Dark Messiah - 1.02 Patch @ Fileshack [Archive]

fatBastard()

December 13th, 2006, 11:58

There is not much that can be done outside of the developer's office I'm afraid. I'm having the dreaded "Memory could not be read" error that quite a lot of people are having. Some don't even get to the main menu before they are booted back to the desktop, but I usually get to play between 5 - 60 seconds before it crashes. I've been unable to find the common denominator with others having the same problem (and obviously neither have Arcane), because both ATI and nVidia cards are involved as are AMD and Intel CPU's and even SP2 and SP1.

Judging by the fix list of both patches it seems that Arcane has chosen to focus on improving gameplay for those who CAN play the game (albeit not perfectly) instead of fixing the more serious gamestopping bugs and while that is understandable I suppose, it nevertheless sucks when you standing on the sideline and can do nothing but watch while the "in crowd" is having fun.:'(

Acleacius

December 13th, 2006, 20:59

I guess if many people are having this problem i'm not sure I could help. ;)

Have your tried the -dxlevel 90c extention in your shortcut if the memory leak seems to be graphicly related?
Dark Messiah of Might and Magic\mm.exe" -dxlevel 90c

Or is the leak seemed more system memory based on your RAM or you Virtual Memory?
When Troika used the Source engine many found increasing there Swap file size helped, was just kind of wondering if you were able to play longer based on Swap file size increases.

Have you tried substituting another type of mm.exe to see if that fixes the problem?

fatBastard()

December 13th, 2006, 22:21

I'm not really sure where the problem comes from to be perfectly honest. 3 times out of perhaps 30 or 40 attempts have I managed to get to the first real map in the game (i.e. gotten past the tutorial) and while I do "appear" to be able to play longer at lower graphical settings, one of those 3 times was with settings/resolutions at what I would call optimum settings for my rig.

To avoid being acused of being a slacker I just tried you suggestions with the "-dxlevel 90c" and with doubled up paging file of 4Gb and both them at the same time but it makes no difference.

If by substituting the mm.exe file you mean Steam vs. Retail then yes. I have bought the Collector's Edition and just last night - after finding out that the patch didn't do anything for my problem - I uninstalled the game and downloaded the Steam version overnight to try again from scratch but the problem remains with no discernable difference between the two versions.

The funny thing is that I've never experienced a similar error in Half Life 2, CS:Source or Bloodlines, yet it rears its ugly head within minutes every single time I try to play Dark Messiah. Somtimes I only manage to hear the opening dialog:

"Master Phenrig. Where are you?"
"I'm here Sar..." *CRASH*

and other times it is not until the very end of the tutorial where you're praticing combat that it decides to go belly up and, as I said, a few times I've managed to see the beginning of the "real" game ... almost as if it can sense when I'm nearing the brink of giving up and just before that happens it leans forward exposing just enough cleavage to keep me rooted in place waiting for more but the damn tease always sit back up straight again hiding the goodies ... that hussy ;)

Acleacius

December 14th, 2006, 00:11

Well actually I meant an even different type of mm.exe but not clear how to phrase it.
Some times copy protection prevents of legal owners of games from playing, so there are alternitive mm.exe (s) available which could help.

What happens whan you attempt to save your game, in one of the times you are able to actually see gameplay instead of bik(s) movies?
Yes not to spoil it for you but there is more than one intresting group of pixels to look at as a matter of fact there is a sort of tension between the twom so I am sure 2 are ever more worth looking forward too, than the one you see now. ;)

JDR13

December 14th, 2006, 08:02

fatBastard(),

I was constantly getting that same error message and I also tried many different fixes with no luck. What finally worked for me was turning my hardware sound acceleration down a notch in DXDIAG. That allowed me to finish the game with only an occasional crash.

Click on Start, then on RUN, then type DXDIAG and click OK
Go to the Sound tab and find the slider labled Hardware Sound Acceleration Level.
Turn it down one notch, it won't affect the quality of your sound.
See if it works for you.

I'm using the DVD version of DM by the way, not the STEAM version.

fatBastard()

December 14th, 2006, 11:58

Oh THAT kind of "different type" of the executable. Well, I did try one such alternate version that would allow me to leave my NWN2 DVD in the drive while attempting to play Dark Messiah, if you know what I mean. Same result as before.

