Author Topic: Balinoks Crash  (Read 39011 times)

Bluebomber4evr

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Re: Balinoks Crash
« Reply #100 on: May 06, 2013, 07:43:11 PM »
It has to be a placeable. If it was the tileset it would happen in every area that uses the tileset, and if it were something like DirectX or whatever it would crash in any area. The fact that it's limited to 1-3 specific areas consistently says that it's some object in those areas, and the most likely suspect would be a placeable (though it might be a messed-up sound object as well).

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respawnaholic

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Re: Balinoks Crash
« Reply #101 on: May 06, 2013, 08:11:26 PM »
It has to be a placeable. If it was the tileset it would happen in every area that uses the tileset, and if it were something like DirectX or whatever it would crash in any area. The fact that it's limited to 1-3 specific areas consistently says that it's some object in those areas, and the most likely suspect would be a placeable (though it might be a messed-up sound object as well).

Possible and it makes sense but as someone else noted this (for me at any rate) is a relatively recent thing. I don't remember it happening prior to Febuary or so, but I did get a new computer since then so it could also be tied to win 8. most of the times I crash its between transitions and it just crashes straight into desktop.

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Re: Balinoks Crash
« Reply #102 on: May 06, 2013, 08:53:09 PM »
It has to be a placeable. If it was the tileset it would happen in every area that uses the tileset, and if it were something like DirectX or whatever it would crash in any area. The fact that it's limited to 1-3 specific areas consistently says that it's some object in those areas, and the most likely suspect would be a placeable (though it might be a messed-up sound object as well).

It does seem likely that this is the case. I thought perhaps the DirectX issue was limited to some of the CEP placeables (hence why it would only happen in certain areas) but if that didn't solve the issue then it doesn't leave much else. I'm just baffled by the fact that I can walk through those areas completely unaffected. Blue, do you have access to the module itself? As far as tracking down a placeable/sound that could be the culprit goes, it would be a little tedious but comparing the placeables in those areas to find one that's common to all three might be a way to find out.

Bluebomber4evr

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Re: Balinoks Crash
« Reply #103 on: May 06, 2013, 10:03:26 PM »
It has to be a placeable. If it was the tileset it would happen in every area that uses the tileset, and if it were something like DirectX or whatever it would crash in any area. The fact that it's limited to 1-3 specific areas consistently says that it's some object in those areas, and the most likely suspect would be a placeable (though it might be a messed-up sound object as well).

Possible and it makes sense but as someone else noted this (for me at any rate) is a relatively recent thing. I don't remember it happening prior to Febuary or so, but I did get a new computer since then so it could also be tied to win 8. most of the times I crash its between transitions and it just crashes straight into desktop.
Um, look at the very first post of this thread. People have been suffering from it for a lot longer than that.

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Feronius

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Re: Balinoks Crash
« Reply #104 on: May 06, 2013, 10:37:04 PM »
Yeah, this bug has been here for months, if not years.


You're more knowledgeable than me on this Bluebomber, for sure, but it seems odd for it to be a sound object.
Since you have to tune down the video settings to get through the areas without crashing, not the audio options.

Then again, I suppose the sound object placeables do have some sort of graphical presence, visible or not, that may be messed up.
I don't know, it's an old game and hard to tell how this works. Just figured I'd mention the obvious in case it possibly narrows down your search.

Bluebomber4evr

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Re: Balinoks Crash
« Reply #105 on: May 07, 2013, 12:01:43 AM »
Yeah, this bug has been here for months, if not years.


You're more knowledgeable than me on this Bluebomber, for sure, but it seems odd for it to be a sound object.
Since you have to tune down the video settings to get through the areas without crashing, not the audio options.

Then again, I suppose the sound object placeables do have some sort of graphical presence, visible or not, that may be messed up.
I don't know, it's an old game and hard to tell how this works. Just figured I'd mention the obvious in case it possibly narrows down your search.
If it's a messed-up sound object, then it isn't a graphical crash, the game would crash when it tried to play the sound object.

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Feronius

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Re: Balinoks Crash
« Reply #106 on: May 07, 2013, 07:33:24 AM »
It may be a dumb comment, but doesn't the fact you need to lower your video settings imply that it's not related to sound?
That's what I was trying to say. Anyhow, I'll leave it in your much more capable hands. If I find something notable, I'll post here again.

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Re: Balinoks Crash
« Reply #107 on: May 07, 2013, 11:57:26 AM »
Yeah, this bug has been here for months, if not years.


You're more knowledgeable than me on this Bluebomber, for sure, but it seems odd for it to be a sound object.
Since you have to tune down the video settings to get through the areas without crashing, not the audio options.

