Really bad sign for games coming from Atari

[greylord]

Did you check this out?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

 

NO offense...but that's like...duh...

 

Yes...seeing AoW:HT isn't even available in the areas around here, I actually found out about it by browsing those forums...and they were my first stop in seeing if there were any real solutions to the problems I was having (for more than just AoW:HT) weeks ago.

 

But thanks for the nice suggestion...

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Could you summarise just what exactly is the problem. I'm not sure I understand what you were saying earlier.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Long story short... CD protection Atari uses seems to disable my video card drivers, or at least make it so they hit a jink in the game when trying to read the game but go read the protection causing a jink in the drivers...spefically.

 

Is that a good summary?

[greylord]

Wait, are you the only one having problems with this?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

 

Unfortunately no. I've seen others with this problem on forums and other locations. Unfortunately as well most of the responses seem to be either completely unhelpful and addressing things already tried or unrelated, down to calling the posters names and insulting them badly (not me, this is actually these were the first forums I brought this subject up in because I wanted to make sure NWN2 runs when I start it up...I suppose thats' selfish...but I WOULD like it to run when I install and run it). I would imagine the specs on my machine would More than run it easily (especially on the 7600 machine, with a 200 gig harddrive, a 2.5 processor, 1 gig ram).

[Deraldin]

Wait, are you the only one having problems with this?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

 

Unfortunately no. I've seen others with this problem on forums and other locations. Unfortunately as well most of the responses seem to be either completely unhelpful and addressing things already tried or unrelated, down to calling the posters names and insulting them badly (not me, this is actually these were the first forums I brought this subject up in because I wanted to make sure NWN2 runs when I start it up...I suppose thats' selfish...but I WOULD like it to run when I install and run it). I would imagine the specs on my machine would More than run it easily (especially on the 7600 machine, with a 200 gig harddrive, a 2.5 processor, 1 gig ram).

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Have you attempted running the game with a no-cd patch?

[greylord]

Wait, are you the only one having problems with this?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

 

Unfortunately no. I've seen others with this problem on forums and other locations. Unfortunately as well most of the responses seem to be either completely unhelpful and addressing things already tried or unrelated, down to calling the posters names and insulting them badly (not me, this is actually these were the first forums I brought this subject up in because I wanted to make sure NWN2 runs when I start it up...I suppose thats' selfish...but I WOULD like it to run when I install and run it). I would imagine the specs on my machine would More than run it easily (especially on the 7600 machine, with a 200 gig harddrive, a 2.5 processor, 1 gig ram).

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Have you attempted running the game with a no-cd patch?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

I know of someone closely related to me that did something like that...though that isn't really condoned...and I like to run mine legit...but it ran fine for them with the same system when they did that. So yes and no. I didn't...but someone else did on the same systems.

[Hurlshort]

No offense Greylord, but you sound a bit like a crazy person. It's not the topic or the conspiracy theory, as everyone on this board seems to have a conspiracy theory, but rather the way you type. It's like this constant stream of conscience with technical babble mixed in.

 

Seriously, I don't doubt your intelligence...only your sanity.

[alanschu]

If you want to be thorough, test it with a no-CD crack.

[Atreides]

If you want to be thorough, test it with a no-CD crack.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Fixed.

Edited September 9, 2006 by Atreides

[Fenghuang]

Everything's better with crack.

 

Seriously though I wonder if this is fairlisolated or more widespread.

 

Also I'd like to see how it works with ATi cards.

 

Also an official response from someone other than an enthusiast.

[Calax]

Everything's better with crack. 

 

Seriously though I wonder if this is fairly isolated or more widespread. 

 

Also I'd like to see how it works with ATi cards. 

 

Also an official response from someone other than an enthusiast.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Fixed.

 

And I really don't understand whats going on... is it that your game when it tries to install will ask to connect to the net then kill your video card like farmer john kills bessie? or is it that when you try to run the game you get a graphical problem that you just can't explain?

 

I've had the second one where my ATI could play Punisher but wouldn't play Deus Ex IW or Project Snowblind. and I had a nvidia that could play Deus but not the other two and yata yata... so every 2 or three days I got to play musical cards (hey it was fun )

[greylord]

Everything's better with crack. 

 

Seriously though I wonder if this is fairly isolated or more widespread. 

 

Also I'd like to see how it works with ATi cards. 

 

Also an official response from someone other than an enthusiast.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Fixed.