Judging by the many complaints about crashings while saving/loading one would think that the autosave trigger points were obvious candidates for crashes but that doesn't seem to be the case with me. I can find no pattern to the crashes. It can be in the middle of a conversation, while doing nothing at all or in the heat of combat with plenty of mouse/keyboard movements. I did try to save between 2 auto save points and that went without a hitch. Of course, 40 seconds later I was back at the desktop.

I've just tried out JDR13's suggestion but alas to no avail. First attempt brought me to the black guard spike kicking area and the next attempt I started from that auto save but didn't get any further than the following area where you are awarded a skill point. Then I tried in 800x600 resolution with the auto save feature disabled and got no further than the "conquering" of physical objects (slightly over dramatic term for tossing crates around ;)).

Of course I haven't bothered reinstalling the DVD version again so I'm still with the Steam version of the game but judging from some of the the others with the same problem it doesn't appear to be exclusively for either Retail or Steam owners.

What kind of RAM do you have JDR13 (size, type, brand)?

JDR13

December 14th, 2006, 18:44

Right now I'm using two 512mb sticks of Mushkin PC3200.

Sorry to hear that DM is still crashing for you. I never could get the STEAM version to work. It would always lock up about 3\4 through a load screen. I reinstalled both versions several times before I finally got the DVD version playable.

BTW, it might be worth mentioning that the STEAM version rarely, if ever, crashed on me. It was the loading lockup bug that made that version unplayable for me.

I played DM at 1280x1024 with all options on high except for textures, which were on medium. Also used AAx4, AFx16, and vsync on. the latter 3 options being enabled via the game, not hardware.

JDR13

December 14th, 2006, 18:55

I just remembered another thing I did that someone had suggested. I'm not sure if it's what fixed it for me, but it might be worth a try. This is for the DVD version only though.

If you go to your main DM folder you'll notice a lot of files with the word STEAM in them. If you're going to play with just the DVD version installed then delete all of the files that end in .steam. You don't need them for the DVD version and it won't affect the game at all. Also, make sure that you don't have both versions of DM installed at the same time.

BTW, your RAM has nothing to do with DM crashing. Unless of course, your other games are crashing as well.

fatBastard()

December 14th, 2006, 21:44

I didn't think it was the RAM but I just noticed that several of the people with the same problem as me were using Corsair Dual Channel RAM so while I already knew it to be a long shot I just thought I would check to be on the safe side.

However, the problem you describe has not happened to me. In fact I have only had a single type of error, although devilishly persistent, and the flood of performance complaints I see at the forums about stuttering and low framerates and graphical artifacts is not something I can detect in the few minutes I'm allowed to play. I've never had any problems reaching the menu and it doesn't crash upon loading/saving and there are never any other error messages than the:

Application Error : The instruction at "0x2408b179" referenced memory at "0x0f161ea8". The memory could not be "read".

The funny thing is that while the second memory address is variable it seems like the first one (i.e. the one that can't be read) is the same. That is to say that it has changed 2 times which seems, at first glance at least, to coincide with the release of the 2 patches. This makes sense of course since the binary fingerprint will be different for a recompiled file. What it also most likely means is that it is a single tiny pointer error that is keeping me from playing the game and somehow your system is ignoring that tiny error while mine is going belly up.

JDR13

December 14th, 2006, 23:04

Application Error : The instruction at "0x2408b179" referenced memory at "0x0f161ea8". The memory could not be "read"

That's the exact same error I was getting with the DVD version. What I was suggesting was maybe you should give the DVD version another try. Make sure you completely delete all traces of DM from your system(including folder) and then reinstall it with the 1.02 patch. Then try the things I mentioned above. Also make sure you don't have STEAM enabled on startup.

Believe me I know how you feel. When I had that problem I couldn't play for more than a few minutes either.

Acleacius

December 14th, 2006, 23:24

JDR13
"What finally worked for me was turning my hardware sound acceleration down a notch in DXDIAG"
Damn good call there. :)
I even remember seeing this come up with Bloodlines so it sure could be a Source based issue.

Maybe fatBastard() can try the Dvd again like you suggest and if your not sure how to check your resestry, its not hard.

Ok there is a know bug when setting the Texture settings to high, unless you have a 512 card and even problems then, this was possibly fixed in 1.02 but jsut to get going I suggest only Medium.

fatBastard()

December 15th, 2006, 03:54

Okay, I removed the Steam installation, deleted all files and folder relating to DM and I made a sweep of the registry just to be on the safe side. Then I reinstalled the DVD retail version, installed the patch 1.02 and set the sound acceleration down a notch and gave it go ... but unfortunately it made no difference. the first time I didn't even get to open the first door and the second time I tried I was just about to pick up the sword.

