121 replies to this topic

[Miloch]

No, I just know that i had the problem in this area and ar8800 (cloackwood2). How would I go about pinpointing the problematic sound?

Well, you'd have to go through every ambient in the area file to see if they exist, with NI or DLTCEP. Like I said, we have code that does this... I don't think it picked up anything on those areas but I'll check. It could be possible that the issues are not caused by non-existing ambients, but by existing ones that loop or cause too much lag or something.

[OneEyedPhoenix]

Well, you'd have to go through every ambient in the area file to see if they exist, with NI or DLTCEP. Like I said, we have code that does this... I don't think it picked up anything on those areas but I'll check. It could be possible that the issues are not caused by non-existing ambients, but by existing ones that loop or cause too much lag or something.

I'll have a look and see what I can find.

[OneEyedPhoenix]

Hm, can't see that any ambients are missing after all so there must be some other problem with them.
Any suggestions on how I would go about diagnosing this Miloch?

Edited by OneEyedPhoenix, 02 October 2009 - 01:56 AM.

[Miloch]

Hm, can't see that any ambients are missing after all so there must be some other problem with them. Any suggestions on how I would go about diagnosing this Miloch?

To be honest, I can't think of anything. But at least it seems to confirm that it's not a problem with "missing" ambients, but rather the ambients themselves. Maybe an audio guru can check them out. Maybe Ascension64 might be able to think of something, I dunno.

[OneEyedPhoenix]

To be honest, I can't think of anything. But at least it seems to confirm that it's not a problem with "missing" ambients, but rather the ambients themselves. Maybe an audio guru can check them out. Maybe Ascension64 might be able to think of something, I dunno.

Ascension64 seems a bit preoccupied with "hard times" at the moment.

[Miloch]

If you have acm2wav.exe in your game folder, can you play all the ambients from NI? Are any of them messed up? Maybe it's the bitrate or something... you'd have to export them to .wav and look at them in Audacity or something to see that I think. They should all be 22khz 16-bit mono.

I did notice in that area a whole bunch of scripting from BGSpawn that doesn't appear in any other area, but apparently your problem is ambient related, if you turned them off and that fixed the lag.

It could be there's no real problem. Even the game readme says turning off audio may result in better performance.

[OneEyedPhoenix]

If you have acm2wav.exe in your game folder, can you play all the ambients from NI? Are any of them messed up? Maybe it's the bitrate or something... you'd have to export them to .wav and look at them in Audacity or something to see that I think. They should all be 22khz 16-bit mono.

Yeah, I could play all ambients assigned to ar6600.are with NI. None of them sounded conspicuous.
My problem was definitely solved by disabling ambient sounds. The difference was like night and day, so it does seem like a more severe problem than a general performance issue.

Edited by OneEyedPhoenix, 02 October 2009 - 01:30 PM.

[Jarno Mikkola]

Yeah, I could play all ambients assigned to ar6600.are with NI. None of them sounded conspicuous.

Including the rain, thunder etc. sounds?

[OneEyedPhoenix]

Including the rain, thunder etc. sounds?

Haven't tested those only the area specific ones (AMB_E10A * 10, AMB_E21 * 3, AMB_E05E and AMB_E05H). Didn't think the weather could be the problem as I have explored almost all other areas on the map without problem so far. By now I am also unable to reactivate ambients so i am unable to test further in-game.

[OneEyedPhoenix]

Made a little headway with the tob-import trick I hope.

[OneEyedPhoenix]

25. Invisible stalkers (stalke.cre) doesn't give the party any xp when killed. Changelog reveals this to either be a BG1UB or Spell Revisions bug.

Anybody seen this before?

Maybe spell revisions does this in order to prevent exploitation of the "invisible stalker" spell?

Edit: This is spell revisions all the way. Link

Edited by OneEyedPhoenix, 14 October 2009 - 05:20 AM.

[Lollorian]

Until SRv3 got out, the v2 had a bug with Invisible Stalkers being always allied to the player. I dunno if this is related but at that time, going hostile to the (friendly) Stalkers also didn't yield XP

Cheers,
Lol

[OneEyedPhoenix]

Until SRv3 got out, the v2 had a bug with Invisible Stalkers being always allied to the player. I dunno if this is related but at that time, going hostile to the (friendly) Stalkers also didn't yield XP

I am aware of this though I haven't had this problem (because BVP gets installed after SR I guess).
Since you are so good at sniffing out hotfixes I guess you already know about this one.

This hotfix confirmed to me that it was indeed Spell Revisions that removed the xp from the stalkers.

