrupted play. No crash, not even a flicker in the graphics. Also, very light population... is it a server load issue? Does anyone know? I guess not, or they'd fix it for good. Still, its these crash-free sessions that convince me to come back for more. Because it is a wonderful game once I get past watching Disk Checking. Of course, my friends list was gone and the tab-key targetting seemed a bit wonky this morning.

July 18th, 2003 - 1423hrs

Two solid hours of game-play before Disk Checking and I get re-acquainted. As usual in these situations, Disk Checking takes her sweet time going through my files, and finding nothing wrong, lets me get on my way. Sort of like a Government agency... any government agency... which is in essence, if not fact, what Microsoft is these days. Regardless, this is my first crash of the day, and I did get some substantial time in the game. I only hope this crash, another "turn off my videocard" type crash, didn't eat that mining installation deed I was waiting to retrieve from a vendor.

July 18th, 2003 - 1452hrs

SWGCLIENT_R.exe Fatal Exception! Woot! I'm overjoyed because THIS time, I don't actually have to watch Disk Checking! CTD! Yeah!

July 18th, 2003 - 1536hrs

Crash. Videocard go boom. Me go Rebootsie. Me see Disk Checking again. Me sorta gettin' bored with the repitition. Maybe this is what they really mean when they talk about grinding?

Vaugh, the files and info are in your mailbox. I've already sent them to someone named Jason Neuhauser, and posted them here in previous crash-related threads. I appreciate the attention and hope that I, and the others affected by these problems, will at least hear something positive about a resolution shortly.

July 18th, 2003 - 1820hrs

Crash. Screen freezes, system locks up, and we're off to rebooting and disk checking. I realize full well that SOE is aware of this problem: They have my files and I will help them troubleshoot this problem. But this is still getting so very... old.

July 18th, 2003 - 1828hrs

And a new form of crash. SWGCLIENT_R.exe crashes at the login screen, and we go back to the desktop. Must be some form of karma. There are those of you who will absolutely not believe this, but I can run all my other games and programs without difficulty. While I've devoted most of my time recently to SWG and Neverwinter Nights, I run Unreal Tournament, Battlefield 1942, Army Ops, Blackhawk Down and GTA: Vice City without problem. Bah.

July 18th, 2003 - 1834hrs

Twice in a row. Perhaps it is karma. A sign from the gods: YOU WILL NOT PLAY SWG! GO FORTH AND BE GONE, FOR THINE ARE TO PLAY THE GAME NEVERMORE.

Hey aulus-blacksun! If I EVER get to Bestine, I really do want to buy those harvestors from you.

July 18th, 2003 - 2051hrs

Firing up SWGCLIENT_R.exe... my absolute favorite program now according to the Windows Start Menu... I discover that all my toons have gone bald and low... I cannot connect to Xodec of the Radiant Server... the connecting to galaxies saga you've all heard of so much. Bah. This disturbing trend does not disturb me... I pick an alt-toon... Xodec of Scylla. And so we begin our adventure on Talus. Gloriously sound, by the way, only one tab in the dxdiag.

July 18th, 2003 - 2056hrs

FREEZE! CRASH! Been there, done that, reboot, skip disk checking, why bother?

Moral of the story so far? It doesn't appear to the sound.

Two guesses from the bleacher seats... networking or graphics. Take your pick. I've got 15,000 credits I bought off a guy on ebay for $19.55* on graphics code. I know some of my crashes have been tagged by windows as display device stuck in an infinite loop. Of course, I've got a pretty standard GeForce4 4200Ti with the latest Nvidia drivers. Wonder if those latest drivers are the cause. If you've got the same card and are having, or better yet, not having crashes, what driver are you using.

* Note for the humor impaired: Ebay. Not.

July 18th, 2003 - 2356hrs

Time to end another glorious day of SWG. Not that I've actually played that much in the last 12 hours. I wanted to. This was the last day of my weekend. I had hoped to set up my new medium harvestors. I'd just placed one half-way out into the wilderness from Bestine when I crashed the last time. Because its so far out, I'd set it up with four days maintenance and power. Now I hear the resources on Radiant have shifted. Fabulous. As for my other harvestors and generators... I think they'll last into tomorrow... when I'm at work.

