Generation Zero Troubleshooting tips
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Before you do anything else please backup you saves. Backup or Autobackup Save Files.
The guide is based on Windows 10, users of Win 7 and 8 could also learn from it.
It is presumed you met at least the minimum requirements or the recommended system requirements.
QUICK NOTES
- It is a good practice to exempt GZ and Steam from firewall and virus check.
- Update your graphics drivers
- If you are low on Random Access Memory (RAM), or you feel you still don’t have enough.
If you experience a sudden lag while playing, it could mean you are running out of RAM. Pausing and not doing anything might reclaim some of it for you to continue.
GZ eats a lot of RAM and not recycling it efficiently. Eventually, even if you have 32gb of ram, it will consume it all depending on how long you've been playing or how intense action was. Restarting the game when lags become longer or more serious is a good idea.
You can use your disk space as temporarily RAM until you can upgrade it. Read: How to use disk space as RAM.
Installing a memory manager to help you monitor and reclaim RAM is a good practice whether you have lot of ram or not. For the purpose of this troubleshooting please install a memory manager to easily monitor and recycle your ram.
“I use CleanMem free version to manually reclaim memory. In my game-flow, I reclaim memory immediately after launching GZ. I reclaim memory immediately before an expected fight and reclaim memory every time there is a lull in the fight. The paid version does it automatically. Visit this.
Improve PC performance and Game Mode
Another means to improve game performance is to improve your PC performance.
1. Press the Windows key
2. Key-in "environment" (without quotes), click on "Edit the system environment variables" once it appeared.
3. Click on Advance, Settings and select Adjust for best performance, click Apply, and click OK. NOTE: The overall looks of Windows 10 will be less attractive.
Enable/Disable Game Mode
1. Press the Windows key
2. Key-in "game mode" (without quotes), click on "Game Mode Settings" once it appeared.
3. Enable or disable Game Mode
Let’s begin eliminating each possible causes one by one.
If you are tech savvy, jump on Event Viewer(crash log viewer). If not, skip to the next points
Event Viewer is installed by default on Windows 10, if it is not installed or you wish learn more about it, please visit this link.
How to view crash logs in Windows 10
1. Press Windows key + X key.
2. Click on Event Viewer
3. In the new window (where you can view many things) I suggest your start by double clicking on Windows Logs (left panel) to expand it. Start your investigation by clicking on Application. Search the logs on the center panel for some hints about generation zero crashes
If you are going to seek technical support, the crash logs will be required, copy of savegame file and your PC/OS specifications. However, don't get your hopes up because one of the most common reported causes of a crash is about "access violation" which has been occurring from a long time now. See this link from official GZ forum
Before doing anything else, backup your savegame and savegame.bac files. Backup or Autobackup Save Files.
If you are using trainer or mods
Deactivate and close any trainer and cheat engine and moved out your dropzone folder outside of the game's directory in case you were previously using mods.
Random Access Memory
If you can still launch you game, do it and click on Continue but do not do anything yet. Alt-Tab or Alt+Esc to desktop to see what CleanMem about your memory.
If it is Yellow, reclaim the memory until it turns green. If you can’t seem to reclaim it. open another copy of CleanMem and wait until it shows up fully on your tray or desktop and reclaim memory from there. Close the other CleanMem. This is the disadvantage of a free version.
Configure your game settings
By re-configuring, we attempting to reduce graphics load and conflicting settings. Please take a screenshot of the original settings for your own reference.
Display
1. Set Screen Resolution, Set to 1024x768 or to anything much lower that what you are currently using
2. Display Mode > Fullscreen; experiment on Windowed or Borderless (windowed) settings, too. Especially if your game crashes when you press Alt+Tab or Alt+Esc
3. Vsync > Off (this is among the proven causes of many problems. if it was Off toggle it to On)
4. Dynamic Resolution Target. > 30or 60 (choose the one you are not currently using)
5. Click Apply
Graphics
1. Quality Preset. Set everything to Low.
2. Set Fog Quality > Off, Anisotropic filtering > Off, SSAO > Off, Motion Blur > Off, Screen Space Reflection > Off, Global Illumination (many cases point to this as among the biggest causes of crashing) > Off, Anti-Aliasing > OFF (there is no in-game option for "Off" read the workarond.*), Chromatic Aberration > Off.
