Larian Studios Forums Beyond Divinity (English) Technical Problems Protection Error when running the game.

I bought BD when it was first released knowing I had several other games to finish up first. I loved DD so much I just could not wait to buy it.

Today I installed it and that all went fine but when running it, after the CD check is done and the game begins to load (screen goes black and flickers as if it is going to play) I get a windows *bonk* and a transparent window simply titled *protection error*. I cannot see the error and can only click on the task and close it, thus not allowing me to see what the error was.

I tried MANY suggestions for this and others for various CD protection problems such as removing the game, running SFclean, reinstalling etc.. to no avail.

I tried running it with and without the patch, swapping drives/disks etc.. Again no luck. I have yet to try installing the game in safe mode as someone suggested but I fail to see that working at all.

I am running Windows XP SP2 final and am as up to date on all my drivers as I can get, including ASPI and/or anything to do with my optical drives.

This is driving me crazy. 4 hours straight of trying to get this game to run.

Please help!

~dark

If the initial window disappears without an error, it means it is getting past the CD check, so copy protection is not the problem.

Are you shutting down all non-essential programs (especially anti-virus) before trying to start the game?

Do you have any video filters installed? At least the ReClock DirectShow Filter needs to be disabled to play the game videos.
In Windows Explorer, if you browse to the '..\Beyond Divinity\Static' folder, can you view the 'intro.mpg' video?

Some people have had problems with resolution switching as the game starts. Try making sure that your desktop resolution and the game resolution are the same.

Speaking of safe mode, can you enter it? One person had a corrupt monitor driver that prevented them from running the monitor at 640x480, so either safe mode or the intro video would crash the computer.

This is EXACTLY the problem I have ...

link: http://www.larian.com/ubbthreads/sh...&sb=5&o=&fpart=1

Raze, you are indeed very helpful (thanks!), but I think we'll need
an update.
After browsing the web searching for'starforce protection error' I found some patchlogs saying:

"Get the latest patch for Restaurant Empire! This latest patch covers:
1. Fixed an issue with StarForce Protection Error (US and UK version only)(NEW)." etc.
- in this case for 'Restaurant Empire'

The problem in our case here has nothing to do with disc verification but with the protection itself.

edit: I should add, that I'm playing a lot of old games at 640*480 without any problems.

I've sent an email to the larian support stating our problem.

well, let's hope they'll reply.

lamu, i have replied to the thread you refered to... hope you have seen it.

hi ladyrain,

seen your post - I'm using spybot every week. My computer is clean as clean can be.
No malware. No backgroundservices. I use virusscan only manually once a week.

Thanks for your effort to help! Very appreciated!

Hmmmmmm ok, on to the next set of diagnostics.....

Direct X version? (9.0c is the latest) available here
Did you run dxdiag? did that show any errors? Are you overclocking either your graphics card or CPU? (these unfortunately DO cause hassles with games)

Graphics card and CPU running at normal temperatures? (I had one computer that kept on crashing in a couple of games - doom being one of them - and the graphics card's fan was buggered). Another symptom of graphics card overheating would be sluggishness after a while of playing.

Microsoft has a patch that help prevents CTD's in games here (i have not tested it with SP2 though) This patch was installed on all my computers (i am hosting LAN games - so this is the first patch that gets onto my computers) before i installed SP2, and that way around i KNOW there is no hassles with the patch... I havnt tried to install it after SP2 - or if it may be included, but since it wasnt a critical patch, i dont think its included.

No luck. I have tried everything noted here and at the suggested threads. I do not have any video filters installed that I know of. I do a lot of video editing and I have no additional filters/codecs installed other than ones I cannot disable or remove. Also I can watch the intro video just fine if I load it right from the static folder.

Some of the programs I use are, Pinnacle Studio 9, Adobe Premier Pro 1.5 and Nero Platinum. Are any of those known to cause problems?

~dark

dxdiag - no problems.
I never overclock.
Temperatures are fine.

It's just the crappiest protection system to date, I guess...

We are currently looking into this problem and let you know something soon.
Our apologies for the inconveniences.

lynn, this is very kind -
thanks for your mails!
I'll keep you posted what happens.

Ok, after much debate I have come to realize that it is/was due to some sort of Codec. I use a codec pack that has over 35 different codecs in it. I can only install/uninstall the pack not individual codecs so it is unfortunate that I cannot tell which it is.

I uninstalled the pack and the game loads fine now. I use the Neowin codec pack in case anyone is wondering. That or the Klite codec pack (the same but older versions).

BTW, something else is wonky now. For some reason, well into the first level, the game got very, very slow almost like it was playing in slow motion. Any ideas on that?

~dark <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/up.gif" alt="" />

Did you have anything running in the background? A memory leak could account for performance degradation over time. Some people had problems with sluggishness using older video drivers, but that would be more of a consistent effect.
Were there a lot more NPCs or something in the area where it started to get sluggish? If you quit the game and restart, does that fix the problem? How about if you reboot the computer first?

@lamu: I got in contact with the StarForce support and they suggest to update your drivers.

If this doesn't help you, please contact me via email and we then will look further for a solution.
But big chance this well help you.

Regards,
Lynn

I'll try this in the coming week and let you know the result. thanks.