Here is another sign:
For unexplainable reasons, you cannot sit, you cannot sleep, you cannot use emotes.
(As if you’re stuck in admin mode … but admin mode is not enabled).
As I said before, this began after the recent patches/updates.
Please pay attention to the post.
I have the same graphics card and have the same problem (PC totally freezes up) when I’m playing on both private server and solo game. Up until recently, I was getting a “Radeon had an unexpected system failure” error that would completely shut my computer down. I did a full computer wipe/reinstall windows and since then, I’ve been having these hard freezes where I have to physically hold the power button to power off the machine.
I’m going to take the advice of stinger and check my memory with memtest86.
I thought it was a heat problem at first, but based on my temperature testing, I’m 99% certain it’s not overheating.
I ran a full memory test and that came up fine.
All temperatures are within or below optimal ranges.
In a moment of desperation I took out my iolo program disk and installed the system mechanic.
I ran the scan/fix options and it found a mess of issues (at least 500 in registry) which it then repaired. Then cleaned up another 13 GB of trash, then ran some optimizations among which were the internet connection and 4 of the 8 CPU cores which had some conflict issues.
After a restart, I went back into the game and it seems to be running much better now. I’ve put in several hours and had no further hard freezes occurring.
I’ll run the game again tomorrow and get back with the results as soon as I know something.
Side note regarding inability to sit, sleep or use emotes:
Climbing up a wall (or anything) seems to fix this.
Hey @Vahlok
Thanks for confirming that running some optimizations got rid of your crashes (fingers crossed!)
Thank you @stinger for suggesting that 
After starting up this morning and running for several hours, there hasn’t been any more issues coming up.
For now, the system mechanic program seems to have done the trick that was needed.
Look this review, and you 'll said to us if yo was affected for this ms “fix”.
I take it all back.
After a break for a few hours I went back into the game.
I was making my usual iron node run and was just initiating combat with a rock nose when the game AND MY SYSTEM went into ANOTHER HARD FREEZE.
AGAIN, I had to shut the power off and reboot my system.
After the troubleshooting I’ve done I thought this issue MIGHT have been resolved, but I was wrong.
The issue persists.
I don’t know what else to do right now and I’m am exceedingly frustrated.
Here is what I do know when the issue happens:
The game engine seems to lose track of my location on the map.
When this happens the issue causes a game lock up and it also locks up my system. When I go back into the game, I find myself at a location long before I get to my destination AS IF I was never there.
I said it before and I’ll say it again, YOU HAVE A DATA BASE MANAGEMENT PROBLEM.
@Fastoro, I am using Windows 7 Professional on this PC. (NOT Windows 10).
UPDATE:
As I suspected, I am at a location long before I reach my destination.
I find myself somewhere along the rising pathway that’s west of Sinner’s Refuge.
My Greater hyena (named Groucho) is not with me. (Trust me, my hyena WAS WITH ME when this lockup occurred). I am certain my hyena will be sitting right were it was standing guard before I commanded it to follow me as I left my camp.
Thinking back, this reminds me of a similar issue a lot of players were experiencing during EA …
Their clients would suddenly and unexpectedly crash. When they (including myself) got back into the game, we would find ourselves somewhere else further beyond where the crash occured. Sometimes with very unpleasant results such as having run off a cliff or clearly over to the other side of a ravine finding ourselves miraculously unscathed. or finding ourselves in the middle of a hostile camp and getting our ■■■■■ butchered with nothing we can do except die.
Do you see the pattern here?
The game engine lost track of our location back then. It happened then, it’s happening again but this time the programmer got smart … they instructed the game engine to send us back to a previous location before the crash/lockup occurred.
Clever damned programming patch.
BUT YOU DIDN’T FIX THE ISSUE.
This ■■■■■■ me off.
UPDATE:
AFTER THE FIRST LOADING SCREEN CTD, I logged into the game.
I found myself exactly where I suspected I would spawn. Along the rising path heading toward Dust Devil Ridge. Of course my Hyena wasn’t with me … BUT …
I found my Greater Hyena standing guard at the first iron node I harvested on the north side of Dust Devil Ridge. So the issue started just before harvesting the first iron node.
The iron node had fully respawned, and my inventory shows no iron which means I didn’t harvest the node. BUT THERE WAS MY HYENA, AT THE IRON NODE. (What a damned irony).
After killing the other two Rock Nose creatures, I thought I would pay a visit to my Dafari friends encamped on the escarpment of Dust Devil Ridge. Mysteriously, there is NOBODY HOME. NO NPCs. The camp is devoid of any NPCs that should have been there.
After looting the goods from the wooden box on Dust Devil Ridge, I thought I’d go pick a fight with their neighbors camp at Hearts Blood Rise. AGAIN, Mysteriously, there is NOBODY HOME. NO NPCs. That camp too is devoid of any NPCs that should have been there.