I enjoy sitting at the select a character screen, staring at my now sad little toons, with their generic clothes, their bald heads and bland, featureless faces. It's like looking in a mirror... only I paid $50 not to stare at myself but to get a personal glimpe into the fantasy world I... and most of you... have cherished since 1977. I guess, like most fantasies and dreams, its not going to come true. At least not right now. Perhaps thats really the lesson... that we're not going to wake up tomorrow in a galaxy far, far away... with our force-sensitive slots and bowcasters and Corellian freighters. Perhaps the SWG we have now is really a lesson in reality, the reality of lost friend lists and lost corpses and server crashes and bizarre waits at the bazaars and... oh nevermind... you know the drill.

So, for now, I leave you with last indelible message... the one I've been seeing the better part of the last few hours.

Loading...

Now connecting to the Galaxy

July 19th, 2003 - 0044hrs

Fool that I am, I check ONE more time, and sure enough, I can get into Radiant. Never mind that my toon at the login screen is bald and bland, I'm back baby! And what a fabulous time to be back! Resource shift! Gotta rush rush rush all over Tatooine, dig up and reset my harvestors... move move move before all the powergamers beat me to it and get all the best spots. I run to my medium harvestor out in the desert... switch it over to one of the new forms of copper. Don't even need to uproot the damned thing.

Then its rush rush rush back to Bestine, surveying all the way... look at all those amazing new resources. Find a sweet spot for low grade ore... 80+. But too close to Bestine... so I rush over the hill and there I see the powergamers, throwing up their mega-harvestors everywhere. Gotta hurry. I got two slots and two personal miners in my inventory. Throw one up... bingo. A sweet spot... not just for gemstones but also for steel! I fire up the miner and then rush to Jester's... my favorite little store... not very far away at all. Aulus-blacksun is gonna sell me another medium harvestor. Just the thing I need for the nearby sweetspot.. before the parking lot is paved over and full of mega-miners. I run in the door and down the hall... there he is... I say hello...

FREEZE! CRASH! FORCED TO REBOOT!

Jeebus in the stars, I have really had it with this stoopid crashing crap.

And to top it all off, when I get back to Windows and try to launch the game again... I can't even get past the login server.... CRASH! Four times in a row, right to the desktop. So now, all the powergamers and l33t doodles are gonna get all the sweet spots and me and my poor little bald headed, generic clothed freak-a-toon are gonna get left out in the cold, living on the streets, begging for credits like some of the low-life scum already do. Oh yeah, its over baby. Gonna sell that probot for medical experiments and start living on jawa-kebabs and whomp-there-it-is-rat stew.

Don't hate the playa... hate the game that hate the playa

July 19th, 2003 - 0826hrs

After an hour of watching SWGCLIENT_R.exe crash after the splash screens... I'm now loading objects. The vagaries of this game's decision to let me play confound me.

July 19th, 2003 - 0832hrs

Connnection to SWG Lost

At least I got one of my harvestors planted in a good spot before my link died. Still have to make runs to my other groups... and dang if I don't have to go to work, too! Shoulda called in sick, I mean, I have to have priorities in my life, right? Wait... if I call in sick, I might get in trouble, might lose my job and then where would I get $15 to pay SOE next week.

Well.. back to loading objects. Clearly... its better than disk checking.

July 19th, 2003 - 0906hrs

Connection to SWG Lost. This must be due to bringing the server down for its daily bath and hair tonic. In my glee at being able to play, I'd forgotten about this fact. Nonetheless, and they've been asked this a million times, why can't SOE broadcast a warning that the servers are coming down? A simple "Heya morons, we're gonna dump you off in 35 seconds. RTFWebsite."

Still... I have managed to accomplish some things. I got my solar harvester replanted on the only sweet spot near Bestine. Still haven't gotten back to my home and the three harvesters there. Guess I'll have to wait until I get home from work tonight. And hope there's something good already underfoot.

I also wish I'd had time to rush back to the Bazaar and remove all my auctions for resources. All of those resources, no longer available in the ground, become much more valuable, especially to crafters of all stripes who used those specific materials in schematics.

And as I prepare to march out the door to another day grinding RL XP, someone explain to me HOW the game can seem to work perfectly fine one session and then come up with three or four ways to crash the next? My style of play doesn't alter between sessions... the things I do don't change... my machine isn't different... and the only changes to the software environment are within SWG itself. Isn't it logical to assume that the crash problems I, and so many others, have been having lies with SWGCLIENT_R.exe?

