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Screen turn often entirely grey

VenescenceVenescence
Mabinogi Rep: 835
Posts: 19
Member
edited November 19, 2020 in Technical Support
Hello,

Since a few month, when playing Mabinogi, the game lag, the screen turn black, after grey and normal with only the window of the game white. After that, the screen become entirely normal. The fist times, I didn't bother to report, because this phenomenon ocurred rarely, and I could play confortably. But this occurs more and more often, almost each minutes, sometime multiple times in a row. So it's unplayable.
If it can help, I did some observation :
Sometime, the window of the game stay white and a message said that the application couldn't access to the graphic material.
When the phenomenon occurs, the task manager show a spike in the graphic for the graphic card and the ram memory.
This phenomenon occurs more often in some area : Tara and Tailteann, near the entrance of the shadow missions, and Dunbarton.
I play in windowed screen mode.
I was thinking that this phenomenon could indicate that my laptop, and especially is graphic card are becoming obsolete. And probably that they do. But I'm not sure that it is the only problem : when playing other games this does not occurs, or rarely :
In The Elders Scroll Online, only if I play a really long time, or in an area that is surpopulated (the last extension).
In Project V4, never.
In Genshin Impact, only one or two time since I start the game (one or two time against a several time with no problem).
It seems to me that these games, especially the two latters need more resources than Mabinogi, and I have less problem with these games. It's why I think that the age of my laptop is not the only reason why my screen flicker (if it's the good word).
Can you help me to fix this issue ?
P.S. : I'm french, I tried to write in english properly, but sometimes, I have more difficulties to find the right word or the right way to formulate something. I hope it will be understandable, not too hard to read. If I have to reformulate something, just ask.

Comments

  • HabimaruHabimaru
    Mabinogi Rep: 3,630
    Posts: 761
    Member
    Plusieurs instances récemment chaque minute de ton écran devient noir, gris, mais la bordure de la fenêtre reste blanche ? Et maintenant... cela se produit plus souvent pour toi qu'avant ?

    As-tu installé de nouveaux logiciels depuis il y a quelques mois...? Combien et lesquels ?

    N'import, basé sur tes informations, il y a une possibilité forte d'usure normale (tu as écrit les titres de beaucoup de jeux bien sûr !). Utilise-toi de refroidisseur d'ordinateur portable (comme dans l'image ci-dessous) ? Même si ton ordi portable est un ordi-portable de jeu, surchauffe prolongée peut réduire la durée de vie, mais c'est aussi possible qu'il y a des erreurs dans le registre de Windows (une explication possible lorsque le logiciel ne peut pas accéder aux ressources graphiques).

    nsf05-main-01.jpg

    Si c'est un problème avec le registre de Windows, moi j'utilise normalement un logiciel de sécurité par ZookaWare, mais sa fonctionnalité complète n'est pas gratuite (toujours très bon marché et vaut très bien l'investissement à mon avis). Une autre possibilité se produit lorsque le disque dur commence à manquer d'espace. Pour résoudre tel problèmes j'utilise les disques durs externes (l'espace de stockage est très bon marchè de nos jours, donc même des disques de 5 To de capacité sont disponibles pour moins de 200$US, bien que cela puisse dépendre de lemplacement dans le monde).

    Il peut y avoir un certain nombre de raisons différentes pour lesquelles ton écran clignote... mais couvrons les bases pour le moment.
    Venescence
  • VenescenceVenescence
    Mabinogi Rep: 835
    Posts: 19
    Member
    Habimaru wrote: »
    Plusieurs instances récemment chaque minute de ton écran devient noir, gris, mais la bordure de la fenêtre reste blanche ? Et maintenant... cela se produit plus souvent pour toi qu'avant ?

    As-tu installé de nouveaux logiciels depuis il y a quelques mois...? Combien et lesquels ?

