Larian Studios Forums Beyond Divinity (English) Technical Problems Inventory graphic placement bug

With my installation on Vista, the files are located in the directory with the game program itself. However, I installed it in a different location (instead of 'Program Files', I use C:\Games\Larian...). I think the problem here (as far as the file locations are concerned) is that Vista virtualizes the 'Program Files' folder so that each user effectively has their own version of programs when they modify things. I believe the VirtualStore directories are where these user-specific changes are stored since they aren't technically allowed to modify the 'Program Files' folder.

On another note: I emailed a test savegame that is currently having problems.
-xalif

Ahh...That makes sense. Thanks for the clarification.

The problem items retain their incorrect properties in my game, so it is not just a display issue with Vista. I tried copying a set of inventory files from one of my saves at the arena to both of your saves, and there were no problems (other than the normal item corruption that can happen transferring inventory files between saves, where the description can change, but the item still goes in the same slot) with the equipment I had. Copying your inventory files into my save, the problem items were still a problem.


How often are you finding these corrupt items?
Does it seem to matter if you are in the main game or battle fields? How about found or dropped items vs purchased?
Have you had items work fine for awhile and then become corrupt, or do they go into the wrong slot as soon as you get the item?


I tried buying a few more things in your saves and didn't have any problems, but that may be due to luck with the small selection of equipment I could afford. Later tonight or tomorrow I'll get rid of the problem items and see if I can acquire enough new equipment to determine if I run into the same issue, or not.
If the problem is how the game generates new items in Vista, then I shouldn't encounter any new items being equipped to the wrong slot; if the corruption can happen when equipping or moving and item around, then I may (but probably won't) encounter it; if there is something wrong in the inventory file structure, rather than just specific data entries for certain items, then I should probably see this as well.

If I remember correctly, it seemed as if most of the new items I was finding were corrupt. I could be wrong since I really haven't had a chance to play in the past 2 weeks. I hope to get some time in this weekend and come up with some more answers for you. I do know that I didn't purchase any of those items so they were all dropped. The items did go into the wrong slot from the moment I tried to equip them.

I'll let you know some more specifics as I find them. I'm starting a new game now and will keep track of when things start to go wrong.

Sorry it took so long...real life has a tendency to hijack you. Anyway, I started a new game and noticed the first "bad" item was in the first dungeon, dropped by one of the 3 arena guards right before the arena with the 2 spiders. It was a sash. I then picked up some leather armor (in the arena) and it was ok, but the leather leggings found in the chest with the battlefield key was bad.

Hopefully, this helps out some...it isn't a battlefield thing, and it does seem that some "placed" items and "random" items are affected.

[color:"orange"]Sorry it took so long...real life has a tendency to hijack you.[/color]

That's ok, I have not had any time to play myself (if not tomorrow, hopefully tuesday).


[color:"orange"]Hopefully, this helps out some[/color]

It does. For the quick tests I did before I just exited and entered the BF to have the merchants generate new equipment, and bought a random selection. Unless you report buying corrupt items as well, though, I should concentrate on dropped and found equipment.
If I continue with your save for at least a couple hours and don't find any corrupt equipment, then the problem is probably with the item generation in Vista. If I find such items the problem may be with the item index file in the save folder.



In the category of randomly trying things to see if they will help...

While the problem is most likely related to Vista (compatibility or immature drivers), it could (in theory) be hardware related (Vista systems being newer and more likely to have multi-core CPUs, etc). Programs written and tested on single core CPUs which work fine can have bugs when run on multi-core CPUs, though I don't know if anyone is playing BD on an XP multi-core CPU system, so I have no information to support or disprove this wild speculation.

A few people had sound problems with Divine Divinity on multi-core systems which in a couple cases could be fixed by setting the game to run on a single core. It can't hurt to try this for BD.

see; Sound errors with static - maybe fix found!

[color:"orange"] Vista systems being newer and more likely to have multi-core CPUs [/color]

I do have a multi-core athlon system. I'll try setting it to a single core to see if that fixes any future item corruption. Did you want me to send you my current save file? It is right before the arena and the 1st battlefield.

You can email me the current save if you wish. It probably will not behave any differently than the previous one, but comparing results starting from the same save would be (slightly) better.

Actually, do you have a save just before encountering (or hitting the alt key nearby) the 3 arena guards? If you reload that save, do you get another corrupt item there? The equipment generation problem is probably random, but could be related to the NPC or location (don't bother checking if your previous save is more than a few minutes before that). If you moved or moused over the chest with the BF key the contents would be set, so that corrupt item would be there in any saves since that point.

To bypass any problems that might arise from vista's cpu handling for dual core cpu's....

Start the game.... then alt-tab out of it.... Right click on the startbar and select task manager.... go to the processes tab... find in the list. div.exe

right click on div.exe and and select "set afinity".... then make sure that only 1 cpu is selected (not both).

click ok...

click on the game. EXIT immediately. Playing now, will probably cause your machine to behave insane....

Start the game again (now it will use its new 1-cpu setting) and see if it the game still generates bugged items.

If setting Beyond Divinity to run on a single CPU was going to have any effect (I assume it didn't help), a new game would have to be started. The problem is either in the save files from the start of the game, or gets written in at some point later (ie with the first generated corrupt item).

