Well it didn’t take long for the first full system crash after the latest update. Will someone from Frontier please give me a response to this. It’s happened dozens of times now and every time my PS4 tells me this may be damaging it.
Elite Dangerous still killing my PS4
- Thread starter CMDR Lukas Vance
- Start date
Sorry to hear your having these problems I can’t remember the last time I had a crash. Since patch it’s been running pretty smooth for me on Vannila PS4.
Out of all the bugs, yours is the most grievous. Nobody will argue whether or not your bug is "game-breaking", LOL.
One of the things that amazes me with this game is how randomly distributed these bugs are. We are all running the same hardware and operating system (same device drivers, etc), yet you suffer one bug, I suffer another bug, others suffers from even different bugs. THAT just doesn't make sense to me. Maybe Frontier ported the entire Windows Operating system into the PS4 to get ED to work... This would explain everything!!! Especially the BSOD
(I'm joking about the Windows bit)
One of the things that amazes me with this game is how randomly distributed these bugs are. We are all running the same hardware and operating system (same device drivers, etc), yet you suffer one bug, I suffer another bug, others suffers from even different bugs. THAT just doesn't make sense to me. Maybe Frontier ported the entire Windows Operating system into the PS4 to get ED to work... This would explain everything!!! Especially the BSOD
(I'm joking about the Windows bit)
I've been meaning to blast my PS4 with some compressed air, as dust can get inside and cover the heatsink. I used to call myself an archeologist back when I repaired PCs for a living (back in the 90s), because a small brush and compressed air were two of my most-used tools!
Yes, this puzzles me too. I have none of the graphical or audible issues that some have been reporting (I’m on PS4 Pro), but two related issues I have which are vary annoying are where you scroll down the available missions board and as you get to the bottom of the screen to scroll up those that are not yet displayed, the highlighter jumps to the top of the page. Even more annoying is when you are trying to select a friend from the comms panel in order to wing, and the highlighter keeps jumping to the top of the page. That last one really gets on my t*ts!
I get this too.
One thing that annoys me is in the coms panel where messages and mission updates overlap each other so you can’t read them.
So I said I was outta here until the next update - but this subject is particularly pertinent.
I upgraded to PRO at the beginning of August. Gone was the jet-engine sound of my old machine - the PRO would run demanding games almost silently. It would get warm, particularly with titles like Project Cars or Resident Evil 7, but the only time it would get hot was whilst running Elite.
Sometime after 1.08, I noticed that my PRO was making quite a din when running Elite - particularly in starports. I have also suffered a number of blue screens and complete system hangs since then and like Labrunning, I am very concerned that Elite has severely reduced the life expectancy of my hardware. My PRO is now audible when sitting on the home screen - it's not loud, but it is most definitely audible, whereas before these updates it was completely silent.
Is Elite to blame for this? I can't say for sure. The rise in noise output from my PRO could simply be a coincidence, but I don't think so.
I'll be contacting Game in the week to check if I can get a replacement console. I'll most likely speak with trading standards also.
In all my years of gaming across console and pc, I have never had an experience like this and have complete empathy for those with the same (and other) game-breaking issues. Updates should stabilise and optimise software - and Frontier seemed to be following this trend as the game benefitted from several significant improvements between 1.01 and 1.05. Then 1.06 appeared and things started to fall apart. Subsequent updates seem to have provided sweet adams aside from poorly optimised code that is cooking our PS4s.
Not happy. But I am still passionate about Elite - because for a brief period of time, it was the best game I ever played. So disappointed.
I upgraded to PRO at the beginning of August. Gone was the jet-engine sound of my old machine - the PRO would run demanding games almost silently. It would get warm, particularly with titles like Project Cars or Resident Evil 7, but the only time it would get hot was whilst running Elite.
Sometime after 1.08, I noticed that my PRO was making quite a din when running Elite - particularly in starports. I have also suffered a number of blue screens and complete system hangs since then and like Labrunning, I am very concerned that Elite has severely reduced the life expectancy of my hardware. My PRO is now audible when sitting on the home screen - it's not loud, but it is most definitely audible, whereas before these updates it was completely silent.
Is Elite to blame for this? I can't say for sure. The rise in noise output from my PRO could simply be a coincidence, but I don't think so.
I'll be contacting Game in the week to check if I can get a replacement console. I'll most likely speak with trading standards also.
In all my years of gaming across console and pc, I have never had an experience like this and have complete empathy for those with the same (and other) game-breaking issues. Updates should stabilise and optimise software - and Frontier seemed to be following this trend as the game benefitted from several significant improvements between 1.01 and 1.05. Then 1.06 appeared and things started to fall apart. Subsequent updates seem to have provided sweet adams aside from poorly optimised code that is cooking our PS4s.
