Beregost ticking me off

[berelinde]

I know this is petty, but it's really annoying.

 

Beregost is an unstable area. I know this. It's the reason I always save before I go there and I always save before I leave.

 

Well, this time, I'm getting a CTD every time I try to load the previous save as well as the autosave.

 

Sure, I've got a previous save from before I picked up Kivan, but that was 2 hours real time ago.

 

Don't mind me. I'm just whining.

[WizWom]

Beregost is an unstable area. I know this. It's the reason I always save before I go there and I always save before I leave.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Odd. Beregost has such a nice trim script. On my crappy computer, I get crashes in the Sewers. The only change I could even slightly suggest would be putting an OnCreation() on Elminster's spawn code.

 

Of course there are a SLEW of actors. How many Townspeople do they really need?

[berelinde]

Maybe. But it might also be related to the fact that there is just so much stuff to do in one area.

 

I've had CTD even in a vanilla BG1 game, so I'm not surprised that this is magnified in a modified game.

 

I'm not moaning about the area, or the code, or anything except my own lack of foresight in not creating saves more frequently. Or maybe I should say: not creating duplicate saves more frequently.

 

Maybe I'll create one save for entering Beregost and one for leaving. That way, all I'll ever have to do over is one town run.

 

Think about it: how many places besides Beregost do you visit repeatedly? Of those places, how many have so many connected areas (inside houses all count) and so many creatures.

 

Like I said. I'm just being cranky. It's just one of those things.

[WizWom]

Think about it: how many places besides Beregost do you visit repeatedly? Of those places, how many have so many connected areas (inside houses all count) and so many creatures.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I wonder how much RAM it uses while Beregost is active...

OK in Original ToSC Baldur's Gate, Carnival active, 28 MB for BGMain2.exe; Going to Beregost ups to 33MB.

And in TuTu, Carnival loads us up at 66 MB; going to Beregost boosts it to 71 MB. 5 MB seems to be the load for Beregost, I suppose I could dredge out a detailed scanner and see exactly what's up.

IIRC, I have 100 pre-load on, not that it matters much with a full install.

 

And I'm not sure this helps.

[berelinde]

Memory could be an issue, but I'm not sure. I've got 512 Mb, but who knows.

 

At this point, I've been having some luck just making multiple saves before town, in town, and before leaving, usually flagged "entering Beregost," "after shopping," and "leaving Beregost," that way, if I do get a CTD, I'll have all 3 of the above to fall back on if the Auto-Save crashes, too.

 

Thanks for offering some sort of explanation, though. It's only human nature to want to know why something happens.

[cmorgan]

One of the longest-running discussions, over multiple sites, forums, and threads, has been "what is up with Beregost?". Ambient sounds enabled/disabled, incorrect/corrupted graphics or sound references, errors in scripting doors and entry/exits, theories about which direction to approach and at what game time of day or night, using different resolutions, turning on/off 3D accelleration, and multiple attempts to use various tools to try to fix this problem have all resulted in head-scratching and disgust.

 

And that is all on the public forums - god only knows what the big boys and girls have been saying behind the Emerald Curtain. Perhaps the FixPack people have more perspective?

 

Unfortunately, the best bet at this time is to follow Icelus on PPG and Macready on EasyTutu's advice - save early, save often, and expect it to happen.

 

(I always turn off ambient sounds before entering and exiting Beregost, and never save a game while in the city: save before, mark as archive, do business, leave, save a separate file. This is probably like me advising you to spin around three times casting salt over your shoulder while chanting "there is no Bereghost Problem, only Challenge")

[Miloch]

Try this. I can't guarantee it'll work for you but it works locally.

 

And since PPG seems to be a bit erratic lately, I'll mirror the full text here too:

---------------------------------

Ok, well I went through a lot more than this to find the problem but you don't want to hear about that... seriously. You just want to fix the problem, right?

 

Edit: 15 December 2006

Thanks to Ascension64, we have a "saved game fixer" that should restore any saved game prone to crashing without noticeable data loss.

 

This is the procedure for fixing a saved game corrupted by a Beregost crash. "Game folder" means the folder where you've installed EasyTutu, Tutu, BGT or BG1.

