Ok so I've started on a new map (that obviously cures blindness), all going fine until the compile started to act like "Ok I've had enough of you" and crashes VRAD as soon as it reaches the final phase in the radiosity-compile. It crashes instantenously like an Ashlee Simpson playback machine, generating a windows application crash-report which makes no sense at all.
Now, with the parameter "-both" on VRAD, it's funny how it compiles the first pass with no problems what so ever (the name has been changed to protect the innocent):

[Reading texlights from 'lights.rad']
[39 texlights parsed from 'lights.rad']

Loading d:\steam\steamapps\jesustapdancingchrist\sourcesdk _content\dod\mapsrc\dod_poznan_build2.bsp
1084 faces
170828 square feet [24599370.00 square inches]
49 displacements
11703 square feet [1685364.13 square inches]
1084 patches before subdivision
8416 patches after subdivision
7 direct lights
0...1...2...3...4...5...6...7...8...9...100...1... 2...3...4...5...6...7...8...9...10transfers 447142, max 277
transfer lists: 3.4 megs
0...1...2...3...4...5...6...7...8...9...10 Bounce #1 added RGB(9555, 8300, 6743)
0...1...2...3...4...5...6...7...8...9...10 Bounce #2 added RGB(1310, 1044, 637)
0...1...2...3...4...5...6...7...8...9...10 Bounce #3 added RGB(220, 165, 78)
0...1...2...3...4...5...6...7...8...9...10 Bounce #4 added RGB(41, 29, 10)
0...1...2...3...4...5...6...7...8...9...10 Bounce #5 added RGB(8, 6, 1)
0...1...2...3...4...5...6...7...8...9...10 Bounce #6 added RGB(2, 1, 0)
0...1...2...3...4...5...6...7...8...9...10 Bounce #7 added RGB(0, 0, 0)
Build Patch/Sample Hash Table(s).....Done<0.0108 sec>
0...1...2...3...4...5...6...7...8...9...10FinalLig htFace Done
Computing detail prop lighting : 0...1...2...3...4...5...6...7...8...9...10
0 of 0 (0% of) surface lights went in leaf ambient cubes.
ComputePerLeafAmbientLighting: 0...1...2...3...4...5...6...7...8...9...10
Ready to Finish

Object names Objects/Maxobjs Memory / Maxmem Fullness
------------ --------------- --------------- --------
<- Insert a lot of technical gibberish here ->

Level flags = 0

Win32 Specific Data:
physics [variable] 105207/4194304 ( 2.5%)
==== Total Win32 BSP file data space used: 1284873 bytes ====

Total triangle count: 2858
Writing d:\steam\steamapps\jesustapdancingchrist\sourcesdk _content\dod\mapsrc\dod_poznan_build2.bsp
47 seconds elapsed
Phew, so far so good. But what happens when it commence the second phase? Let's watch shall we...
[Reading texlights from 'lights.rad']
[39 texlights parsed from 'lights.rad']

Loading d:\steam\steamapps\jesustapdancingchrist\sourcesdk _content\dod\mapsrc\dod_poznan_build2.bsp
1084 faces
170828 square feet [24599370.00 square inches]
49 displacements
11703 square feet [1685364.13 square inches]
1084 patches before subdivision
8416 patches after subdivision
7 direct lights
0.
That's right. As soon as it begins to compile the grand finale, the whole shabang breaks down like a crackhead who havn't got his fix. And I find Windows Vista quite awesome that I need to restart Hammer each time VRAD crashes!
I know this problem plague a ton of users, but do you have any ideas? I'm about to throw this 'puter from my roof if this problem never cease to exist!

Hey Zyndrome,

suffering of the same problem as I type this - so yeah, you're not alone ;).

Furyo had an advice that might help you: increase the size of the allocated virtual memory.

go to your system properties, in the advanced tab, and click on "settings" in the "performance" subsection. Once in, click on the advanced tab again, and all the way down you should see the virtual memory section. You can then modify its size, to allow more space on your hard drive to be used as storage for processes running, per partition.

Another idea is to really shut down all parallel processes, restart steam & therefore hammer as a provisory solution... and other than that wait for a fix some beautiful day :).

Cheers!

Try using batch compiler instead of hammer to compile your map, it'll save all that ram for the compile instead.

Also, as this happens during the HDR pass, I would also have a look at all my HDR settings on my different lights, and see if there hasn't been a mistake made there too.

I get the same problem some days, sometimes the HDR pass works fine, other days vrad crashes.

Tip if vrad crashes and a windows error comes up, DON'T click anything vrad still works! It's damned werid, I got the error one night but was watching the compile window (I use batch compiler so I had a cmd panel up) and the compile was still working fine as it was going from 60% to 70% as I watched it lol.

It maynot work for everyone, but does for me ;)

Since I'm on Vista, the operative system acts like it's the next apocalypse on application crashes :P

It crashes instantenously like an Ashlee Simpson playback machine...

LOL !

P.S.- Sorry for the Off topic !

:D