After checking the error messages I can even see that the offending memory register address is the same for the Steam version and the retail version so it would seem that my problem is with one of the shared files which means that it makes no difference whether I'm running the Steam version or the retail version.

Oh and I was testing with all the settings on the system recommended settings which includes the Texture setting at medium.

Acleacius

December 15th, 2006, 04:48

I can't recall do you have a dual core or processor and or SLI, possibly?
If so can you shut them off or disable them temporraly?

Also since this could very well be sound related are you using Onboard sound or something like a SB Audigy?

Do you try to rung the game with EAX on, if so turn it off.

If you have an Onboard sound chip could you try to turn it off in the BIOS if your comfortable, escentally trying the game without sound.

Did you try the game without the 1.02 patch and get the same problem?

fatBastard()

December 15th, 2006, 12:35

I have a single core AMD 64 3500+ CPU, a regular Geforce 6800GT and an X-Fi SB card. There are no ingame options for EAX so I tried to run it with stereo speaker setup instead of 5.1 and I set the sound quality to low (as well as switching off any EAX related options in the driver software) ... and I almost managed to pick up the spider key. Then I tried again but this time with basically every graphical setting at low/off and I only managed to move halfway down the initial corridor before it crashed.

What's more: In every crash since the latest reinstall not only the offending memory address but also the referring memory address has been the same each time but the game didn't crash at the same place which leads me to think that the error is something in the fundamental engine mechanics. However, I haven't been able link certain movements or circumstances to a crash yet so it seems unlikely to be related to player input at all.

I didn't try playing this latest installation before I applied the patch so I can't answer that question for you (I figured that the first couple of weeks before the first patch was trial period enough since I did reinstall the game several times back then as well).

Acleacius

December 15th, 2006, 23:40

Ok in game when picking up the spider get it's considered a quest complete so you get a sound file completion and a voice file from the PC and Phering, so I am still thinking the sound route.

Well depending on your motivation it might be worth a try unpatched, then with 1.01.
You could try disabling your sound card in your Device Manager, though honestly not sure if it would start like that, while you have 1.02 installed.

Do you see the opening credits and movies ok?
If you want to try double clicking on the intro in the mm\media directory, now if I click on the Ubi logo I get sound and if I try on the intro I get no sound (bug) and I have an SB Audigy card, it must be with DM as any other bik movie I play has sound just fine.
Now I haven't actually gotten around to trying 1.02 yet but intend to once I finish another game I am working on, but it could have fixed the bik problem.

I am temped to start another DM thread in General RPG its just the original thread is 5 page long and trying to do some tech or spoilers seems cruel to force people to read 5 page first, so I am not sure if I would get the RPGWatchLightingBolt of Purification for doing it. ;)

fatBastard()

December 16th, 2006, 01:49

I see what you're getting at but the thing is that is it not the actual picking up of the spider key or the opening of the door or the slaying of an opponent or any other specific "action" that causes the crashes (at leat I haven't been able to spot any discernable pattern and belive me I have looked for one).

I'm not saying that it is NOT sound related because I haven't got a clue as to what is causing the problems. The ultimate humiliation, however, is that everything else is running flawlessly. I have no problems with the intro movies. The performance is just fine. There are no graphical glitches and the sound is clear and crisp. Everything is as it should be ... for a few moments and then it crashes in the exact same way throughout all 3 versions. It is not even better or worse with the patches, it is unchanged ... which is also why I suspect that Arcane simply hasn't been able to find and fix the problem yet. Hopefully they will soon, otherwise I'll have to wait until I upgrade my rig at some point in the future. :'(

JDR13

December 16th, 2006, 05:26

Do you have another system or a friends system that you could try that copy of DM on?

fatBastard()

December 16th, 2006, 13:17

Not at hand no, but since I've already tried to download the game via Steam without any use of the DVD (i.e. two different version of the game), I'm certain that the problem is not with the disc but rather that there is some kind of conflict between the game code and my hardware/software.