3. Press Esc key.
* For Nvdia driver. Access Nvidia Control Panel on PC, Manage 3D Settings, Program Settings, select Generation Zero (from Program to Optimize) and toggle Anti-Aliasing > FXAA to "off"
* For Amd, visit this link
My personal preferred option is to turn-off anti-aliasing by editing settings.json file with notepad or other text editing application. Backup the file first. Go to Documents/Avalanche Studios/GenerationZero/Saves/delivery_public/settings/your_steam_id (the one with many numbers)/settings.json
Open the file and search for “GraphicsAA”: and change the number after it to a 0, such as “GraphicsAA”: 0,. Save and close the file. Set its properties to Read Only. How? Right click on settings.json, choose Properties, General, Read Only, click Apply, click OK
NOTE: No matter which option you use, the in game Anti-Aliasing display won't be shown as "off" because the devs forgot to add that option or even a reference text for that option. As to why, your guess is as good as mine. So now we are reduced doing a workaround.
Play the game online, if problem persist, run the game offline by going to the Steam Dashboard, click menu Steam, and click Go Offline. You will need to restart Steam.
If offline mode solves the problem and online does not:
1. Go back to Steam Dashboard, click menu Steam, and click on Go Online.
2. Restart Steam. Disable Steam cloud synchronization by going to Steam Dashboard, Library, right click on Generation Zero, Properties, Updates, disable Steam Cloud Synchronization, click OK to complete the process. To be sure log out and in again of Steam. Recheck if cloud sync is disabled.
3. Try to re-configure your Steam Settings. Go to Dashboard, click on Steam menu button, and select Settings. The 2 below are the most common causes of problems but there many things inside the Settings that might negatively affect your game so play with.
Before you start playing with them take a screenshot of the original settings.
- Try to disable or enable Steam Overlay by selecting In-Game and uncheck Enable Steam Overlay While In Game. However, by doing this your Shift+Tab and F12 (for taking snapshot) will not work.
- Try to disable or enable Shader Pre-Caching (0mb pre-cache) by clicking on Shader Pre-Caching.
- Examine the the various settings here as they could have been accidentally enabled or disabled,.
- Disable features you don't really need.
Click "Ok" after modifying your settings.
If everything else fails, verify game integrity (you must set Steam to “online” to do this)
Go to Steam Dashboard, Library, right click on Generation Zero, Properties, Updates, Local Files, Verify Integrity, and let Steam makes the correction.
To confirm, restart Steam and login again. Repeat the verification process. If it makes another correction attempt, it is better to reinstall the whole game and DLCs. In fact, reinstall can solve many unexplained problems of any game, not just GZ.
Share a copy of your savegame
This simple action is important. If another player or computer can play your savegame file without problem, if can
be safely assumed that your problem has not corrupted your savegame – which is good.
If your trouble is replicated on other computers (assuming the other computers are not suffering from the same problem previously), we can safely assume the saving system could be a huge part of the problem.
NOTE: Your savegame file includes your SteamID, but it can't be used to access your Steam account. In fact, if an official GZ team would respond to your request for help, they will mostly ask for a copy of your savegame file.
Deep testing and configuring your computer system
Please download and install MSI Afterburner and MSI Kombustor4 (or latest version). These are analysis tool and overclocking tool (but we will not use them for overclocking).
Install Afterburner and make sure you also install RivaTuner. Please google search How to monitor FPS, CPU, GPU and RAM usage with MSI Afterburner 2018 - Updated [Tutorial]
Use the tools to monitor FPS, GPU usage and temperature, CPU usage and temperature and RAM usage.
Play the game while monitoring the above variables with Afterburners' online display. Watch out for sudden FPS drops and RAM usage spikes. Take note of the circumstances.
Underclock your PC
Strange thing to say it, but there have been cases where to too powerful, especially This unusual approach is normally applied over-power-over-spec modern PCs.
Allocate less core to run GZ
Run GZ, open Task Manager, right click on GZ, select go to Details, make sure GZ is selected on the new window, right click on GZ, select Set Affinity, decrease the number of computer cores running GZ. This is only temporary. The configuration is deleted the moment you exit the game.
Some even solved their problems by physically pulling out RAM. Not sure if the issue was really about RAM or they are only improperly connected.
NOTE: Keep a close watch on Vsync and Global Illumination graphics setting.
Send us feedback how you resolved you crashing problems.
Other good reads for you:
- Generation Zero: Backup your saves or suffer the consequences
- Generation Zero: Start a new game and keep everything
- Generation Zero Skills Tree All-In-One Image. This is image shows in one look just how much improvement you'd get for every skill point you spent.
- Generation Zero Troubleshooting
- Generation Zero crashes when looting or opening storage
- If you can't host or join multiplayer. For unexplained reason, setting you MP play to "everyone" to allow your friends to join and putting it back to "invite only".
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So:
Someone also told me that yes, the only way is to create a new character in the same world, but we were almost at lvl 30 after playing together for 60 hours....that's a lot of time lost because a random bug.
See this link
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