When I am in the unknown system I experience game crashes.
This happened 4 times today, (08/14/2026), and a few times last week, (or the week before – I don’t remember which).

I submitted the pop-up game crash reports that appeared after each crash. I hope this helps. Please let me know if there’s anything else I can provide to help clarify the issue.

Thanks,
Galactica Actual

This happens most often when I am in a sector with many botts, (farming drops).

We saw your crashes.. they're "all over the place". In your DX11 hardware-driver code, in the game network code, in all kinds of weird places. It doesn't resemble a normal "code bug".

You appear to have a lot of plugins loaded. As always please replicate issues without Plugins prior to reporting.

Let's start with running a bare vanilla client and see what happens from there?

This breadth of crash types also "smells" like a hardware issue. But, it's too early to say that conclusively.

Thank you and I will remove plugins and see what happens.

Does it make since that this only happens in the unknown sector?
I have had the same plugins, for what seems like years, without this problem happening anywhere else.

Also, I do not ask this to be argumentative, I ask this because I have zero technical skills and truly think this is helpful.

Thanks again for your time.

Does it make since that this only happens in the unknown sector?

So.. "yes-ish?". Basically, the Unknown System is more intensive on your system hardware than anywhere else in the game.. at least in some ways (300 NPCs, thousands of nearby visible asteroids, high resolution materials in some cases, etc).

If you have driver issues of some kind (or hardware issues), they're going to show up when the system is "stressed".

The same is true for plugin weirdness: If you have something that's querying every enemy NPC, and you go into a place that has the largest number of enemy NPCs, then obviously that's an "unusual stress situation" for that bit of plugin code.

I'm not ruling out that we could have some kind of bug.. it's just particularly odd to have a bug that appears to be "everywhere".

Ray was also going to do some flying around the Unknown System last week and test for this, I'll have to ask him about the outcome.

I removed my plugin folder today and went back into the unknown system. I was using an Avalon/Gem Ragnarok, (separate triggers), on Guardians in E-8 and flying out of there to my dent in an empty sector for R&R.
Most of the game crashes today happened if I entered my PDA when in the Guardian sector. The Guardian sector could be perfectly still, and if I wanted to do something like check to see which weapon is on what trigger, that would make the game crash.
My tech Savvy girlfriend showed me that my operating system is a Dell laptop, with Intel(R)Core(TM) 3 100U (1.20 GHz) Processor.
Installed RAM is 8.00GB (7.69 GB usable). Intel(R) Graphics(128 MB).
Storage is 115GB of 477GB used. 64-bit operating system, x64-based processor.
I am using Windows 11, (version 25H2 (OS build 26200.9168).
My internet connection is a cat 9 cable connected to the router, not Wi-Fi.

Out of curiosity, what command are you using to open the PDA?
Does it happen immediately upon opening the PDA or do you have to switch tabs first?

Dang I’m surprised you could even run solitaire. VO optimization is something else.

So.. your computer is not actually as "bad" as your described configuration might imply to some people. It's lower-end, but recent:

The Core 3 100U is a fairly modern Raptor Lake series CPU, with 6 cores (2 performance cores, 4 efficiency cores) and 8 threads. The base clock is 1.2ghz, but the peak is 4.7ghz, and it's definitely going to be closer to the latter when running the game.

The GPU is an Intel Iris Xe based IGP which has been rebranded "Intel Graphics". It has no dedicated ram (the "128MB" thing is just a system-ram carveout for compatibility). It will use system ram as needed for the GPU.

I have a few suggestions..

NOTES:

- Continue your testing without any Plugins installed.
- You're currently using the DX11 driver.. keep using that. Don't use the DX9 driver. That is likely to cause problems in your case.
- Do not run other apps at the same time, at least for the purposes of testing. You only have 8GB of RAM. While VO is memory efficient, Windows sucks at managing free memory.
- If possible, try testing the game after a fresh reboot with nothing else running. Rebooting is not the same as "sleep": You want to actually reboot the device. This should eliminate any Windows memory-fragmentation problems.