One of the developers from Arcane has started appearing again at the official forum and if you read between the lines of some of his comments it appears that my particular problem is not widespread and they have absolutely no clue as to what is causing the problem. He didn't say that they're giving up but with 2 patches out and with Arcane still nowhere near finding the problem, let alone fixing it, I'm starting to doubt that it will ever be fixed. Unfortunately.

fatBastard()

December 16th, 2006, 17:14

When your usual bag of tricks is empty and you're still no closer to a solution you either give up, start over or pull out your bag of unusual tricks. While the disc was in the drive I thought I might try the most basic of all user error tests: Start the program and do NOTHING. I started the game sat and while it was loading I sat back and twiddled my thumbs for a couple of minutes and BAM it crashed again. I didn't touch the mouse, I didn't touch the keyboard, I didn't progress any quests or activate any triggers. I did NOTHING, yet still it crashed.

Acleacius

December 16th, 2006, 20:55

Wow, well really wished we could have helped you out man that sucks.

Oh one last thing do you have a VIA mother board by chance, if so when was the last time you undated your 4 in 1 drivers, also how new is your motherboard, do you know if you have a BIOS upgrade avaliable.
If you haven't done BIOS upgrades before you might want to only consider it if your specific problem(s) are mentioned, otherwise if your computer is runng good it maybe better to pass.

fatBastard()

December 17th, 2006, 22:37

Yes I do have a VIA motherboard and it has indeed been a while since I updated the drivers but then again I haven't changed any hardware recently and where graphics drivers are constantly attempting to improve performance of existing hardware as well as making sure the new games and cards are supported, it is my opinion that mainboard drivers and BIOS upgrades are exclusively about hardware support.

I DID flash my BIOS when I bought the motherboard because it didn't support the 90nm version of the AMD 3500+ CPU that I purchased at the same time but unless I have hardware compatibility problems I'm loathe to flash the BIOS and it really shouldn't be necessary to update my VIA drivers either when I'm not experiencing any problems in other games ... or am I just being old fashioned?

JDR13

December 17th, 2006, 22:57

The MB I'm using right now also has a VIA chipset. I don't think that's the problem.

Acleacius

December 18th, 2006, 04:10

It bet you a beer it's your 4 in 1 drivers. ;)
I just forgot to ask, it's usually one of the first things I try to check.
I have one too. :)

fatBastard()

December 18th, 2006, 14:22

Ok, I installed the 5.1 VIA drivers (from september 2006) and the one I replaced was version 4.55 so it wasn't exactly new. After a suspiciously easy installation and reboot I fired up Dark Messiah once more.

"Master Phenrig. Where are ..." *CRASH*

Same error. Same 2 memory register addresses as before. I think it is safe to say that the VIA drivers are not the culprit in this case. Oh well, It was worth a try at least.

Acleacius

December 18th, 2006, 20:48

"4.55 so it wasn't exactly new"
Hehe, well 4.55s came out in 11/04 so that is more than 2 years. :)

Bummer it didn't work. :(

I asked about dual cores or video cards, whats your harddive setup anything unusual?
Also you said you can run Bloodlines and Half-Life 2, has this been recently or have you changed hardware, BIOS settings since?

Hey what about overclocking your CPU or your GPU and are you using any special tweaks or programs like Coolbits or ATI tray tools?

Are you on a network?
At work? Maybe you company Admin is having some fun with you? :p

fatBastard()

December 18th, 2006, 21:23

As far as I know I have a pretty regular rig. I have 3 Seagate HDs. 2 IDE HDs, one of which is dedicated to my games installations and a SATA only used for storage.

I might have purchased my current X-Fi SB card after playing Bloodlines but I'm pretty certain that my most recent run through of HL2 was with my current hardware. I haven't changed the BIOS since my latest motherboard/CPU ugrade and that was before I played both Bloodlines and HL2 (I had Bloonlines lying there waiting for me to play it for more than a year before I found the time to go through it).

I'm not overclocking anything and neither am I running any tweak software (I have already tried killing all "unecessary" processes before starting DM to no avail). If it really is the admin having fun with me I'm going to be both pissed and worried. Pissed because he's a real ass to do something like that to me and worried because I'm the admin so if I did this to myself without my knowing I've obviously lost my marbles big time ;)

Moriendor

December 18th, 2006, 22:17

Have you tried to run the game w/o the X-Fi card? With all due respect for the (former) Creative... their cards have gotten worse over the years as far as drivers and compatibility are concerned, and coupled with a VIA chipset (which are not exactly known for reliability) there's a lot of potential that the X-Fi may be to blame due to an IRQ sharing issue. I think you should try to play the game with the card unplugged or at the very least check the IRQ tables in your mainboard manual to make sure that the X-Fi does not share IRQs with any other PCI slots or onboard components. If it shares IRQs then you should move it to a different PCI slot that doesn't share resources. With older (Asus) VIA boards this used to be PCI slot no. 3 (counting from top where the AGP slot is) but you better check the manual to be sure. PCI slots no. 1 and 2 are a big no-no since they are traditionally sharing IRQs with the graphics card (AGP) and the mass storage controllers.

