Torment Planescape Torment woes

Browncoat1984 · Feb 4, 2009

I recently decided to finally sit down and play through Planescape Torment, a game that's been on my list of games to play for quite some time now. I'm several hours in and have been enjoying it so far, just got past the part where I gave Pharod the bronze sphere he was looking for...and I've come across some technical problems.

The first is the well documented spells causing slowdown problem. After doing some preliminary research, I tried the method of lowering my hardware acceleration down to three notches. This seemed to fix the problem (and the problem of black boxes appearing underneath certain items as well as a few other graphical glitches).

Now, however, I have a new problem. Whenever I try loading certain areas (small houses0, my game crashes (Quint's shop is a good example). I tried turning hardware acceleration back up and that didn't fix my problem. I tried having the game use software rendering instead of hardware (via options) and that just made my game run like molasses. I then tried deleting my game cache files and that didn't work.

I am playing the game with the 2 cd version and running with the PST Fix Pack, the PST Tweak Pack, and the PST Unfinished Business Pack. Does anybody have any suggestions on how I can fix this?

Qwinn · Feb 4, 2009

That symptom has been reported most often by folks who have installed the widescreen mod, then uninstalled it or changed the resolution. You didn't install that mod at all?

Qwinn

bozia2012 · Feb 4, 2009

You have the whole game on the disk (full install)? Infinity games often crashed if failed to load a map from the CD (sometimes even on full install).

You can try this:
after map loading crash, go to the cache folder and see if there's a file that has 0kb or is unnaturally small for a map file. Try finding it on the CD and manually copying (overwriting) it to the cache folder.

Worked for me, but it may not be the issue in your case...

overtenemy · Feb 4, 2009

What a coincidence, I'm having the same problem as well. It's from continuing a previous save after installing the widescreen mod, or simply uninstalling it. I've found a pathetically retarded fix, but it's been working for me so far.

Every time you encounter an area you can't enter, install the widescreen mod. It makes the area work. When you encounter another one, uninstall it, and that area will work. PITA, but it's been working so far for me, though I'm dreading the day it stops working and my save is dead. Also, I tried uninstalling and re-installing, using just UB and the fixpacks, but the crashes persisted. Not sure what causes them.

If anyone could provide a forum link to more relevant info, that'd be spiffy.

ghostdog · Feb 4, 2009

This is a well known problem that occurs when you change the resolution with the widescreen mod, mid-game. Saves from other resolutions will cause crashing when entering small areas.

When you install the widescreen mod you should start a new game and stick with that resolution.

overtenemy · Feb 4, 2009

Is there no fix Ghostdog? In my ignorance, I screwed this up while the game was underway. Are my saves just permanently busted? The fix I mentioned is working so far, I'm just worried it's going to stop eventually.

Browncoat1984 · Feb 4, 2009

Lovely, that's exactly what I did...wish I had known that before I changed the resolution *sigh*

Since I'm not *that* far into the game, I might as well restart the game...I tried the suggestion of copying the files over from the CD and it didn't work. Oh well. I wasn't too happy with my character build anyway...

ghostdog · Feb 5, 2009

overtenemy said:
Is there no fix Ghostdog? In my ignorance, I screwed this up while the game was underway. Are my saves just permanently busted? The fix I mentioned is working so far, I'm just worried it's going to stop eventually.

I think the crashes occur if you had saved your game while in a small area - then change the resolution - and then try to re-enter the same area. So if you change back to the old resolution and then enter the specific area you could probably workaround the problem. So what you are doing may work for the rest of the game, but the whole process must be rather tedious and If you are not that far into the game I would suggest to start a new one just to be sure you'll not get any other unexpected crashes.

Qwinn · Feb 5, 2009

Lovely, that's exactly what I did...wish I had known that before I changed the resolution *sigh*

To be fair, in the widescreen mod's readme, it explicitly says:

It is possible to load an earlier save with BG2, TotL and IWD2. However, in TotSC and Ps:T it is imperative to start a new game (or you will have lots of crashes).

ghostdog, I do bow to your greater expertise in this area so if you say I'm wrong, I won't argue, but I -think- it doesn't matter if your save game was specifically saved in the area in question. I think you just have to have visited the area before. I think every save game saves information about every area you've ever been in and keeps it indefinitely, and that information includes whatever is causing the crashing. (Possible culprit? It definitely saves the X-Y coordinate of creatures in the area, which would be different in a different resolution. Maybe it's trying to place Quint in a solid area as a result, therefore boom.)

Qwinn

taplonaplo · Feb 5, 2009

Qwinn said:
ghostdog, I do bow to your greater expertise in this area so if you say I'm wrong, I won't argue, but I -think- it doesn't matter if your save game was specifically saved in the area in question. I think you just have to have visited the area before. I think every save game saves information about every area you've ever been in and keeps it indefinitely, and that information includes whatever is causing the crashing. (Possible culprit? It definitely saves the X-Y coordinate of creatures in the area, which would be different in a different resolution. Maybe it's trying to place Quint in a solid area as a result, therefore boom.)

