Very weird CTD

[Guest Guest]

Is your computer doing write-caching of files written to the hard drive? If so, turn it off and see what happens.

 

Hm I have no idea what you're talking about. But if you tell me how to turn it off, I'll try that.

 

Perhaps you're running with hard disk compression turned on, and that's conflicting somehow?

 

No, I don't use hard disk compression.

 

It could also be video drivers, odd as that may sound. They're notorious for causing issues for some people.

 

Yes but I haven't updated them since I started my BG2 game, so why would they suddenly make the game unstable??

 

You could try disabling 3D accelerator usage in BGConfig.

 

I usually run BG2 with 3D acceleration off. I tried to enable it but when I test the settings, I can see the 3 concetric squares but my screen flickers (whereas it does not when I don't use 3D acceleration).

 

Something certainly seems to be corrupting your data. Some older versions of NI would corrupt save files if any editing was done, but you didn't mention trying to edit your saved games.

 

Yep, I didn't edit any savegames

 

Edit: If you have Data Execution Prevention turned on (built-in anti-virus feature of modern CPUs), try turning it off and see if the game runs better. DEP is very picky when it comes to older software. I can't run Office 2003 with DEP turned on.

 

I bought my laptop more than 2 years ago. Do you think my CPU can have this DEP thing? If yes, how can I turn it off?

 

 

I tried to load other savegames but they all crashed until I loaded a savegame in the previous area (ghoul town). So all my savegames in the pit of the faitless crash. That's really a mystery to me, considering that I have played BG2 for since I started my current game without any problem. Maybe that's somehow linked to the rod but that's really a wild guess...

 

Thanks very much for your help anyway, and sorry for wasting your time on such a small bug which is probably not even related to the Fixpack.

[pro5]

I usually run BG2 with 3D acceleration off. I tried to enable it but when I test the settings, I can see the 3 concetric squares but my screen flickers (whereas it does not when I don't use 3D acceleration).

Disable 'Triple Buffering' in your video card advanced properties and it should get rid of flickering.

[Smoketest]

Is your computer doing write-caching of files written to the hard drive? If so, turn it off and see what happens.

Hm I have no idea what you're talking about. But if you tell me how to turn it off, I'll try that.

"Write-caching" means when you save something to disk, Windows puts it into a memory buffer until the hard drive is available and then writes it to disk. It's not a direct write like older systems used.

 

I'll give some examples but they're based on Windows XP. Should be similar in older versions.

 

To see if your system is using write-caching, right-click on My Computer and select Properties. Select the Hardware tab then click the Device Manager button. Click the + next to Disk Drives and you should see your hard disk listed there. Right-click on it and select Properties. Select the Policies tab and look for a check box that says something like "Enable write-caching on the disk...". If it's checked, try unchecking it, then click Okay until you're back to your desktop. You may have to reboot your system.

 

It could also be video drivers, odd as that may sound. They're notorious for causing issues for some people.

Yes but I haven't updated them since I started my BG2 game, so why would they suddenly make the game unstable??

You could assume they haven't changed since your last update, but that's a big assumption to make on a Windows system. In general, it's always a good idea to make sure your video drivers (and other drivers if you know how) are up to date.

 

Edit: If you have Data Execution Prevention turned on (built-in anti-virus feature of modern CPUs), try turning it off and see if the game runs better. DEP is very picky when it comes to older software. I can't run Office 2003 with DEP turned on.

I bought my laptop more than 2 years ago. Do you think my CPU can have this DEP thing? If yes, how can I turn it off?

Right-click on My Computer and select Properties. Select the Advanced tab and click the Settings button in the Performance box. If your processor supports DEP, you'll see a Data Execution Prevention tab. If you see it, click on it and look at the settings to see if it's enabled or not. If it is, turn it off to see if that helps.

 

To reset things to normal, repeat the procedures and reset the things you changed to their old values.

 

Hope that helps.

