Larian Studios Forums Beyond Divinity (English) Technical Problems MAJOR PROBLEM

Hello

Now that i got your attention, for good reason as well, this is the problem

I bought Beyond Divinity from a local game shop, when i placed the cd into the drive it constantly read the disk, as if it went into a loop, i could access the disk from my computer.

Anyway this has happened to me before, and the reason why the autotun program went into a loop is because my virus scanner was preventing "BeyondDivinity.exe" from running due to malicious script, thus the autorun tried to start then my virus scanner stopped it, then it tried to start again.

Even my spyware prevention went crazy with that program. the last time this happen i did has they suggested and switch off my virus scanner although it let the program run, and switch of spyware prevention as well, but the other game that this happened with then completely damaged the contents of my hard disk, and i fully trust what my virus scanner says and does and what my spyware software does. That was one year of data just destroyed in seconds.

The question is why is there malicious script on your disk?

Regards

Andrew

Hello

Even if i did close my virus scanner down it just restarts again, that is annoying bug of windows xp itself, just like my firewall which restarts, also i have over 200 programs running, tell me how to close them down, they just restart again, i have never had to close them down for other games, just like when game companies say, play that game online, but YOU MUST close you virus scanner and firewall, leaving your computer open to attack, and vunerable to viruses.

Hello

I have several hard disk, i found one blank one and installed a fresh copy of windows xp on it, then i installed the game. this is what happened

When the graphics config program ran it came on the test screen then locked up windows completely.

then after scandisk completed, 2 errors found.

i then tried the cinfig program again this time it worked

ok, then i played the game for about an hour and got to level 3 with 155 Vitality, i decided i would then quit the game big mistake, that then completely locked up windows xp, then when i restarted windows, scandisk found 28 errors, most of them in the beyond divinity game folder, act 1.

then when i finally got into windows i ran the game again and loaded in my last save, i was in the same position in the game as i was earlier, notice i mentioned the vitality, this time i was level 3, but i now had 105, not 155 vitality, whats gone wrong there.

The other game that i installed had similar symtons to this and later it finally corrupted the entire hard drive and any other hard drives i had attached.

Now is it because i have an early release of windows, i mean the one that has not got service pack one, and needs to be downloaded.

I don't want to damage this operating system if it is an incompatible software with my version of windows.

Mine says Version 2001, windows xp

Regards

Andrew

Program installations, especially for games, are extracting, copying and creating a lot of files. When anti-virus programs try to intercept everything in real time, it can cause conflicts (both programs want control). I once installed an Audigy sound card (default drivers and software) on a computer that someone had installed an anti-virus program on without mentioning it, and the install went very, very slow and eventually completely locked up the system. After disabling the anti-virus program, the install went fine.

I have seen how-to-guides on controlling what starts up with Windows XP, but didn't pay much attention since I am still using 98SE. A web search should find something. Just disabling the anti-virus program should work, though one person mentioned having to uninstall a firewall to solve a periodic crash problem in BD.


What difficulty level did you start the game on, and was that reset (you can check in the options)? If your mana did not also change, then that would probably not be the problem.
Did you eat or drink anything (sleep) or use potions before saving the game, that could have given you a constitution / vitality boost?

For BD, it is much better under XP to have the latest service pack and all critical updates installed. I don't know if using the original version has anything to do with the crash on exit, though.

Which folders were the errors in? The files in the dynamics folders;
'..\Beyond Divinity\Acts\Act1\Dynamic', '..\Beyond Divinity\Acts\Act2\Dynamic', etc.
are expendable, and can be deleted (the game will recreate them as required). If the errors were in other files, that might cause problems.

If you didn't notice, there is a patch for BD.

Hello

I have snapped a picture of one of the error boxes, how to i add it to this forum, i can add other pictures to other forum.

Regards

Andrew

Hello

Thanks for the response, i have never closed my virus scanner down since i bought it in november, and normally if something cannot install i just bin it, but i like this game BD, i installed the demo without any of these problems, and my virus scanner was on all the time, when i installed divine divinity my virus scanner was on all the time.

I keep my virus scanner on all the time because my internet connection is 24 hour 7 day, as soon as windows loads i am online, automatically, also turning firewall of and virus scanner off leaves your computer open to either viruses and hackers. If i removed my internet i would have to re-register, that takes a few hours to get back online, due to them checking if i am who i say i am.

I have only had this similar problem with 2 other games, and they ended up in the bin.