That's correct, area dimensions somehow seem to be stored(creatures wouldn't matter imo, widescreenmod expands to bottom right to avoid patching (xept for map/background images and possibly area dimensions) for that reason).

ghostdog · Feb 5, 2009

Yes you both must be correct that saving doesn't affect anything. Also the problems occur mainly when you are expanding the resolution, if you go from a bigger resolution to a smaller one chances are you will not have problems.

Anyway it's stated in both the Widescreen and UI readme that you must start a new game.

scient · Feb 9, 2009

I posted the areas to patch to bypass this crash here however I dunno if there are any negative consequences. I loaded some saved games that would have normally crashed (Mebbeth's hut and Phineas T. Lort area) and everything seemed solid. This basically removes bounds check of area size. Let me know if it works for you or not. You'll need a hex editor or the like to search and replace the bytes.

I can't guarantee if this won't mess up the area or area map but you can patch these bytes to prevent the crash. I tested the patches with a saved game that would crash on entering Mebbeth's hut and it seems ok. This is basically disabling the error checking for sizes that exceed the limit. Use something like Hex Workshop to do a hex search and then replace the values in bold. You might want to make a backup of file before doing this. Also, these patterns will work on either 2/4 CD versions of exe.

search: 83 C1 07 3B C1 76 14
replace: 83 C1 07 3B C1 EB 14

search: 83 7D 0C 00 77 14
replace: 83 7D 0C 00 EB 14

made · Oct 5, 2010

ghostdog said:
Anyway it's stated in both the Widescreen and UI readme that you must start a new game.

I started a new game and I get these crashes all the time in the hive now. In fact, it's a fresh install, with widescreen mod, UI, and all /Qwinn patches. 2 CD version, not from GoG.

Do we have the technology meanwhile to fix this?

SCO · Oct 5, 2010

Did you try the link above your post?

made · Oct 5, 2010

That's apparently about a "CD-check problem".

SCO · Oct 5, 2010

I can't guarantee if this won't mess up the area or area map but you can patch these bytes to prevent the crash. I tested the patches with a saved game that would crash on entering Mebbeth's hut and it seems ok. This is basically disabling the error checking for sizes that exceed the limit. Use something like Hex Workshop to do a hex search and then replace the values in bold. You might want to make a backup of file before doing this. Also, these patterns will work on either 2/4 CD versions of exe.

search: 83 C1 07 3B C1 76 14
replace: 83 C1 07 3B C1 EB 14

search: 83 7D 0C 00 77 14
replace: 83 7D 0C 00 EB 14

ghostdog · Oct 5, 2010

scient said:
This basically removes bounds check of area size. Let me know if it works for you or not. You'll need a hex editor or the like to search and replace the bytes.

^ This isn't about any cd-checks. Give it a try.

made · Oct 6, 2010

Yea that did something. It still crashes but maybe less than before.

DraQ · Oct 6, 2010

A lot of crashes and otherwise faulty behaviour on Nvidia cards can be fixed with nv_fix.

I have no experience with widescreen mod so I can't comment on stuff like game trying to display areas smaller than new screen area.

made · Oct 6, 2010

ATI card.

Seems it crashes every time you enter a new small building but not when you return there later.

ghostdog · Oct 6, 2010

made said:
ATI card.

Seems it crashes every time you enter a new small building but not when you return there later.

It has been said that the catalyst 10.6 drivers have (accidentally obviously) improved compatibility with PST. Haven't tried them myself, but you could give them a try.

ALso if the problem lies with the ATI drivers (and thus the d3d emulation) you could trythis solution. That's what I've been using in my last playthrough.

And finally let me mention that the 2CD version of PST is buggy since they somehow managed to fuck up the compression and a couple of area files can turn up corrupted during the installation.

made · Oct 6, 2010

I'm on 10.6 already.

Tried your suggestion to disable ddraw since I don't want to play in windowed mode, and while it didn't fix crashes, the game runs a lot smoother now.

I'm thinking it's either due to me abusing the quicksave feature or corrupted files as you said. Can I just copy them from the disc or something?

ghostdog · Oct 6, 2010

made said:
I'm on 10.6 already.

Tried your suggestion to disable ddraw since I don't want to play in windowed mode, and while it didn't fix crashes, the game runs a lot smoother now.

I'm thinking it's either due to me abusing the quicksave feature or corrupted files as you said. Can I just copy them from the disc or something?

Ah yes, the new quicksave feature. It is known to produce random crashes.

taplonaplo · Oct 7, 2010

Last time (ages ago) i checked, it crashed with the quickload when your mouse was over the gui. It was probably fixed tho.

Gay-Lussac · Oct 7, 2010

Qwinn said:
That symptom has been reported most often by folks who have installed the widescreen mod, then uninstalled it or changed the resolution. You didn't install that mod at all?

Qwinn

For a second I :shock:

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