93 replies to this topic

[Miraz]

So, my exploits in this thread ended in me just giving up and doing a reinstall with BP instead of BGT, since pretty much all the new content I wanted to experience was in BP anyway. Shock, horror ... the exact same problem is occuring.

I'd noticed some way in that the game wasn't being as smooth as usual in processor-heavy sections, but I thought nevermind, if there's nothing strenuous on screen it's running fine. Lo and behold, the stutter was noticeable by Chapter 3, when I was just undertaking the Bard Stronghold quest, and by the end of that quest, it had become too bad to play.

I've watched zachD's thread closely, and attempted many of the things he's tried. I've been careful not to pick up any containers (the only one I have is a wolfskin bag, and I had it on me for ages before the stutter started with no problems). I've checked my install against erebusant's install log (which he said ran fine), and the differences are minor. Except for one ...

I was thinking about what could cause the game to steadily get worse and worse simply by progressing ... and then I thought, wait ... what else do you know about which progresses steadily through the game, no matter what areas you visit or quests you do? So I compared the logs and saw that pretty much the only difference is that I have romancable NPCs installed, and he doesn't. I have Fade and Amber, and was in the progress of romancing both. And in my BGT install I was also romancing a character, Shar-Teel with the BG1NPC Project, when I encountered the stutter bug. But I don't understand what the romances could be doing to cause this, it's just an observation I've made ... no evidence for it, it could just be a coincidence.

The thing is, the new romances are one of the major reasons I'm playing the game again. I don't want to dump them unless I'm absolutely sure they're the cause. Any ideas would be appreciated.

