Larian Studios Forums Divinity II The Dragon Knight Saga / Flames of Vengeance (English) Technical problems Random/Odd Game hangs [STEAM]

I posted this in the Ego Draconis technical problems because I used google to look up the problem and hope for a solution so sorry about that. Here is my problem, I have DKS on Steam and it does this all the time, I love the game but it feels like getting kicked in the nuts each time it happens... and call me stubborn but I keep playing regardless. Sometimes animations will still be going like everyone is running in place, sometimes the sound of battle will continue, etc its all very random.

As has been stated this just happens at random, I can be walking along a path then the game freezes and I have to use Task manager to kill it, I will be midfight and crash, I will be opening a menu and crash, I will be standing still and crash at some point only realizing I did because I can't move (animations still play and everything)

And its not like at set times, it can be 1 minute into play, an hour into play or anywhere in between... its annoying.

first run the support tool...

http://www.larian.com/hotfixes/supporttool/LPC_Divinity2.exe

very simple tool that checks if your system is meeting minimum requirements.

in truth... due to extreme random nature i would say the issue is not 'game based'
but more 'pc based'... like heat, hardware, or drivers.

the easiest way to check all those is to run some benchmarks and see if they crash.

Unigine Heaven 2.1
http://downloads.guru3d.com/Unigine-Heaven-DirectX-11-benchmark-2.1-download-2549.html

Stone Giant
http://downloads.guru3d.com/Stone-Giant-Public-Demo-download-2526.html

3D Mark Vantage
http://downloads.guru3d.com/3DMark-Vantage-(Build-1.0.2)-download-1906.html

Well I don't think it is my system, this is the only game that does this, tempatures on the GPU and CPU never exceed 61c, and 55c respectivly under stress. This is also due to it always being very cold in this room which is why I set my rig up in here.

When this does crash the computer runs smooth, normally when a game freezes or hangs it won't minimize or respond so I have to use task manager and then hit the letter the program starts with followed by esc key and then enter to get it to close, with DKS I hit ctrl-alt-del the game minimizes instantly and I can just go down through the task manager and end the program.

I did send my report to Larian yesterday with their report tools but I had posted here to see if anyone had solved the problem, which someone claimed they did but I didn't want to just walk around for an hour so I could play normally afterwards.

I will post the results of the benchmarks after I run them and will edit them into this message.

Or not because none of them will run for one reason or another

I use Windows XP-64 Professional

It's such a shame really. The game is great, but with so many issues and problems, it makes me wonder how so many reviewers managed to get through without experiencing the same issues and problems. For example, on my game, there are certain points where it crashes. I can name two of these:

Point A: Buad's Storage. When you enter and look to the right, if you try to proceed whilst looking to the right, the game freezes and nothing can be done. If you enter and just proceed, even looking ahead or left, it doesn't crash.

Point B: On Sentinel Island, after getting past the magic barrier at the base of the Battle Tower, you climb the road. When you get to the "prison" there is an empty cell to your left, adjacent to an occupied cell. Now, if you go into this empty cell on the left, look around, everything is fine. When going to leave, is when it gets funny. If you look straight ahead and try to move straight ahead out of the cell, it crashes. Again, any other direction of the camera and general direction of movement, it is fine.

none of the benchmarks will run? ouch!

your problem is definitely not limited to just DKS.

only twice have i witnessed similar problems:
1. once was with someone using a cracked version of windows.
(many cracked/moddified versions are bugged or just plain broken)
fix was installing a legit retail copy of windows.

2. the other was an HIS 5970 with bad bios (bad video memory timings)
fix was getting an updated bios from HIS.

regardless, since your problem is not limited to just DKS then i would again highly recommend
persuing the possiblity of hardware/software faults.

easiest way to test software is clean install of retail windows with latest drivers, then, install DKS with included resources (directx, C++, etc)

if problem goes away 'it was software'... if problem persist most likely hardware.

Pirate -

i have saves in both those areas.

spent half an hour trying to get my game to 'fault' in those locations...
1. Baud's storage i can enter looking right with no freeze/crash.
2. in the battle tower prison i can go in and out of the empty cell while looking forward with no freeze/crash.

tried looking multiple directions in/out of both areas... no freeze/lag/crash.

if you have save game files near there submit the saves with your fault discription.
support@larian.com

No the Benchmarks don't run because either I don't have VISTA, or Directx 11, so I ran different benchmarks everything came out fine, and last night the game ran completely smooth for about 3 hours.

Like I said this is the only game that has problems, I even get Fallout New Vegas to run properly and that one has alot of bugs in it. So I know the problem is limited to DKS and DKS only as it is the only game of the 60 or so I own from Steam that acts up, the rest of them are fine.

EDIT - I know I sound ungrateful, but I would be more willing to accept it would be my machine if this wasn't the only game in the past 3 years that has done this. I am also not too worried as I am upgrading, which my new CPU and GPU will arrive tomorrow or Tuesday.

Hey all.

I'm having the same crash on my XP machine. Windows XP Home on a brand new install on a brand new drive. After installing steam, DKS was the first thing I pulled down because it was what my girl was playing. The thing is, before the replaced hard drive and fresh OS install, we never had this problem. I don't think the game crashed once.

I haven't had a chance to try any other games yet since the re-install, if we have to discuss hardware I'm aware that new hardware can fail. I just wanted to add this report because the nature of the crash is the same (looping animations and sound, everything else frozen with no key or mouse input). I didn't want the thread to die.

Setch, did you ever actually find an actual fix to the problem? Did it reoccur any time after the 3 hour session with it working?

Specs:

Windows XP Home SP 3
AMD Athlon 64 X2 4200 2.2ghz
3GB RAM
GForce GTX 260 260.99 drivers

I did find a way to fix it and I need to thank David (From larian support) for Emailing me, now the Dual Core Optimizer may have been what fixed it (I had an old version of it) but it gave me an idea so I went into my config file for DKS and changed the multi-core line to 0 which seems to have fixed it, I just finished Ego Draconis and am playing FOV... I have to say FOV is awesome and has a very twisted sense of humor!


<!-- UseMultiCore: When set to 0, the game runs on a single core. This will cause a lower framerate but could prevent some deadlock issues. -->
<!-- When set to 1, the game runs in its normal configuration, utilizing multiple cores. -->
<!-- DEFAULT = 1 -->
<UseMultiCore>0</UseMultiCore>

Setch -

hopefully your problem is ironed out...

thanks for posting back to help others


Larian Studios FTW!!!

Awesome. Thanks Setch. It seems to be running stably now. The performance hit is noticeable but not bad.

I still can't figure why it worked before the new HD. I know I never tweaked that file or ran that AMD tool. Maybe if I'm feeling ambitious later I'll try that out and see if can change the config file back.

Thanks again.