    N'import, basé sur tes informations, il y a une possibilité forte d'usure normale (tu as écrit les titres de beaucoup de jeux bien sûr !). Utilise-toi de refroidisseur d'ordinateur portable (comme dans l'image ci-dessous) ? Même si ton ordi portable est un ordi-portable de jeu, surchauffe prolongée peut réduire la durée de vie, mais c'est aussi possible qu'il y a des erreurs dans le registre de Windows (une explication possible lorsque le logiciel ne peut pas accéder aux ressources graphiques).

    nsf05-main-01.jpg

    Si c'est un problème avec le registre de Windows, moi j'utilise normalement un logiciel de sécurité par ZookaWare, mais sa fonctionnalité complète n'est pas gratuite (toujours très bon marché et vaut très bien l'investissement à mon avis). Une autre possibilité se produit lorsque le disque dur commence à manquer d'espace. Pour résoudre tel problèmes j'utilise les disques durs externes (l'espace de stockage est très bon marchè de nos jours, donc même des disques de 5 To de capacité sont disponibles pour moins de 200$US, bien que cela puisse dépendre de lemplacement dans le monde).

    Il peut y avoir un certain nombre de raisons différentes pour lesquelles ton écran clignote... mais couvrons les bases pour le moment.
    t
    Some of the new software installed since this problem start are Zotero, V4 and Genshin Impact too, Others software were on my laptop since a long time before the problem occurs. The installation of V4 was made not so long before this phenomenon start to increase in frequency.
    The Nexon Launcher is installed in my D partition where I have actually 100go of free memory, so I don't think that the lack of space memory is what made the game crash/flicker.

    I will try to see is there something to fix in the registry.

    For the pc cooler, I think of buying it since a long time, but I always procrastinate for this ^^

    Thank you for your help :)
  • GretaGreta
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    Posts: 6,975
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    Why french??? Is he trolling???
    Helsa
  • HabimaruHabimaru
    Mabinogi Rep: 3,630
    Posts: 761
    Member
    With hardly anybody even populating these forums, and the very low view-count, I did not expect many people to even read/open this thread other than the OP anyway; just in case any non-francophone has a similar issue the translation to my response is in immediately following spoiler.
    Several instances recently of your screen becoming black, grey, but the window-border remains white ? And now this is happening more often for you than before ?

    Have you installed new software since a few months ago ? How many and which ones ?

    Regardless, based on your information, there is a strong possibility of normal wear-and-tear (you did mention many game-titles of course !). Do you use a laptop-cooler (such as in the image below) ? Even if your laptop is a gaming laptop, prolonged over-heating can still reduce its life-span but it's also possible that there are Windows registry errors (one possible explanation for why the software cannot access the graphics-resources).

    [Note-Book-Cooler Image Here]

    If it's a problem with the Windows-registry, I personally usually use a security software from ZookaWare, but its full-functionality is not free (still very affordable and worth the investment in my opinion). Another possibility happens when the hard-drive starts running out of space. In order to resoulve such problems I use external hard-disk-drives (storage-space these days is very inexpensive, such that even a 5TB HDDs are available for less than 200$US, I suppose depending on where in the world one is located).

    There could be a number of other reasons for your blinking screen but let's just cover the basics for now.
    Greta wrote: »
    Why french???
    Is he trolling???
  • GretaGreta
    Mabinogi Rep: 51,805
    Posts: 6,975
    Member
    But this is literally against forum rules. You broke them lol.
    Helsa
  • HabimaruHabimaru
    Mabinogi Rep: 3,630
    Posts: 761
    Member
    You must be rather bored to go about forum-stalking me like this... what reason would you have to be in the Tech-Support section of all places if not for boredom/stalking ? Miss me that much do you ? ;o Nor is it like I didn't make the English-language translation available. Anyway, the world is already far too full of the punishment-oriented authoritarian mind-set*, and it's not like we live in a world where nobody has on-line access to quick-translation-tools if they don't understand something (even though they are often full of grammatical-errors).

    For the record, when this place was much more active, back in previous versions of these forums, I actually covered quite a high percentage of tech-support responses, with most of the technical-issues that people were having getting successfully resolved. Alas, just about all of the regulars from back in the day are no longer around, and I really do mean nearly all of them, with pretty much Kensaofmari really being the only remaining forum-regular.
    Punishment-Oriented Authoritarian Mind-Set*: Plus the fact that Benign Education is far more effective than Punitive-Measures (consider how there are 63+ million lines of legislation in the U.S. alone, yet, despite all of those punitive-rules, has it really done anything to reduce the country's crime-rate ? No.) Now that I have more knowledge of the various psychological-studies and social-statistics that have come out from various researchers over the years it is now no surprise to me as to how and why generally unruly teenagers ended up listening to me and even looking up to me greatly rather than continue to act like the bullies that they once were before I set them straight (it's also more «professional» to educate rather than berate anyway). Stopping here for now because of the digression...
    If you want to have interesting discussion
    Greta wrote: »
    But this is literally against forum rules. You broke them lol.
  • GretaGreta
    Mabinogi Rep: 51,805
    Posts: 6,975
    Member
    edited November 21, 2020
    Habimaru wrote: »
    You must be rather bored to go about forum-stalking me like this... what reason would you have to be in the Tech-Support section of all places if not for boredom/stalking ? Miss me that much do you ? ;o Nor is it like I didn't make the English-language translation available. Anyway, the world is already far too full of the punishment-oriented authoritarian mind-set*, and it's not like we live in a world where nobody has on-line access to quick-translation-tools if they don't understand something (even though they are often full of grammatical-errors).

