SWTOR Crashes A770 16G

[MikadoWu]

Let me state I love my Arc and waiting for Intel to give us an amazing Battlemage card.  Also, playing games like Cyberpunk, Hogwarts, Rocket League and World of Warships, World of War Craft, Destiny 2 and Diablo 4, I have not had any major issues.

Back in April/May found myself back to PvPing and running the Story's on Star Wars the Old Republic (SWTOR).  At that time, I did not see any major issues, though I had only around 100 hours on the game.

Then, Shoulder Surgery came in June and no Gaming until September. The below notes, are observations since Sept.  I have also been good on Updating the Drivers and using DDU for clean installs.

On a reboot and clean Launch, the game performs very well.

There are times, when the game will not launch and straight crashes during the loading screen.  If it does not come up on the second attempt a reboot is required.

Then there is toon swapping and switching screen issue.  If I swap characters, multiple times, it will eventually cause freezing of the game and crashes.  This occurs more often, when I am tabbed over to the second monitor, but does happen when I stay put.  It is also an issue, when I am afk and the game sends me back to the Character selecti0on screen or worse sever selection screen.  If I go back to these screens, issues will happen.

Now... SWTOR is a DX9 game.  I am guessing there has been no real love given to this game as of yet.

My system, is an i7-13700k, Z790 ASrock MB, 32G Trident Ram, Mutiple Samsung 990 SSDs and of course the A770 16G FE Card.  

Anyone else having issues?

[Andres_Intel]

Hello MikadoWu,

Thank you for posting on the Intel communities. I completely understand that Star Wars: The Old Republic crashes while running with your Intel® Arc™ A770 Graphics, I will be happy to help you.  

To have a better understanding of the situation, please answer the following questions:

• Is the graphics card an Intel Branded Card, or is it from another brand?
• In case we need to replicate the issue, take screenshots of the game settings.
• When the game crashes, are there any error messages? If so, take screenshots of it.
• Did the game work properly at any moment?
• To know your system environment, download and attach the report for the following tool Intel® System Support Utility for Windows (SSU), you can find the steps on the link How to get the Intel® System Support Utility Logs on Windows. 

Regards,  

Andres P. 

Intel Customer Support Technician 

[Andres_Intel]

Hello MikadoWu,

Were you able to run the Intel® SSU report to know your system information?   

Let us know if you still need assistance.    

Best regards,   

Andres P.   

Intel Customer Support Technician 

[MikadoWu]

I will be looking at this over the weekend.  I am a Netowrk Manager for 3500 laptop, 13 building network, been a busy week.

[Andres_Intel]

Hello MikadoWu,

Thank you for keeping me informed.

Take your time, as soon as you have the requested information let me know.

Regards,  

Andres P. 

Intel Customer Support Technician 

[MikadoWu]

Here is a quit update.  Will provide more info as discovered.

• Is the graphics card an Intel Branded Card, or is it from another brand?

Intel Branded A7670 FE 16G

• In case we need to replicate the issue, take screenshots of the game settings. 

• When the game crashes, are there any error messages? If so, take screenshots of it. 

Sometimes there are, other times, no.

• Did the game work properly at any moment?

Yes, the game generally runs as needed.  There are times, when the game will Crash and not even load up.  Generally a reboot fixes this issue.  The issues, seems for like a memory leak, or progressive problem.  

• To know your system environment, download and attach the report for the following tool Intel® System Support Utility for Windows (SSU), you can find the steps on the link How to get the Intel® System Support Utility Logs on Windows. 

I have run the requested ISS Utility.  

[Andres_Intel]

Hello MikadoWu,

Thank you for your response and for sharing all the requested information.

I checked the Intel® SSU and I noticed that the graphics driver is not up to date, we released a new version the last week, please follow the steps below to check if the behavior changes and let me know the results:

• Clean install the graphics driver with Display Driver Uninstaller (DDU) following the article How to Use the Display Driver Uninstaller (DDU) to Uninstall an Intel® Graphics Driver.
• Then, install the latest graphics driver version 31.0.101.5074. For installation steps, How to Install an Intel® Graphics Driver in Windows® 10 & Windows 11 (Method 2).

