Tyr told me ingame to report here since I am unable to access the Bug Reporter. First a description of what I am experiencing:
Any time any of my characters goes near the exits to other maps (one in the middle of the northern boundary of the map across the landbridge in the center of the map and one on the southern boundary of the map), my NWN locks up and crashes out to desktop. If I attempt to relog into any of the characters there, I have severe problems trying to move them away from the immediate area surrounding the transition point - basically, I go to Multiplayer, connect to NS4, pick my character, see the load screen, it shows the map with my character and then after about two seconds locks up (sometimes I am able to move the mouse a little before lockup - one time I even saw a shout before it locked). The computer then crashes to desktop.
I don't know why, but this is not the case within the actual map - as long as I am nowhere near the exits, the map functions perfectly fine. On top of that, I can go to the Arnoth Lower Caves in the upper right part of the Arnoth Mountain Tunnel map, and there is no problem going between the two Arnoth maps.
This problem has not shown up on any other NS4 maps I have been to. Only this Arnoth Mountain Tunnel map.
Okay now here's the hardware and computer information, and I know about all the Radeon Issues so i'll go into what i've tried after that.
I am running a Sempron chip on an ASUS K8N-4E Deluxe mobo with an Audigy Sound Blaster installed. The onboard sound is disabled in the BIOS. I have flashed the BIOS to the most recent (October 2005) version available from ASUS. The video card I am using is a Sapphire x600 ATI based card. I currently have Catalyst 5.9 installed. I have tried both the most recent drivers from ATI, the drivers provided by the manufacturer with the card, and the drivers posted on the manufacturer's site. None of them solves the problem.
I have also seen the following ATI fixes posted in various places, none of which have solved this when applied:
1. Disable shiny water.
2. Disable sound.
3. Reduce all settings in-game on both pre-load config and in-game advanced video settings to minimum to isolate the problem.
4. Reduce all settings in Catalyst to minimum to isolate the problem.
5. Change resolutions to lower (I have gone down to 1024x768 and might have tried 800x600) settings.
6. Disable VPU Recover (This one actually helps)
7. Check for heat problems (I have none - my heat monitor is showing 29-33 and almost never above 34. I have two 90mm and one 120mm fan cranking air like mad).
8. Power Supply Insufficiency - I am sure this is not a problem. The rig is new and everything else checks out for any other program I run.
9. Potentially defective video card - probably not, since it works fine for Lineage II, which is a lot more demanding graphically (but a junker game).
10. Turn hardware mouse off (this actually hurts).
I remember seeing something about RAM timing if you have more than one DIMM installed on some board talking about Radeon 9600 Pro crashes, but I didn't really investigate that one. I am running two 512 sticks of Corsair RAM that checks out okay, so I wasn't too concerned about that type of issue.
The only settings that seem to allow me to move my characters away from the door without crashing out is if I turn hardware mouse back on, disable VPU recover, and pray (good thing i'm a cleric). If I go real slow without abrupt mouse movements, it sometimes lets me move out of the critical crash zone. That seems like it might be heat problems, but it can't be because I never get heat problems in any other game or program, and the heat monitor is not showing an overheating problem and the video card is pretty well situated for good airflow.
Now here's the kicker - even if I can get away from the door and go adventuring inside the cave, if I go near the exit again, I will crash out again. So the only way out really is for me to deliberately die and respawn... which kind of sucks but isn't THAT bad. The main problem is that I can't proceed on the Vigilant job quest because I can't go anywhere in Arnoth and even find the NPC to start the level 3 Vigilant job quest for fear of locking myself out of NS4 again...
Problem with Arnoth Mountain Tunnel Map - Repeated Crashing
At this point I have no idea what is causing this. This is the first time I've heard of anything like it actually.
It could be some freak lag incidents, but since it happened multiple times, it doesn't seem likely.
I hope someone else is able to shed some light on this, so you can enjoy the job, it would be a shame to let it go to waste
It could be some freak lag incidents, but since it happened multiple times, it doesn't seem likely.
I hope someone else is able to shed some light on this, so you can enjoy the job, it would be a shame to let it go to waste
My advice: don't buy from Sapphire 
Abit, Asus, evga, gigabyte--cost more but fewer problems.
Try setting acceleration and buffering to lowest in multimedia/sound settings (i.e. turn off hardware acceleration). Installing the card as far away from your power supply and video helps with interference (crackly bass), but isn't going to crash you...
There's no positional sounds in that area, not sure why you're ok besides being near a transition.
Abit, Asus, evga, gigabyte--cost more but fewer problems.Try setting acceleration and buffering to lowest in multimedia/sound settings (i.e. turn off hardware acceleration). Installing the card as far away from your power supply and video helps with interference (crackly bass), but isn't going to crash you...
There's no positional sounds in that area, not sure why you're ok besides being near a transition.
Tep wrote:I login and there's a dwarf to kill. You can't ask for much more than that.
Alkapwn wrote:NC has the most amazing melee build there is. Its a friggin unstopable juggernaut of pain.
I used to have a LOT of crashing problems on NS3.5...It happened mostly when entering the main Neversummer zone or when I was in a party of 5+, but also happened in EC and other areas solo. Back then, disabling shiny water reduced the crashes by 75% or so.
DMs/Devs: could it be a special feature placeable that is unique to that area? possibly the texture is corrupt and when it loads or sends it to the video card for rendering it causes an error?
Morgado: have you tried putting your ATI card into full debug mode? If it's a videocard related problem, perhaps that will record the error with a little detail.