// Log of Currently Installed WeiDU Mods
// The top of the file is the 'oldest' mod
// ~TP2_File~ #language_number #component_number // [Subcomponent Name -> ] Component Name
~SETUP-BD-TOB.TP2~ #0 #0 // Baldurdash Fix Pack for ToB, v1.5 WeiDU
~SETUP-BD-TOB.TP2~ #0 #1 // Textupdatepack -> Baldurdash English Text Update Pack for ToB, v1.4 WeiDU
~SETUP-SOS.TP2~ #0 #0 // Shadows Over Soubar, v1.11
~SETUP-SOS.TP2~ #0 #1 // Remorhaz walking speed adjustment (for ENGLISH version .EXE ONLY!!!)
~SETUP-TDD.TP2~ #0 #0 // The Darkest Day, v1.11
~SETUP-TDD.TP2~ #0 #1 // TDD Character Kits
~SETUP-CTB.TP2~ #0 #0 // Check The Bodies, v1.8
~SETUP-TS-BP.TP2~ #0 #0 // TORTURED SOULS v6.04.02 (BP Compatible Version)
~SETUP-BPV177.TP2~ #0 #0 // Big Picture AI/Enhancement Mod, version 177 weidu (beta)
~SETUP-BPV177.TP2~ #0 #1 // Improved Suldanessallar
~SETUP-BPV177.TP2~ #0 #2 // Improved Spellhold
~SETUP-BPV177.TP2~ #0 #3 // Wand of Orcus Add-In
~SETUP-BPV177.TP2~ #0 #4 // Improved Small Teeth Pass, by Kensai Ryu
~SETUP-BPV177.TP2~ #0 #5 // Improved Kangaxx Encounter, by Kensai Ryu
~SETUP-BPV177.TP2~ #0 #6 // Kensai Ryu's Improved Crypt King
~SETUP-BPV177.TP2~ #0 #7 // Kensai Ryu's Gnome Fighter/Illusionist in the Docks
~SETUP-BPV177.TP2~ #0 #8 // Improved Random Encounters, by Gebhard Blucher and Kensai Ryu
~SETUP-BPV177.TP2~ #0 #9 // Gebhard Blucher's Lich in the Docks
~SETUP-BPV177.TP2~ #0 #10 // Red Badge, Poison-Based Encounter, by Westley Weimer
~SETUP-BPV177.TP2~ #0 #11 // Kuroisan the Acid Kensai, by Westley Weimer
~SETUP-BPV177.TP2~ #0 #12 // The Ritual, by Westley Weimer
~SETUP-BPV177.TP2~ #0 #15 // Ascension for BP
~SETUP-AMBER.TP2~ #0 #0 // Amber the NPC MOD for BGII:SoA
~SETUP-FADE.TP2~ #0 #0 // Fade: An NPC for Baldur's Gate II
~SETUP-DSOA.TP2~ #0 #0 // Kensai Ryu's Deeper Shadows of Amn v2.2
~SETUP-DSOA.TP2~ #0 #1 // Difficult Brown Dragon
~SETUP-DSOA.TP2~ #0 #2 // Improved Copper Coronet
~SETUP-DSOA.TP2~ #0 #3 // Improved Crypt King
~SETUP-DSOA.TP2~ #0 #4 // Ghost Shadow Dragon
~SETUP-DSOA.TP2~ #0 #5 // Gnome Fighter/Illusionist Encounter
~SETUP-DSOA.TP2~ #0 #6 // Grothgar the Red Dragon
~SETUP-DSOA.TP2~ #0 #7 // Improved Kangaxx
~SETUP-DSOA.TP2~ #0 #8 // Curse of the Underground Shade Lord
~SETUP-UB.TP2~ #0 #0 // The Kidnapping of Boo by Cliffette
~SETUP-UB.TP2~ #0 #1 // The Suna Seni/Valygar Relationship
~SETUP-UB.TP2~ #0 #2 // Kalah and What He Was Promised
~SETUP-UB.TP2~ #0 #3 // "Cat and Mouse" (Bodhi hunts you in Spellhold) by Ghreyfain
~SETUP-UB.TP2~ #0 #4 // Gorje Hilldark and the Extended Illithium Quest
~SETUP-UB.TP2~ #0 #5 // The Pai'Na/Spider's Bane Quest
~SETUP-UB.TP2~ #0 #6 // Restored Crooked Crane Inn
~SETUP-UB.TP2~ #0 #7 // Restored Encounters
~SETUP-UB.TP2~ #0 #8 // Artemis Entreri in Bodhi's Lair
~SETUP-UB.TP2~ #0 #9 // Corrected "Xzar's Creations"
~SETUP-UB.TP2~ #0 #10 // Restored Hell Minions, by SimDing0
~SETUP-UB.TP2~ #0 #11 // Gorf the Squisher Fix, by Gebhard Blucher
~SETUP-UB.TP2~ #0 #12 // Item Restorations
~SETUP-UB.TP2~ #0 #13 // Yoshimo's Original Portrait
~SETUP-UB.TP2~ #0 #16 // Corrected BAMs and Scripts
~SETUP-UB.TP2~ #0 #17 // Corrected Character Names and Biographies
~SETUP-UB.TP2~ #0 #18 // Restored Minor Dialogs
~SETUP-UB.TP2~ #0 #19 // Restored Bhaalspawn Powers, by David Gaider
~SETUP-UB.TP2~ #0 #20 // Extended ToB Item Descriptions
~SETUP-UB.TP2~ #0 #21 // Throne of Bhaal Minor Restorations
~SETUP-UB.TP2~ #0 #22 // Justifier Kit
~SETUP-UB.TP2~ #0 #23 // Feralan Kit
~SETUP-UB.TP2~ #0 #24 // Sarevok's Remorse
~SETUP-IMPASYLUM.TP2~ #0 #0 // Improved Asylum Mod for BG2:ToB
~SETUP-IMPASYLUM.TP2~ #0 #1 // Spellhold Lich
~SETUP-EXNEM.TP2~ #0 #0 // Exnem Vault v5, Install Items
~SETUP-EXNEM.TP2~ #0 #1 // Add items to creatures
~SETUP-EXNEM.TP2~ #0 #2 // Add items to areas (affects SOA areas only - not BGT, TDD, CtB, etc. areas)

Edited by Miraz, 30 July 2006 - 04:23 AM.

[pro5]

I'm curious what's your PC configuraton? RAM,Video RAM, and especially proc frequency.

[Miraz]

2.8ghz Pentium 4 with 1.24gb of RAM and a 256mb Geforce card.

As for proc frequency, how do I check for it? Never heard of it before, sorry.

[radish_hoedown]

2.8ghz Pentium 4 with 1.24gb of RAM and a 256mb Geforce card.

As for proc frequency, how do I check for it? Never heard of it before, sorry.

you mean 1.00gb.. 1024mb? I'm so pedantic. ^^

anyway, your rig is PLENTY good enough for BG2 as i would imagine you already know.. so that's not the problem...

