Carmageddon Max Damage crashes on level load (Arc A750, WIn 10 x64 22H2 )

[yodaofborg]

Don't know if it makes a difference but this is the steam version. The game starts OK, you can click around the menus, change various settings, but when loading a level, the progress bar gets around half way (on Driver 31.0.101.4314, on previous drivers the progress bar got further), then stops responding and closes.

Tried changing from exclusive full screen to window mode, tried updating all system drivers including the Intel driver and also tried a fresh install of Windows 10.  ReBAR is enabled in the BIOS and even this has been updated.

Note: I have been playing around with my memory timings so my event log will show a lot of unexpected restarts and other application/services crashing including IAC - this has nothing to do with this bug and was restored to defaults before I recreated this bug, so they can pretty much be ignored.

Regardless of memory timings, or any in game settings (tried to toggle just about everything off or low, and the opposite with no different results), the game just closes with no error message, no log files are written, and nothing is placed on the event log. I also tried starting it with a batch file, redirecting all output to a text file and nothing (yeah, old trick but you would be surprised at how many games still try output something to a cmd upon error). 

[Carlos_L_Intel]

Thank you for posting on the Intel® communities. I'm sorry for the inconvenience this might have caused you. Please help me with the following information in order to assist you: 

• Just to clarify, this is happening with all drivers, correct?
• Do you have any similar happening to other games?

Best regards, 

Carlos L.  

Intel Customer Support Technician.

[yodaofborg]

Hi, thanks for the reply!

Yes, this happens with all drivers. 

No, I have not noticed this specific behavior in other titles.

[Carlos_L_Intel]

Hi @yodaofborg,

Thank you for the information. In this case, let me check this internally and I will post with more details soon. 

Best regards, 

Carlos L.  

Intel Customer Support Technician.

[yodaofborg]

No rush to be honest! I bought this card knowing I would have issues with some older games and would have to try help rather than hinder  

But I do suspect this game is crashing due to its use of GPU memory in a bad way due to using d3dcompiler_46.dll - I can see the GPU memory usage rise to around 2GB then crash, maybe the driver needs to do a check for 32bit dll files and limit memory? I am not an engineer so cannot comment on the fix, but I am a nerd so think I might be right on the problem. 

The game can even correctly display 3D models in the menus and you can see they run fine - it is only when the game hits the 2GB of GPU memory (on loading a level) that this is a crash. And this was classically the case with many games that came out around this time (GTA 4 springs to mind) when GPUs went past the 2GB mark. 

[Carlos_L_Intel]

Hi @yodaofborg,

Thank you for the post. I see, we continue to investigate to provide a solution. As soon as I have more information, I'll let you known. 

Best regards, 

Carlos L.  

Intel Customer Support Technician.

[Carlos_L_Intel]

Hi @yodaofborg,

Thank you for your time. I just wanted to post back and let you know we are still working on this. I will post back with more details soon.

Best regards,  

Carlos L. 

Intel Customer Support Technician.

[Hugo_Intel]

Hello yodaofborg

Thank you for reporting this issue. Our priority is to target the most popular games and apps to focus our efforts on providing a high-quality, stable experience for the broadest set of users. We will continue to improve our software performance and compatibility throughout 2023 and beyond. While we can’t accommodate your request at this time, please watch this article on our website for any possible changes to this situation.

Best Regards,

Hugo O.

Intel Customer Support Technician.

[ghysler]

Hi,

While I understand the priority lies with more popular titles, I would love to see this issue getting some traction.
In my opinion, completely broken games should have priority over just partially affected games.

I am experiencing the exact same issue as @yodaofborg with Carmageddon Reincarnation, which is using the same game engine and also uses d3dcompiler_46.dll.

It was actually the first game I tried to play on my newly bought A750, so that was kind of a rough start

This is on Windows 11 23H2, using the latest available Arc driver: 31.0.101.4972.

Update: "Carmageddon: Max Damage is an updated version of Carmageddon: Reincarnation", according to Wikipedia.