When I put in a SAFFIRE ATI Radeon 9800 Pro every single game crashed until I put on a gigantic CoolerMaster heatsink/fanpump... but NWN was still crashing occasionally. Since then I've boosted my powersupply and went to an ASUS mobo with a sempron 3100+ and i never crash now (unless I do it myself) running nwn in 1280x1024 as smooth as silk.
btw: L2 uses the Unreal engine which is ULTRA-optimzied for Radeon it runs sooooo fast for me too (but it truly is a boring rpg).
DMs/Devs: could it be a special feature placeable that is unique to that area? possibly the texture is corrupt and when it loads or sends it to the video card for rendering it causes an error?
Morgado: have you tried putting your ATI card into full debug mode? If it's a videocard related problem, perhaps that will record the error with a little detail.
When I put in a SAFFIRE ATI Radeon 9800 Pro every single game crashed until I put on a gigantic CoolerMaster heatsink/fanpump... but NWN was still crashing occasionally. Since then I've boosted my powersupply and went to an ASUS mobo with a sempron 3100+ and i never crash now (unless I do it myself) running nwn in 1280x1024 as smooth as silk.
btw: L2 uses the Unreal engine which is ULTRA-optimzied for Radeon it runs sooooo fast for me too (but it truly is a boring rpg).
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Flailer
- -2 Penalty in Daylight
- Posts: 2503
- Joined: Wed Oct 08, 2003 11:54 am
- Location: Central Virginia
That's a stumper - I looked at the map and don't see anything funky that's not being used in other maps that would cause lockups. If you were actually starting to make the transition I'd say maybe it's a bug with your video card regarding loading/unloading textures, but you say it happens before you get to that area.
Does that happen in other areas too? I'd find it hard to believe that it's just a localized problem on that one map. Also, does it happen with multiple characters you create, either in NC or other factions?
Does that happen in other areas too? I'd find it hard to believe that it's just a localized problem on that one map. Also, does it happen with multiple characters you create, either in NC or other factions?
Flailer
NS Developer
None of us is as dumb as all of us.
NS Developer
None of us is as dumb as all of us.
Lokey - The Sapphire card was cheap, but i'm replacing this crap with an nVidia card later anyway. 
Jain - I haven't tried that, but i'm not sure what's going on. Maybe I should check that out.
Flailer - I have some new information for you. I went in there with multiple characters and they all crash the same way. Only on server resets are they reliably able to move again. It is only this map (not area - only this map!). I took my cleric down to Amazons and the other parts of the NC camps, and it seems fine all the way down.
I haven't tried with other faction characters - unfortunately i'm too new to NS to even know how to get them there.
Here's another interesting tidbit - my cleric can't see the NPCs. None of the miners load on the map with the mine shaft for the third vigilant quest. I tried going down there with someone else who had that quest while I was logged into my fighter and the fighter could see them. However, when I logged into the cleric, all the NPCs vanished and even the other player said he couldn't see them either. Could it be something in the job code tied to the NPCs?
Jain - I haven't tried that, but i'm not sure what's going on. Maybe I should check that out.
Flailer - I have some new information for you. I went in there with multiple characters and they all crash the same way. Only on server resets are they reliably able to move again. It is only this map (not area - only this map!). I took my cleric down to Amazons and the other parts of the NC camps, and it seems fine all the way down.
I haven't tried with other faction characters - unfortunately i'm too new to NS to even know how to get them there.
Here's another interesting tidbit - my cleric can't see the NPCs. None of the miners load on the map with the mine shaft for the third vigilant quest. I tried going down there with someone else who had that quest while I was logged into my fighter and the fighter could see them. However, when I logged into the cleric, all the NPCs vanished and even the other player said he couldn't see them either. Could it be something in the job code tied to the NPCs?
More weirdness... the NPC didn't spawn so I sent a /dm about it and someone spawned the NPCs for me... the regional quest for the job updated correctly, then I went down and the infected bats were there.
Finished the regional quest but now the NPCs are gone again when I go back up. All of the monsters are spawning fine though - I see the bats and infected bats just fine. All the miners are missing, though.
Finished the regional quest but now the NPCs are gone again when I go back up. All of the monsters are spawning fine though - I see the bats and infected bats just fine. All the miners are missing, though.
Mystery solved.
*ding*
For another server I was trying out (which shall remain nameless), they were hak-happy and loaded up all kinds of crap for you to play on their PW. Anyhoo, one of the hakpaks was a mine/cave tile override set. I went in and nuked the entire hak and override folders in my NWN directory... and bingo. No more problems.
I think the hak-less nature of NS is an absolutely huge (Like Jim Rome huge) asset. It probably bears repeating to newcomers like me that it is best to go stock NWN install in case some "other" PW's haks do bad things.
The level of response from the DMs and community here has been impressive - in a lot of other games (Like Lineage II), questions generally go unanswered or the community starts attacking the newbie. I've experienced nothing of the sort here. Thank you everyone who chimed in with ideas either here or ingame.
I was thinking "Okay, mine... special... hrm. But there's no haks in NS..."Thanks to Jain whose question phrasing tipped me off
DMs/Devs: could it be a special feature placeable that is unique to that area?
*ding*
For another server I was trying out (which shall remain nameless), they were hak-happy and loaded up all kinds of crap for you to play on their PW. Anyhoo, one of the hakpaks was a mine/cave tile override set. I went in and nuked the entire hak and override folders in my NWN directory... and bingo. No more problems.
I think the hak-less nature of NS is an absolutely huge (Like Jim Rome huge) asset. It probably bears repeating to newcomers like me that it is best to go stock NWN install in case some "other" PW's haks do bad things.
The level of response from the DMs and community here has been impressive - in a lot of other games (Like Lineage II), questions generally go unanswered or the community starts attacking the newbie. I've experienced nothing of the sort here. Thank you everyone who chimed in with ideas either here or ingame.