[pro5]

2.8ghz Pentium 4

This is what I meant by frequency.

Yes, your PC should be able to handle even heavily modded game, so it gotta be a broken scirpt or something. I remember there was a script error in TDD v1.05 (don't know if it's fixed now) which caused a severe stutter in some sewers area. Try to play a while longer and finish some quests you're currently on. If this is a broken script, problem should disappear after you finish corresponding quest.

[Miraz]

Oh, PROCESSOR frequency.

Well, my concerns about the romances seem to be unfounded. I just tried accelerating them all from the point of a savegame without the stutter ... stutter doesn't emerge. I thought that was me just being paranoid.

I don't understand it, this is the exact same problem I ran into when I was playing through BG1 in BGT.

[EDIT] Another thought ... I might just be imagining it, but everything seemed fine up until around the point that damn messenger invited me to Farrahd's place for a reception, and then things started to go downhill from there ... that was around the time I started the Bard Stronghold quest which killed the game, too (I can't get that quest to work, by the way ... whenever I go to the estate, no matter what time, there's never anyone there except one guy who tells me I'm too early.) I apologise if it seems like I'm clutching at straws in this thread; I really know nothing about what causes these things, so I'm just throwing stuff out there.

Edited by Miraz, 30 July 2006 - 06:26 AM.

[Himself]

Can someone confirm being a 100% sure that these stutters are caused by .bcs ?

If nobody knows for sure, maybe theres a way to find out.. I dont know HOW to do that, and I dont know if its even possible, but probably some people around this forum like seanas should know:

I think the saved games dont store .bcs files, after you encountered the stutter, you could try removing every bcs out of the chitin key, or even better, "empty" the contents of all bcs and leave them empty on the override folder, having weidu do that for you, of course you should back up your current install, cause that would be just for testing.

Anyway, just to be sure that these stutters are caused by bcs, if they are, we would just need to find what bcs are causing this. I dunno if weidu can be set to "mess" only specific files that start with a certain letter, if it could then one could set weidu to empty all bcs that start with letter a, then b, c, d, even 0 (zero) and 1,2,3 for most area scripts, until you can be at least closer to what script is causing this.

If you have these "empty" bcs scripts on your override folder then, just start deleting them little by little (then the game will take the "full" version of the same .bcs from whatever biff they belong isntead of getting the empty version on override) and keep checking inside the game for stutter, until you find what bcs is really the initial point of the stutter.

But then, I'm completely ignorant about weidu, I dont know if that can be done, or the level of difficult/work involded.

Edit: Damn my English is bad

Edited by Himself, 30 July 2006 - 08:43 AM.

[Miraz]

You must know more than I do, because I didn't understand a word you just said .

.bcs seems to be the only plausible cause at this point. I just don't know anything about editing them. Yet.

[Himself]

Well.. the simple version..

First of all, remove every .bcs inside you override folder, and check to see if the stutter is still present. If the stutter is gone, start adding the .bcs to you override folder until you notice exactly what .bcs is causing major stutter.

[radish_hoedown]

whoa.. when did we decide that bcs files wiere doing it? can i have a link to the thread in which this was discovered...? and also, surely a bcs is only loaded in the area that it refers to? so then theorectically the stutter should only happen in a few areas..?

[Himself]

Did anyone confirm since the last hour when I first posted, that bcs are to blame? If not we're just being hypothetical, and not rude so far, but that can change soon

Anyway, make sure you put all bcs back to your override, with or without stutter.

Edited by Himself, 30 July 2006 - 09:32 AM.

[radish_hoedown]

i'm sorry, this thread is really confusing now. must learn to engage mouth after brain.

[seanas]

firstly: whenever a romance or an NPC causes a stutter bug, you can tell as the effected NPC only will stutter (and perhaps CHARNAME, but not always) - if the game itself is treacle-slow, then it can't be the NPC romance.

secondly: the hardware seems fine - my 660MHz, 192MB RAM laptop can run a very similar setup without any stutter (altho it does always help to reduce the graphics and sound settings to a minimum and see if there's an improvement, and then gradually increase the settings as you test. but again: my old laptop has all settings on 'average' with no problems).

so, other possibilities are: overfull override folder (but if the override folder is <1GB, this won't be the cause of the problem); overstuffed bags of holding (but seriously, we're talking 1000+ arrows or bullets, not 'usual' carrying behaviour).

failing that, we're left, at the moment, with only two choices - it's either a script problem (so Himself's suggestion is a good one - my suspicion is always on baldur.bcs, to be honest) or it's a multiplayer problem. i've got no evidence for the second other than recent game lag reports, but it does seem as if multiplayer BP can cause serious lag (altho Horred's multiplayer LAN game never experienced this). so if yr not multiplayer, we're looking at some scripting problem.

one more thing: i dont recognise anything in the below quote.