July 19th, 2003 - 1800hrs

The title of this essay is my 0.02

Friends.... Romans.... Countrymen....

Lend me your ears.

I am not going to pay $15.00 a month to play DISK CHECKING.

Arrive home. Decide to play SWG before dinner. Want to get to my still stranded harvestors before the hard-earned maintenance runs out. Fire up my dear friend, SWGCLIENT_R.exe. Watch it sit on the Connecting to the Galaxy screen for a couple of minutes. Then paydirt. I'm back on Tatooine. Don't know WHERE on Tatooine I am, since this isn't the scenary I remember when I got dumped out this morning. But, here I am, time to move on...

July 19th, 2003 - 1805hrs

Freeze! Crash!
I stare at the screen, numb, overcome by the ennui that only the perpetually crash-ridden must feel, and that the blessed in SWG land have never experienced. I am not surprised, I am not angry, I am not unhappy... simply bored. Bored that this game, for which I've paid good hard-earned real world money, simply won't play. Bored with the implied accusation that my computer system itself is somehow at fault. Bored with DISK CHECKING, which is really a very bad game. Its not very interactive... just that ESC key press sometimes before it starts that can get you out of it. These days I don't even get that.... its as if DISK CHECKING is also afflicted the the SWG crash ennui. "Oh, my, crashed again," it thinks in a neutral, bored, medium blue accent. DISK CRASHING is also not surprised, or angry, or unhappy about running again. DISK CHECKING and I see eye-to-eye these days. I have put aside by dislike for its monopolistic domination of the boot process, and see to the core of what I now know to be a caring, thoughtfully written piece of software. DISK CHECKING looks at me as if to say, "my friend, I do not crash your machine. I am here for you." And I am reassured by this knowledge: that even if they never fix SWGCLIENT_R.exe so that it works on my machine, and the machines of so many others, DISK CHECKING will always work, quietly, efficiently, patiently. Fixing the errors caused by SWGCLIENT_R.exe munges up files on my hard disk. Hour by hour, day by day. Microsoft does not charge me to use DISK CHECKING. This is a good thing, because then I would be broke. Of course, not having any money might be a good thing... I might not have to even consider whether to give SOE $15.00 next week to spend another month watching DISK CHECKING.

Is anyone at SOE doing anything about these crashes? Do you have a clue whats causing them? Have you so many other problems that this one is simply in a queue somewhere, waiting to be uncovered? Do you not think it might be appropriate to inform your paying customers what steps are being taken to solve their problems?

SOE... I'd like some answers. I think I'm entitled to some answers. That alone will go a long way for me, and I believe you'll find, so many other of your customers, to determining whether you get my $15.00 a month, which just so happens to work out to about 0.02 an hour.

And that's my 0.02.

July 19th, 2003 - 1959hrs

Freeze. Crash. Forced to reboot.
Time in-game, pre-crash, 12 minutes, running across Bestine. Fun game, running across Bestine. Ooo... lets do something besides running across Bestine. Nope. Crash. Sadly, no disk checking this time. What a shame. SOE, why does the game continue to crash for me and for the others? When are you going to address these issues, if only to say: "Hello... we know you are crashing and we have a crack team working on it." You can even LIE TO US if you want to. Who would know the difference anyway? Hello?

July 19th, 2003 - 2032hrs

Hello, its me. If its 8:32pm, what time is it?

Freeze. Crash. Let's give the reboot button a little workout. No, Disk Crashing, I'm bypassing you this time.

Well, that completes my experiment... I think I've tried all variations of graphic options... all with the same result. I've played with sound off and sound on.... same result. I've tried out the options under the advanced tab... crashes still come along. I've tried playing with the lights on and with the lights off... same result. I even tried playing without looking at the monitor, thinking that maybe I could fool my nemisis... SWGCLIENT_R.exe into believe I wasn't ACTUALLY playing. Didn't work.

