Game freezes during missions

[Schmorgluck]

Hi. I tried to look for my problem in the bugtracker, and didn't find it. Ignoring if I searched properly, I ask here if anyone encountered the issue.

During missions, the game has a tendency to freeze completely. In fact, my whole computer is frozen, and I have no choice but hard-rebooting. This happens often, and is very annoying. I've tried to launch the game from command line redirecting to a file. I'm not quite sure this is related but after the crash I saw the file finished with several hundred lines saying "Too many particles (don't add burnFlame2) - exceeded 2048".
I'd like to know if there is a way to avoid this problem, to test if it is the real cause of the freeze.
I'm using version 2.2-0, installed from a deb package downloaded from getdeb, under Ubuntu Gutsy.

EDIT: I feel relevant to add that this is particularly frequent with crashed UFO missions, which makes more likely for the cause being the particles excess, due to the flames.
EDIT: Damn! Just realized I probably have posted in the wrong section.

EDIT: Removed the irrelevant reference to particles from the title.

[BTAxis]

No, I think this post belongs here.

[Schmorgluck]

Well, I was wondering if I shouldn't have posted it in the bugs section, but you're right, it looks like it's more a system issue.
Anyway, I made some more tests, and it appears that it most likely has nothing to do with particles (I therefore removed the reference to particles in the thread title).
The message about particles doesn't appear in the other logs. In fact, no error message appears in them.

However, by playing over and over (and freezing over and over), I found what seems to be a common point between all the crashes : they all happen when I'm scrolling. At first I thought only mouse scrolling caused it, so I switched to using the numpad to scroll, but it happened as well (it seems to me that it happen less often, but I can't affirm it). It even happened once when I was rotating the view. Also, I don't know if this is related (probably), but  sometimes short freezes happen during scroll.

I guess it's very probably a refreshing problem. I checked if my computer fulfilled the system requirements, and theoretically it does. I'm going to check if my graphic chipset (Radeon IGP 320m) is properly handled by Ubuntu, it's the best theory I have for now.

[Mattn]

can you try to run the ufo binary via gdb (the debugger) - see http://ufoai.ninex.info/wiki/index.php/Debugging#Linux for more infos. a backtrace is the best thing in those cases.

[Schmorgluck]

OK, I'll give it a try as soon as I build the courage to do all the compilation stuff. Any tips about compiling in debugging mode?

[Mattn]

no, just run
./configure && make

[Schmorgluck]

OK, I've finally done it. Launched the game through gdb, it finally froze as usual, I restarted my computer as usual.
What should I do now?

[Mattn]

you should be able to switch back to gdb and hit ctrl+c - then type bt or even better bt full

don't run the game in fullscreen - but in windowed mode - otherwise you can't switch back to gdb

[Schmorgluck]

Oh. Right. I had been suspecting this for a while.
The thing is, I can't do that. I can't switch back to gdb when my computer is frozen. Because, well, it's frozen, it doesn't respond at all.

[nemchenk]

Try CTL+ALT+F1 -- perhaps it's only the X server that is frozen?

If not, have a look in /var/log/messages or /var/log/syslog (or wherever your system puts syslog stuff) after you reboot, there should be some relevant stuff in there.


HTH,

nemchenk