Another thought ... I might just be imagining it, but everything seemed fine up until around the point that damn messenger invited me to Farrahd's place for a reception, and then things started to go downhill from there ... that was around the time I started the Bard Stronghold quest which killed the game, too (I can't get that quest to work, by the way ... whenever I go to the estate, no matter what time, there's never anyone there except one guy who tells me I'm too early.

Farrahd? who is this? and the Bard quest - that's when you go to the basement of the Five Flagons. when are you told that no-one is there? i might add tho: the bard stronghold is controlled by baldur.bcs - so this suggests to me that the origin of the problem is to be found in baldur.bcs. the real question is why yr having problems that i'm not having on a very similar setup. what language are you playing in? what other information can you provide that might indicate what's going on: which version of BG2? the new one, or the old four+1 disk SOA+TOB version? anything else about yr setup process that might be noteworthy?

Edited by seanas, 30 July 2006 - 10:13 AM.

[Himself]

radish_hoedown

arent these forums just lovely, on most other forums, just that little sentence is enough to earn people a knife combat by the navy rules (the first one to die loses).

[Himself]

just as the man said B)

Anyway, I'll attach a fake baldur.bcs to this message (look at the end)

1 - if your override folder has a baldur.bcs , backup the file

2 - rename this one here from baldur.txt to baldur.bcs and place it in your override folder.

3 - check the game to see the degree of stutter, whatever the result, insert your backup baldur.bcs back to the override folder and on top of this one after you're done

4 - if your override folder did not had a baldur.bcs to start with, just delete this one from the override folder after you're done.

Attached Files

•  BALDUR.TXT   209bytes   413 downloads

[Miraz]

Sorry, I was unclear ... I can complete the Bard Stronghold quest fine, it's the Farrahd quest I can't complete. Which, um, it seems nobody else has heard of heh. A messenger comes up to me in the streets and gives me an invitation by Saerk Farrahd to attend a banquet in honour of his daughter's wedding in two days time. If this isn't part of BP and nobody recognises it, I suspect it's part of the Amber NPC, so that's something to be taken up with them (at least, I will when the G3 forums come back up, they've been off for days).

I'll try the proposed bcs fiddling and report back.

[Miraz]

Bingo. The fake baldur.bcs file that Himself posted pretty much completely clears up the stutter.

So the next step would be to start backing up and deleting the bcs files in my override folder until I narrow down which one is causing the stutter?

[GeN1e]

Heh... Do you know that some .bcs doesn't present in override folder? Some of them should be extracted from biff first.

[Himself]

If that one clears your stutter, then the stutter is probably on your baldur.bcs

baldur.bcs has the longest sequences of checks in the game, and it runs practically all the time, alot of mods, even some small ones, add checks to it.



I do not have enough knowledge to advice you into making your baldur.bcs more "clean", and to tell the truth, this is something that only people with amazing knowledge of the game, all the mods, and the triggers contained on baldur.bcs could do.

If you know exactly what part of the game causes the stutter, maybe someone could look into your baldur.bcs file to see if there is something there that should be removed, but even that is something hard to find, given the amount of checks that are in there, again thats beyond little me

And as genie says, most of the "thousands" of scripts that the game uses are not in the override but inside the data folder and cds 2/3/4/5 biffs, though the ones inside these biffs are less likely to contain bad checks (IE: they have been "messed around" less than the ones inside the override)

Edited by Himself, 30 July 2006 - 11:34 AM.

[Miraz]

I do not have enough knowledge to advice you into making your baldur.bcs more "clean", and to tell the truth, this is something that only people with amazing knowledge of the game, all the mods, and the triggers contained on baldur.bcs could do.

*checks* ... that's not me.

Looks like I'm stuck then. I am curious why I'm the only one getting this problem though. I don't have anything out of the ordinary installed.