Win 10 VM Crashing Playing Ark Survival Evolved

[15goudreau]

Hi guys,

 

Having an issue with my windows 10 vm. While playing Ark: Survival evolved I get entire VM crashes frequently, usually not more than 5 minutes in. I have a system bebugger from fix common problems as well as my system log attached. I would love to know if you guys could point out why the VM will completely reset itself. Thanks!

 

 

 

 

Things like Overwatch seem to run ok. If you need any other system information please ask!

tower-diagnostics-20190302-1854.zip

FCPsyslog_tail.txt

Edited March 4, 2019 by 15goudreau
delete walls of text

[trurl]

1 minute ago, 15goudreau said:

If you need any other system information please ask!

You should always go to Tools - Diagnostics and attach the complete diagnostics zip (to your next post). That diagnostics zip file contains the syslog, SMART report for all disks, and many other things that give a more complete understanding of your system. And since it is a zipped file containing lots of easily compressible text files, it will be much better to work with than the wall of text you gave us here.

[15goudreau]

I have edited it into my main post!

[trurl]

Thanks for the diagnostics, but the rest of it is even worse. I am going to clean it up for you.

 

If you have an fcpsyslog_tail, please zip it and attach also. You shouldn't run FCP in Troubleshooting mode since that creates very large logs and will fill your logspace, causing problems of its own. Use that mode only when someone tells you to, or when you are unable to get the Diagnostics normally because the system hangs.

[15goudreau]

I ran it because I was googling and someone said that it is a good tool. Didn't know if there was a better option. I attached the FCPsyslog_tail, there was no zip for it.

[Warrentheo]

To be honest, that CPU is about 50% of the minimum spec for the game, so either the crashing is because the CPU is not up to spec, or the crashing doesn't matter because even if we fix it, the game is not going to run correctly...  This is lost cause territory for me...

 

p.s. A GTX 660 is also below the minimum spec for the craphics card as well...

MINIMUM:
OS: Windows 7/8.1/10 (64-bit versions)
Processor: Intel Core i5-2400/AMD FX-8320 or better
Memory: 8 GB RAM
Graphics: NVIDIA GTX 670 2GB/AMD Radeon HD 7870 2GB or better
DirectX: Version 10
Storage: 60 GB available space
Additional Notes: Requires broadband internet connection for multiplayer

https://cpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Intel-Xeon-E5-2660-v2-vs-Intel-Core-i5-2400/m13068vs803

 

And all of this is for baremetal performance...  Trying to run UnRaid  and KVM/QEMU and possibly other stuff on top of all this further reduces how likely this is to work...  If you are going to game on your UnRaid box, it needs to be overkill for the game you are running...

Edited March 5, 2019 by Warrentheo

[trurl]

3 hours ago, 15goudreau said:

I attached the FCPsyslog_tail, there was no zip for it.

3 hours ago, trurl said:

please zip it

Are you not able to make a zip file?

 

[15goudreau]

12 hours ago, Warrentheo said:

To be honest, that CPU is about 50% of the minimum spec for the game, so either the crashing is because the CPU is not up to spec, or the crashing doesn't matter because even if we fix it, the game is not going to run correctly...  This is lost cause territory for me...

 

p.s. A GTX 660 is also below the minimum spec for the craphics card as well...

MINIMUM:
OS: Windows 7/8.1/10 (64-bit versions)
Processor: Intel Core i5-2400/AMD FX-8320 or better
Memory: 8 GB RAM
Graphics: NVIDIA GTX 670 2GB/AMD Radeon HD 7870 2GB or better
DirectX: Version 10
Storage: 60 GB available space
Additional Notes: Requires broadband internet connection for multiplayer

https://cpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Intel-Xeon-E5-2660-v2-vs-Intel-Core-i5-2400/m13068vs803

 

And all of this is for baremetal performance...  Trying to run UnRaid  and KVM/QEMU and possibly other stuff on top of all this further reduces how likely this is to work...  If you are going to game on your UnRaid box, it needs to be overkill for the game you are running...

Thanks for taking a look! I understand your thoughts regarding it to be a lost cause so let me elaborate.

 

So the processor can turbo up to 3.0 Ghz, which is pretty close to their minimum processor listed. I'm not sure if that really is the issue or not. The gpu was in a different system (with a better processor, i7-3820) and didn't experience any of these crashes. Since the whole VM is crashing, I would expect it to be a configuration issue within KVM or Unraid, else I would expect the game to crash inside the VM, which would point to a hardware incompatibility (what you suggested). The reason why I want to nail down what is causing the crashing, means I can upgrade certain parts if necessary (maybe there just wasn't enough RAM for unraid with other things running so it shutdown the VM, for example). I just don't know where to look in the logs to pin point this issue.

 

Also this is server related stuff first, gaming second. My GF is actually the one who plays Ark and it would be nice if she could play Ark on the server, while I use my gaming rig for other things. So if that means taking all graphical settings to pixels I think she would be ok with that.

 

11 hours ago, trurl said:

Are you not able to make a zip file?