After looting that box, I went to see if any NPCs would be at the Summoning Place. As I approach it from a distance, I see 4 Dafari NPCs who had just recently spawned from some unknown point outside of the entrance. (They weren’t far apart, but went in separate directions clearly hinting at a point of origin).
IT SEEMS YOU HAVE A LOADING PROBLEM SOMEWHERE.
But YOU are going to have to figure out where that problem is. I’m not the programmer.
It seems to me problems are just starting to pile up but where it starts is in a department I’m not trained to search for. That’s your department.
I am not in the mood, nor do I have the patience to keep using the iolo system mechanic every time this issue gets out of hand. It’s up to you to fix this issue once and for all. Not a patch, but a FIX.
Hey there,
Back at launch we had some reports of AMD hardware having similar issues, and in particular your graphics card model. We opened a thread with some workarounds:
I get Hard Freezes with a RTX2080Ti. It’s very similar to the problems both Apex and Metro: Exodus had with the same card… in that it hard freezes and I have to use Task Manager to get out. This started happening post-patch of the building update and only happens in areas with lots of buildings. So it’s not a sudden fault of my card.
NEW UPDATE:
My system has been up and running for less than an hour and I was doing some small work in 3D graphics. When finished what I was doing I closed the Blender 2.49b 64bit application. I decided to log into the game.
Log in went smoothly.
I was in for less than 10 minutes when I decided to expand my 1 room living quarters. A simple, thatch roof sandstone structure on stilts. A 5x5 deck with a 2x2 room on center. There was room to expand.
I reinforced the corners of the elevated platform where I placed 2 sets of 2 stacked pillars underneath each corner for stability. Then I went upstairs and removed two thatch corner roof pieces, then removed two walls.
Next, I constructed two wall frames and two walls (all sandstone) and placed the two frames normally.
As I prepared to set the two walls, THE GAME WENT INTO A HARD FREEZE AND ALSO LOCKED UP MY PC … AGAIN … FORCING A POWER SHUT DOWN AND REBOOT.
THIS IS INSANE.
I am nearing my wit’s end.
I didn’t go anywhere else before starting construction.
Yet, the game engine looses track of what I’m doing.
I have music turned OFF for immersion’s sake and environmental awareness.
What Realtek has to do with this is beyond comprehension and common sense.
But for the sake of peace, I’m going to look into it and let you know what I find.
RESULT:
FYI: I DO NOT USE THE “ALT TAB” METHOD FOR ANYTHING.
I don’t stream. I have Steam Overlay disabled, so I don’t use “Shift Tab” either.
NEW UPDATE:
I’m not going to tell you how bad this day is going and it has nothing to do with this lock up issue.
So, I’m cutting the story short:
While I was gone for a few hours, this PC was “off”.
I limp back home from a disaster and finish with my phone calls.
I decide to log into the game.
I’m logged in and I’m where I’m supposed to be. I begin walking out of my little hut on stilts and just exited the door WHEN THE DAMNED GAME LOCKS UP WITH MY PC AGAIN. I have been in the game no longer than 5 minutes.
AGAIN:
I HAVE TO SHUT THE POWER OFF AND REBOOT THE PC.
On that note, that’s why I’m back and I am mad as hell.
The engine seems to be loosing track of my character location. When that happens … BAM. But it just doesn’t crash the game (which would be somewhat tolerable), it locks up my PC and THAT is intolerable.
This has gone beyond INSANE.
Have you done a stress test on your GPU lately?
ANOTHER UPDATE
THE GAME ENGINE IS LOOSING TRACK OF MY LOCATION
THIS IS THE PRIMARY SIGN THAT SOMETHING IS WRONG.
It’s not graphics.
It’s not memory.
It’s not the CPU.
IT’S IN THE DAMNED ENGINE.
IT JUST HAPPENED AGAIN.
I GET BACK TO CAMP AND IT’S NIGHTFALL.
SUDDENLY THE GAME FREEZES AND LOCKS UP MY PC. AGAIN I AM FORCED TO POWER DOWN MY SYSTEM AND REBOOT.
FULL SYSTEM REPORTS (INCLUDING GRAPHICS) SHOWS NO ISSUES.
I GET BACK INTO THE GAME, IT IS NOW BROAD DAYLIGHT. (IT’S NOT NIGHT ANYMORE AND THIS ISN’T THE FIRST TIME).
I FIND MYSELF ALL THE WAY BACK TO THE IRON NODES I WAS JUST HARVESTING.
(Recall, I said I had gotten back to camp and it was nightfall when the lockup occured).
@Multigun
You have got to be kidding me.
If your system is completely halting, have you looked at the Windows Error Log? Might give you some clues.
Also, if it’s the client, why isn’t everyone else having this issue?
Lastly, did you even attempt the fixes in the previously linked AMD workaround thread. They did say that your issues sounded very similar.
