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How to determine cause of random crashes in BG:TotSC

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#1 Greenhorn

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Posted 23 November 2018 - 05:03 AM

Hello, I doubt that I will receive much help about this matter, but you never know. I would like to know is there some way to find cause for random crashes to desktop which occur randomly when playing VANILLA ( old ) BG:TotSC. As far as I can see there is no Baldur.err file so I don't have a use of  Logging On=1 line I added to Baldur.ini ( configuration setting ) file. So far I've been lucky, only two crashes ( first an Nashkel carnival at night and now at FAI map ) while I was walking. This occurrence was much, much more frequent when I played old 3CD BG:TOS until I switched to newer GOG edition. 2 CDT in 109  ingame days is exceptional luck compared to my previous experiences. Anyway, there is no error message of any kind, game just freezes then windows pop up message of APPCRASH. I can't find much joy in playing one of my favorite games in constant fear of random crash,quick saving after every dialogue, spell learned, log entrance and battle ( which leads to immediate respawning of enemies in the area, among other things ) so every bit of help would be most welcome.  



#2 jastey

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Posted 23 November 2018 - 10:03 AM

Hmm. Random crashes sometimes result in missing / corrupted ambient sounds. Maybe looking into the area file with NI and have a look at the ambients and whether they are all correct and present?

 

But I don't know how to test ambient sounds, I don't think there's a cheat for that.



#3 Greenhorn

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Posted 23 November 2018 - 11:15 AM


Hmm. Random crashes sometimes result in missing / corrupted ambient sounds. Maybe looking into the area file with NI and have a look at the ambients and whether they are all correct and present?

 

But I don't know how to test ambient sounds, I don't think there's a cheat for that.

You know, maybe you are up on something, perhaps it has something to do with the sounds. I retraced every step and action while I re - entered the map, only difference was that after Minsc, Ajantis and Safana declared that they were tired ( in exact order and time when game crashed! ) this time my PC did it too after them. Makes sense, checked their fatigue status with InfExp, all are at 7 with exception of Imoen and Viconia who are on 5. Maybe crash occurred  just when I clicked the party to exit the map and simultaneously fatigue dialogue kicked in, but this is just illogical wild guess. Other possibility would be that beautiful mod which brings whole new level of experience with different sounds in the game: !BSotSC ( abbreviation for Sounds of the SwordCoast ).     Anyway I tried to check ambient sounds in area ar2300 but it is beyond my league. 

Untitled.png  

In addition I got not sufficient memory to load area error message. 



#4 jastey

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Posted 24 November 2018 - 06:31 AM

Which version of NI is that?
This is how it looks for me, the second screenshot is if you press on the "View/Edit" button:

EDIT, Ah, you clicked on "view area". If you click on "edit" from the above choices, you can have a look at the listed ambients, too.

Attached Images

  • BG1_NI_1.jpg
  • BG1_NI_2.jpg

Edited by jastey, 24 November 2018 - 06:42 AM.


#5 Greenhorn

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Posted 24 November 2018 - 07:13 AM

Thanks a lot Jastey!  :doh:  :Bow: It was fun actually, trying it. But about results, I have not much to say, it seems everything is fine. All ambient sounds are flagged as enabled and played without error when I was trying them. I'm not the wiser about possible causes of that CTD but at least I learned something new and interesting.  :)  

Oh, by the way my version of NI is 2.1-20180205.



#6 jastey

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Posted 24 November 2018 - 07:27 AM

The same way you could also have a look at the sounds attached to the cre files, e.g. ajanti.cre -> "edit" and have a look whether all attached sound files are present and working.
I think for checking the PC you'd have to open your savegame.

 

There is a newer version available: https://github.com/A...g/v2.1-20180615

(I was asking because I didn't recognize your screenshot, though).



#7 Greenhorn

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Posted 24 November 2018 - 08:06 AM

The same way you could also have a look at the sounds attached to the cre files, e.g. ajanti.cre -> "edit" and have a look whether all attached sound files are present and working.
I think for checking the PC you'd have to open your savegame.

 

There is a newer version available: https://github.com/A...g/v2.1-20180615

(I was asking because I didn't recognize your screenshot, though).

Yeah, thank you. Now that I think about it, both CTD were similar in that both were close to the middle lower edge of monitor, and after I ordered movement but thanks to poor in-game pathfinding NPC's stumbled and trip into one another all over, so maybe that was possible cause. Ah, well, back to 10 quick saves per minute playing style.  :) Thank you one more time for your help. 



#8 jastey

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Posted 24 November 2018 - 08:20 AM

Another thing could be the spawnpoints. I had crashes for the EE games with spawn-points in custom areas. I fixed the problem by cleaning them from cre files NI couldn't display correctly. As long as there's no mod changing those I wouldn't expect them to lead to crashes, though..



#9 Greenhorn

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Posted 24 November 2018 - 09:24 AM

Another thing could be the spawnpoints. I had crashes for the EE games with spawn-points in custom areas. I fixed the problem by cleaning them from cre files NI couldn't display correctly. As long as there's no mod changing those I wouldn't expect them to lead to crashes, though..

Hmm, interesting point. There are at least 3 mods in current install which deal with spawn points: Dark side of the Sword coast ( although this newest version which I currently have is minimalistic in this regard in comparison with those I played before ), Mysteries of the Sword coast ( but this mod only spawns some tough creatures during night, not daylight when crush occurred ) and Xvart caverns ( it spawns bands of wererats in Nashkel carnival, Beregost and Ulcaster school maps but not in FAI, as far as I know). Then there is Drizzt's saga which liberally overwrites and changes dozens of creatures and their animations. Finally, bugged but very interesting Vault mod ( in my last playrun without it right before current one, in about 100 ingame days I didn't experienced single CTD, that was blissful experience, I tell you...  :) ).  







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