Not happy. But I am still passionate about Elite - because for a brief period of time, it was the best game I ever played. So disappointed.
Halt and catch fire! Geeks will understand. On a serious note, assuming the Pro is designed to run at 100% CPU / GPU all the time, then a game shouldn't be able to cause it to overheat. It may be that a game like Elite will expose problems you have with cooling - be it a cramped AV closet or the dust I mentioned. If your PS4 Pro is getting noisier, then I recommend blasting it with compressed air - you may have dust buildup on the heatsink and fan.
Assuming you're not overheating your PS4, then the "damage" you risk is to the file system when the PS4 hangs. Thankfully the PS4 seems to use a good journaled file system, as I've never had a problem, and I've lost power to my PS4 while downloading games! Worst-case-scenario, you may need to reinstall PS4 OS and all your games. The hardware itself should not be damaged.
Such a random collection of experiences, with no apparent pattern...
For my part, Elite plays near perfectly on my regular PS4, with the very rare crashes i can get with any game.
Though using certain websites for too long, which use too much of the systems' memory, like this games' Wiki with the game running in the background are much more likely to make it crash, though half or more of the time even when the system warns me that it can no longer display website X, i just have to close it and the game still runs fine.
On the system ever making extra noise, it may sometimes make a tiny bit more while playing Elite though not all the time, but it never makes the noise it can while playing certain other games such as the most recent Hitman game...
To quote Alice in Wonderland, "Curiouser and curiouser!..." .
For my part, Elite plays near perfectly on my regular PS4, with the very rare crashes i can get with any game.
Though using certain websites for too long, which use too much of the systems' memory, like this games' Wiki with the game running in the background are much more likely to make it crash, though half or more of the time even when the system warns me that it can no longer display website X, i just have to close it and the game still runs fine.
On the system ever making extra noise, it may sometimes make a tiny bit more while playing Elite though not all the time, but it never makes the noise it can while playing certain other games such as the most recent Hitman game...
To quote Alice in Wonderland, "Curiouser and curiouser!..."
.
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I remember worrying about elite on xbox one at launch as it always increased the heat generated by the fan more than other games!
I took out an extra three year warranty on the pro as I expected elite to run hot at launch
It does run hot but I've never really noticed the fan if I'm honest and it's never hard crashed my system, just a handful of bluescreen crashes where I've had to quit to the dashboard.
It's very odd all the different experiences players are having tbh so I'm wondering if it's either heat or maybe network errors triggering crashes?
I took out an extra three year warranty on the pro as I expected elite to run hot at launch
It does run hot but I've never really noticed the fan if I'm honest and it's never hard crashed my system, just a handful of bluescreen crashes where I've had to quit to the dashboard.
It's very odd all the different experiences players are having tbh so I'm wondering if it's either heat or maybe network errors triggering crashes?
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Thanks for the understanding from everyone in this thread. I posted this out of frustration and didn’t expect much but it is great to know people understand the frustration. I am now beginning to think that the issue is overheating. I often play with headphones on and so don’t always hear the fan but the system crashes do seem to be after long periods of play. Nothing near the length of periods that I would play Fallout 4 mind, where I never heard the fan kick in.
I wonder if if those codes seen on the blue screen would indicate an issue with overheating. Could the PS4 capture that information? I am now considering scheduling some breaks in play, even fitting a temperature monitor into my Home Assistant setup so I can get an alert on my watch when the temperature gets high!
I am disappointed, although not surprised at all, that no one from Frontier has commented despite my request for them to do so. Even if to say, “meh, ED runs hot, take a break dude”. It confirms to me that when they say they think their “passionate community” are great it’s just patronising guff really. Lloyd was reading the forum today because he had time to comment on Stormy’s Platinum Trophy post but I guess my post was a bit too “passionate” to comment on.
I wonder if if those codes seen on the blue screen would indicate an issue with overheating. Could the PS4 capture that information? I am now considering scheduling some breaks in play, even fitting a temperature monitor into my Home Assistant setup so I can get an alert on my watch when the temperature gets high!
I am disappointed, although not surprised at all, that no one from Frontier has commented despite my request for them to do so. Even if to say, “meh, ED runs hot, take a break dude”. It confirms to me that when they say they think their “passionate community” are great it’s just patronising guff really. Lloyd was reading the forum today because he had time to comment on Stormy’s Platinum Trophy post but I guess my post was a bit too “passionate” to comment on.
