Bug Fixes

Archaic One · Post by **Archaic One** » Fri Feb 15, 2002 5:24 pm

I have had Shadows of Amn for a while now, and
there's one thing that's always bothered me. I
run Windows ME

( ), and I know it's buggy,
but when I'm playing BGII, the game frequently
freezes to the point that I can't even get the
close program box open.

Does anyone else have this problem?

Is there a way to fix it (patch or otherwise)?

Gothmog · Post by **Gothmog** » Fri Feb 15, 2002 5:49 pm

Well, I run Windows ME on my PC, and I ran SoA for about 10 days before I got ToB. To date, my game has crashed twice. (Both times after I loaded ToB).

Now I also have the Mac version of SoA, and that crashes a LOT....which is the main reason I gave up and bought the PC version....well, that and the fact that ToB isn't available for the Mac yet!

Archaic One · Post by **Archaic One** » Fri Feb 15, 2002 6:22 pm

So is it something I'm doing wrong?

Mine's crashed pretty often as long
as I can remember, and I don't know
what it is. Could it have anything to
do with my config settings?
*I run 3d accel (I thing the problem may
be graphical) Don't know if I can
handle it...
*I have a so-so card: a NVIDA VANTA with
16 megs on board memory
*I have an AMD Athalon proccessor with
256 megs of ram
*I run all three bars in the config
(General, Graphics, & Sound) at
"Maximum"(600mhz or above)
my sysetm runs at 930 mhz.
Is that the same for my graphics
and sound or are they separate??
(sorry to sound like such a newbie,
but I've only owned a PC for a
year now and don't look at these
things much)
* I run in 800x600 res with 32bit
color.
***any help is greatly appreciated.

PS: tell me if you need more of
my system specs, I don't care
who knows em, and I'll either
post them here or I can
email them to you.

Gothmog · Post by **Gothmog** » Fri Feb 15, 2002 9:46 pm

*I have an AMD Athalon proccessor with
256 megs of ram

There's your problem.

Contrary to their advertising campaigns, AMD chips DO NOT conform completely to Pentium specs. (Leagal issues, I believe) Thus, systems running non-Pentium chips often experience weird bugs....this is 99% due to Windows being an Intel OS.

I have an older K-6 system that used to run like crap.....until I dumped Win 98 and loaded Linux. After I made the OS change it almost never crashes.

I've been a professional hardware geek for about 10 years now, and I tell all my clients that consider buying non-Intel based systems to prepare for a LOT of hassles if they plan on running any flavor of Windows.

VoodooDali · Post by **VoodooDali** » Fri Feb 15, 2002 9:57 pm

Don't know if I'd blame the AMD chipset...
I have an AMD Athlon...no real problems that I can recall with crashes. I also have Win ME. The only real difference that I see between your system and mine is the video card--I have an nVidia GeForce 2 GTS w/ 32 MB video ram--so maybe you need to upgrade the card.

I just bought a bigger hard drive (80 gigs) and the clean install and bigger drive has really helped. I have noticed, though, that since installing the anti-virus program yesterday, everything is slowed down. I really hate those programs--all of them are huge resource hogs, impossible to uninstall, and almost like having a virus. So--that being said, you may want to take a look at your virus program.

Bloodstalker · Post by **Bloodstalker** » Fri Feb 15, 2002 10:09 pm

I have never used pentium chips til now, but in all honesty, I have never had any problems out of anything else except that one cyrix chip I had. Actually, I prefer athlons. But, that's just my opinion I guess.

Gothmog · Post by **Gothmog** » Fri Feb 15, 2002 10:13 pm

Don't know if I'd blame the AMD chipset...

Don't get me wrong. I'm not bashing AMD...I'm bashing Microsoft!

I just know I've seen literally hundreds of unexplainable problems with Windows running on non-Intel boxes. Problems with graphics and sound cards (definately with SB legacy drivers), problems with modems, problems with scanners and printers...

And in EVERY case, hooking the "problem component" up to an Intel box solves it.

This problem may very well be a graphics card issue...not being on hand to troubleshoot, I couldn't say. But if I were betting, I'd bet the same system running on a Pentium chip would be problem-free.

Just my 2 cents....

Archaic One · Post by **Archaic One** » Sat Feb 16, 2002 6:44 pm

Thanks everyone.
I probably won't change my OS
until I upgrade my computer again,
so I'll try some of the other mentioned
help. I thought about the graphics
card and decided to turn 3d accel off
cause I don't know if it's fully supported.
I opened the game yesterday and
it did crash, but this time (for
the first time I think) I got an error
message, telling me that there was
a conflict with "nvopengl.dll" I
assumed that this was
NVIDA's open gl drivers (makes sense)
so I decided to turn the 3d accel off.
I haven't tried playing it since.

Thanks again for all your helpful posts.

pooburgler · Post by **pooburgler** » Sun Feb 17, 2002 2:38 am

nah it's not a WinME related problem, everyone's having these probs. Anyway I run ME and haven't experienced any more lockups or freezes then the next guy, but bg2 does have quite a few video/graphics related issues that you should look at as a main culprit for game speed. most problems with games like bg2 and diablo2 etc is that these OpenGL style games run better on Voodoo cards etc than on the geforce cards that most of us use now. The problem with these supposedly great geforce cards is that they're really not all that great unless you play a lot of 1st-person-shooter type games. I do believe the computer hardware industry has duped us silly consumers with yet another round of misleading hype surrounding a product!