[How-To] Fixing Rappelz Crashes

[siris]

Many people playing for extended periods of time, teleporting around a lot or frequently relogging/changing between alts will know this problem: The "magic game close".

After some investigating i found the problem and a workaround that will keep you in the game a while longer.

Cause
The problem is two-fold. Rappelz is leaking memory when it loads new parts of the game, e.g. when you enter new areas or use some form of teleportation.
The second problem is that rappelz is a 32bit application. 32bit programs can only address 4 GB of memory, of which 2GB are normally reserved for the operating system.
Once rappelz reaches 2GB of virtual memory use it can't request any more memory from the operating system and thus crashes.

How to monitor the issue
1. Download "Process Explorer" from microsoft sysinternals
2. Run it
3. View -> Select Columns -> Process Memory -> Mark "Virtual Size" -> OK
4. Look for Sframe.exe in the process list. It will crash when the "Virtual Size" column reaches 2.097.152K or higher (i.e. 2GB).
5. Restart your game before that happens

(if you applied the workaround below it'll crash at 3GB [32bit windows] or 4GB [64 bit windows] instead)


Workaround
Confused already? It'll only get worse now.

THIS MODIFIES GAME FILES. DO IT ON YOUR OWN RISK.
(although it only changes 1 bit and is in no way related to game mechanics. so you're not doing anything "evil".)

Step1: (only if you're are on a 32bit windows)
First you need to enable 4GT mode, how this is done is explained here by microsoft

This allows 32bit applications to use 3GB of virtual address space instead of 2GB on 32bit systems.

Step2: download either this tool (the easy option, but you have to trust some random guy on another forum) or Visual C++ Studio Express from Microsoft (the hard way, but less shady).

Step4: Make a backup of sframe.exe in your rappelz program directory

Step5:
a) If you downloaded the first tool:
1. Open it as administrator
2. select sframe.exe
3. mark the checkbox
4. hit save

b) If you downloaded visual studio:
1. copy mspdb100.dll from <visual studio directory>\commons7\ to <visual studio directory>\VC\bin\
2. open a commandline shell as administrator
3. change directory to <visual studio directory>\VC\bin\
4. run

Code: Select all

editbin /largeaddressaware "<full path to rappelz>\SFrame.exe"

Step6: Enjoy rappelz that can use up to 4GB (64bit windows) or 3GB (32bit windows) virtual memory and thus will crash less often. But it will eventually.


You will have to re-apply this fix after updates that download a new sframe.exe!



Permanent fix
The devs have to plug the memory leak and compile rappelz with /LARGEADDRESSAWARE ... which i don't see happening anytime soon.

[hawk4hire]

Ummmm when someone once said Rappelz wasnt Rocket Science I think they missed THIS part of the lecture.

Hopefully the GMs will send this suggestion to the Devs...

[ebemvi]

Err 32 bit OS(win mainly ) cant effectively use 4 GigaBytes of memory(RAM) , it uses 3,3-ish , 500 MB are reserved for the system and thus never accessed .

Also , as i said - KTS , or any other rappelz for that matter that i have tried did not have this issue , there you can triger this crash after 16 hrs of non-stop grind , here it is triggered even when doing HV>TI>HV>Flea sequence on blue server , which IMO is solely due to very poor servers/net conectivity of the place where they are kept .B4 siris throws a fit - plz dont even bother saying sumthin of the type that i dont know bout what im speaking , you dont have any idea what gave me my food for the last 6 years so keep it quiet pl0x

[ard0th]

Impressive that you found that out. I will at least do part one to "precrash" rappelz in a controlled manner.

Permanent fix
The devs have to plug the memory leak and compile rappelz with /LARGEADDRESSAWARE ... which i don't see happening anytime soon.

A fix would be great. I think they adressed that issue in their last survey.

[siris]

Err 32 bit OS(win mainly ) cant effectively use 4 GigaBytes of memory(RAM) , it uses 3,3-ish , 500 MB are reserved for the system and thus never accessed .

That used to be true. But not anymore, with modern chipsets and PAE support the memory can be remapped and thus accessed.

Anyway, it was about virtual memory that can be used, not about physical memory. Those are two different things.