If its just general overheating i should imagine the fan would be doing overtime on ANY game you put in.As i said previously i get a little bit of fan noise on ED but when playing Sniper Elite it goes bonkers,GTA5 give no noticeable fan noise either.Back when LA Noire was released there were reports of the game killing PS3's,i played the game for hours on end and again no appreciable fan noise.You could try a reinstall and clear out stuff on your HD that you dont need(not saying this will help but it cant hurt).
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I did some science this evening using my KILL-A-WATT meter on the PS4 Slim. Here is my data.
PS4 Main Menu => 40 watts
Overwatch => 65-80 watts (75 avg)
Phantom Pain => 75 watts avg
Dragon's Dogma* => 55-60 watts
Uncharted 4 => 80-83 watts
Elder Scrolls Online => 25 GB UPDATE!!!!!! (I hate ESO updates)
Other games like NMS andUncharted not currently installed
* DD is a PS3 remaster, so it doesn't surprise me it under-utilizes the PS4 (it's no HZD).
Elite Dangerous => 60-67 watts, never hits 70, and when I look at my ship in space and see the terrible LOD-pop, power actually dropped down into the 50s. I also noticed during the long initial load time, power is around 45 watts, and I have an SSD, which implies most of the load time is due to networking.
I'm not sure how accurate my meter is with switching power supplies (it is very accurate on resistive loads), but the differential is very telling. I can play Overwatch all day (or until my brain turns to scrambled eggs), and never does it crash or slow down or suffer any graphical issues. It draws more power than Elite Dangerous, which implies it would generate more heat than Elite Dangerous.
I will also note that it appears the difference between 40 watts and 80 watts (on my meter) is approximately the difference between idle and 100% processor utilization. In other words, ED is not utilizing 100% of the power available to it on the PS4, but that's not necessarily ED's fault - if the GPU is the bottleneck, it'll be hard to saturate the 8 Jaguar cores.
I just started ED on the KOW meter, so I'll play for awhile and see if these numbers change as I play the game.
PS4 Main Menu => 40 watts
Overwatch => 65-80 watts (75 avg)
Phantom Pain => 75 watts avg
Dragon's Dogma* => 55-60 watts
Uncharted 4 => 80-83 watts
Elder Scrolls Online => 25 GB UPDATE!!!!!! (I hate ESO updates)
Other games like NMS and
* DD is a PS3 remaster, so it doesn't surprise me it under-utilizes the PS4 (it's no HZD).
Elite Dangerous => 60-67 watts, never hits 70, and when I look at my ship in space and see the terrible LOD-pop, power actually dropped down into the 50s. I also noticed during the long initial load time, power is around 45 watts, and I have an SSD, which implies most of the load time is due to networking.
I'm not sure how accurate my meter is with switching power supplies (it is very accurate on resistive loads), but the differential is very telling. I can play Overwatch all day (or until my brain turns to scrambled eggs), and never does it crash or slow down or suffer any graphical issues. It draws more power than Elite Dangerous, which implies it would generate more heat than Elite Dangerous.
I will also note that it appears the difference between 40 watts and 80 watts (on my meter) is approximately the difference between idle and 100% processor utilization. In other words, ED is not utilizing 100% of the power available to it on the PS4, but that's not necessarily ED's fault - if the GPU is the bottleneck, it'll be hard to saturate the 8 Jaguar cores.
I just started ED on the KOW meter, so I'll play for awhile and see if these numbers change as I play the game.
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Just a quick update to my last post - ED consumes about 10 watts less than Overwatch and similar games on a PS4 Slim. This implies Frontier has yet to fully tap the potential of the PS4, but where ED is a port of a Windows game, I don't know if they every will. There are things that can be moved from GPU to CPU, for example, but it takes a clever programmer to do this.
I'll reinstall my copy of Uncharted when I get a chance, as that's the one game I currently own that should really push the PS4. I'm curious what its power consumption is. Remember, less power consumption means unused CPU / GPU cycles, which is okay when software is hitting its goal (like 60 fps Overwatch with lovely rendering), but if a game is dropping frames, has ugly shadows, and is popping LOD like candy, then it means there is actual room for improvement.
As for why ED is breaking consoles, I'm beginning to question if it's heat-related after all....
-- UPDATE --
Uncharted 4 => 80-83 watts
I'll reinstall my copy of Uncharted when I get a chance, as that's the one game I currently own that should really push the PS4. I'm curious what its power consumption is. Remember, less power consumption means unused CPU / GPU cycles, which is okay when software is hitting its goal (like 60 fps Overwatch with lovely rendering), but if a game is dropping frames, has ugly shadows, and is popping LOD like candy, then it means there is actual room for improvement.
As for why ED is breaking consoles, I'm beginning to question if it's heat-related after all....
-- UPDATE --
Uncharted 4 => 80-83 watts
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