AstralWanderer

Did you receive the collector's edition box and non-disc contents? (map, manual, etc). These were shipped in March 2015 (according to KS updates) while the discs were shipped later (from Paradox in June 2015 according to my emails). There have been several updates since the discs were released however, so you would also need to download the appropriate patch to take them from 1.04 to 3.03. If you already have an up-to-date copy then there's probably not much point in having the DVD.

Apologies for necro-ing a thread, but none of the replies given actually addressed the original poster's question. Pillars of Eternity *will* run on Windows XP and can be completed without problems - the only requirement is a modification to the boot.ini file as noted in this support article (specifically to add the /3GB switch and I would recommend the /userva=2900 switch also to minimise the downsides of /3GB - most important for software that uses PAE to access memory above 4GB).

I'd cast my vote for the original PoE title screen also. It better reflects the majority of the game and having to look at a snow-covered landscape on every launch gives me unnecessary chills.

Been reviewing a previous thread on this, which does offer some workarounds. There seem to be two problems combining here - the first is that basic load/save operations are far slower than they should be (I have to wait 20-30 seconds for area transitions and that's with an SSD RAID array capable of 700MB/s sequential read/write) which seems to be a Unity3D "feature" (other games like Dreamfall Chapters exhibit a similar problem with long load/save times). With Pillars, this seems to be worsened with two copies being made of each savegame file (one with a .savegame suffix and the other with a random one). The second is the frequency of auto saves, in particular between every indoor/outdoor location transition. This really should be "fixable" by Obsidian through a menu setting (limiting auto-saves to outdoor area transitions only would be a big bonus for most players).

Presumably the 23/26°C readings are for the internal case temperature rather than from CoreTemp/MSI Afterburner? (which read the embedded CPU/GPU temperature sensors). 3°C doesn't seem like a large difference but if it is case temperature, then it could mean a larger (10-20°C) temperature change on the CPU/GPU. Thanks for the update, and please let everyone know if it has fixed your issue.

This is something that should be seriously considered. What graphics settings people use should be their own choice, and while Obsidian should feel free to offer advice ("Your system specification will likely result in a poor experience with this setting") they should not arbitrarily restrict resolution settings - not least since it then fails to account for future developments (i.e. what happens 10+ years later when Mac notebooks are available with GPUs powerful enough for Retina+ displays?).

Intermittent errors can be amongst the hardest to resolve. The most likely causes would be either be overheating (leading to memory corruption and CPU errors) which Prime95 should have identified and faulty memory which MemTest86 should have spotted. You could try monitoring temperatures using the likes of CoreTemp (your system would need the 64-bit version) for the CPU and MSI Afterburner for your GPU. Anything in excess of 80°C should be a cause for concern and addressed by checking your system is clean of dust and has sufficient airflow.

Crowded areas are likely to increase the load on the CPU rather than GPU. PoE in my experience will max one core out while using 50% of a second, so setting affinity (and thereby limiting it to one core) is more likely to make things worse. With a Core i7-920 (clocked at 3.4GHz) and SLIed 580GTXes, I see similar FPS rates as yourself - 35-40 in crowded parts of Copperlane, 60 in quieter locations. However plenty of others have reported worse results in the Why does this game run poorly? so it's probably a fair statement that this game is severely lacking in performance. Hopefully Obsidian will address this once more important bugs are fixed.

Almost certainly not - your GTX 560 Ti should be ample for PoE and the problems you have reported seem to be intermittent data corruption issues. If Prime95 ran OK and MemTest86 gave no errors, then try checking your disk for errors by opening a command prompt window and typing chkdsk c: - if errors are reported ("Windows found problems with the file system") then rerun chkdsk with the /f parameter to fix them (chkdsk c: /f) but this will likely require a system restart. Also use Crystal DiskInfo to check the SMART (Self-Monitoring Analysis and Reporting Technology) status of your disk - it's not 100% effective, but can provide early warning of impending disk failure.

For Prime95, leave it run. If it encounters an error, it will report it and stop that thread - any errors reported almost certainly mean a hardware problem. Review the included stress.txt file for more information. With Process Explorer, do an online search on any processes you don't recognise or which come from unknown companies.