[10th]

@OneEyedPhoenix
Actually it's caused by BG2Fixpack that you don't get any XP for killing Invisible Stalkers. From line 27350 onwards, fixpack fixes a plethora of faulty creature files. Unfortunately stalke.cre is included in those fixes.

The hotfix you're referring to, only corrects a bug in Spell Revisions. This bug made every Invisible Stalker you encountered an ally, because its creature file was also used by the corresponding spell. The XP Value is still zero.

10th

Edited by 10th, 14 October 2009 - 08:01 AM.

[Lollorian]

Since you are so good at sniffing out hotfixes I guess you already know about this one.

LOL That's the second post in the thread I linked

Anyway, it could also be that SR isn't the culprit here ... but as always, I'm wrong . The BWP Install.bat hasn't been updated for SRv3 and looking at the current install.bat, the line:

%IFS%spell_rev.exe copy /Y ".\BiG World Fixpack\_Hotfixes\spell_rev\InvStalker\*.*" ".\override"

copies the hotfix irrespective of whether SRv3 fixes the bug or not

(it should really be removed if you're gonna use the SRv3 hotfixes ... now that they're updated and all)

But, lookin at the files, STALKE.CRE seems to be supposed to be the non-summoned Stalker, so setting its XP Value to whatever you wish might help The summoned stalker is DVSTALK.CRE ... so that should be left as 0

Cheers,
Lol

Edited by Lollorian, 15 October 2009 - 05:44 AM.

[OneEyedPhoenix]

Actually it's caused by BG2Fixpack that you don't get any XP for killing Invisible Stalkers. From line 27350 onwards, fixpack fixes a plethora of faulty creature files. Unfortunately stalke.cre is included in those fixes.

Demivrgvs seems to disagree with you...
Looks like both BG2Fix and SR does the same thing... (Are you the OP of this thread?)

Anyway, as SR changes the Summon spell Demivrgvs said he would fix it in SR3.0.

But, lookin at the files, STALKE.CRE seems to be supposed to be the non-summoned Stalker, so setting its XP Value to whatever you wish might help biggrin.gif The summoned stalker is DVSTALK.CRE ... so that should be left as 0

Way ahead of you. (You use an awful lot of smileys btw)

Edited by OneEyedPhoenix, 14 October 2009 - 11:55 AM.

[Wisp]

stalke.cre is used both by the Invisible Stalker spell and as the Invisible Stalkers created by Draconis when you fight him.
If I'm not mistaken, that's the best argument you can make for having stalke.cre removed from Fixpack's list of creatures that should have their XP zeroed. If it wasn't used by Draconis, you'd probably hear that it was e.g. BGT's problem if they used the creature in other contexts than the summoning spell and that it was no grounds for making the fix exclude the cre file.

[10th]

Demivrgvs seems to disagree with you...
Looks like both BG2Fix and SR does the same thing... (Are you the OP of this thread?)

Yes, that's me over there. Concerning SR, Demivrgvs probably had a base install with fixpack and automatically zeroed XP Value for SR's version of Invisible Stalker.

And in a normal BG2 environment Fixpack actually corrects an error, as there are no Invisible Stalkers in the whole game apart from summoned monsters (and Draconis's Invisible Stalkers). Unfortunately BGT came along, and the design oversight of BioWare coupled with a well-intentioned fix and a mod, which made use of Invisible Stalkers created a problem.

10th

Edited by 10th, 14 October 2009 - 01:36 PM.

[OneEyedPhoenix]

Concerning SR, Demivrgvs probably had a base install with fixpack and automatically zeroed XP Value for SR's version of Invisible Stalker.

He said he had altered it to prevent exploitation. The .cre that ships with SR2.9 has a xp value of 0 as well.

And in a normal BG2 environment Fixpack actually corrects an error, as there are no Invisible Stalkers in the whole game apart from summoned monsters (and Draconis's Invisible Stalkers). Unfortunately BGT came along, and the design oversight of BioWare coupled with a well-intentioned fix and a mod, which made use of Invisible Stalkers created a problem.

True I guess, but if SR changes the spell to use another .cre (without xp value) then problem solved. (For those using SR at least)
Wouldn't it make more sense for the fixpack to alter the spell that way too (instead of removing the xp)...?

Edited by OneEyedPhoenix, 14 October 2009 - 01:59 PM.

[Lollorian]

Anyway, good thing it's fixed now (for SR users atleast )

Way ahead of you. (You use an awful lot of smileys btw)

And you notice now?? (me liekz yellow circuls )

Cheers,
Lol