Any ideas why GZDoom often freezes?

[AinuTheTaken]

I say often because it doesn't always happen. I haven't changed any settings on my pc so I believe it's settings related within GZDoom. It makes sense. The problem is I don't know which setting. The only time it may freeze is when I die. I can't restart the map pressing use, and pressing fire does nothing and I can't get into the menu with esc. Any ideas to fix this? I would post a video but there's nothing to show, no error message or anything helpful like that.

[Redneckerz]

• Post your pc specs.
• Which version of GZDoom are you running?
• Do you run any other mods?
• Can you post a log of the GZDoom start up sequence?
• Have you searched at the ZDoom forums for similar issues? This seems to pop up rather often.

[seed]

Insufficient information available to be able to suggest anything.

 

It never freezes for me either.

[AinuTheTaken]

You see it happens with vanilla and with mods including a mod that has its own map set. Also I wasn't able to find a topic with this exact same issue (freezing upon death) on the ZDoom message board which caused me to make this one. I remember respawning on E1M2 in GZDoom so it did work like normal but then I experienced freezing out of the blue and this puzzles me. I'm not using a dev build. I'm using v4.4.2 of GZDoom which is the latest public build. 

[Redneckerz]

2 hours ago, AinuTheTaken said:

You see it happens with vanilla and with mods including a mod that has its own map set. Also I wasn't able to find a topic with this exact same issue (freezing upon death) on the ZDoom message board which caused me to make this one. I remember respawning on E1M2 in GZDoom so it did work like normal but then I experienced freezing out of the blue and this puzzles me. I'm not using a dev build. I'm using v4.4.2 of GZDoom which is the latest public build. 

• Post your pc specs.
• Which mod are you running that comes with its own mapset?
• Can you post a log of the GZDoom start up sequence? this is the GZDoom.ini file that is in the same folder as where the GZDoom executable resides.

[AinuTheTaken]

I have a Windows 10 Pro pc running in 64 bit with an i5-3470, intel integrated graphics (very low tech graphics card), and 8 gb of ram. I don't suspect this will help diagnose the problem just because the only odd thing about it is the graphics card. I have been able to play normally with most things using this card. I was using the Fears mod earlier today: the one by Impie for atmospheric horror, te13-fears2.pk3. This is my GZDoom.ini file: https://www.dropbox.com/s/mfvpchz18ryxfya/gzdoom.ini?dl=0

[Redneckerz]

16 minutes ago, AinuTheTaken said:

I have a Windows 10 Pro pc running in 64 bit with an i5-3470, intel integrated graphics (very low tech graphics card), and 8 gb of ram. I don't suspect this will help diagnose the problem just because the only odd thing about it is the graphics card. I have been able to play normally with most things using this card. I was using the Fears mod earlier today: the one by Impie for atmospheric horror, te13-fears2.pk3. This is my GZDoom.ini file: https://www.dropbox.com/s/mfvpchz18ryxfya/gzdoom.ini?dl=0

@Graf Zahl tagging you as this may interest you.

 

An Intel HD2500 does have enough feature set to run GZDoom (being an OpenGL 4.0 IGP) but its performance is very low for this kind of thing.

 

So, to reiterate:

• The problem only occurs when the player is killed, using the Fears mod.
• When this happens, the game cannot be restarted nor does pressing the fire button have any effect. In addition, getting into the menu with the ESC key is impossible.

 

Additional questions:

• Does the problem also occur without using the Fears mod?
• Are you running any additional programs when you run GZDoom? Sometimes, a confirmation window of a different program may cause issues with other programs as the computer is waiting for the user to press OK on the confirmation window.

[seed]

Nah, I think the problem here is pretty clear when looking at the specs honestly.

 

That integrated GPU is quite old, despite just barely meeting the requirements to run GZDoom, and its drivers are probably pretty bad. This reminds me of a similar report we've received for Raze a while ago when someone rocking an iGPU was experiencing hard freezes, but there wasn't anything that could be done.

 

What's happening here is probably the same thing, mostly. The GPU can't keep up with it and gives up after a while, causing GZDoom to lock up.

[D4NUK1]

Maybe he should try to run on LZDOOM and see if happens to have the same performance on the mod. But yeah, that performance on that iGPU it's quite old.

[AinuTheTaken]

Ok. Same problem without Fears, and GZDoom is the only program I have running (with a launcher, either ZDL or usually Doom Launcher depending on what I'm using it for).

[Redneckerz]

27 minutes ago, AinuTheTaken said:

Ok. Same problem without Fears, and GZDoom is the only program I have running (with a launcher, either ZDL or usually Doom Launcher depending on what I'm using it for).

How does LZDoom run for you using Fears?

[AinuTheTaken]

I'm not sure since I want to have access to all of GZDoom's features instead of LZDoom's. I tried starting out fresh with a new ini but the problem persists. I switched back to my old ini after I tested that. 

 

Edit: Alright I found a clue! I remember switching the Preferred Rendering API in Video Mode in settings from the default OpenGL to Vulkan and Softpoly and back and forth until I went back to OpenGL. Only after doing this, when I try to play, it freezes when I die. Now I discovered something, when I launch GZDoom from the executable to the path where my wads are it allows me to choose between OpenGL, Vulkan, and Softpoly, and Softpoly is the only one that lets me play normally without any apparent problems. I consider this to be pretty much solved. 

Edited October 19, 2020 by AinuTheTaken

[666shooter]

9 hours ago, seed said:

Nah, I think the problem here is pretty clear when looking at the specs honestly.

 

That integrated GPU is quite old, despite just barely meeting the requirements to run GZDoom, and its drivers are probably pretty bad. This reminds me of a similar report we've received for Raze a while ago when someone rocking an iGPU was experiencing hard freezes, but there wasn't anything that could be done.

 

What's happening here is probably the same thing, mostly. The GPU can't keep up with it and gives up after a while, causing GZDoom to lock up.

This definitely sounds like the problem I was having with my old laptop, except it happened randomly. LZDoom solved most of the problems with freezing, so I'd recommend checking it out for compatible Wads.

[Redneckerz]

3 hours ago, AinuTheTaken said:

I'm not sure since I want to have access to all of GZDoom's features instead of LZDoom's.

What features in particular? Your GPU is too low end to run GZ's feature set fully whilst LZ's supports a lot of what GZ does.

3 hours ago, AinuTheTaken said:

I consider this to be pretty much solved. 

Try updating the drivers of the GPU.