I have looked all over the and can’t seem to find a specific answer as to why the editor is causing my PC to completely freeze. I’ve found posts about specific tasks that may be causing this issue, such as editing certain variables or attempting to open files, but my issue is simply that the editor is causing my PC to freeze EVERY time, regardless of what I am doing.
It started happening immediately after I migrated to 4.8.1. I have tried uninstalling, reinstalling, no luck. I’ve deleted the DDC folder, Intermediate, Saved and Binaries folders. Nothing seems to fix the issue and I’m pretty much at my wits end here.
The problem occurs no matter what I am doing. I was attempting to play in editor and after about two minutes, my PC froze. I had one of the guys here at the office submit a build and it crashed again after a couple of minutes. I even opened the project and just let it sit for about five minutes and it froze my PC. I didn’t touch anything, simply let it sit there. I’ve enabled debug logging in the launcher and have that file that I can submit, but it’s not the launcher that’s causing the issue, it’s the editor. I also have the DxDiag.txt file that I can attach.
I’m running Win7 64-bit, i7 Quad Core 3.5GHz, 32GB RAM, two GTX 970 graphics cards. The computer that my coworker is using is similar with only 8GB RAM and GTX 650Ti graphics cards.
Any help would be greatly appreciated as this is bringing production to a complete stand still.
Thanks,
Chad
EDIT: I have also tried opening other projects and creating a brand new project from the launcher and the same thing happens after a few minutes
You wrote, “I have also tried opening other projects and creating a brand new project from the launcher and the same thing happens after a few minutes…” So it looks like there is a conflict with 4.8.1 and your System, regardless of the fact you migrated your project to 4.8.1 from an earlier version. Also, you mention that a coworker with even lesser specs is not experiencing a problem with the 4.8.1 update…
To troubleshoot, if you have not already, back up your project and exclude it from the troubleshooting process for now. Judging by your system specs, you should have no problem running UE4.8.1. One thing that stands out is you have two GTX 970 cards… Have you updated your GPUs driver lately? Can you easily disable one Card to check if there is a conflict with the SLI set up? Try checking these (updating the driver/disabling 1 card temporarily) against a brand new project from a freshly installed version of UE 4.8.1and see if the problem persists.
I have updated my GPU driver, current as of 22JUN15. I have tested both cards individually, in each slot, and nothing seems to fix the issue. I thought I had it fixed the other day when I was able to get one of the cards to work by itself without crashing my PC. It went smooth for all of yesterday and most of today, but it just froze my PC when I tab switched from Photoshop to UE4. I have uninstalled and reinstalled UE4 and when everything was working yesterday, it was with a new project. Since I had it working, I moved back into our current project (which was migrated from 4.7) and it worked all morning today up until about 15 minutes ago.
I contacted EVGA and they are going to warranty the card that I thought was causing the issue. The only problem is that I now know that individual card wasn’t the issue, being that the other card crashed my PC this morning.
To narrow down if this is a hardware issue or has a definite relation to UE4 have you tried operating your PC extensively with other 3D extensive programs like 3D modeling software, 3D games, etc with other programs like Photoshop open in the background?
Also, you can try taxing your system less with UE4 by changing the scalability settings to low, setting the Material Quality Level to low, setting the Preview Rendering Level to “Shader Model 4” and, under Viewporit options, unselect “Realtime.”
-If it runs better with these settings, you can gradually ramp them back up individually until the problem reoccurs.
I regularly use Maya and ZBrush and I have never had any issues whatsoever. I often have them all three open at the same time and my computer has never frozen on me, not even once, definitely not regularly.
I don’t mind changing the scalability settings in the engine, but that would make buying high end graphics cards pretty much pointless. Also, my coworker, who is using 650 TIs, has no issues with working in UE4 under the same scalability settings.
I appreciate your help and feedback, but I have to say that with the current hardware build I have, this thing should be able to handle just about anything with ease. The fact that my PC is freezing when working in UE4, and only in UE4, tells me that there is something UE4 does that my cards just do not like. It’s possible that it could be the architecture of the cards (I know there has been a lot going on about the VRAM setup with the 970s), but whatever it is, it’s isolated to UE4, so I’m hoping that Epic can help me figure out what it is. Otherwise I’ll have to go back to my 550Ti cards and I can use these 970s as very expensive paper weights.
I agree your system should handle this program with ease. I personally have a 970GTX for home use and have not run into any problems with the editor. As far as the setting changes, I meant these as troubleshooting steps and not a permanent solution.
In other words, set everything to it’s lowest settings and, one at a time, set them back to normal after running at those settings for 20 minutes or so without freezing. (Ending with “Running In Realtime”.) This would show that there is a conflict specifically between Running in Realtime and a 970 card.
Lastly, another user experiencing a similar issue states that their computer freezes, “when [they] open a new project. If [they] delete the first map and open the project again, it runs fine.” If you try this and get the same results, then we have something specific to look at.
I’ve put in a hardware test request on an SLI set up machine. In the meantime,
please try some of the suggestions above and post your results.
Thanks
ps. When you are running just one card from an SLI set up, you have to “deconfigure” the SLI and reset your system as a 1 card set up -in case you haven’t done this.
Thanks again for your help. For now, in the interest of time (and my sanity) I’m just going to throw my old cards back in and troubleshoot again down the road. I will keep your suggestions in mind for when I do have time to check it out. Thanks,
I am marking this “Answered” for tracking purposes. When you have time to look at this again, simply respond to this thread and we will pick up where we left off. In the meantime, I’m waiting to hear back from our hardware testers to see if they are experiencing any issues with this set up. If they discover something definitive, I will add it to this post.
I found the answer for my problem! I have tried to update my graphics drivers a while ago but I just randomly quit it while it was installing. Now I downloaded the latest graphics drivers and everything works fine!