 

And I really don't understand whats going on... is it that your game when it tries to install will ask to connect to the net then kill your video card like farmer john kills bessie? or is it that when you try to run the game you get a graphical problem that you just can't explain?

 

I've had the second one where my ATI could play Punisher but wouldn't play Deus Ex IW or Project Snowblind. and I had a nvidia that could play Deus but not the other two and yata yata... so every 2 or three days I got to play musical cards (hey it was fun )

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Hmm, for any real enthusiasts of NWN who were there at the beginning, I would hope that some of them would remember me...oh well...thankfulness is shortlived. However I would have hoped that from that, people would know that I'm not exactly non-tech savvy (let's see, got NWN to actually run on the voodoo cards, intel cards...albeit not very well, instructed how to change the settings on cards so that it would accept those that didn't register as OpenGL 1.1+compliant, figured out and released the opener code for various games or at least the beginnings of games [mostly due to being sick of people asking for them rather than any desire to use them myself normally] various tech support items in forums early on in many games). I normally DO check out things on the internet and other places.

 

No, mine is not an isolated incident, in fact some of the biggest items that have been left unanswered by Atari's tech support and other support (except of course their NWN diamond fiasco with the missing keys) has been this topic. I have thought I was pretty clear.

 

Let me see if I can say it any more slowly and reduce it to much more common speech.

 

The CD Protection that Atari is using for the Act of War Expansion, and which I expect they will try to use with NWN2, or an upgraded form of it, conflicts with the programming.

 

Because of this, the Protection can hit when the vid card is initializing the game. When this occurs, it causes a fault with several computers. This causes the Video card drivers to fail. When they fail, they fail almost completely with varying results depending on the computer settings. These can resort to what happened with mine where all higher functions of the card associated with current drivers fail...such as Pixel Shader, T&L and 3d shading, making it so that anything requiring 3d will not run.

 

Others have had problems as well, which would also be a direct result of this. These vary, as I stated above, due to what the system settings are, and how current their video and other drivers are. It can cause the card to crash entirely. In this instance, one could get a blank screen, unless XP defaults back to the generic drivers. Now if it doesn't default back to the generic drivers (in which case you have to hope on a reboot it will remember your old drivers and settings) you will only have a blank screen. In many instances this WILL cause a reboot of WinXP, or (and I've actually only seen this once in XP, I suppose a testament to how good at recovery it is) a screen of doom (aka the dreaded screen, screen of death, etc, and if you don't know what that is, I'm not really feeling like explaining it).

 

I've been lucky, and only experiened the first item with the drivers failing, but the card still running everything but 3d. However, I have seen the other items reported, and after seeing the process of what is happening, can see how the those are also easily related to this.

 

Due to the interruptions of the CD, one of the things that cause this fault, is when the screen resolutions between movie and game change, it can cause a problem. The timing, in particular, is the poor part of it all.

 

I'm thinking it's all in the timing, or the specifications of the DVD/CD writer/reader, due to my own experience with what worked and what didn't. NWN2 will have a much broader appeal, and less people will have really new stuff as compared to hardcore gamers, and many who played AoW expansion. Hence, if a similar item pops up, there's a big chance it's going to hit a LOT more people...in a big way.

 

I'm not certain how much more explicit you want. I think this is about as clear as one can get with simple language.

 

 

In otherwords, someone didn't do their testing of the game and Copy Protection prior or it's impact on the game prior to the release. That's a problem.

 

One I hope they avoid with NWN2, but seeing Atari's recent track record with their releases (and yes, it's getting worse, Diamond was released without the ability to even install in many cases due to their forgetting to put the CDkeys inside the actual game, which in some ways is even worse than the CD bug I've been discussing), I'm hoping that someone on the developer side will care enough (and they have in the past...) to ensure these same mistakes aren't made with NWN2.

 

You can call me insane if you want, but if they don't fix this bug, and don't get lucky, well, I'll have the game...but it will probably stink more than most other releases when people start whining that their game is crashing their systems.

 

Sorry if I appear a little annoyed. I'm not here for tech help, I actually KNOW what is going on for the most part with the CD and the card...and I think I'm on the right track with the CD/DVD reader. The problem is that unlike a card, or program fault, the requirements of a CD/DVD many times cannot be tricked into working right. Sort of like the Sony problems where they destroyed CD palyers because of the way they had their CD protections working (different method, and different way of doing it however than this one), so certain CD players, especially older ones, wouldn't work with their CDs.

