Dark Messiah - 1.02 Patch @ Fileshack

Quite a long fix list, might be worth another play. :)
 
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Nuts! It still crashes within the first minute of playing. The exact same memory error as before.

*sigh* It would seem that I have to put Arcane on my black list. A shame.:(
 
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Damn that's tough break fatBastard(). :(
Want to give any details or need any help?
 
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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.:'(
 
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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?
 
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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 ;)
 
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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. ;)
 
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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.
 
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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)?
 
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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.
 
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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.
 
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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.
 
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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.
 
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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.
 
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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.
 
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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?
 
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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).
 
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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. ;)
 
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