DescentBB

Anybody playing Episode 2 or Portal and get a memory error when shutting down the game as of recent? It works for hours with no problems but I get an error message that says the program is trying to access some memory location illegaly and needs to be shut down ONLY when I quit the game. I have Win XP and 2G of RAM for crying out loud!

Illegal memory address errors are usually caused by either overclocking or excessive heat (or both). Too much dust could be in your system leading to mild overheating, grab a can of compressed air and make sure everything is clean.

If that doesn't work, let memtest86+ run a couple passes to make sure your memory is working properly. Free download: http://www.memtest.org/

No overclocking and heat is not a problem. It only shows up after a quicksave or autosave occurs, so it can happen early on. Apparently Valve has introduced a memory access bug in the most recent update to EP1, EP2 and Portal that many are complaining about. I was just wondering if anybody here had run into it? I'll try the memtest on my system though. Thanks.

If it is a documented bug in the software that is generating the illegal address error, then it is highly likely nothing is wrong with your hardware. About the only thing you can do is revert to an older version or wait for them to fix it.

If I may suggest -

When I first played Episode 1, I had a very similar problem with the game crashing whenever it would autosave. In reality, it was some kind of audio crash. The workaround was to force the game to run in DirectX 8.1 mode, which is an argument you can pass into the game (right-click on game -> Properties -> Set Launch Options). I don't remember what the argument was... -dx81 maybe?

Steam really cuts both ways. While it's nice that it auto-updates games, it's definitely not cool to get stuck with new bugs and glitches you cannot avoid.

Yeah, Steam's auto update really sucks, especially when you have an already working setup! Precisely why I turned off Windows Update and do it manually once a month and CHOOSE what I want to screw up.

The automatic updating in Steam can be turned off. Right click on the any of the games, click properties, click on the updates tab, and select \"do not automatically update this game\" in the drop down.

Hmm, I may have to keep that in mind next time I reinstall Windows on this machine. I'd sure like to have the search ability in the model browser again.

Krom wrote:The automatic updating in Steam can be turned off. Right click on the any of the games, click properties, click on the updates tab, and select "do not automatically update this game" in the drop down.

I have that set on Half Life 2 and Episode 1. But EP2 and Portal were updated when I first installed them on the computer recently from the DVD. There was no way to stop the auto-updater until Steam got through with the initial install. However, I also set those two to not update as well when the install was complete. But if the problem persists, I may try to update both of those in the future, but not HL2 or EP1. They work fine. If it's not broke, don't fix it!

This is the error message that pops up when I shut down either Portal or EP2:

The instruction at 0x102907d8 referenced memory at 0x0d9e9140
The memory could not be read.

Click OK to terminate the program.

The address number changes, of course, each time I quit the affected games. I can play DOOM 3 or Crysis for a long time with no memory problems, so it must be a bug in the games. At least it's only a problem that shows up when quitting the games, not during play.

9/10 its a driver thing.