Daggerfall causing Windows to Crash

[grimfangs]

I'm using DFU Release 1.0.0 on Windows 11 Home 64-bit Build 23H2.

I've had this problem once before, but basically, Windows crashes after running Daggerfall for anywhere between 5 to 15 minutes regardless of which save I'm booting up.

The last time this happened, I had to restore Windows to a previous system image, and everything worked fine. However, I ran into this problem again and tried testing Daggerfall instead. I've disabled all mods but the problem still persists. The screen glitches out and the OS crashes. At other times, it shows me a Page Fault Blue Screen. That being said, I don't want to keep restoring my OS to a specific image just to get Daggerfall working.

The reason I'm blaming this on Daggerfall is because I've logged my system performance and I could find no hardware faults with it whatsoever. Furthermore, I've tested other games including Mirror's Edge: Catalyst, Titanfall 2, Delta Force: Land Warrior, and the DOSBox version of Daggerfall, but none of the other games make my system crash.

I've packaged my save files alongside the Player Log for reference.

If it is of any relevance, DFU crashes quite often on my system, but typically, it's only the game that crashes to the desktop, and not the Operating System itself.

I hope the information supplied will be fruitful in finding a fix for this. Thanks in advance!

Update 1:

So I did a system restore, hoping that it would fix the problem like last time. However, it did not affect DFU. The game still causes my system to crash after a few minutes of run-time.

Update 2:

Thank you to every one of you who helped here and sorry for wasting your time. I thought this problem was limited to DFU since it was the only application causing my machine to crash, but soon enough, my laptop will no longer turn on anymore. It is indeed a fault with my machine.

If there is any way to close this thread, I would like to do so.

Thank you once again for all your help and support and sorry for wasting your time.

[Jay_H]

I've disabled all mods but the problem still persists.

This is an odd one, and I'll admit I haven't seen this before. I looked through the player log but didn't see anything catastrophic in there. I loaded your save for about 10 minutes, walking in the wilderness without mods and didn't get any negative result.

The only thing I think of in situations like this is the power supply unit going bad under heavy demand, but if you're certain of that, I'm short on ideas Perhaps someone more skilled than myself could come around on this, it's hard to say.

[grimfangs]

Thanks for your reply.

I would say that DFU, especially unmodded, is hardly taxing on my system. I've tested it out with more taxing games, and they run just fine, without causing the game to crash. Could there be any way of figuring out how the application might be taxing the system in a specific way? Perhaps some profiling tool that you would recommend that can record data?

Maybe the game is trying to access some unknown memory location on my device? I'm guessing that might be what's behind this crash. Either that, or perhaps a register/cache overflow of some kind since it always crashes between that specific time-frame for me. Then again, I'm hardly an expert.

[DunnyOfPenwick]

It may be a very specific hardware flaw (memory, motherboard, GPU).
Try running some diagnostic tools.
You could also try running other similar Unity-based games.

[Asesino]

I have had Daggerfall crash in the past due to some error in DFU’s system.ini file. Reinstalling DFU won’t replace the file, so if it is corrupted, a new install won’t fix that. You might try backing up your DFU system.ini file and then deleting it so that DFU can rebuild it.

thanks
a

[pango]

I have had Daggerfall crash in the past due to some error in DFU’s system.ini file.

Reread the post, it's not DFU crashing, it's DFU crashing the computer.

[DAOWAce]

I would say that DFU, especially unmodded, is hardly taxing on my system.

I was playing a 23 year old single core game and my system BSOD'd, yet can run Cyberpunk maxed out without skipping a beat.

Sometimes, the instability is due to low load, which has differing voltage and clock speeds on the CPU. If the system is a number of years old, then some of the hardware could've degraded over time (typically CPU), and require slightly higher voltage to maintain stability (either total offset, or load line/vdroop). This is also assuming you're vsynced and not running the game at 500+ FPS.

The Windows crash report would be the first place you look. Finding the error code specifically, googling about it, seeing what reports other people mention (nirsoft's "bluescreenview" program is a good helper). Check event viewer for "WHEA" errors, and if they exist, the dates to see if it coincides with the system crashes (even if they don't, WHEA errors indicate instability, period).

For 'fun', you can run a stress test program in the background (cpuz, prime95, occt, aida64, linpack, etc.) while playing DFU and see if it still crashes. If it does, it might be something else entirely.. which is a rabbit hole of potential.

[Asesino]

I have had Daggerfall crash in the past due to some error in DFU’s system.ini file.

Reread the post, it's not DFU crashing, it's DFU crashing the computer.

Ah, sorry Pango, missed that. The good news is that windows creates a dump file when it crashes. You normally find them in c:\windows\memory. That file normally pinpoints the root cause.

[grimfangs]

Sorry for the delayed response and thank you all for your tips and advise, especially DAOWAce for their in-depth response complete with things I could do to test my system.

I'll get on it and post the findings here.

[grimfangs]

Let me begin by apologising to every one of you helpful members.

It was indeed a fault with my machine as you guys had pointed out.

I had not had a chance to test it yet, but a few days after I made my last reply, my machine fell into an eternal slumber from which it would never wake again.

Thank you for pointing me in the right direction direction nonetheless and sorry for wasting your time.