Problems with Revenant and Planescape: Torment

[DarkPastor]

I just can't start Revenant or Planescape: Torment. Both games lock up just when I try to run them, not even letting me to get into the main menu. Revenant locks up when the first Load Screen shows, and Planescape doesn't do even this. Please, help!!!

I don't know if it is really video card problem, but it looks like, since it is known that Revenant, for example, has some conflicts with Matrox Millenium. Both these games are using some 3D effects after all...

My system specs if it'll help:
AMD K6-3 400Mhz, Matrox Millenium G400 DH MAX 32Mb, 64Mb RAM, SoundBlaster PCI64V...

[mkaresh]

I don't know what to say. My wife has played Torment a lot on our new system, and loves it. Looks great.

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PIII 500e @667
Soyo SY6BA+IV
Iwill Slotket II
G400 32MB DH @144/180
Nokia 445Xi 21"
Aureal Vortex Superquad
128MB PC133
IBM DPTA 20.5GB 7200rpm
Toshiba 8/40 DVD

[D_Chaloupov]

Try to disable the "Bus Mastering" in Display Properties -> Advanced -> Options.
After you restart windows - try the games.

Works for me!


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AMD K6-2 400 (Not OCd)
64 MB SDRAM
FIC VIA 503+ (MVP3) Mobo with AGP 2x
MATROX Millenium G400 32Mb DualHead (not OCd)
32X Max LG CDRom
A3D 1.0 "Multiwave" Sound Card
4Gb Fujitsu HDD
Windows 98

[DarkPastor]

Doesn't work for me... I have disabled it, but no effect. The games are still crashing.

[Kristian]

If you have the patience, try dismounting your soundcard, or disabling it in Windows98 System menu. Games locking up are not always due to graph-malfunctions. Try it at least. If that helps, look for new drivers for your Aureal.

regards

Kristian

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Striving for perfection

[Gurm]

D_Chaloupov:

DON'T DISABLE BUS MASTERING. Doing so turns your nice shiny G400 card into a not-so-nice, not-so-shiny Virge card (or equivalent) with nicer picture quality. If you turn off bus mastering, you lose all benefits of a nice fast AGP card.

Instead, why not figure out what is causing your machine to have problems (likely causes are motherboard, memory, simple misconfiguration, etc.) and work with it that way?

- Gurm

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Listen up, you primitive screwheads! See this? This is my BOOMSTICK! Etc. etc.

[DarkPastor]

Well, it starts if I turn the soundcard off, but how can I overcome this problem? Otherwise, there is no fun to play these games without sound. (I have the latest drivers for the soundcard, as well as for the G400 (5.41) and latest patches for the games themselves.)

[Kristian]

Ok, so its fairly established that the soundcard has something to do with it. However, I think that you stated earlier that other games are working as they should. Do you know if you have a conflict with IRQ's or perhaps the soundcard is sharing a DMA with some other device in the computer.

Enable the soundcard again and see if you get any conflicts. Note that Windows sometimes fails to report conflict even if there are some. This can be remedied in three different ways.

1. Enter settings for your soundcard through the "Systempanel" (where u first disabled it) and enter the tab "resources". Change the IRQ's and DMA's around wathing carefully not to choose a resource that is occupied. If there are several IRQ available, choose another from that wich you present have, same goes for DMA.

2. If you suspect that there is a lack of IRQ's you can free up some by disabling a com-port. If you use com-ports you probably have a modem on one but its quite rare to use both com-ports (for me anyway). Disable that and you get 1 IRQ, same goes for the printer port (LPT1), If you are not using this why have it hogging resources.

3. Switch the soundcard (if its removable) to another ISA (E-ISA?) slot if there are any available.

There is also another thing that can be wrong, the accelerated DirectSound.
Try disabling direct sound hardware acceleration under the A3D Settings tab of the Aureal Vortex Control Panel ( Start | Settings | Control Panel | Vortex Control Panel | A3D Settings) . Direct Sound Hardware accelerators report the number of hardware channels they can process via their drivers. Certain games cause problems because they do not check the number of hardware acceleration channels that are available and open too many. This might actually be the thing you should try first.

If all these theories fail, I suggest that you contact Aureal with a problemreport.

Regards

Kristian

[This message has been edited by Kristian (edited 25 January 2000).]

[DarkPastor]

Thank you, Kristian!

You have been only mixed up a little bit, since I don't have an Aureal (but mkaresh does ;o) ...) Instead, I have a SoundBlaster PCI64V.

Anyway, I'll try to check once again IRQ and DMA settings. I have enough of free IRQs, so it is possible to switch to another one, if the current doesn't work.

This SoundBlaster PCI64V also has DirectSound support, but it doesn't let me to turn it off, at least, I can't do it in its Control Panel...

[Kristian]

Kristian the Klutz

Sorry DarkPastor, I seem to be on crack nowadays. Well, since you have a creative product there is something else we could try.

* Enter the "Control Panel" and run "Multimedia", chose the tab "Performance".

* You will see two sliders (I hope), one marked "Hardware acceleration" or something similar and the other marked "Sampling quality".
Set the "Hardware" slider back one notch and try the game. What you just done is to step-down the acceleration a bit. Sometimes the "Full" settings just ticks some games off. Such is the case with "Aliens vs Predator" for example. If you still get hangs, move the slider further back. If you get to the end and still no cigar, the you should contact tech-support at Creative.

Regards

Kristian

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Striving for perfection

[DarkPastor]

Well, nothing helps. The games do not work anyway. I have tryed to switch the soundcard between PCI slots, to assign different IRQ's, to change/disable hardware acceleration... Nothing works... And now my CD-ROM has stope to play Audio CDs... It just locks up, when I try to play them...

[Kristian]

DarkPastor


There is now an official patch for Torment as of 27/01/2000 - Do you have this installed?
ftp://ftp.interplay.com/pub/patches/Trmt11.exe (1.1 Patch)

Also here is a beta patch:
ftp://ftp.interplay.com/pub/patches/Trmt11b.exe (1.1b Patch)

Verify that your in-game resolution matches your system resolution. (16bit recommended for both.)


If you have, try disabling or enabling Direct3D or DirectDraw. These options are available by running DXTOOL. (Start/Find/Files or Folders/DXTOOL.EXE)


If all else fails maybe,you should consider buying a new soundcard. I recently replaced my AWE64 with the Sblive! 1024

The difference is astounding, oh man - you wont believe it until you play an EAX supported game, which by the way I think Torment is. Most of my soundbugs went right away with the old card.

Try these things first and let me knw what you find.

Kristian

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Striving for perfection

[Kristian]

My Pleasure DarkPastor

I would be even more happy if you actually solved your problem. But sometimes you just have to yield for the problems at hand. I have been forced to do this several times. Hardware that stops to work, no more updated drivers etc etc. I gets you down every time. But you are "lucky" in the way that it probably is your soundcard.
Soundcards today are relatively cheap, Creative's Live! is $70 , thats not much for a GREAT card.

I do hope it works out, feel free to post again if you get a new card

Regards

Kristian

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Striving for perfection

[DarkPastor]

Thank you, Kristian! For all you efforts to help me!!! ;o)

Unfortunately, nothing that you have suggested and my own ideas, have helped to solve the problem with this ... soundcard. I'll try everything again, but I think the best solution is to buy new good soundcard... ;o)

Thank you, once again!!!