[Guest Amgot]

Smoketest

 

I deactivated write caching and DEP but it didn't change anything. Thanks for your help though, you made me discover some interesting Windows XP settings

 

Well, I reloaded an older savegame which worked, made my way in the Pit of the Faithless without getting killed (and thus not having to reload) and finished the quest without problem. I just hope the bug won't show up again... If it doesn't, it might mean that it was linked to the rod.

[Guest Amgot]

Now I have a new problem but it's due to the fact that I uninstalled the whole game and all the mods, then reinstalled it and tried to load my old savegames. I didn't want to annoy you with this, since the Fixpack is not involved, so I posted here...

 

And also I forgot to thank you all for your help. So thanks

[Roana]

The only insta-kill block for having the Rift Device is in the Temple sewers area script. That being said, I've experienced this as well which makes me wonder if there's a master area conflict here. Both Temple sewers (ar0701) and the lair of the Unseeing Eye (ar0205) are listed as master areas so, in theory, this shouldn't happen.

 

 

Hello,

 

you are right, it is a master area conflict. Long time before I have gone online, just after the release of the latest patch from Bioware, I have had these crashed too. Meanwhile, I have begun to debug (and mod) them and solved this bug too (during restoration of the lens plot ).

 

My solution was as follow:

 

Change this scriptblock ar0701.bsc from original:

 

IF

OR(2)

PartyHasItem("MISC5C") // Dimensionsreißer

PartyHasItem("MISC5Z") // Dimensionsreißer

THEN

RESPONSE #100

StartCutSceneMode()

TakePartyItem("MISC5C") // Dimensionsreißer

TakePartyItem("MISC5Z") // Dimensionsreißer

ActionOverride(Player1,MoveToPoint([385.616]))

Wait(2)

DisplayStringHead(Player1,53006)

Wait(3)

EndCutSceneMode()

Kill(Player1)

END

 

into this

 

IF

InMyArea(Player1)

OR(2)

PartyHasItem("MISC5C") // Dimensionsreißer

PartyHasItem("MISC5Z") // Dimensionsreißer

THEN

RESPONSE #100

StartCutSceneMode()

TakePartyItem("MISC5C") // Dimensionsreißer

TakePartyItem("MISC5Z") // Dimensionsreißer

ActionOverride(Player1,MoveToPoint([385.616]))

Wait(2)

DisplayStringHead(Player1,53006)

Wait(3)

EndCutSceneMode()

Kill(Player1)

END

 

 

and as the Death-check from the Unseeing Eye was not proper everytime (which cause only sometimes crashes, sometimes not), I have changed this script block from the original ar0205.bsc

 

IF

PartyHasItem("MISC5A") // Teil der Dimensionsreißers

PartyHasItem("MISC5B") // Teil der Dimensionsreißers

!Dead("UnseeingEye")

THEN

RESPONSE #100

TakePartyItem("MISC5A") // Teil der Dimensionsreißers

TakePartyItem("MISC5B") // Teil der Dimensionsreißers

GiveItemCreate("MISC5C",Player1,1,0,0) // Dimensionsreißer

AddexperienceParty(26250)

DisplayStringHead(Player1,31215)

Wait(7)

CreateCreature("BHEYE",[2528.1897],12) // Das Blicklose Auge

END

 

IF

PartyHasItem("MISC5A") // Teil der Dimensionsreißers

PartyHasItem("MISC5B") // Teil der Dimensionsreißers

THEN

RESPONSE #100

TakePartyItem("MISC5A") // Teil der Dimensionsreißers

TakePartyItem("MISC5B") // Teil der Dimensionsreißers

GiveItemCreate("MISC5C",Player1,0,0,0) // Dimensionsreißer

DisplayStringHead(Player1,31215)

END

 

into this

 

IF

PartyHasItem("MISC5A") // Teil der Dimensionsreißers

PartyHasItem("MISC5B") // Teil der Dimensionsreißers

!Dead("BHEYE") // Das Blicklose Auge

Global("UnseeingEyeAppeared","AR0205",0)