 

I don't mean to be obtuse , but I don't see the reason to zip a single small file. In my experience zipping is for large multiple file type things. I have attached it zipped anyways in case that is more helpful.

 

Thanks for being patient with me!

FCPsyslog_tail.zip

[trurl]

9 minutes ago, 15goudreau said:

I don't mean to be obtuse , but I don't see the reason to zip a single small file.

As a general principle to be applied in the future when you are asking for people to help you. We are all just unpaid volunteers here. Help us help you.

 

Because it makes for a smaller download, that can be worked with using whatever tools I want to use.

 

[bastl]

I remember back playing Ark on an 4790K @4.7GHz with an 1080ti and 32GB RAM and the game always was running like crap. Often I had to turn down the settings to medium to get some sort of playable framerates without hickups. Biggest issues are the server performance with tons of player build structures and hundreds of dinosaurs. Even the best hardware you could buy had issue if the servers couldn't handle all that. I tested Ark once i guess a year ago in unraid with an 1080ti passed through on an AMD TR4 1950x 16 cores for the VM and it won't start from a network share at all. Game took ages to start or crashed for no reason or won't start. From a passed through SSD it works. Maybe some sort of issue with the anti cheat system. Who knows. If you have your game on the Unraid array, try it with an extra disk (vdisk or physical) if it runs better @15goudreau

[15goudreau]

1 hour ago, trurl said:

As a general principle to be applied in the future when you are asking for people to help you. We are all just unpaid volunteers here. Help us help you.

 

Because it makes for a smaller download, that can be worked with using whatever tools I want to use.

 

I see now, slight miscommunication. After you edited my post to remove the text, I had uploaded the .txt file as an attachment and I thought you were asking it to be uploaded as a .zip instead. I wasn't talking about the wall of text. I only posted it like that because a similar thread here had it in the "code" section. I completely understand not wanting it to clutter up the forum. Thanks for the explanation =).

 

18 minutes ago, bastl said:

I remember back playing Ark on an 4790K @4.7GHz with an 1080ti and 32GB RAM and the game always was running like crap. Often I had to turn down the settings to medium to get some sort of playable framerates without hickups. Biggest issues are the server performance with tons of player build structures and hundreds of dinosaurs. Even the best hardware you could buy had issue if the servers couldn't handle all that. I tested Ark once i guess a year ago in unraid with an 1080ti passed through on an AMD TR4 1950x 16 cores for the VM and it won't start from a network share at all. Game took ages to start or crashed for no reason or won't start. From a passed through SSD it works. Maybe some sort of issue with the anti cheat system. Who knows. If you have your game on the Unraid array, try it with an extra disk (vdisk or physical) if it runs better @15goudreau

I am currently running it on the array with vdisk (because like you said steam won't allow it to run off a symlink), but I have cables on the way to move it to a SSD cache. I will try to see if the issue persists there as well. It does seem like Ark struggles to be even slightly optimized. I will try it on cache, if that doesn't work I will look at passing through an SSD before I overhaul the cpus and gpu. Thanks for chiming in!

[trurl]

3 minutes ago, 15goudreau said:

After you edited my post to remove the text, I had uploaded the .txt file as an attachment

And I never saw that edit because it was an old post that I had already read, so the forum didn't start me there when I revisited the thread. This is the reason we ask for new information to be in a new post instead of editing an already read post.

[jordanmw]

13 minutes ago, 15goudreau said:

I am currently running it on the array with vdisk (because like you said steam won't allow it to run off a symlink), but I have cables on the way to move it to a SSD cache. I will try to see if the issue persists there as well. It does seem like Ark struggles to be even slightly optimized. I will try it on cache, if that doesn't work I will look at passing through an SSD before I overhaul the cpus and gpu. Thanks for chiming in!

Ok, everyone here saying you have way too low end of a VM for ARK are 100% correct, but the network share is also the issue.  I run 4 gaming VMs and an ARK server VM on my unraid setup, and used to have 2 of the machines setup with a network vdisk- ARK would not work on those 2 machines until I passed through an SSD and installed there.  So, while your VM is FAR TOO underpowered to expect anything but crashes from ARK, the network share is likely the cause.  I have a gtx960 with 10Gb RAM and 2(4smt) physical cores passed through from my 1920x- and it still looks like doggy doo.  It runs, and if you turn down virtually all the eye candy- gives decent framerates- mostly:(

 

[15goudreau]

28 minutes ago, jordanmw said:

Ok, everyone here saying you have way too low end of a VM for ARK are 100% correct, but the network share is also the issue.  I run 4 gaming VMs and an ARK server VM on my unraid setup, and used to have 2 of the machines setup with a network vdisk- ARK would not work on those 2 machines until I passed through an SSD and installed there.  So, while your VM is FAR TOO underpowered to expect anything but crashes from ARK, the network share is likely the cause.  I have a gtx960 with 10Gb RAM and 2(4smt) physical cores passed through from my 1920x- and it still looks like doggy doo.  It runs, and if you turn down virtually all the eye candy- gives decent framerates- mostly:(

 

It's not actually on a network share, it's on the array as a 300Gb vdisk. I will try passing through an SSD first, running it at the lowest settings and see if I can get it to not crash every 4 minutes. If not, I'll start looking at some system upgrades. Probably two E5-2680 v2. I don't need it to look good, just to run!