Another thing you might want to try is to update the BIOS (it really can't hurt ;) ) and then load the fail-safe defaults. Then try to play the game.
You could also try to up the memory timings by a couple of cycles for each setting. And make sure that 'PCI Delayed Tansaction' is enabled and that the 'PCI Latency Timer' is at 32ms (both pretty important setting, especially with a VIA chipset and when there is a PCI card like the X-Fi present). Finally, the AGP aperture size should not be too high. In some (outdated) tweak guides it says to set it to 2x the graphics RAM. That's overkill and actually harmful in some cases/configurations. Just leave it at 64MB or 128MB. You might actually lose performance with higher values.

Acleacius

December 18th, 2006, 23:08

" I'm the admin"
It's always the admins fault. :biggrin:

"Have you tried to run the game w/o the X-Fi card?"
Moriendor great idea, I wanted to suggest that too, especially if you had in Onboard Sound chip, but was worried (until you mentioned you were the offending Admin :p ) you might not know how to add and remove cards
Especially bad crash problems usually have been coming from the software mostly EAX, I personally use the "Only install the Driver" option when loading Creative software.

"which are not exactly known for reliability)"
Questionable though probably better in another thread or at least till we get fatBastard() up and running. :)

"Another thing you might want to try is to update the BIOS"
Might be best to read the update notes first if, this is his only problem, unless he is very comfortable with it and his mb is from a comapany which makes relialble BIOS upgrades some have been know to casue problems.

JDR13

December 19th, 2006, 04:49

Do you have Starforce(copy protection) installed by any chance?

Many problems (games crashing) have been reported due to incompatibilities with that program.

Also, is Dark Messiah the only game on your system crashing at all?

fatBastard()

December 19th, 2006, 12:42

Just to be absolutely sure I left the computer running memtest for 12 hours straight overnight and I can say for certain now that there is NOTHING wrong with my RAM (since they are my most recent purchase they were the prime suspect from the beginning).

I did indeed have Starforce installed so I removed it and fired up Dark Messiah again. No dice I'm afraid.

The thing is that Dark Messiah is the only game that I've had any serious problems with since C&C Generals (and every single piece of hardware has been upgraded since then). Sure, Gothic3 crashes left and right (save game crash) but it does that for everyone (when playing without the latest patch ... long story, don't ask). All other problems or crashes in games that I experience can be traced right back to engine/gameplay bugs in the game code itself and what's more important: The problems happen to a LOT of people (e.g. everyone with an nVidia card or everyone with AMD CPUs, etc.), so either the developers address the problems in a patch or they fold and admit they can't fix the problem at all (e.g. Dungeon Lords).

Usually I'm spared all but the most rudimentary of bugs. Mainly, I guess, because I try to stay away from "experimental" equipment (I use well established hardware producers and always check for compatibility issues before purchase), software (nothing but Zonealarm and AVG running in the background) and drivers (I only use official drivers whenever possible). I also try to maintain a relatively "clean" installation without too much unnecessary eye-candy ("windows blinds" or whatever it is called and the like). Lastly I don't overclock or bother with excessive tweaking unless absolutely necessary. I know a lot of performance can be gained by both but it also comes with a potential price in stability and since I play a lot of games (in average I buy around 2-3 games a month) and a lot of different types of games I'm more inclined to accept less than stellar performance in exchange for fewer problems like the one I'm having with Dark Messiah than a few extra frames per second whenever the system isn't crashing left and right.

With that being said perhaps you can understand why I have been pretty sure from the beginning that it wasn't my rig that has been causing the problems I have with Dark Messiah. However, since most people are now able to play Dark Messiah, albeit many still have performance issues, and I'm still unable to play the game, the previous assumption seems to be incorrect and it would appear that I do indeed have some kind of hardware/software conflict with the game ... but where do I draw the line? I mean, I'm a programmer myself and seeing how the error message is always the same I'm pretty certain that with the source code and a good debugger program I could locate the error within a few hours, but that's because the error occurs consistently on my machine and it obviously doesn't on Arcane's test machines. If they can't reproduce the error there is no way in hell they can fix it outside of stumbling over it be sheer luck and considering that I'm not having unexpected problems with any of my other games I'm boardering on trying to fix something that isn't really broken.