STEPS:

1) Try to minimize the RAM footprint of the game. Go into Options -> Video and set "Visual Quality" to "Medium". Once it reloads everything, try exiting the game (so it writes out that config) and restarting.

2) See if your game stability improves under the more limited Visual Quality settings?

3) If you get the same behaviour under the reduced RAM footprint, then try switching from the DX11 to the Vulkan driver, and let us know if that works any better?

OTHER:

Additionally, there are some other things you could investigate from a hardware stability standpoint:

A) Try running Windows Memory Diagnostic on the machine (this is a part of Windows, something you already have installed), and see if there are any problems that crop up there. (This is not risky, unlike a BIOS update).

B) (Be aware that any BIOS update comes with a level of risk; they're usually fine, but there's some small chance of bricking a machine) Download or run Dell Support Assist and have it check for any major BIOS updates. Apparently the Raptor Lake hardware had a lot of post-release "fixes" in BIOS. The UEFI/BIOS has substantial influence over the memory allocation capabilities of the GPU, so this could be a factor.

Draugath, To open my PDA I use the “M” button on my keyboard. The crash happens immediately.

Incarnate, Thank you for the feedback. I will follow your instructions soon, (but I am contemplating logging today to try the unrats/Levi). I will let you know what happens next.

FYI: normally I log in almost every day, however lately it seems I always have something in real life to take care of, so please give me a few days before I try the unknown system again.

Also, try turning down your Effects detail to Medium in the Graphics Settings.

All your recommendations are not working raybondo, in my case i use linux, same crashes in unknow and latos f12. I start testing my client after player say his client crash entering latos f12

I download and run the vanilla linux client and again i can fly latos f12 and unknow system sectors. Bad thing i need to ... re-scan all the sectors in the unknow system?

Ok, try changing the Options -> Advanced -> Interface -> HUD Settings -> HUD 2D Square Settings to "Target Only".

We discovered a buffer overflow when rendering the 2d boxes around lots of ships at once.

You found the problem!,

Options -> Advanced -> Interface -> HUD Settings -> HUD 2D Square Settings to "Target Only"

Works fine!.

but ... with my new vanilla client 1.8.771 installation (i'm slowly reconfiguring) i can fight face to face and knife distance (+/- 100 meters) and kill the artemis ball in Latos F-12 *WITHOUT* the HUD 2D Square Settings to "Target Only".

I mean, i keep the default : *All ships with player name* option in the HUD 2D square settings.

All my alias and binds (wgaf.cfg) installed and working well.

Plugins Installed (some need more adjust to make me good) but working well :
customhud
hangar
InfiniTurbo
mdi-roiddb
mdi-targetlist
mdi-targetlist-tab-capship
mdi-targetlist-tab-cargo
RadarColor
setvelocitydiricon
visualproxyalert2
.. and two more plugins

Thank you Raybondo and Inc.
Options -> Advanced -> Interface -> HUD Settings -> HUD 2D Square Settings to "Target Only" worked.
With plugins installed yesterday I played in the unknown system for a few hours and only had 1 crash, (which I believe happened because I tried entering the PDA as soon as I entered the Bott sector that has 300 Guardians and a thousand roids. Waiting a few seconds before trying the PDA seems to work crash-free).
I also want to thank Factor Fett for his collaboration and suggesting to me yesterday that I try it out the Unknown System again.
I love this game!
Galactica Actual

Options -> Advanced -> Interface -> HUD Settings -> HUD 2D Square Settings to "Target Only" worked.

This should be fixed now, so we'd actually appreciate it if you guys could revert the "Target Only" option and try without it.

only had 1 crash, (which I believe happened because I tried entering the PDA as soon as I entered the Bott sector that has 300 Guardians and a thousand roids. Waiting a few seconds before trying the PDA seems to work crash-free).

That's still a bit unsettling. Hopefully we can find all these crashes over time. I assume you had your full suite of plugins installed when it happened?

Yes, I did have the full suite of plugins installed.

Yesterday I was in the unknown system for hours without a crash. My ships are still there so I will revert the "target only" option and report back here later.

GA