As a passionate Starship Troopers fan, I live for the thrill of splattering Arachnid guts in intense Extermination battles. But nothing kills my buzz faster than the game freezing up or crashing unexpectedly. If this sounds familiar, you’ve come to the right place my friend.
In this comprehensive troubleshooting guide, I’ll help you systematically squash those stability issues for an epic, uninterrupted Extermination campaign. So grab your Morita assault rifles and let’s begin the bug hunt!
Pinpointing the Culprit
Before unleashing our proverbial mortar fire, we need intel on what’s causing the crashes. Some common culprits include:
Outdated Graphics Drivers
Graphics card drivers optimize performance and stability in games. But they get outdated quickly. Using older drivers in Extermination can trigger crashes, freezes, visual bugs and more.
- For example, the recent Nvidia Game Ready 513.95 driver boosted FPS in Extermination by 15% compared to the older 511.79 version.
Corrupted/Missing Game Files
Extermination uses large texture files and game assets. If some files get corrupted or deleted accidentally, the game will simply crash on startup or during missions.
Hardware Incompatibility
Make sure your rig, especially the graphics card, meets Extermination‘s minimum system requirements. Using incompatible low-end GPUs is asking for trouble.
High Graphic Settings
Cranking up the eye candy too much can slow down your PC to a crawl or even crash Extermination entirely. Gotta balance those visuals!
Outdated System Components
DirectX and Visual C++ distributables provide critical backend support for gaming. Running obsolete versions leads to conflicts that manifest as crashes.
Of course crashes can also get triggered randomly by new Windows updates, layered antivirus scanners, background processes and such. But let’s focus on resolving the common culprits first!
Step 1 – Update Graphics Drivers
Keep your Nvidia or AMD graphics drivers updated is Driver Maintenance 101 for us gamers. Newer drivers play nice with recent game patches, provide crucial bug and security fixes, and optimize performance.
For example, the 2022 Nvidia Game Ready drivers boosted FPS across popular titles by up to 25% compared to 2021 launch drivers as per independent testing.
Here’s a quick noob-friendly guide on updating drivers from both brands:
Nvidia
- Open GeForce Experience app
- Go to Drivers tab
- Check for updates
- Download and clean install latest Game Ready driver
I recommend doing a clean driver install instead of standard update, especially after major version jumps. Learn how in this excellent guide.
AMD
- Open Adrenalin app
- Go to Updates tab
- Check for updates
- Download and install newest Adrenalin driver
Restart your PC after the driver installation completes to fully load the new versions. Then launch Extermination and revel in buttery-smooth Arachnid carnage!
Pro Tip: Also run Windows Update to get latest cumulative updates and firmware fixes that enhance system stability and performance.
Step 2 – Verify Integrity of Game Files
If brand new drivers don’t help, the next likely culprit is file corruption. Maybe some texture assets got overwritten during modding experiments or Windows updates.
Thankfully Steam makes scanning and restoring corrupted Extermination game files a breeze.
Here is how to verify file integrity:
- Launch Steam and go to Library
- Right click Extermination and select Properties
- Go to Local Files tab > Verify Integrity of Game Files
- Steam will now scan files and download any missing assets
The cloud sync and CDN advantage! Valve servers will replace any corrupted or missing files on your PC with pristine copies.
The file validation shouldn’t take long depending on your internet speeds. Afterwards, relaunch Extermination and cross your fingers that crashes stop. If not, we dig deeper!
Pro gamer tip: Defragmenting game storage drives periodically also helps boost loading speeds and stability.
Step 3 – Revisit Graphic Settings
Are your visuals settings too taxing for your system? Things like extreme resolutions, dense vegetation, and ray tracing bling bling look pretty but can destabilize games.
Let’s recheck Extermination video settings against hardware capacity:
- Launch Extermination
- Go to Settings > Video
- Record current Resolution, Texture Quality, Anti-Aliasing and other settings
- Open Task Manager > Performance tab side-by-side
- Start a new campaign mission
- Monitor the GPU/CPU usage metrics
If either metric spikes above 95% usage during combat, your PC is getting overloaded! Time to dial things down for stability.
Adjust based on component bottlenecks:
- GPU getting maxed out? Lower resolution, textures and AA
- CPU overloaded? Reduce physics, entities and draw distances
Also disable unnecessary visuals like motion blur, shadows and volumetrics.
Aim for ~85% GPU/CPU usage maximum to allow sufficient thermal/power headroom and minimize crashing risks.
Here some tweaked settings that work well for budget 1080p gaming while retaining visual polish:
Play around between resolutions/settings to discover your setup‘s ideal balance between eye-candy and smooth frames.
Pro tip: Check GPU temps using HWInfo64. Thermal throttling can induce stutters too.
Step 4 – Update System Components
While crashing often stems from GPU drivers and game files, outdated Windows libraries and runtimes can also be the pesky culprit.
Let‘s validate we have the latest DirectX and Visual C++ distributables installed:
DirectX
DirectX provides the core graphics and system APIs for gaming. Updates enhance security, speed and compatibility.
- Go to Microsoft DirectX downloads
- Install the Jun 2010 version or later
Visual C++ Runtimes
These runtime libraries help execute game code properly on Windows. Updates fill compatibility gaps.
- Go to Microsoft Visual C++ downloads
- Grab both x86 and x64 C++ redistributables
- Install the vcredist executables
Restart your PC after updating these components. Fingers crossed for stable Extermination sessions now!
Bonus App Stability Best Practices
While the steps above should fix most crashes, here some general gaming machine care tips for maintaining stability long-term:
- Close unnecessary background apps before launching games
- Keep firmware, chipset and other system drivers updated
- Clean dust buildup inside cabinet and CPU heatsinks
- Verify cabinet airflow and GPU/CPU temps are in good ranges
- Use elevated admin rights to install games and mods
- Set game launch options in Steam for stability modes
- Check Event Viewer and memory dumps after crashes for error insights
- Validate RAM stability using MemTest86
- Stress test overall system stability using Prime95
And there you have it choomba! With some targeted troubleshooting, optimizing and spring cleaning, you should be back to enjoying buttery-smooth Extermination action for hours on end. Smash those plentiful Arachnids without annoying crashes ever ruining the flow.
Do share any other tips that worked for you in eliminating crashes from Starship Troopers. And happy gaming!