Even IF it turns out to be the sound card then what are my options? Playing the game without sound is out of the question and forking over another $400 to replace an otherwise perfectly fine sound card is also out of the question. So that leaves me with putting the game on hold until my next upgrade and then see if the problem has gone away or hoping that Arcane will figure out the problem in a future patch ... neither one sounds ideal to me :(

*edit*
My BIOS doesn't have the "PCI Delayed Transaction" or the "PCI Latency Timer" options so I couldn't do much with them but the AGP Aperature size was set to the amount of RAM of my video card which is 256. Just to be safe I tried it on 128 but it made no difference in DM.

I also tried to disable my sound card in the hardware profile and to be on the safe side I ran DM with the "-nosound" option as well. Pretty dull experience but "fortunately" it didn't make any difference because I still crashed with the same error as before. I know I didn't physically remove the card but I would think that what I did ought to count as the same, right?

Moriendor

December 19th, 2006, 22:56

Just to be absolutely sure I left the computer running memtest for 12 hours straight overnight and I can say for certain now that there is NOTHING wrong with my RAM (since they are my most recent purchase they were the prime suspect from the beginning).

Well, it seems like you're knowledgable enough about configuring your system so I guess that just about everything humanly possible has been done and checked by now to resolve the issue :) .
However, as a final piece of advice, I'd keep an eye on that RAM, regardless of MemTest. I have personally owned memory in the past (2x 512MB sticks) that showed absolutely zero errors when running MemTest and also zero errors when running the highly sensitive Prime95 which is often used to test system stability especially when you overclock your system. I could also play all games (minus WoW... more on that in a sec) without a problem.

But still... in the end it turned out that the memory was bad -or as I suspect- that there must have been an incompatibilty issue between the memory and my memory controller (nForce-2).
How could I tell that the memory was bad? It was a slow learning process. First, I very occasionally had trouble to unzip/unrar large zipped/rared archives. It was rather sporadical at first but as demo sizes for games increased steadily, it happened more and more often that I got CRC errors.
I used Gamer's Hell as my main resource for demo downloads back then and due to the absence of any other issues with my system, I thought that they had screwed up the archives upon packing or uploading.

Then I got WoW when it was released and had major trouble with installing and patching the game. It was either my whole install or the patch(es) that got corrupted during the install or patching process. It was a nightmare.

When I checked around the net, everyone and everything was always pointing out that it could be a RAM issue so I finally got new memory as it was time to upgrade to 2x 1024MB anyway.

Well, haven't had a single archive corruption error or issues with WoW (quit a looong time ago but back then the prob went away with the new RAM) ever since.
It's really strange since all the tests for bad RAM were negative but in the end it was that very same "flawless" memory that caused the few issues that I was having with my system.
Thus I'd advise to keep an eye on that RAM of yours, even if MemTest says it's OK ;) .

Acleacius

December 19th, 2006, 23:22

fatBastard()
You know another thing I forgot to ask and can't remember if you mentioned, did you try to type in the specific error in google with the words, dark messiah source?

fatBastard()

December 20th, 2006, 14:46

My RAM upgrade was done in order to be able to play Gothic 3 properly. I had 2x 512 Mb PC3200 Dual Channel Corsair RAM blocks and I upgraded it to 2x 1024 sticks of the exact same RAM (speed, type, brand). I still have the 2 sticks of the "old" memory lying around so I could try to put them back to see if there is any difference. I haven't noticed any other problems with the new sticks but I've had the old ones for almost 2 years now and I have NEVER had any problems with those, so they "ought" to be okay. I'll get back to you on that later.

The real bitch about the error message I'm receiving is that is an OS level error message. In other words: Neither the game (Dark Messiah) nor the engine (Source) is catching the exception so it passes along to the outermost layer and that is Windows XP. Unfortunately for bug fixing purposes, the reporting details at this stage is minimal at best. When trying to search for the nature of the error I ran across everything from media player crashes (the genre as a whole and not necessarily the program by that name) and browser crashes to crashes from games (also from some that are not even remotely connected to the Source engine).