 

I AM here to hopefully give a heads up both to the producers and to players. Players can go and risk it, and I hope they get lucky. But at least they have forwarning. More importantly though, it is in hope that the developers can be on the lookout, and even if they can't avoid this, perhaps put out a patch to overcome it if it is indeed going to be a problem on the day of release itself, or even slightly prior if they find out that it will be a problem.

 

And yes, once again to the questions on NOCD hacks, they DO work to overcome the problem...and NO I don't condone the usage of them. However, this IS how we(I use that term because though I am the only one posting here, I do have others that worked on this problem as well) determined for a definate that it was almost guaranteed to be a CD protection problem that was causing a majority of these faults in all likelihood.

 

It won't solve all problems (if someone is using old drivers, an old OS, or for some reason due to their settings their card cannot normally take the video to game resolution switch, it won't help in those situations)

[Judge Hades]

All I am asking for is proof. Evidence of this. I don't take people's word on things unless they can back it up with hard evidence.

[greylord]

Anyways, I'm done with this inanity. I've given the heads up, as i wanted to. I DON'T need the tech help, especially since Ialready know what's going on overall, and, no offense, but even if I was after it, with legal means, it doesn't sound like anyone here would have been able to help.

 

I already solved this problem days ago. I KNOW there are some however that will NOT have it solved if it or a similar problem is relased with NWN2. There's no reason for me to go on and on about this.

 

I'm just hoping to avoid a fiasco upon the NWN2 release, (and of course we might always get lucky even if it isn't heeded, as specific conflicts between program and Protection normally conflict in differing ways since programs differ).

 

It wasn't to state really the problem....more of a heads up that there ARE problems, and hopefully Bioware and Obsidian will check out the full game AFTER teh CD protection is in place in order to patch these problems before the release, OR make sure that Atari doesn't use anything that will actually cause such a conflict.

 

I've done all I can. Hopefully the devs read this. Good luck to everyone else.

 

I'm done, I'd much rather read threads on fun stuff than this.

[greylord]

All I am asking for is proof.  Evidence of this.  I don't take people's word on things unless they can back it up with hard evidence.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

 

Okay, since you posted right before I posted my last one

 

What do you want with hard evidence...the only way to actually provide you that would be to mail you a older machine and let you see it crash. Online I can't really give you anything. Sorry about that. Not made of money yet.

 

Okay, now I'm done.

Edited September 9, 2006 by greylord

[Judge Hades]

You could use the Print Screen button to show the crash and post the pic here.

[Fenghuang]

Aaaand Hades has just about chased off another newbie.

 

I believe you grey dude. Your case before the asshats here would fare a little better if you could post a few links to other people sharing the same problem. Not that I'm saying you should. It'll be interesting what happens when NWN2 is released if this isn't fixed. I'll just get a No-CD crack, I usually do anyway because I'm lazy and don't like switching discs/wearing out my drive, etc.

[Judge Hades]

Hey, I'm not chasing off anyone. If someone is going to make a claim on technical issues I like proof of it.

[Darque]

I think people need to chill

 

If you can't help him with the info he can give, don't hassle him about what he can't give.

[Judge Hades]

I am not hassling anyone. Talk about people needing a chill. Sheesh.

[Tigranes]

It's not a good sign when every other post on the thread is by Hades. Thankfully, the fact that they're not very long has temporarily averted a worldwide meltdown.

 

I suppose that with many of us, 'we shall see' when NWN2 is released, and as with StarForce, if there's a problem the uproar will reveal at least the name of the new protection and why and how it does what it does. Of course, as with StarForce, it would be a long time before companies rescind their decisions, but eh.

[Atreides]

Thanks for bringing this to the devs notice.

[Slowtrain]

Aren't the devs funded by Atari? And if Atari says use this, they use this? And Atari probably picks the CP scheme anyway without caring with the devs particualrly think.

 

IS CP added during the mastering process? Or does it actually reside in the game code? I'm not at all familair with the process.

[Darque]

That's a good point, what Atari wants Atari will get.

[Hassat Hunter]

It is added by the producer after the production process... OE can't do a thing...

[Slowtrain]

It is added by the producer after the production process... OE can't do a thing...

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

 

Yeah, that was kinda what I thought. Its a post-production dealie.

[Fenghuang]

They can raise hell...