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.

GOG does not have a "verify game cache" option, only Steam does. Given the number of file corruption errors reported in the log, I'd be inclined to suspect a faulty download. Try downloading a new version from GOG then uninstalling and reinstalling PoE (it should be possible to keep a backup copy of the savegame files, but I'd suggest starting afresh since it is possible they might have corrupted data which could affect future installations).

I'd rather have the developers working on fixing bugs and adding new content, rather than a (completely superfluous to me) feature. With regards to the original question, one side effect of running client software (either Steam's compulsory client or the optional GOG Galaxy) is that they pose security and privacy risks. Security in that they are able to download and update programs on your system - if hijacked they could deliver malware instead. Privacy in that they record what, when and how long you play games - information that could be sold on to advertisers and current/potential employers. As long as Galaxy remains optional, GOG has the advantage in offering you a choice of whether you want to run these risks (for the record, Steam has had at least one compromise and, four years on, no further information from Valve other that this update).

Optionqb, Your output_log file contains the following line: ZIP FILE WAS CORRUPT! C:\Users\Wes\Saved Games\Pillars of Eternity\b84895ebae2b49aaab2123dadb8e315e 8047146 GildedVale.savegame which suggests that somehow your saved game has been damaged. If possible, try reloading from an earlier save and make sure that you (a) quicksave regularly and (b) backup those saves to another folder. If this happens frequently, it may be due to other software interfering in Pillars' savegame process - most likely an antivirus scanner. In such a case, try configuring it to ignore (not scan) that savegame folder (in your case the folder C:\Users\Wes\Saved Games\Pillars of Eternity). Another possibility is to use file versioning software to automatically backup savegame files (and other important documents) whenever they are modified, which can help you recover from accidental file overwrites as well as rolling back from unwanted positions in games. My recommendation here is the free Aphar Backup (Dutch webpage but program is in English) since it is very light and fast (plus the only one not relying on .NET Framework) but AutoVer, Yadis Backup (both free) and FileHamster (commercial) are alternatives. Set one of these up to copy savegames to a folder on another disk and they should usefully supplement full image backups taken on a less regular (weekly/monthly) basis.

chadkjackson, If you're that upset with Paradox, then don't redeem their Steam key - request a refund and consider purchasing from GOG instead (either the hero or royal editions). Paradox still get a cut as publisher, but the GOG store is more straightforward (buy from them, download from them) and most importantly, their version is DRM-free so you don't risk losing it if Valve disable your account (if GOG did the same, you would only lose the ability to re-download - existing downloads and installs would continue working fine).

PoE uses DX9 by default, so forcing it shouldn't make any difference. If you are encountering problems related to DX9, it may be worth downloading and installing the full DX9 redistributable from Microsoft: DirectX End-User Runtimes (June 2010) As for performance issues, it should be trivially easy for Obsidian to provide simpler graphics (disabling reflections/shadows/bloom, reducing spell animations, using low-poly-count models) but it's only likely to happen if enough people ask for it. A game like PoE should be able to run on 1/10th the specified minimum hardware (two similar games: Temple of Elemental Evil required a 700MHz CPU, 128MB RAM and a 32MB graphics card; Beyond Divinity an 800MHz CPU, 256MB RAM and a 64MB graphics card) so there should be significant scope for optimisation, should Obsidian care to resource it. Until then, those with issues may want to experiment with adding the following (unsupported) options to their PoE shortcut: -force-opengl (this made no performance or graphical improvement on my system and resulted in increased memory usage but others' mileage may vary) -screen-quality Fastest (this made no perceptible difference for me, but should enable the lowest graphics quality level).

Welcome to the forums Jimplinge, Check what other programs you have running - in particular look for anything relating to overlay displays or anything set to remain "on top" (which could interfere with full-screen applications) - and try disabling them before restarting PoE.

Your logfile shows repeated errors: edit: see same errors in my logfile with the latest patch, so it's most likely nothing to do with your problem, ignore the rest of this post "TextXML Parse Failed. Attempting binary... File: C:/Users/Steven/AppData/Local/Temp/Obsidian Entertainment/Pillars of Eternity\TempSaveData Reason: Polenter.Serialization.Core.DeserializingException: An error occured during the deserialization. Details are in the inner exception. ---> System.Xml.XmlException: invalid data." It may be worth checking that the folder in question (C:\Users\Steven\AppData\Local\Temp\Obsidian Entertainment\Pillars of Eternity\TempSaveData) exists, that you have appropriate permissions to write to it and that nothing else is interfering with it. Anti-virus scanners in particular could cause an issue and it may be worth configuring the scanner you use to ignore that folder. Disabling the AV scanner temporarily would normally be another option but you would need to disconnect from the Internet while doing so (to minimise the chance of security compromise) and the Steam version of Pillars apparently uses Steam's DRM, which requires Internet access (and a valid Steam account) on game start.

If the crashes occurred with the 1.06 update, then going back to 1.05 might be your best bet (though this will likely mean reinstalling Pillars and applying the 1.05 update if you kept a copy - remembering to backup saved games first). 80°C is high but shouldn't be enough to cause a shutdown - are these temps being reported from software utilities like CoreTemp/RealTemp and MSI Afterburner or another source? The AMD FX chips can run hot so if you've followed all the steps suggested previously (and disabled overclocking if applicable) then the next step would be to try the Prime95 Torture Test (select Small or In-Place, not Blend which tests the full system rather than just the CPU) and see if your PC can run that for a couple of hours without crashing or reporting errors. If Prime95 runs OK, that points the finger at Pillars - if you get a crash or shutdown then that points the finger at your system. Given all the other steps you say you followed, the one remaining (and this can make a huge difference) is checking that you have enough thermal grease between the heatsink and your CPU and that the heatsink is fitted on properly (i.e. remove it, clean, reapply thermal grease, replace). There's loads of advice on this online but I would suggest making a record of your CPU idle temperature (which shouldn't be more than a couple of degrees above room temperature) before and after checking your heatsink to see what difference it makes.

EvilCalvin42, Your Dropbox links only had two error.txt files. These are nearly useless on their own - the output_log.txt file is necessary to see what happened leading up to the error. To attach a file to a post, press the "More Reply Options" button which will take you to a "new post" page - under the text box in that page will be a pair of boxes with "Choose..." buttons beside them. Use these to select the appropriate files (error.txt and output_log.txt) and those files will be copied up with your next post.

That's way too high for non-demanding work like web access - 30-40°C would be a typical value. Configure MSI Afterburner to monitor (and graph) your GPU temperature. It can also display that temperature as an overlay so you can view it while playing a game (you don't need any other software). Another approach is to stress-test your system using a graphics benchmark like Unigine Heaven - run that in DX9 mode and let it loop for 20-30 minutes. If your system shuts down during this time, then you have a problem with cooling (or possibly hitting your PSU limits). Cooling has been covered in previous posts. Restricting framerate is not a good option since it won't always work (MSI Afterburner can control fan speeds so you could use it to increase them once temperatures reach a set value - going to 100% at 70°C for example - a better option). The "desktop fan pointed at the open case" test is the simplest way to check this. If your PSU is the problem (i.e. if you continue seeing shutdowns even with decent cooling) then swapping it for another (higher-capacity/quality) model is the only way to verify it. Edit: Just reviewed your system specs - that Intel HD3000 graphics chip isn't going to give you a good experience with any recent 3D game (see review here) and doesn't fulfil the minimum specification needed to run Pillars. Also, if you are using a notebook, cooling is not easy to improve (a "laptop cooler" with its own fan can help in some cases). Best to put Pillars to one side until you get a desktop that fulfils the minimum specification.