[bastl]

Also check if you don't have any temperature issues causing the crashes.

[Warrentheo]

3 hours ago, 15goudreau said:

Thanks for taking a look! I understand your thoughts regarding it to be a lost cause so let me elaborate.

 

So the processor can turbo up to 3.0 Ghz, which is pretty close to their minimum processor listed. I'm not sure if that really is the issue or not. The gpu was in a different system (with a better processor, i7-3820) and didn't experience any of these crashes. Since the whole VM is crashing, I would expect it to be a configuration issue within KVM or Unraid, else I would expect the game to crash inside the VM, which would point to a hardware incompatibility (what you suggested). The reason why I want to nail down what is causing the crashing, means I can upgrade certain parts if necessary (maybe there just wasn't enough RAM for unraid with other things running so it shutdown the VM, for example). I just don't know where to look in the logs to pin point this issue.

 

Also this is server related stuff first, gaming second. My GF is actually the one who plays Ark and it would be nice if she could play Ark on the server, while I use my gaming rig for other things. So if that means taking all graphical settings to pixels I think she would be ok with that.

 

I don't mean to be obtuse , but I don't see the reason to zip a single small file. In my experience zipping is for large multiple file type things. I have attached it zipped anyways in case that is more helpful.

 

Thanks for being patient with me!

FCPsyslog_tail.zip

I understand what you are saying, but that is why I included the link to the CPU benchmarks comparing the CPU you have to the Min-Spec CPU...  While you might think that the Processor clock has alot to do with it, it really doesn't...  For instance AMD has always had a much lower clock speed to the Intel chips, and yet somehow usually kept up on real world benchmarks...

 

That is why I included this link:

https://cpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Intel-Xeon-E5-2660-v2-vs-Intel-Core-i5-2400/m13068vs803

 

It shows that that CPU has about 2/3's of the single core performance of the CPU that ARK requires as min spec, but as a whole that CPU has about 50% of the minimum spec...  It really is a limiting factor here...

 

I get it, I actually used a Core 2 Quad Q9550 with 4 Cores, @2.83 GHz for WAY longer than I should have because I was still able to get it to do what I needed it too (Even had my GTX1070 plugged into it), and went straight from that to an i7-7700K...

 

Bottom line, you are trying to use a processor that is somewhere between 2/3's to 1/2 of the Minimum required processor for that game, and you are not running just that game on it, you are running UnRaid + KVM/QEMU + a storage server + Windows VM + Ark...  I really do believe that that is a large part of why the VM's are unstable, they are not meant to run like that...

 

I am not going to stop you, and more power to you if this sort of thing is what floats your boat, but this will likely boil down to making that CPU perform like a much better CPU with extreme overclocking or something, and UnRaid is not really an ideal environment to try and run a stable system while also pushing the envelope just a little too far...

Edited March 5, 2019 by Warrentheo

[trurl]

I wouldn't trust an overclocked server with my files regardless of whether anything else worked or not.

[15goudreau]

3 hours ago, Warrentheo said:

I understand what you are saying, but that is why I included the link to the CPU benchmarks comparing the CPU you have to the Min-Spec CPU...  While you might think that the Processor clock has alot to do with it, it really doesn't...  For instance AMD has always had a much lower clock speed to the Intel chips, and yet somehow usually kept up on real world benchmarks...

 

That is why I included this link:

https://cpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Intel-Xeon-E5-2660-v2-vs-Intel-Core-i5-2400/m13068vs803

 

It shows that that CPU has about 2/3's of the single core performance of the CPU that ARK requires as min spec, but as a whole that CPU has about 50% of the minimum spec...  It really is a limiting factor here...

 

I get it, I actually used a Core 2 Quad Q9550 with 4 Cores, @2.83 GHz for WAY longer than I should have because I was still able to get it to do what I needed it too (Even had my GTX1070 plugged into it), and went straight from that to an i7-7700K...

 

Bottom line, you are trying to use a processor that is somewhere between 2/3's to 1/2 of the Minimum required processor for that game, and you are not running just that game on it, you are running UnRaid + KVM/QEMU + a storage server + Windows VM + Ark...  I really do believe that that is a large part of why the VM's are unstable, they are not meant to run like that...

 

I am not going to stop you, and more power to you if this sort of thing is what floats your boat, but this will likely boil down to making that CPU perform like a much better CPU with extreme overclocking or something, and UnRaid is not really an ideal environment to try and run a stable system while also pushing the envelope just a little too far...

I appreciate the input and it has given me a lot to think about. If I end up going down this route it is likely I will replace the processors. To circle back to the original question however, is do the log files point to something specific or if you guys can advise me what to look for in the log files, to see if I can isolate the cause? I understand the group consensus is that the processor is probably the weak link, I just want to be 100% sure before I spend the money to upgrade them. I'd be disappointed if it was something else (perhaps in addition to the processor).

 

Edited March 5, 2019 by 15goudreau