I've been very lucky and never had a crash in NMS (started from GOG 1.07 version, earlier versions did have issues of CTD's etc).

You did not say what version you are running? Also the latest patch for the Foundation Update mentions fixes to some CTD issues, so you might need that 1.12 patch for Foundation? The fact you can launch the game is in your favour, makes it easier to trouble shoot. For example maybe your system is overheating?

My system is not overheating. I have all the latest patches for both the game and my system. I'm vaguely insulted by the insinuation.

No one else has seen this? Huh. I hate being unique.

I suspect that there are a lot of potential causes. I was having a hell of a time a couple of weeks ago just keeping the game running long enough to look around. I've gotten it back to where I can mostly run pretty well but even now there's the occasional crash to desktop without any obvious explanation.

Some things to try. I went back to an older release of the nVidia drivers. It's probably a coincidence (correlation versus causation) but shortly after updating to the latest drivers is when I started to really have problems. Uninstalled [*] the video drivers completely and am now running 353.06 vice the latest(?) 378.92. Again, correlation/causation but it's much more playable now.

Nuke the shader cache directory and let it be rebuilt after changing any video settings.

I removed NMS altogether from the nVidia Control Panel options, so it's all default now. Select "default" in the game's graphics options page and let it figure out what it thinks is appropriate. I also disabled the motion blur and HBAO. The less the graphics card has to do, etc.

And I did consider heat, as well. Opened the PC case and did a real cleaning (I won't admit how dirty it was but it scared the cat). Probably dropped the video card 10C or so.

Did anything help or was it all a coincidence? Was there one magic bullet or did each tweak contribute a little to the stability? BTSOOM but it's much better now.

[*] Helps to have a VGA cable & monitor standing by. Took forever to find a cable. Lessons learned. ;-)

What I would do in your case is:

Backup your saves and start a new game just for test. Will it also crash after 5 minutes? I guess not, and thats' good because else it's your system or the drivers. Then do this:

Replace your backup saves
Take out all shader caches, in game directory and savegame folder.
Run the game and immediately save it by jumping in/out of your ship or using a save point if you have one at your base.
Restart the game.

This will write a new savegame and if your previous one was corrupt for any reasons this should fix it.

BTW, what do you mean by 'I log in in the base' ??

Yeah, I really do need to start from a new game and see if it's the save file. Good suggestion, and I will get to it. Just really don't want to lose all my stuff. By the way, I logged out in my newly created base, so I logged back in there.

Dashiichi-
Thank you, very well thought out post. I'll try some of those that I haven't already done.

And now I can't even get the game to start.

Wonderful.

Are you running any mods? these are often broken by updates.

Nope. I don't do mods. Good question though.

At what point does it fail?

I did have an issue (pre-Foundation update, I think) where it would crash immediatly after switching from the "screen saver" load screen to the game itself. Occasionally it would run for a few seconds but usually just a crash on entry. After fooling with it, and in a dialog with Support, I *think* what was happening was that there was bad geometry in the field of view at that particular location. The 3D engine would try to render it, go "No effing way," and quit. The solution in this particular case was to run around to the other side of the "whirly post" so that I was facing another direction and do a new save. Took a few tries for it to stay running long enough but once there was a new save in place I was good to go.

Aside: Why doesn't the game select screen (Normal/Survival/Die Hard/Creative) let you pick one of your older saved games instead of always starting the most recent?

There's always the standard Windows solution: uninstall and reinstall. Make a backup copy of your saved games at C:\Users\YourLoginHere\AppData\Roaming\HelloGames\NMS. The install set for 1.24A can be found in the "Backups & Goodies" link under the "More" button on the GOG game launcher.

You may also want to consult the Bug Report section for the game in Steam (see link below). Especially for AMD cards, but also for NVidia cards there has been crash reports and weird grafical issues. In most cases rolling back the card drivers has resolved the issues.

http://steamcommunity.com/app/275850/discussions/2/

I "went nuclear". I reinstalled Windows and then NMS. It works now.

*sigh*

Congratulations? ;-)

OT but sad that is still a solution. How long has MS Windows been in development? If they'd just concentrate on making a bulletproof operating system... GIven the trajectory, it's likely that Win7 will be the last version I'm using. The mess of the latest "Patch Tuesday" (see Woody Leonhard's blog), "telemetry" = spyware in the O/S, and on and on. Bletch.