THEN

RESPONSE #100

TakePartyItem("MISC5A") // Teil der Dimensionsreißers

TakePartyItem("MISC5B") // Teil der Dimensionsreißers

GiveItemCreate("MISC5C",Player1,1,0,0) // Dimensionsreißer

AddexperienceParty(26250)

DisplayStringHead(Player1,31215)

Wait(7)

CreateCreature("BHEYE",[2528.1897],12) // Das Blicklose Auge

SetGlobal("UnseeingEyeAppeared","AR0205",1)

END

 

IF

PartyHasItem("MISC5A") // Teil der Dimensionsreißers

PartyHasItem("MISC5B") // Teil der Dimensionsreißers

Dead("BHEYE") // Das Blicklose Auge

Global("UnseeingEye","GLOBAL",1)

THEN

RESPONSE #100

TakePartyItem("MISC5A") // Teil der Dimensionsreißers

TakePartyItem("MISC5B") // Teil der Dimensionsreißers

GiveItemCreate("MISC5C",Player1,0,0,0) // Dimensionsreißer

DisplayStringHead(Player1,31215)

END

 

 

I don't have supposed, that over all this years nobody else has figured that out. You may use this for bugfix or eventual create a better code upon this information.

 

Regards

 

Roana

[pro5]

Maybe it's different for your German version, but in english patched ToB game the death variable for BHEYE is "UnseeingEye".

So

Dead("BHEYE")

probably wouldn't work.

 

Thanks for the tip, I'll add the InMyArea(Player1) check to my ar0701 script, just in case.

(Even though I never had the script here misfire before...)

 

The Unseeing Eye not appearing bug is already solved in fixpack by replacing Wait(7) with SetGlobalTimer or somesuch.

[Roana]

Maybe it's different for your German version, but in english patched ToB game the death variable for BHEYE is "UnseeingEye".

So

Dead("BHEYE")

probably wouldn't work.

 

Thanks for the tip, I'll add the InMyArea(Player1) check to my ar0701 script, just in case.

(Even though I never had the script here misfire before...)

 

The Unseeing Eye not appearing bug is already solved in fixpack by replacing Wait(7) with SetGlobalTimer or somesuch.

 

 

Hello,

 

the deathvariable for the creature BHEYE.Cre is "UnseeingEye" in the German Version too. The reason, that I have changed this from the original script is, that, for some reason, many times the BG-games usually check the Death of a creature much more properly, if you put the name of the creature-file here, to force the game to look at this .cre file directly - I don't know why.... But if I ever have trouble with Death-check in BG1 or BG2, I refer the name of the creature file in the script, to solve this.

 

 

As for the "InMyArea" check: I have added this, to avoid the master area conflict, that CamDawg had mentioned. The script of the AR0701 doesen't misfire without this, but without this, the AR0205 will sometimes refer to this, although it is not supposed to, as it is a master Area too. Adding this check to the AR0701.BCS has solved some randomly crashes for me in the Area 0205 by fighting the Unseeing Eye: it crashed before appearing of the Unssing Eye just as I have got the complete rod, or by fighting it during the fight, or, if I had saved just after the fight, after loading this save. All these crashes I have never had after altering the original scripts.

 

Also: The UnseeingEye can appear before you got your way to its lair, if you don't follow the quest given exactly as supposed and attack Gaal immediatly after speaking to him. It is supposed by the programmers to be created in this Area if you are doing so. Its the reason for checking both rods - the one with and the one without a charge in AR0701 for killing the player . Thats why I have also implemented the check for given the rod also if the Unsseing Eye is already dead. (I myself haven't ever attack Gaal directly after speaking to him, cause I always play good aligned Charaters and I love to play the quests, enjoy the dialogs, etc., instead of running through the game... This I only have implemented just in case others would use my solutions some times...)

 

The Avatar will give a reward even though you have not used the rod, if you bring it back to him. (Surly you can use it once on another creature in the lair of the UnseeingEye, if it is already dead, but you don't _have_ to do this by original meanings).

 

Regards

 

Roana

[CamDawg]

I've added the InMyArea trigger for ar0701.bcs. All of the other issues here should already be handled by the existing script changes.