1. Back up the saved game you want to fix (by copying and pasting the folder somewhere else).

2. Download SETUP-Crashfix.tp2 and save it in your game folder.

3. Download WeiDU.exe (or copy an existing WeiDU or a mod's .exe) and rename it SETUP-Crashfix.exe in your game folder.

4. Load up Near Infinity in your game folder.

5. Expand the Save folder and expand the saved game to be fixed.

6. Click on BALDUR.SAV and Decompress it.

7. Toggle to your game folder in your OS (e.g. with Windows Explorer). There should now be a subfolder containing your decompressed saved game files (e.g. C:\Games\EasyTutu\_000000001-Test1\).

8. Locate the file FW3300.ARE (or AR6700.ARE for BGT or AR3300.ARE for BG1) in this subfolder. Copy and paste it one level up in your main game folder.

9. Run SETUP-Crashfix.exe. If you've done everything correctly, you get a message indicating a successful fix and the Crash Fixer uninstalls itself.

10. Copy the fixed FW3300.ARE and paste it into your temporary decompressed subfolder (the one starting with an underscore).

11. Toggle back to Near Infinity and Compress to rebuild the .SAV file (click Overwrite, OK when prompted).

12. Close Near Infinity and fire up Tutu (or BGT or BG1).

13. Enjoy a crash-free Beregost. Visit the many pubs. Order a round for the house at each one.

 

Technically, what happens in a Beregost-crashing saved game is that a random creature in the area experiences mage spell memorization corruption in its level 5 slot (we don't know how, as yet). What the Crash Fixer does is looks for such corruption and if it finds it, zeroes it out. This isn't a problem data-wise, since it affects only NPCs in the area. The highest level NPC able to cast mage spells is Silke, and she can only cast up to level 4.

 

After this fix, I haven't been able to reproduce the crash, but do let us know if you experience a recurrence.

[pro5]

You mean if you remove her from a savegame which ALREADY crashes, it stops crashing?

[berelinde]

I don't mean to be a spoil-sport, but I used to think that it only happened if I exited Beregost along the eastern or the southern edges.

 

Worked great for a while, then I got a crash after leaving along the western edge.

 

My point is that it's going to take a couple months of testing before we know anything for certain.

[Grand_Dracolich]

Strange, I've never had this crash at all...

[berelinde]

It's erratic. I can exit Beregost 100 times without seeing it, then I'll get it 4 times in a row. It seems to know when I forgot to save before going into town.

[Miloch]

You mean if you remove her from a savegame which ALREADY crashes, it stops crashing?

Yes. Actually, just fixing an erroneous spell slot back to spell level 5/wizard 1 on the actor will counteract the crash, even on a saved game I had that CTDed on load and another one that would crash about 20% of the time after arriving in another area when exiting Beregost. Check the PPG thread for details... as I said there I don't think this fixes the source of the corruption but I can't reproduce another crash after I apply the fix.

I don't mean to be a spoil-sport, but I used to think that it only happened if I exited Beregost along the eastern or the southern edges. Worked great for a while, then I got a crash after leaving along the western edge.

I thought that too, but then, those also just happen to be the most common points where I'd leave the map. I don't think it matters where you leave the map if our theories are correct. Plus I checked the coding on the area map and it appears fairly solid, if a bit cramped in spots.

My point is that it's going to take a couple months of testing before we know anything for certain.

Probably. So get testing! Seriously I want to see how other people replicate this. So far in Ascension64's testing and mine, the corruption always happens in spell level slot 5 on a seemingly random actor CRE in Beregost.

[berelinde]

I wonder what's going on there...

 

Had a bit of a problem with a corrupted CRE yesterday (mine, no less), that had not one but 2 erroneous spell slot allocations that I know I did not put there. I wonder if something is attempting to assign spells, and doing it in such a way that the CREs are corrupted? Is this even possible? Before yesterday, I would have said no.

[Miloch]

Under what circumstances did that happen? I don't know if that's related. The Bereghost issue seems to be a function of something dumping rubbish data into a particular spot in the area file that happens to affect a CRE actor's 5th spell slot. The engine doesn't know how to interpret this data, so it crashes.

 

But the question is, what is that "something" and under what circumstances does it produce the rubbish?

[berelinde]

Unfortunately, I can't answer the question. I was not having any problems in the game with the CRE. I had a problem viewing the CRE with NI, and discovered the erroneous allocations after I finally managed to get it open. I have no idea when the corruption crept in.

 

The fact that it was 2 slots, and neither was slot 5, *and* it did not crash the game, kind of leads me to believe that this was an unrelated problem. I would not have posted at all, except that the CRE was from a saved game, saved guess where.