Then again, I suppose the sound object placeables do have some sort of graphical presence, visible or not, that may be messed up.
I don't know, it's an old game and hard to tell how this works. Just figured I'd mention the obvious in case it possibly narrows down your search.
If it's a messed-up sound object, then it isn't a graphical crash, the game would crash when it tried to play the sound object.


really really dumb question   but we do not know when it is a sound crash or graphical crash right?  lets say people have the graphics at minimum and the sound at 0  sound still plays you just dont hear it
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Lucadia

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Re: Balinoks Crash
« Reply #108 on: May 07, 2013, 12:44:40 PM »
iv had 4 computers, 2 of them required very low graphics settings, only on that first map of the Baloniks, otherwise it repeat crash trying to load the map

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Re: Balinoks Crash
« Reply #109 on: May 07, 2013, 02:40:10 PM »
Yeah, this bug has been here for months, if not years.


You're more knowledgeable than me on this Bluebomber, for sure, but it seems odd for it to be a sound object.
Since you have to tune down the video settings to get through the areas without crashing, not the audio options.

Then again, I suppose the sound object placeables do have some sort of graphical presence, visible or not, that may be messed up.
I don't know, it's an old game and hard to tell how this works. Just figured I'd mention the obvious in case it possibly narrows down your search.
If it's a messed-up sound object, then it isn't a graphical crash, the game would crash when it tried to play the sound object.


really really dumb question   but we do not know when it is a sound crash or graphical crash right?  lets say people have the graphics at minimum and the sound at 0  sound still plays you just dont hear it
Right.

My money's still on a placeable, though.

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Re: Balinoks Crash
« Reply #110 on: June 25, 2013, 06:34:12 PM »
I've been wondering if out might be a VRAM issue, maybe NWN isn't allocating enough. It is an old game after all, and perhaps the engine is only using 128-256mb max? I don't really know much about the inner working of this engine, but some games are only able to use a limited amount of VRAM (RAM could also be an issue, but idk).

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Re: Balinoks Crash
« Reply #111 on: January 04, 2014, 10:50:51 AM »
So, any time I log out in the Balinok Mountains, I am unable to log back in and move my character. My machine almost completely loads the area, and then crashes subsequently. It's happened more than three times now, and I can't play that character until the server gets reset to bump them to the OOC area. Is there any kind of solution, or anything at all?
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Lucadia

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Re: Balinoks Crash
« Reply #112 on: January 04, 2014, 10:54:25 AM »
You need log into another pc and adjust your resolution settings.

Lowest graphic settings should allow you log into mountains to get out.
« Last Edit: January 04, 2014, 11:01:09 AM by Lucadia »

Feronius

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Re: Balinoks Crash
« Reply #113 on: January 04, 2014, 11:56:02 AM »
You need log into another pc and adjust your resolution settings.

Lowest graphic settings should allow you log into mountains to get out.

You should be able to do that in the game menu as well, without having to log into any character.



Has the development team ever considered simply remaking these areas?

As far as I can tell it is only about two areas in the Balinoks on the road towards Krofburg that make these crashes occur. If these areas could be remade from scratch the error would most likely die with the old versions of the area, right? And players would no longer be required to lower their video settings to play on the server (or swap back and forth between settings) just for these one or two problematic areas out of the 800+ unique areas in total. (Probably way more by now.)

I know this is not the most fun task for the development team, but on all my time playing on this server I have never encountered this crash in any other area.
Which would suggest remaking these one or two areas would, in my opinion, very much be worth it and might permanently root out this ongoing problem?

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Re: Balinoks Crash
« Reply #114 on: January 04, 2014, 12:31:13 PM »
I am fairly certain it has something to do with the grass mesh, mainly because blood monkey finally updated his mountain tile set back in 2007 to fix the issue with people crashing when they entered his mountain areas (which was fixed even further by the ctp team, though I am not sure where that link might be) and then Mondego did a further update in 2009. I'm not sure if the tile set was updated here, but I've tested both of these on full graphics with no issues, where as the one in the ravenloft hak causes crashing on full graphics (This is given that I honestly have no idea as to the hak order and pasted the ravenloft haks into a basic cep 2.4 mod).

Here are the twho mountain tile sets with their respective updates -
2007 - http://nwvault.ign.com/View.php?view=Hakpaks.Detail&id=3936
2009 - http://nwvault.ign.com/View.php?view=Hakpaks.Detail&id=7749

I imagine that it is a lot of work to update a tile set though in the haks, mainly because I have no clue how to do it myself, and even less of a clue as to if the area's would have to be remade after doing so. I do know that Mondego's update fixed the grass issue for certain.

If it's a sound then it should be fairly easy to fix, compile the area and it will return with any invalid sounds, ie, like the rain storm sounds, most of them do not work and can cause errors. I've figured this out after working on several project area's of my own, and I know for certain there was one other, but I can't remember it off the top of my head. I don't know if that would cause some one to crash in an area when it plays or not however.

I do know that the crashing occurs mostly at the entry area (where dervishiem's entrance is), and the area leading down to the invidians, the one coming down out of the mountains and into the forest right before their camp.  Typically I don't really check, because as soon as I crash I drop my graphics to their lowest setting and re-log on and continue with what ever I was doing.