With Ruskicowboy's save (before the arena guards) I did not get any corrupt items (other than the one already generated in the BF key chest) from the guards, ghosts or the spiders.
After jumping down the pit, I cleared the half dozen rooms to the north and west, and at some point the DK picked up some 'shoes darkbrown' which went into a ring slot. I didn't get much equipment in any of the chests, so I'm pretty sure they were dropped by one of the skeletons. I bought a few things after that from the imp in the kitchen, but none were corrupt.

I was going to play a bit more with this save, and do some other stuff, but have not had time.


BTW Lady Rain, I know you've mentioned more than enough RL stuff to keep yourself busy, but have you played BD at all under Vista?

I have played BD under vista....

And i am playing it again now.... OK so i am cheating it profusely....

After numerous hours of studying, and crisis servers at work, the only thing that seems to unwind me (so i dont DREAM of work / studies) is to go monster slaying for a while.... So i run around the dungeons in near-god-mode and just bash a few moving targets to a pulp...

So far i havnt run into a single problem yet.... and i am running dual core(no cpu afinity is set , though i did alocate a seperate memory block for BD, since it makes one of my VPN programs go insane - so i just changed the memory block to a different block on both the programs - not sure if it was BD causing, or the VPN causing the issue they just always happened together). I have a 64 bit machine with vista and BD on, but i havnt played on that one yet, so my experience at the moment is solely based on 32 bit dual core.

I have a meeting with one of the Microsoft engineers on thursday for one of our servers.... .so i will at the same time ask him what can be the possible causes of this.

I started a new game, using only a single CPU. I didn't get out of the first area (with the cells) before I found my first corrupt item. It was a round shield that thought it was some boots. I found it in the rack in the cell with the mad man who thought we were demons and would eventually run out of the cell only to be killed...If anything, the single CPU made the corruption appear faster.

Sigh. Looks like I am going to have to play this on my laptop with XP.

Has anything worked so far in preventing this bug from occuring? Or are there any updates concerning it? I'm on vista with an intel quad core machine and so far I find non-glitched items about as often as I find charms (for glitched items this includes all shop keepers) (for the charm comparison this discludes those aquired from shops). The exception for items that are never glitched are weapons and specific quest items (such as the unique lucky hat the skull gives you for killing the torture guy near the beginning) and possibly arrows.

It wouldn't bother me if the fix was a program that just edited the save games to make glitched items properly classified. Although the program might have to unequip the items for us as some such as glitched rings and amulets tend to vanish entirly and I can't switch it with another glitched amulet or ring but instead end up equipping more than the logical max (although more are equipped, I don't get the benefits so it's not even a benefical bug). I've only had success in unequipping such items by selling them from the trade screen.

Meh...

I don't know if anything else has been tried since the previous posts in this topic (there is not much else I can do without access to Vista). You could try emailing Larian (suport@larian.com).


Xanlosch wrote a guide about getting the BD demo working under Linux (see here). With the latest English patch removing the copy protection, this may also work with the full game. If you are familiar with Linux, you could give it a try (AFAIK nobody with an English version of BD has tested this).

Is it possibly to create a program that scans the save game files for corrupted items and fixes them or just simply resets all the classifications for all the items that could possibly be glitched?

I am not familiar with the format of equipment data, but I would think it should be possible to make such a program. It would need to be used periodically, since this probably wouldn't prevent new corrupt items from being generated.

A patch would be a better solution, though, assuming Larian looks at this problem, is able to reproduce it, and identifies the cause, and it is an issue within their control that wouldn't take an unreasonable amount of resources to fix.


I still have the saves started on Vista systems with corrupt items. Maybe I'll take a look at a specific item and see if its slot value can be reset....

I recently put <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/beyond.gif" alt="" /> on vista I had the same problem with the currupted items.
I got one of my saved games from my old computer and the equipment I already had worked fine but new ones were all currupted. So I reinstalled the game, no luck. So i was looking at the FAQS on the <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/beyond.gif" alt="" /> website and saw the game runs on windows 98 ane ME so i decided to change the compatibility mode to Windows 98/ME. Than i went to the battlefield to check if it worked. It did, the new items went where they were supposed to go. I put the compatibility mode back to XP, i got more new corrupted items, so I switched it back to 98/ME and got no corrupted items from the battlefield. I hope this fixes the problem for everybody else.

Thanks for that info. Hopefully it will help others as well.


Welcome to the forum. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wave.gif" alt="" />

Just thought I'd drop in and see if there was any progress after putting the game away for a few months <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

The Windows 98/ME compatibility mode seems to do the trick! I haven't had any problems since I ran it this way (no corrupt items)

Thanks for the tip.

[color:"orange"]The Windows 98/ME compatibility mode seems to do the trick![/color]

Good to know it helps on different systems.

When you tried different compatibility modes before, did you miss 98/ME? If not, maybe the game had already generated some corrupt items before then, which you did not find until after switching modes.
If you started a new game this time after trying the 98/ME compatibility mode, that may have made a difference. It's been almost 4 months, so Windows or driver updates may have helped, also.