If a save that previously worked now crashes (and does so repeatedly) then you almost certainly have something on your system that is modifying the savegame files. If a save that previously worked crashes *sometimes* then odds are that something else is causing problems with PoE itself. Have a careful look at what else you have running on your system using Task Manager - better yet install either Process Hacker or Process Explorer and use these to check that all the processes running on your system are legitimate. Assuming these check out, then the next most likely cause is memory issues. Try running MemTest86 to see if that throws up anything or try the "Torture Test" option of Prime95 (selected the "Blended" test which works out CPU and main memory). Leave these running for a few hours at least...

Welcome to the forums Campa147, Looks like you've hit the 2GB per-process limit in 32-bit Windows. See Obsidian's blog entry for how to work around this, raising the per-process limit to 3GB. There may be negative consequences for other software that uses PAE (Physical Address Extension) or large amounts of kernel memory, so if you do find other programs crashing afterwards, try experimenting with altering this setting.

Your latest output_log.txt reports the same "corrupted ZIP" error before crashing as previously. So it seems most likely that the first crash after starting with a new character caused a corruption in your savegame file. Pillars does seem to scan savegame files on startup so an invalid one can cause a crash on the intro screen. My suggestion would be to go to your savegames folder - create a subfolder in that (called "Backup" say) and to move the most recent savegame to that. Then try restarting PoE. If problems continue, move the next most recent savegame to Backup and continue until you reach one that works. That will mean losing in-game progress but if you have been saving often, hopefully not too much. If you want to confirm that a moved savegame is the cause, you can move it from Backup to the savegame folder and see if the problems return.

While saved games should be compatible across versions as celliott has noted, it seems very unlikely that you would be able to install a Steam version of the expansion over the GOG version of the base game, without considerable effort. The Steam installer will expect the game to be in a different location and while it is possible to import a game into Steam, there's no guarantee that subsequent updates would work as intended. A similar issue applies in reverse - the GOG installer creates specific registry entries which are checked for by updates and expansions. So the GOG version of PoE's expansion would not recognise the presence of a Steam version of the PoE base game, unless you created the appropriate registry entries. So it's better to stick with the same vendor when it comes to (digital) expansions/add-ons. GOG do hold sales if you want to hold out for a cheaper price (though aside from an initial/pre-order discount, I suspect there'll be a wait of a year or more with a game as popular as PoE) but the complications of mixing versions are likely to far outweigh any cost savings.

PoE is far more demanding of CPU/GPU than a game of its type should be, but is no more likely to cause overheating than any other demanding game or application. Computers should be designed with cooling effective enough to withstand extended periods of 100% utilisation, but there are situations where this doesn't apply (cost-cutting on a "big name" brand, excessive overclocking on a home/store-built system or dust/dirt reducing the effectiveness of heatsinks and fans on an older system). The best approach therefore is to keep a regular check on temperatures - there are several programs that can do this and I would suggest CoreTemp (use these links for adware-free versions: 32-bit and 64-bit) to monitor CPU temperatures and MSI Afterburner to monitor GPU temperatues (MSI Afterburner can also control GPU fan speeds, so you can set it up to increase speeds as GPU temperatures pass certain values). Once you have these temperature monitors installed and configured, test your system by running applications designed to put it under maximum load. For the CPU, I'd suggest the Torture Test facility of Prime95 (use the "small" or "in-place" options to max out CPU - the "blend" is intended more as a full system test) - leave that running for a few hours if possible and note the maximum temperature reported by CoreTemp. If it exceeds 80°C then CPU cooling needs improving (if it is overclocked, reduce the frequency - otherwise check that the heatsink is adequate, properly fitted and has a working fan). After testing the CPU, test the GPU using a benchmark like Unigine Heaven - again, leave that running for a couple of hours and note the maximum temperature reported by MSI Afterburner. Again, if these exceed 80°C then cooling should be reviewed - in this case that might involve fitting extra fans in your case, replacing existing fans with more powerful ones - or consider a watercooling solution.