I bought Wizardry 8 and installed it while the virus scanner was on, but when i went to play it, my virus scanner prevented me from playing it.

What was happening with that game is my virus scanner was preventing the intro.avi movie from playing, and it was locking me out of a folder on the cd-rom, i could put the game cd in and see the autorun program come up, but the game did not work, this is when i was on 28k dial up, so i disabled my virus scanner and the game worked, then i just re-enabled it, and since then it works everytime.

The other game that would not install was "World War III" from "JoWood", and when i disabled my virus scanner, i did it all for nothing, because the game did not work in windows xp, although the game did run, but the graphics was damaged on screen.

It was Spellforce that damaged my computer, there upacker program for the install of the game is not certified to run on windows xp, when it went to make the folder it corrupted all the fat tables on all the harddisks.

Regards

Andrew

You need to put the image online before you can link to it (your ISP may offer web space with your account). Alternately, you can email it to me, or just copy the text.

I have never had the real time portion of an anti-virus program enabled, and use a router with built in firewall. If you unplug the ethernet cable from your computer, that should give 100% protection from anything online, and not have any delay reconnecting. I don't know if that would work as well disconnecting an internal modem (If I turn the power off on my external modem, it only takes a minute or two to reconnect).


[color:"orange"]when it went to make the folder it corrupted all the fat tables on all the harddisks.[/color]

<img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/eek.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/ouch.gif" alt="" />

Hello

Well my USB modem, the drivers are not 100 percent windows xp compatible, what happens is, when i unplug my usb modem, it is powered from the usb hub at 450 milli amps, i unplug it, and then plug it back in either a few minutes later or the next day, i then can't use it, because windows xp, comes up with add new hardware wizard, i then reinstall it which takes about 15 minutes, because i have to have it unpluged while installing the drivers, then when it asks me to restart computer after installing the drivers, then when windows xp comes back it runs a program which says you must now insert the modem, then it says please wait while preparing modem, then the registration screen comes up and i have to get my account number out and which is on my bill. i had to do this because the drivers go corrupt as soon as you pull the plug, it happens with all my other USB devices, except USB to IDE, on my friends computer he does not have this problem plus he has the more upto date version of windows xp, this comes with service pack one, i have to download service pack 1.

Anyway, i installed the patch on the game on my other hard disk, and that cured the strange hanging of windows at quiting the game, and i deleted all my saved games and started a fresh.

I found the gargoyle hard to kill, then the second one killed me in the game, i thought there was only one, so i only had enough health potions for one.

This time it seems to have worked better, tomorrow i am going to see if my friends computer likes this game, since his windows xp is more relaible than mine, when i loaded windows today it scanned my computer because it did not shut down correctly, but actually it did shut down, annd the error message was un-expected error, 3 times on the screen, and the folder name above was a square then sine charater then hash then square.

I may take the game back to the shop and swap it for another game, i have 14 days to return it.

But first i want to try it on my friends, if it works on his, i may just by the more upto date windows xp version, the one with service pack one.

Also my graphics drivers are supposed to be WHQL certified but everytime i go into the display properties and change the resolution, then close the display property box dox an error comes up and says access violation.

I have a sparkle, ge force 5500, i have taken the noisy fan of it and put a big heatsink on it a put an extractor fan under it, and the is a system fan above it. That is silent and cooler.

I also have 2 tv cards, an ide pci adapter card.

one tv card is analog, and the other is for digital reception through the tv aeriel.

i have six hard disks in my computer, 4 are running now and the other 2 are backup harddisks, i also have a usb harddisk.

Windows XP, 80 gig, sata 150, 7200 rpm, samsung
Games, 160 gig, sata 150, 7200 rpm, samsung
Downloads, 80 gig, ata 100, 5400 rpm, samsung
Library, 80 gig, ata 100, 5400 rpm, samsung

WinXP Backup OS, 40 gig, ata 133, 5400 rpm, maxtor
Downloads Backup, 60 gig, ata 100, 5400 rpm, maxtor, usb 2.0

I have 2048 meg of memory as well at DDR 400, 2.4 ghz hyper threading processor.

Regards

Andrew

If it's just this one game that is causing you these problems I would return it. It isn't worth turning your system upside down for one game, at the risk of destablising it for everything else.

You could hang on for a later version of a patch, that might address these issues, assuming this is a common problem. But I would take it back, and buy it again, if these things are resolved in the future. By all means, keep check back to see if anything can be done. Larian tech's might be able to help you, but I assume you would need to give them exact error messages gereated by windows and the game.