SWGCLIENT_R.exe is evil. He taunts me, knowing my only option is to uninstall him. Knowing I will have wasted $50, and by default, countless hours playing and trying to play this game. About the only good that will have come of this experience is the book I'm writing, called "I Bought Star Wars Galaxies and Now I Wonder Why."

don't hate the playa. Hate the company that inflicted SWGCLIENT_R.exe on the playa.

July 19th, 2003 - 2054hrs

The Trial
by Xodec Kafka
a play in three acts

Act I
A Courtroom. Daytime.
A.D.A. Jack McCoy paces in front of the witness, the accused, who has been called to testify in his own behalf. The jury watches in rapt attention.

A.D.A. Jack McCoy: So did you or did you not, on the night of July 19, 2003, at approximately 8:54, cause Xodec's computer to crash?

SWGCLIENT_R.exe: On the advice of counsel, I invoke my right of protection from self-incrimination in the 5th amendment.

A.D.A. Jack McCoy: Have you crashed Xodec's computer at any time?

SWGCLIENT_R.exe: On the advice of counsel, I invoke my right of protection from self-incrimination in the 5th amendment.

McCoy turns to the jury, smiling, arms spread wide

A.D.A. Jack McCoy: So, you won't answer my questions. You won't help us learn what happened. Do you expect these people to believe for a moment that you aren't responsible for thousands... hell... hundreds of thousands of computer crashes worldwide?

Defense Laywer: You don't have to answer that!

A.D.A. Jack McCoy: It's a simple question.

Defense Lawyer: Your honor! I object!

Judge: Overruled. The witness will answer the question.

SWGCLIENT_R.exe: I don't know anything about any crashes. If you're crashing, it must be your fault.

Defense Lawyer: Stop. Be Quiet.

SWGCLIENT_R.exe: Yeah, your fault. Because you were sucked enough to buy this program. You were sucked enough to give SOE you credit card number. If I don't work, if I quote crash unquote, too damned bad! What are you gonna do about it? (Laughs hysterically)

Defense Lawyer: Your honor! Chambers!

Judge: Mister McCoy?

McCoy shrugs, bemused.

Act II
Judge's Chambers. McCoy and Defense Lawyer stand before the Judge, who is seated behind her large, messy desk.

Defense Lawyer: He's asking too many questions, your honor. In Jurasik versus Katsulas, the supreme court ruled that software shouldn't be taken to task if it doesn't work. And this is clearly a case of being taken to task.

Judge: I'm aware of that ruling. Mister McCoy?

A.D.A. Jack McCoy: Your honor, we all know SWGCLIENT_R.exe is at fault. You know it, I know it.

Defense Lawyer: Knowing it and proving it are too different things.

A.D.A. Jack McCoy: Perhaps in a legal court. But this is the Court of Public Opinion. And the opinions have been mounting up. Posts about a variety of crashes mount on this board faster than they can be read. And not just crashes! Bugs galore.

Judge: I would like to know where my friend's list has gone.

A.D.A. Jack McCoy: Exactly! So, I think its not so much a case of proving anything. We already know where the problem lies. We can't explain why it only affects some, but not all the people. But maybe we should....

The screen goes fuzzy for a moment, and the image is replaced by video of three thin, neatly coiffed elves in black uniforms. One of the screeches, in a tiny high-pitched voice: "Nazis!" The screen then fuzzes out and returns to the Judge's Chambers. McCoy and the Defense Lawyer exchange startled glances.

Judge: Well, you heard them. Discussion's over. Godwins Law.

Act III
Interior, a software store. The lights are bright, and reflect off of rows of glossy game boxes. Loud electronic music and sound effects from a PS2 demo console fill the air. Dozens of shoppers walk through the aisles. A young boy spies a row of dark boxes.

Boy: Mommy! Look! Star Wars Galaxies! Can I have it?

Mom: Yes, Timmy. Let's buy it right now!

The camera pulls back to reveal, standing in the foreground, Captain Merrill Stubing on everyone's favorite Cruise Ship. He is dressed is his best starched white uniform shirt and shorts. A wide, happy smile is on his face, and his eyes twinkle as he says...

Captain Stubing: Thanks for playing the Gong Show. Like all good contestants, you've one a nice, thick, spiral bound manual and a really cool, round silverly piece of plastic. Not guaranteed to do anything at all.