    For the record, when this place was much more active, back in previous versions of these forums, I actually covered quite a high percentage of tech-support responses, with most of the technical-issues that people were having getting successfully resolved. Alas, just about all of the regulars from back in the day are no longer around, and I really do mean nearly all of them, with pretty much Kensaofmari really being the only remaining forum-regular.
    Punishment-Oriented Authoritarian Mind-Set*: Plus the fact that Benign Education is far more effective than Punitive-Measures (consider how there are 63+ million lines of legislation in the U.S. alone, yet, despite all of those punitive-rules, has it really done anything to reduce the country's crime-rate ? No.) Now that I have more knowledge of the various psychological-studies and social-statistics that have come out from various researchers over the years it is now no surprise to me as to how and why generally unruly teenagers ended up listening to me and even looking up to me greatly rather than continue to act like the bullies that they once were before I set them straight (it's also more «professional» to educate rather than berate anyway). Stopping here for now because of the digression...
    If you want to have interesting discussion
    Greta wrote: »
    But this is literally against forum rules. You broke them lol.

    Bored or not, you are not interesting enough for me to stalk you. So uninteresting that all i can is only read your first 1-3 sentences before i dismiss your whole post an give up trying to read any further. The way you write is annoying and unpleasant for me.
    Helsa
  • HabimaruHabimaru
    Mabinogi Rep: 3,630
    Posts: 761
    Member
    edited November 23, 2020
    Hmm, okay, then, I guess I love you, too. [/insert witty emoticon here]

    ...I would have just left it at that (the above sentence) but I just noticed that it looks like I started a sentence (earlier response) and didn't actually finish what I started to mention before posting the response. And don't blame me for turning bland and uninteresting; anything that is actually interesting gets labeled as «controversial» and, therefore, considered to be against forum-rules (the reference to Guy Fawkes is the type of thing that many of this community's members would have expected me to have posted rather than the someone else who actually did [inb4theylockthisthreadformentioninghisname]).

    No matter, I shall keep my eye out for opportunities to let you have your cake, and eat it, too, even though that might have to wait until the next world or some other existence where pulling such a thing off might be easier or even actually possible !
    Greta wrote: »
    Bored or not, you are not interesting enough for me to stalk you. So uninteresting that all i can is only read your first 1-3 sentences before i dismiss your whole post an give up trying to read any further. The way you write is annoying and unpleasant for me.
    And with the amount of legislation in existence in the world there is literally NO such thing as any person/entity which isn't breaking some rule or cannot be sued for something. Literally everyone on earth is apparently committing at least 3 or more felonies on a daily basis... unknowingly.
  • VenescenceVenescence
    Mabinogi Rep: 835
    Posts: 19
    Member
    I fixed the registry with Zookaware, but it didn't change anything on Mabinogi.
    I will try to monitor the temperature of my laptop when playing to see if it's an issue.
    For the memory space, as I said earlier, the game is installed on a partition where there still 100go of free space, so I don't think it's an issue.
  • HabimaruHabimaru
    Mabinogi Rep: 3,630
    Posts: 761
    Member
    HWMonitor by CPUID is also a TemperatureCPUSystem-Monitoring Utility that provides detailed information (screen-shot of the current stats of my system at the time of this posting as example in spoiler). Certainly, you want to keep the CPU-Temperature below 70°C if possible, ideally from 45°C to 55°C to avoid shortening the life-span of your system.