It is very unfortunate that Arcane aren't catching this error but even more so that Valve themselves have failed to make proper exception handling in their engine. When I started searching for means to fix or locate the problem I ran across a link to a FAQ on Steam where this error message is mentioned. It basically says that if you get this error then you're screwed because they have no idea what is causing it or how to fix it (well, the wording was slightly less defeatist but that meaning was clear). This is what bugs me the most: If this problem lies with the engine and not the game then why the hell am I only getting this error in Dark Messiah and not HL2 or CS: Source or Bloodlines. Basic logic, and that is what programming is all about, dictates that this can NOT be the case so therefore it MUST be something that is done in Dark Messiah, but not in the other Source based games, that is causing the game to crash ... but I can't figure out WHAT. I'll be back after trying with my "old" memory sticks.

fatBastard()

December 20th, 2006, 19:45

Son of a ... @£$€{[/&(¤#!@ BARBARA STREISAND!!!

I put back the old RAM and started Dark Messiah. Oddly enough I couldn't get it to crash right away and as I had an errand to run and was consequently pressed for time I decided to start the tutorial, turn off the sound and leave it to its own devices while I went about my business. 2 hours later I came back and the damn thing was still running.

I did notice however that the console was filled with red lines of this or that "could not be initialize" or whatnot, So I thought: "AHA! the reduction of the memory is causing the faulty code to fail to execute so the crash inducing lines are never run". A quick couple of yanks and pushes later and the new RAM is back in and I fire up the game. "Physical objects are the easiest you will face Sareth. Now is your chance to conquer them ..." *CRASH*. Exact same error message and this time the console is also filled with lots of red lined system messages ... in other words: The only discernable factor that I can find is the physical RAM sticks ...

GOD *beep* MOTHER *beep* *beep* FIDDLESTICKS!!!

How the *beep* can 2 months with an average daily use of 14 hours AND a 12 hours straight session of testing with memtest *NOT* indicate that there is something wrong with the RAM? I mean, I've played 100+ hours of Gothic3 (a game that due to memory leaks actually run OUT of memory after a few hours) and 150+ hours of NWN2 and none of them have done anything other than what could be expected (i.e. NWN2 has never crashed on me, not even once and Gothic 3 only crashes when/where everyone else is having problems) ... although, now that I think of it, I have noticed that my bittor ... erm ... my "solid conception exhange service" program has crashed more often than I remember it doing before but it has been a while since I last used it for anything taking more than a few hours to "acquire" so I didn't think anything of it.

At any rate, how the heck do I explain to the place where I bought the memory that I can only detect problems in a single game and maybe in a ... less than legal application?

While I'm quite pisssed that this took so damned long to figure out and that even a respectable program like memtest (which has only one task: to test the memory) couldn't find anything wrong, I am glad you guys didn't let me off the hook. Otherwise I would have given up a long time ago and since I wasn't expecting to include memory when next I'm to upgrade I would still not be able to play the game. So thank you all for being so damned persistent :biggrin:

Oh and I obviously have to eat every bit of criticism I have blurted out previously since neither Arcane nor Valve can be expected to handle hardware errors in their software. That is the OS's responsibility and for once Windows does just what it is supposed to do so I can't even blame Microsoft this time (there has got to be a first for everything ;)). Even though I have tried to be civil I suspect I won't go to bed hungry tonight :biggrin:

Acleacius

December 20th, 2006, 21:18

Hehe, well congrats! :biggrin:
I don't depending on your relationship with your hardware vendor, if it's someone respectable like NewEgg, I am thinking they will take it back in exchange, for better or differnent brand.
DId you say which brand of RAM your using?

JDR13

December 21st, 2006, 04:22

If no other game is crashing then I wouldn't worry about it. You don't need 2 gigs of RAM to play DM. Use the old sticks to play DM, then switch them.

Don't be so quick to think that something is wrong with your 1 gig sticks. Just because they're incompatible with Dark Messiah doesn't mean they're defective. You already said that none of your other games were crashing.

*edit* Also. I'm just curious. Which Corsair RAM did you buy? (exact model)

fatBastard()

December 21st, 2006, 11:33

Well, once you find the spot with the honey you can't help but poke around abit while your hands are dirty anyway, so I thought I ought to double check other Source based games. Just like the DM multiplayer mode that I was able to run with only the occasional crash (no more than many other games) so is CounterStrike: Source fully playable even though the crashing frequency has indeed increased somewhat. However, once I fired up Half Life 2 the Dark Messiah pattern came into play right away. Crashes left and right within the opening sequences and while the error message was different (I got an ingame error message instead of an OS message) the nature of the crash is identical to what I'm experiencing in Dark Messiah.

