Dark Messiah

I hadn't gone to the boards there since yesterday ... there are all sorts of problems being reported ... all of a sudden my stuff doesn't seem so bad ;)

Of course, then you have the people running around claiming 30 second loads, no crashes or bugs on a P2 300MHz system and a 16MB Voodoo video card ;)
 
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I have to admit that the bugs do get a little frustrating, but at its core there is a solid game. I have a 3200+, 2GB RAM, and a 6800GT and I get randomly poor performance for no damn good reason. But when the game works well man does it work. Nothing beats breaking some jerk's neck with a staff, even if said jerk and all of his buddies all say "Hey Paaaalll!!!" when they see you. Obviously the game could stand to have some bug/optimization fixes thrown at it, and Xana really should keep her mouth shut more often, but other than that the game is solid. As far as the most annoying bugs go it has to be the performance issues coupled with the CTDs. On the first play though a certain level the game would run smoothly in one area and not in another, on the second round all of that would shift so previously smooth areas are now slide shows. As far as CTDs go, well would something of that nature need any explanation? I don't think so, but just in case they suck like no other. Just play the demo and think of what that would be like if there were more of it with less of the bugs. They just need to get the bugs out first.
 
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I took one piece of advice and turned HDR completely off, and after wasting an hour screwing around with crashing and reloading I got an hour of actual gameplay ...

I have already turned all the setting down to medium (and a number of other tweaks) and was still getting CTD. I will give this turning off of the HDR a try and see if that does not stabilize the damned thing.

I just hope I can get it running before NWN2 shows up, cause I know I will be dropping of the edge of the earth for a while after it does!
 
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As I wrote earlier, give the demo's .exe a try. I've been playing since last night and haven't had a single crash or bug. I can provide a link, if you like.
 
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As I wrote earlier, give the demo's .exe a try. I've been playing since last night and haven't had a single crash or bug. I can provide a link, if you like.

Thanks for the offer r3dshift - would you be so kind. I'll give anything a try at this point. Also, are you saying a) download the demo exe, then b) overwrite the exe file that is currently used, so that the current exe file no longer exists (unless I back it up of course)? What renaming, if any should I do?

Thanks!
 
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I have been playing since yesterday, am on the 4th chapter and have had no techincal issues at all. The game loads in a reasonable amount of time, and performance is excellent.

I have a Pentium-M 2.13GHz, Geforce 6800 "Go" Ultra, and 2 GB of RAM.

The game is fun so far but my biggest complaint is the over-the-top sexy guide
who is in your head. She is annoying -- waay too much juvenile inneudo and often
giving hints on things I would rather figure out myself. I don't need some lusty chauntuese ringing around in my head. I just want to play the game my way.
 
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I couldn't agree with you any more. If I wanted to be around annoying lusty women who are in bad need of a cold shower and a good helping of shut the hell up I'd hit up a strip club with a weeks worth of 20s. Xana can grow to be very bothersome. But that's not the worst of it; could you imagine taking a dump or a shower with that chick in your head?!? Talk about an invasion of privacy...
 
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and a 6800GT and I get randomly poor performance for no damn good reason.

The poor performance on 6800 cards is a known problem, acknowledged by Arkane. The only solution at this time is installing old Forceware (77.x) drivers. This is posted somewhere on the official Ubisoft forum.
 
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@Tauschitz: My apologies for the belated reply, but I've been busy. However, here's the link to the demo .exe, as promised. It's NOT my upload, but it's 100% working for me and several others. Unfortunately, the site is rather slow, so please, be patient. It's guaranteed to be free of viruses/spyware and other pests, I'm using it too, and no problems at all, so don't worry.

And yes, you need to copy the demo's .exe into the game's directory where the original mm.exe is located. You should make a backup of the original, just in case.

Oh, and the demo .exe also works as a NoDVD solution, so you don't have to worry about getting your discs scratched all over any more ;)

Have fun and good gaming!
 
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@Tauschitz: My apologies for the belated reply, but I've been busy. However, here's the link to the demo .exe, as promised. It's NOT my upload, but it's 100% working for me and several others. Unfortunately, the site is rather slow, so please, be patient. It's guaranteed to be free of viruses/spyware and other pests, I'm using it too, and no problems at all, so don't worry.

And yes, you need to copy the demo's .exe into the game's directory where the original mm.exe is located. You should make a backup of the original, just in case.

