AP keeps crashing video card

[Eric5]

Been using AP on the desktop for a few weeks now under Win 10, latest updates.  My PC is a Dell XPS 420 with ATI Radeon HD 3870 card.  Apparently, crash reports are being made, can someone tell me where they are stored, what directory? 

I can open files just fine and even start working on them.  If I get to using too many layers or using too many tools, the crash will occur.  Display goes blank and I have to use the reset button on the desktop to get back into Win, where the video card is then again fine.  

Any ideas would be welcome.  Thank you.   

[Eric5]

Ok, two hours after this post, I switched out video cards for a spare Nvidia Ge Force 210 I had. Since this card is newer than the prior, I also had an easier time obtaining Win 10 drivers. To my surprise, after working with AP for a while, the screen went black, but this time it reverted to the Microsoft driver for the card. I don't know if I got a crash report generated or not, but an exception message appeared. I was able to continue working in AP albeit with the generic drivers and not the Nvidia ones.

I noticed that in the AP settings, the maximum amount of memory of my system is specified. I don't have a clue if this is the reason for the crashes, but I reset it so that it will only use up to 75% of total RAM.

Still looking for answers. Thank you.

[Callum]

Hi Eric5,

Welcome to the forums

The crash reports should be found in your App Data folder under:  Appdata > Roaming > Affinity > Photo>1.0>Crash reports

Please could you attach one of these reports to this thread so I can look into this further for you?

Thanks

Callum

[Eric5]

Callum,

Looks like there were a series of them created, but I'll attach the last three that appear to show data (several others shows as 0 MB which I assume means no data).  Since I can't read them, I'm going to guess that you'll at least get one from each of the two cards I tried. 

Thanks,

Eric

e5e8d7d2-eff3-4f63-b01f-b40e77d59986.dmp

cb8faf6e-ce61-4c6f-a227-a55beaab763e.dmp

0b135e60-0ed8-4440-b9f1-d43981d4a895.dmp

[Eric5]

Any updates?  Last night, I was working within the program with the switched out GE Force 210 card as I still haven't switched back to the former.  After several minutes, I got an exception error and the program crashed.  I reopened and continued working.  No more crashes, but as time went on operations became slower and slower.  I decided to save the file and it seemed to take much longer than usual to save it.  I'm attaching a couple more crash reports from last night.  Again, unable to read them myself, but both appear to have data for the times that the events occurred.   For now, I've stopped use as the crashing is a problem and I hope this is resolved soon.  Thank you.

0b135e60-0ed8-4440-b9f1-d43981d4a895.dmp

aabca99d-793a-47d9-972b-3eb13a5a3319.dmp

[Eric5]

Well, after backing off from the fairly intensive operations I was doing with multiple images, I don't seem to be getting crashing at present, but the issue is still not resolved of course.  I'm tempted to switch back to the Radeon card as Affinity performance seems faster than with the GeForce.  I've been working on a rather complicated selection and extraction of trees from a panorama Affinity made, but the longer I use the refine selection tools, the slower Affinity becomes until the tool itself has a significant lag time between implementation and action.  Not sure if this is due to the card or Affinity, so I will again have to limit usage.

I hope progress is being made on these reports.  Affinity seems quite capable, but I think there are still issues to be worked out if it is to become faster and stable. 

   

[Eric5]

I'm happy to report that I appear to have solved my own issue.  After consulting with some others on a different forum, it was suggested that I swap out my HDD for an SSD.  I did so today and, aside from the significantly faster boot up and shut down times, Affinity doesn't seem to be having any more issues. 

I just want to say that those who are marketing Affinity might want to add a "highly recommended" section to system requirements and that being a preference to use an SSD.  

I was about to give up on the program as crashes were becoming more frequent.  Had I known how much influence switching to an SSD would have, I'd have done it weeks ago. 

Thanks again for trying to look into my crash reports.