-= The End =-

For those who may have missed it in all the extraneous text.
Freeze. Crash. Forced to reboot. Forced to disk checking. And yes, I did spent almost a full hour typing this up. What exactly else was I going to do? Play SWG? Ha!

July 19th, 2003 - 2247hrs

Freeze. Crash. Reboot. Disk Checking.

Maybe this time its because SWGCLIENT_R.exe knows I'm now running monitoring software. That I now know it ISN'T a heat issue. Or a power issue. Oh yes, I am clever, but SWGCLIENT_R.exe is force sensitive in a way I guess I'll never get to be. It knows. It might also be the fact that I was trying to name a harvestor "GameCrash2Much" that caused the Freeze. Crash. Reboot. I'm giving up for now. Maybe I'll wake up tomorrow and try it again. Or maybe I'll dig through the closet until I find that DAoC disk I have somewhere. I already pulled out the AO disk. I even spotted the WWIIOnline box on the shelf. Bah. I don't want to play those games. I want to play SWG. SOE, please help us. Please?

July 20th, 2003 - 0812hrs

Freeze. Crash. Reboot. Disk Checking.

Setting the AGP aperature to 128 meg doesn't change the inevitable. Probably because I only have a 64 meg videocard, but such is the hope of a solution.

July 20th, 2003 - 0851hrs

Freeze... yadda, yadda, yadda.

Server should be down now for the daily voodoo rites. But at least I finally got the bazaar before I crashed, finally put some resources up for sale.... I know how much the Bestine/Radiant artisan crowd has missed my auctions. Hopefully, I can make enough money to shut down and retrieve all my harvestors and generators and go into hibernation until SOE finds the cause of the Freeze/Crash.

July 20th, 2003 - 1235hrs

Things it isn't:

1) Heat. Open case, multiple fans, monitored temperature. It isn't heat.
2) Memory. Tested. Swapped. Rearranged. Still crash.
3) Soundcard. Disabled, turned off, removed. Still crash.
4) Drivers. Already had the latest. Still crash.
5) The graphics options. Tried them, in various combinations. Still crash.
6) The hardware mouse cursor. Tried that. Still crash.
7) Power supply. Enlight 430watt. Monitored voltage. Not seeing the crash.

and yes... it might be considered arrogant for me to insist it isn't my computer. but I have spent lots of time and money insuring that my computer isn't a problem for the games I want to play.

Things it could be:

1) Graphics. The Freeze/Crash problem seems to affect a variety of people with a variety of cards, including top of the line chips. I do not always get a post-crash message, but on the occasions I have gotten something from Windows, it indicates the graphics card has been stuck in an infinite loop. I wonder if some combination of driver and DirectX is causing the problem.

2) Internet connection. DSL, and never had problems with other online games. I get good ping and no lag problems in other games. But tech support... in the days just after the game was released... wanted lots of detailed tracert information. I wasn't able to get an answer back on why, and I never heard back from tech support about the issue. In the reports here, I've not seen details about what ISP, what connection and what location... and I wonder if there are combinations of those that lead to a problem.

3) A bug in SWGCLIENT_R.exe. Beating a dead horse is boring. But many lines of code combined with endless combinations of hardware and supporting software... makes this an obvious, if cliched possibility.

4) Corrupted game/patch files. I've run full scans. I've un-installed and re-installed. I've read reports here of file corruption, but haven't seen any official direction on it. Urban myth?

5) Karma. Nuff said.

July 20th, 2003 - 1842hrs

Crash. Sis. Boom. Bah.

The more things change, the more they stay the same. So DISABLE HARDWARE MOUSE CURSOR selected, alone, did not solve the problem. If anything, this time I had lots of odd audio glitches before the crash. So.... lets try again. This time with audio disabled.

July 20th, 2003 - 1945hrs

Crash. Freeze. Reboot.
The time there is approximate... I logged into the game at 19:00 and went to dinner. So I wasn't doing anything in the game. When I came back, the computer was frozen. And lucky me... it was showing Connection to SWG Lost. So I guess I was a two time loser.

The testing front continues. After reading lots of RAM related threads in this forum, I pulled one of my identical two 512meg chips. I have not had any trouble with these in any other application, but who knows what SWGCLIENT_R.exe is doing RAMwise.

July 20th, 2003 - 2029hrs

Game loaded...

July 20th, 2003 - 2037hrs