It would help if you gave some more specific steps, information on troubleshooting you’ve tried, ect. So far you’re just like a little 8-year-old throwing a tantrum because the batteries died in your robot.
I can understand you’re upset, but literally almost no one is having your issue. If it were the game client, we all would.
@SylenThunder
It results in a complete system lock up. The only way to exit is to shut the power off to the PC. I am dead serious.
The error log shows that Windows Has unexpectedly shut down (to include one possible cause: Loss of power). This is because I have to force the PC to power off to escape the lock up … then reboot it.
Of course Windows is going to record that error.
The lock up is random because it happens anywhere from a few minutes into the game to longer periods of time. It can happen at any location on the map. The one thing I have noticed that is consistent … is whether or not the engine knows where my character is located on the map. When it loses track of my location (or it cannot establish my location), the game locks up and it also causes my PC to lock up. This is not a hardware problem on my end.
I can tolerate the game crashing, but by God, I should be able to shut it down with the Task Manager if necessary, but I can’t even do that because the system is in a state of total lock up (Freeze).
I’ll repeat this for clarification: I have to shut the power off to escape the lockup.
It’s a programming problem with the engine.
I have run extensive tests on this system to find anything that might cause it, but it’s coming up with NOTHING. It was happening before I ran the system mechanic which sorted out a mess of issues.
(Registry errors, Internet Connection, Trash Files) The game ran fine for the rest of that evening. I thought maybe it was issues in my system causing it. I hoped I would be free of this issue.
BUT, the very next day, it starts over.
It has locked up within 5 minutes of being in the game and it has locked up a various other times up to more than an hour. It’s not a temperature issue. But as I said, it’s consistent with where the engine knows the location of my character on the map.
I suggested make some hardware tests to OP, looks he think it’s not his case…
@Vattende
I did run extensive tests.
It is not a hardware issue.
You’re not helping.
Do a big favor for me and don’t post here again.
I am also getting complete hard freezes and bluescreens. My character starts rubber-banding/stuttering and eventually I will get a freeze. Built-up areas cause more problems. Problems started after last patch.
I have had exactly the same issue with Ark, and what I think happened with Ark was that an early crash caused problems with the graphics driver and a fresh reinstall of the drivers fixed the problem. I was then able to play Ark for a very long time without issue (so I am thinking it was a driver problem as opposed to a hardware issue). Note: it had to be a FRESH install to get rid of the corrupted files else it didn’t work.
So this is what I think happened with Ark
I am now going to try the same tactic with Conan and will report back here if it works.
Windows 7/ GTX960 4GB
Ark and Conan are the only games I’ve had problems with.
Update: A reinstall of the game, mods and graphics drivers has fixed my crashes and freezes.
I remember the Realtek issues people were having in the past.
I don’t / didn’t run the same “popular” setups they ran. Realtek was never an issue on me.
During the EA phase, I was experiencing overtemp issues on my server system, but that was on a completely different PC that had an AMD server board with dual-quad opteron CPUs with an onboard graphics chipset feeding an RX480 8GB graphics card. THAT chipset was causing the crash issues (because specifically that chipset was overheating) until I installed a chassis fan to blow air directly across that chip. AMD was notified of the overheating issue for that specific chipset for any board it was mounted on. It wasn’t long after that when I built this current custom (heavily ventilated) PC running a 4D(8L) core CPU (Vishera) with 32GB RipJaw RAM coupled with a Samsung SSD… feeding a XFX Radeon RX480 8GB GDDR5 Graphics card. That particular card was later renamed to the RX580.
The current issue began after patches just a couple of weeks ago.
Most of the popular fuss at that time was because of broken mods and other mayhem.
I don’t use mods.
The lockup occurs when the engine looses track of my character position and it appears consistent with cell crossings. Except it does not happen consistently. One exception is when the lockup occurred less than 5 minutes into the game when I exited my hut. (This hints that the engine didn’t know where I was but when I moved, it didn’t update causing the lockup). When I rebooted and got back into the game, I was standing in the same position I was in where I logged in previously before I moved through the door. But this time, it didn’t lock up and I went on without further incident for that session.
This is the reason I suspected previously that maybe it was the CPU core conflicts which the system mechanic repaired. But this was not the case and pointed more directly at the game engine.
4D(8L) = 4 distinct cores (8 Logical cores).
Some time ago, during EA when many folks were experiencing disconnect issues (as I mentioned earlier) … the game engine wasn’t keeping track of their location when they lost connection and when they logged back in (as it was also with me at the time), we often found ourselves somewhere beyond the point of where we crashed.
It wasn’t too long after that some patch came out that took into account your position prior to the crash and would send you back to a location somewhere in the cell before the crash occurred. (sound familiar?) But something is different this time around. When the lockup occurs, it also resets the day/night timer. If it occurs at night, you log back in during mid-day. It doesn’t matter when it happens, the day night cycle timer is consistently reset to mid-day.