    The other game-titles you mentioned may be listed as having higher resource-requirements but the minimum system-requirements for Mabinogi must not have been updated to reflect the more modern-day resource-usage and so I have reason to believe that Mabinogi does use up much more resources than most of the other graphics-intensive titles in existence (many of the technical-oriented members in the community have said that it is because of the combination of the Pleione rendering engine and how all of the animé-texture polygon-graphics are drawn if I remember correctly [I could still be mistaken but I have come across references to Pleione being an old engine and may not necessarily have the high-speed compatibility with modern-day computers]). You might be thinking that your Gaming Laptop should be able to handle max-graphics-settings on Mabinogi without problem, but, I think you might want to try lowering those graphics-settings a bit, especially since you have not confirmed making use of a laptop-cooler (I almost never use laptops without laptop-coolers these days as it has been my experience that laptops already have a much shorter life-span than desk-top computers as it is before their performance starts to deteriorate).

    The only other thing that comes to mind at the moment is to make sure you're not using your laptop in or near some sort of magnetic or static-field (I had a very interesting experience with creating a large field of static at my place by running an O-Zone Generator constantly for too long over a rather extended period of time, not only resulting in ridiculously high electric-bills, but the viscosity of the air around the part of the room where the generator was running was so thick that putting my hand through it felt like I might have been able to take a paper-clip and have it suspended in mid-air within that static-field). Anyway, such magnetic-fields or other such static build-ups will usually occur at or around other electronic-devices, so double-check if there is anothing metallic around you when using your laptop.
    bnvBtLj.png
    Venescence wrote: »
    I fixed the registry with Zookaware, but it didn't change anything on Mabinogi.
    I will try to monitor the temperature of my laptop when playing to see if it's an issue.
    For the memory space, as I said earlier, the game is installed on a partition where there still 100go of free space, so I don't think it's an issue.
  • VenescenceVenescence
    Mabinogi Rep: 835
    Posts: 19
    Member
    My laptop is not a gamer laptop ^^
    I have monitored the temperature of my pc in game with Core Temp : the temperature oscillate between 79°C and 95°C. Strangely, the freezing didn't really correlate with the upper values :/
    My graphic are already at minimum
    I don't have engine creating static field near my laptop.
    If I insist on the fact that more recent game work well, it's only because it make sense to me that if my laptop is decaying, the diminution of performance should be visible on them too, but maybe I lack element here ^^
    What I understand, is that Mabinogi have asked more and more ressources with updates without being optimised for functionning smoothly on recent pc ? And this can explain that recent gam work relatively well even if Mabinogi freeze/flicker ?
  • HabimaruHabimaru
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    Freezing and Flickering/Blinking ? Just to be clear, VRAM (Video Random Access Memory) is used for video-graphics display, but if there is not enough VRAM, then the memory from the regular RAM has to be pulled in order to render graphics.

    And those are actually above-average temperatures for a computer to be running... each laptop will also have a vent where the fan blows out the excess heat/hot air, usually on the right or left side, but sometimes behind; make sure you're not blocking the air-flow (for example, say that the air blows out from the left side of the laptop, you don't want to be using the laptop up against any walls to the left side of you/your laptop, otherwise the heat gets trapped and over-heats your system).

    Recent games are more-likely to have more compatibility with today's computers due to what are called «(Game-)Engines» that run them so it shouldn't be too much of a surprise that they would be able to run smoothly. Mabinogi runs on what is called the Pleione Engine which is not necessarily optimum for newer integrated graphics-systems (e.g.: 2xxx, 3xxx, 4xxx, and perhaps whatever else has come out since a few years ago).

    One on-line source I looked at where someone else had issues had a response to try running the stand-alone version of Mabinogi rather than the Steam-version (I suppose in the present-day the closest-equivalent to stand-alone would be the version from the Nexon-Launcher).

    Anyway, even at 79°C, that is still a fairly high temperature to be running. Double-check to make sure that you don't have a lot of dust build-up within your laptop (you might have to blow air at your vent to try and get some dust out). I won't give any complicated instructions at this time to open or upgrade the laptop since it is better to leave that to someone with computer-repair expertise but at the least you should probably run a fan, such as something like in the image below, blowing directly towards your laptop to try and cool down the temperature as much as possible (aim for 60°C or below but if you can at least get it down to 65°C that should be sufficient to narrow down what is causing your technical-issue)...
    maxresdefault.jpg