Oh, and the demo .exe also works as a NoDVD solution, so you don't have to worry about getting your discs scratched all over any more ;)

Have fun and good gaming!

Thanks a lot r3dshift; I'm downloading and giving it a try. Will let you know if it solves the problem.

I'm dying to spend some quality time with this game, and tonight's my only free night until next weekend!
 
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I took one piece of advice and turned HDR completely off, and after wasting an hour screwing around with crashing and reloading I got an hour of actual gameplay ...

HDR seems to be the problem. I moved setting down to medium and turned off HDR and all is well - game is rock stable. It is a sham, given that the game is getting poor reviews in part due to the technical problems. It is great fun!
 
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Colour me disappointed so far, although I'm not very far in at all. I did enjoy the demo, so I think it will get better.

This is close to the worst stability I have ever encountered (yes, well beyond other classic problem games) with regular crashes, hangs and poor performance in some areas while getting great performance in others. I'm sure the known 68xx series bug is part of the problem but given that this is surely one of the most popular cards on the market (6800GT to be precise, and I'm not installing old drivers), it's hard to forgive.

In addition, despite the Steam release being delayed outside of NA for two days I still had problems with missing files (thanks for the tip, txa1265) - not Arkane's fault but I assumed Valve/Ubisoft/whoever would have fixed it given the extra time.

I quite like DM's melee but these early stages have the action broken up by some poorly paced intervening sections, complete with pedestrian story telling, ordinary voiceover and annoying companion (what's her name?).

As I said, I liked the demo so I'm hoping it gets better.
 
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I can't stress enough that anyone who experiences issues with the game should give the demo .exe a shot. See post #50 for details.

Believe me, it works, fellas.
 
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I can't stress enough that anyone who experiences issues with the game should give the demo .exe a shot. See post #50 for details.

Believe me, it works, fellas.

I did this as well, as, last night after I started having problems again *despite* turning off HDR. As of now, the demo .exe seems to have drought stability to the game. Thanks r3dshift.
 
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No probs, I'm glad it's worked for you as well. And since your game is stable, now you can try turning HDR and all other advanced settings back on as long as the game's reasonably playable.
 
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I can't stress enough that anyone who experiences issues with the game should give the demo .exe a shot. See post #50 for details.

Believe me, it works, fellas.

I believe you, but unfortunately I'm going to end up as one of those reviewers who loves the game but tears it up because it is a technical mess ...
 
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And who can blame you! It still is unstable, despite all the little tweaks I have given it. I get 4-5 hour patches of stable play, and then its one hour of fu(%ing with it to get it to run again. Aggravating to say the least and its a shame. I'm in chapter six right now, and when it runs its really quite good. Sigh ...
 
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In general I've never liked games where "how many ways can you kill something" is central. The fact that you have levels, xp and skills does not make it an RPG; it's still an action game(yes, I'm one of the people who consider Diablo 1-2 an action game and not an RPG).

The fighting system is interesting though, and even if I usually never get hooked on action games, this fighting system is still something other RPGs can take inspiration from, as it actually works without being Oblivion style buttonsmashing.
 
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No matter what I do the game keeps freezing up on me at random. This is getting very frustrating. The game will be running fine and all of the sudden the sound will begin to stutter and loop, and then the game will just freeze and I have to bring up Windows Task Manager in order to get out of it. The game also stops during load screens sometimes as well. I'm about to uninstall this piece of crap unless they release a patch soon.
 
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It's a damn shame that some of you fine folks are having such trouble, I really wish that everyone here could enjoy the game to its fullest. It really blows that Arkane is taking such a hit when it comes to technical flaws, even though they are of their own design. Arx was awesome and DM is amazing, but only when they run well. When I started the game I had horrible performance, after perusing a few forums and reading here I decided to set my texture detail level to medium. It worked like a charm and now the game runs smoothly with zero CTDs. I don't care what gamespot or any other gaming site says about this game. Xana may ruin the story, somewhat, but nothing ruins the combat. Each weapon is implemented perfectly, every skill upgrade lends the player a tangible improvement, and combat is very intense and engrossing. Forget click fests, abusing your mouse will get you nowhere here. Skill and character improvement are the only means of surviving through the game. I really hope that other developers will take note of this games combat and stealth systems. Combat in oblivion would be so much more fun if fighting were like this. Either way I hope that everyone gets their technical issues resolved soon, here's looking to Arkane's next gem.
 
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