Regards,  

Andres P. 

Intel Customer Support Technician 

[MikadoWu]

I generally am always up today on drivers.  As you can see from the image below, the Intel Driver Assistant is Green, with no drivers to download.  Some drivers were updated yesterday 12/10/2023.  You can see from the Forums in March; I wrote on using DDU to fix the Crashes after sleep.  I take driver updates seriously.

https://community.intel.com/t5/Intel-ARC-Graphics/Games-System-Crash-after-sleep-mode/m-p/1464728#M2285

As for your latest drivers, reading the patch notes, it appears to be a Games specific update.  There are no Notes, about stability or general over all stability. 

Where there changes that could affect over all Stability?

I will update when alerted.

[Andres_Intel]

Hello MikadoWu,

Thank you for your answer and for the information provided.

You are right, the release notes of the graphics driver version 31.0.101.5074 say that it improves the performance of some games, it also may help to improve the performance of other games that are not mentioned on the release notes, that is the importance of completing the clean installation to the latest graphics driver, once this step is done, I will be able to proceed with the next ones.

Regards,  

Andres P. 

Intel Customer Support Technician 

[Andres_Intel]

Hello MikadoWu,

Were you able to update the graphics driver to version 31.0.101.5074? Just for you to know we also released a new graphics driver version 31.0.101.5081/31.0.101.5122 that may help.

Let us know if you still need assistance.    

Best regards,   

Andres P.   

Intel Customer Support Technician 

[MikadoWu]

Well, almost a good thing I did not update last weekend, as we had another update today.  I installed gfx_win_101.5081_101.5122 this afternoon and included the support log for you.  I am hoping to get some time to play this weekend.

[MikadoWu]

For some reason my reply did not go through.  I never got the intel update notification from Intel DSA for 5074, but 5122 popped immediately.  I did upgrade to 5122, after using DDU in safe mode, as always.

I did the update yesterday and my performance is worse.  I used to be able to play maybe 3-4 hours before crashes.

Today I am crashing about every 90 minutes.

[Andres_Intel]

Hello MikadoWu,

Thank you for completing all the recommended steps.

I will start with an investigation to provide you with the next steps as soon as possible.

Regards,  

Andres P. 

Intel Customer Support Technician

[MikadoWu]

I am not sure what's going on with this latest driver, but it has been terribly unstable.  3 times the crashes as the old build.

[MikadoWu]

I re-ran DDU in safe mode back to back reboots.  SWTOR is still crashing, but not as bad as Friday and Saturday.

[Andres_Intel]

Hello MikadoWu,

Thank you for your time.

We still working on the investigation and now we will start with the issue replication, as soon I have the results I will let you know 

Regards,  

Andres P. 

Intel Customer Support Technician

[Andres_Intel]

Hello MikadoWu,

Thank you for your patience.

We have been working on the issue replication, we hope to have the results soon, as soon I have them I will let you know.

Regards,  

Andres P. 

Intel Customer Support Technician

[Andres_Intel]

Hello MikadoWu,

Thank you for all your time.

We still working on the issue replication, as soon as I have the results I will let you know.

Regards,  

Andres P. 

Intel Customer Support Technician

[MikadoWu]

With The most recent patch from the developers, the crash have decreased a fair amount. The one area I can still replicate crashes, is by letting the game auto log me out for inactivity to the character selection screen. Generallly if I select another character the game starts to become unstable.

[Andres_Intel]

Hello MikadoWu,

Thank you for all your time and patience.

The reproduction was completed and the issue was replicated before the game update. Since the issue is less frequent after the update, if you would like us to continue pursuing this game crash issue, can you provide us with specifics and detailed reproduction steps of the issue?

Regards,  

Andres P. 

Intel Customer Support Technician 

[Andres_Intel]

Hello MikadoWu,

Remember to provide us with specifics and detailed reproduction steps of the issue if you would like us to continue pursuing this game crash issue.

Let us know if you still need assistance.  

Best regards, 

Andres P. 

Intel Customer Support Technician