Bottom line: On 32bit windows you can give rappelz 3GB virtual address space instead of 2GB. On 64bit windows you can even give it 4GB.

[midnightsnack]

Thanks siris,

This sounds like a good solution, provided our GMs drop by and comment on whether or not they are against us doing this until a permanent fix from gala-labs is implemented ^^

[djbtech]

provided our GMs drop by and comment on whether or not they are against us doing this

I can change all the icons in the Rapp directory to poop piles and it's no ones business. This discussion is about system changes. No changes are being made to the program itself; just the environment it's launching in. You're basically telling Windows "before you launch X program, you need to allocate this much more memory than is default, thx"

[midnightsnack]

No changes are being made to the program itself; just the environment it's launching in

Unfortunately, editbin = edit binary. The procedure changes a bit, or a few bits of SFrame.exe, so that Windows will launch it with more memory than a default 32bit program would have been able to access if it wasn't compiled with the /largeaddressaware flag or equivalent.

If GG does a verification of the main files involved during launch, for example, a CRC check on SFrame.exe, that 1 bit of change would cause a change in the CRC produced, hence flagging the program as being modified.

The procedure is harmless and all good, assuming GG won't come back and make a mess of this later on. That is what I am worried about (not everyone has the habit of making backups before changing stuff).
I apologise if this is incorrect, as I am a tad rusty on this stuff.

[anibek55]

This is not a reply, but is a continuation of crash questions.
I am using win7. After log on (which goes smooth) all is well until I change Character or pet attributes,(like..using jp's, upgrading weps/armor..etc.) then CRASH! Also, after approx 13 min. of gameplay, CRASH! I have excepted both rappelz and GG in security software. This problem began to occur after E7 release. I wiped Rappelz out of system, re-downloaded, ran patch (which was not needed anyway) and am my wits end. I contacted support and they e-mailed me a sta500. I drank it w/my coffee this am, to no avail. Can I get a witness on this one?

[siris]

as far as i can see that hasn't anything to do with the problem i described.

[fetalharvest]

good post altho i would like to specifie that in 32 bit vista...
*that im not sure if it works in win7*
that instead of the command :::

bcdedit /set [{ID}] datatype value

you would use this command:::

bcdedit /set IncreaseUserVA 3072

the id isnt needed with this vista command and is alot less confusing i would think but then again *shrugs*
i do hope this helps

[midnightsnack]

Dropping by back here to say...

Thank-you very much siris! ^^^

This fix of yours did the trick for me. I can play rappelz for hours without restarting the game client even once, even when I teleport frequently or switch characters fast. I used to have to restart my game client after every town-break to avoid crashing during a dp (or crashing trying to get there).

I can't believe I didn't apply this fix as soon as I read it and left it until a few days ago.

[wuvvi]

Step2: download either this tool (the easy option, but you have to trust some random guy on another forum) or Visual C++ Studio Express from Microsoft (the hard way, but less shady).

Alternatively you can use CFF-Explorer:

http://ntcore.com/exsuite.php (Download: http://ntcore.com/files/CFF_Explorer.zip)

Details (in German) see:
http://www.3dcenter.org/artikel/das-lar ... aware-flag

I will try this evening!
Thank you siris!

[ubiquitousnoob]

Step1: (only if you're are on a 32bit windows)
First you need to enable 4GT mode, how this is done is explained here by microsoft

This allows 32bit applications to use 3GB of virtual address space instead of 2GB on 32bit systems.

Step2: download either this tool (the easy option, but you have to trust some random guy on another forum) or Visual C++ Studio Express from Microsoft (the hard way, but less shady).

Step4: Make a backup of sframe.exe in your rappelz program directory

Step5:
a) If you downloaded the first tool:
1. Open it as administrator
2. select sframe.exe
3. mark the checkbox
4. hit save

Can someone please tell me me how to enable 4GT mode? I'm trying to follow the steps and followed the links but I'm not very good with computers.
Any help would be appreciated. Thanks in advance.

[lockuup]

SFrame.exe isn't showing in my list of Process Explorer :S
itr pops up when I start the launcer and stays there while gameguard is loaded (which shows also). Then when the game window pops up, it's gone and there's no more rappelz related processes in there :S

any clue what's going wrong?