Feronius

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Re: Balinoks Crash
« Reply #115 on: January 04, 2014, 12:44:24 PM »
I do know that the crashing occurs mostly at the entry area (where dervishiem's entrance is), and the area leading down to the invidians, the one coming down out of the mountains and into the forest right before their camp.

Those are to my knowledge the only areas I crash in as well, especially the zone with the entrance to Dvergeheim.


So perhaps it would be possible for a developper to redo just the sound objects in those areas first? See if it helps.
Makes sense to redo the easy stuff first and only bother remaking the entire two areas when that fix does not work.

I doubt replacing tilesets would help, if tilesets were the problem would we not be crashing in a lot of other areas as well?

Bluebomber4evr

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Re: Balinoks Crash
« Reply #116 on: January 04, 2014, 01:32:34 PM »
We are using the most current version of that tileset. The fact that it only occurs in just a a few areas that use this tileset (out of very many) says to me that it is either a particular, single problematic tile in the tileset or a placeable with a broken model.

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Ellana Twiggy

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Re: Balinoks Crash
« Reply #117 on: January 05, 2014, 02:07:44 AM »
We are using the most current version of that tileset. The fact that it only occurs in just a a few areas that use this tileset (out of very many) says to me that it is either a particular, single problematic tile in the tileset or a placeable with a broken model.
I don't think it is a placeable, unless there are a great many in that second area, the one on the way to the Invidians. I'm pretty sure that area is just all tileset, though I might be wrong. Maybe that would be the easiest one to check and then see if the problem is the same in the dervish area. I know that the mountain tileset still has a few glitches, like fading with some tiles, but I am not sure if that would make you crash or not, seems that is an issue with the tree line connection with the stone. At least I've noted some gaps there.
I rather wish I knew how to be of more help with this.

Dread

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Re: Balinoks Crash
« Reply #118 on: January 05, 2014, 03:35:12 AM »
The game seems to crash for me either at the Foot of Mt. Ghakis or Near Krofburg areas, at least once. Generally it eventually lets me log back in after three or four consecutive login attempts, but those are the two problem spots for me.

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Re: Balinoks Crash
« Reply #119 on: December 31, 2014, 11:05:22 AM »
My game has locked up in only two areas -- the transition entering the Balinoks from the north (Vallaki), and the transition coming out of Dvergheim.  Each time it is when I am attempting to enter the map, and only from those two transition points.  The map generally loads correctly, then freezes when I attempt to move more than a few paces.  Interestingly, I have found that if I initiate movement very gingerly in those areas (i.e. I don't change camera angles, I move only using mouse-clicks, and only a few paces at a time) once I get a significant distance away from the transition points, I don't have issues.

My solution for lock ups has been to exit the game, reboot my computer, restart NWN, lower the graphics settings to "stupid", then everything usually loads correctly.  If I don't reboot my computer, and just try to reload NWN (even with lower graphics) my game does not load correctly (I freeze during the loading).



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Re: Balinoks Crash
« Reply #120 on: December 31, 2014, 11:13:43 AM »
If I don't reboot my computer, and just try to reload NWN (even with lower graphics) my game does not load correctly (I freeze during the loading).

This sounds like you are describing a memory error that exists until the memory is flushed (PC is rebooted).  It might be possible to narrow this down to being caused by the Module or Game in this specific area.  Can you run a memory test to make sure it isn't a local problem?

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Re: Balinoks Crash
« Reply #121 on: January 03, 2015, 11:53:10 PM »
There's something off the path with the little shrine on the "At the Foot of Mount Ghakis" area that's made me crash. I crashed when I entered the area, but it let me log in, and then now I can't even log in there because it crashes as soon as the load bar is full. A placeable like BlueBomber was saying, maybe? I know my rig can handle any graphics or sound levels this game or any hak can throw out, it can't be that.
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IDreamofDaleks

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Re: Balinoks Crash
« Reply #122 on: January 04, 2015, 12:00:01 AM »
This just happened to me, you godda lower the graphics to Fast, 16 meg compadibility mode and turn off everything. If you open nwn.exe you can do that without logging in.

LeviShultz

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Re: Balinoks Crash
« Reply #123 on: January 04, 2015, 12:16:23 PM »
Had the exact same thing happen to me. I think some of the particle effects push the area over the edge.

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Merry Munchkin

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Re: Balinoks Crash
« Reply #124 on: January 04, 2015, 12:57:57 PM »
If I don't reboot my computer, and just try to reload NWN (even with lower graphics) my game does not load correctly (I freeze during the loading).

This sounds like you are describing a memory error that exists until the memory is flushed (PC is rebooted).  It might be possible to narrow this down to being caused by the Module or Game in this specific area.  Can you run a memory test to make sure it isn't a local problem?

Ran the Windows Memory Diagnostic Tool today, and no problems were found.  I have Windows 7, with an Nvida GeForce graphics card and 512 dedicated VRAM, so my system has enough video horsepower for a game like NWW.  On a side note, I crashed a few days ago  in the roadway right in front of the Dvergheim entrance going TO Dvergheim -- I had not gone through the transition yet, so it was not transition related.


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