On one hand it is no longer "just" one game that is causing problems but on the other hand it is not the entire engine that is at fault but apparently only when playing singleplayer games on the Source engine that the problems emerge ... this is really weird stuff :S

What I had was a set of TWINX1024-3200LLPRO and my plan was to simply get another set of the same memory but due to a really large CPU cooling heatsink I can only use 3 of the 4 RAM slots so I had to replace the memory instead of increasing it. So I bought the very similar TWINX2048-3200C2PRO pair instead.

Acleacius

December 22nd, 2006, 04:06

This is defiantly strange, it must be just a bad stick, as Corsair is reliable and high end brand.
Yeah you definatly want this fixed before you try a great game like Bloodlines. ;)

fatBastard()

December 27th, 2006, 12:04

Okay, once I got Dark Messiah working, at last, I really wanted to play it so I decided to stop looking my gift horse in the mouth and just play the damned thing before I continued my testing to find out what was wrong in the first place (besides, I had to wait until the end of the holidays anyway if I wanted to exchange my RAM sticks).

So I played it, finished it as a fighter and enjoyed it. Not using stealth or magic left me wanting for more so I started another run through as a mage. A simple test came to mind though and instead of playing with my old 2 sticks of 512 Mb RAM I put in a single stick of my new memory to test each stick individually ... and guess what? There is NOTHING wrong with the memory. I've reached chapter 8 as my mage and that means that I've played at the very least 6 hours with no crashes on each stick and since my old memory worked fine with 2 sticks as well, I can't lay the blame on the RAM slots either.

If I had any hair left it would definitely be turning grey by now. The only thing I have left to test is the dreaded complete OS reinstall. I'm currently building up my courage for such a massive and time-consuming undertaking.

Acleacius

December 28th, 2006, 02:22

Now with the RAM sometimes is can be the way they work together or don't, so if your saying they work fine indivdually they still could have problems together.
Did you buy them as a matching pair?

How long has it been since you have reinstalled your OS and do you have a heavy turnover of games?

You already mentioned the starforce, which imbeds itself in your OS kernel, it sounds as if you probably do install and uninstall lots of software.
Also are you running AV?
Newly installed or version updates in the last 6 months?

Most of all don't exclude DM as it is/was buggy, though if your ruuning the 1.02, it certianly could have cleared many things up.

Sometimes it's a combination of thing, which I betting this is the case.
You have done so much in the last week or so I think you did the right thing in just playing, not only that but also I would play a few different games now for the next week or two, seeing if anything stands out before redoing or focusing on OS testing, since so far it seems isolated to games.

Well thats my 2 cents anyway. :)

Acleacius

January 2nd, 2007, 05:44

fatBastard() an intresting thing just happened, my computer started locking up during NWN2.
First I tried downclocking the gpu and cpu, then moved to drivers (had upgraded to 612 about a week ago) downgraded then back to 612, deaccelerated my audigy card in dxdiag, air hosed everything in the case.
As I was putting the hds back in powering up I noticed my gpu fan was not spinning, doh! :p

So I just thought I would mention another possiblity, is your gpu fan underperforming?

fatBastard()

January 2nd, 2007, 19:11

Well, first things first:

About the RAM. It is a pair of Dual Channel sticks bought specifically to work together with each other and with everything but the Source engine they do.

I do indeed have a heavy turnover of games. I'm a Jack of all trades kind of guy and I like many different genres and play whatever I'm in the mood for. And yes, it has been a while since I did a complete reinstall of the OS because it is such a chore getting everything up and running again that I only do it when I absolutely have to (which is why I'm not yet ruling out OS instability/corruption as the source of my problems).

Regarding 3rd party software I can only say that I tried several times to play the game with all unnecessary processes turned off and that includes programs such as the firewall and the AV ... but then again: as soon as I played with my old RAM or with just a single stick of the new RAM I could run the game with no problems or crashes with all the usual programs running in the background.

With every RAM stick change I made I also verified the status of the various fans in my system and while writing this all temperature readings are nominal.

I've sort of run out of disc space so I've decided to add a new HD, or rather, exchange one of my older ones. Having completed the game 3 times now (as a fighter, as a mage and as an assassin) I have thoroughly enjoyed the 3 very different ways of playing the game and I really most congratulate Arcane for making all 3 styles fun in their own ways. However, with 3 times through the game and, unfortunately, having gotten bored with the multiplayer portion a long time ago, I'm no longer as "inspired" to find out what's wrong with my configuration (given that no other games I'm currently playing show any problems at all) so I don't really know when I'm going to be getting to the complete system reinstall thing.