Quite a few of the latest new buyers are either non- gaming people, or strictly console players. This will be a second iteration of an informational article of this nature; the first was spoiled. This is not an invitation to argue about anything -- that is not the intent, and anyone attempting to create discord will be immediately reported as off topic, subject to erasure. This is not a correct place to complain about tech problems, please do that in your own new posts. If you have helpful suggestions pertaining to tracing down problems, that's the kind of comment solicited for addition here.
Dragon Age has had its share of bugs and running problems, and yet sizable numbers of the game have been sold (over a million copies, it seems), of which the majority are actually working just fine. Nevertheless, there are a great many complaints that range across the spectrum of possibilities. I'm not claiming to have the magic skill to answer all of the many complaints, only to make it easier for some others of the folks in here to offer their suggestions.
Since I will probably reference this to readers of the Mass Effect forums, let's be very clear that the same principles are going to apply, no matter whether we discuss a Tech problem with ME-1, ME-2, DAO, or DA2.
Very few of the gamers making the complaints about Dragon Age or Mass Effect are approaching this with any systematic plan of action to deal with their problems. Once upon a time, a few experienced gamers making regular visits to the NWN2 forums, and prior to those, to the NWN / KotOR forums, had some excellent experience and understanding of everything found in the DxDiag Reports, and those were occasionally used, but almost all of those old timers are now gone, it seems. I never ask for those reports, myself.
Right from the top, everyone needs to understand that neither Bioware nor EA makes any particular effort to hire their own "Hardware Geeks", and both are blissfully unconcerned about publishing practical, truthful, and useful system requirements for games. Mass Effect is a really bad example of this, as there is only one Geforce 6n00 graphics card "series" able to handle the game, the 6800s, and two out of six of those are worthless (6800 SE, 6800 XT). The Radeon X1300 "XT" was a very late name change in the X1n00 generation, of which few were sold in that name compared to the original naming, when it was the X1600 Pro.
The rest of the X1300s are perhaps half as good as the X1600s, for the very best of them.
This is my substituted, PRACTICAL verson of the (ME-1) video cards involved.
Video Card:
NVIDIA GeForce 6 series (6800GT or better: 205, 210, 310, 410, 7100, 7200, 7300, 7400, 7500, 7600 GS, 8200, 8300, 8400 GS, 8500, 9100, 9200, & 9300 are below minimum system requirements)
ATI Radeon X1800 GTO or better (X1300, X1300 Pro, *X1550*, HD 2400, HD 3100, HD 3200, HD 3450, HD 3470, HD 4200, HD 4250, HD 4350, HD 4550, and (probably) HD 5450 are below minimum system requirements)
So, the very first thing any game player needs to do is ignore the official game warning label on the box, and stick with Mainline Gaming cards, whose names have either a "600" / "650" / "670" in them, or for recent Geforces, a "40" or "50". Higher is better, when you have the needed power supply and added spare cash to go that far (the stock, original equipment power supply isn't good enough for higher numbered, current-sucking High End parts).
You need to be at the Administration level for the Vista & Windows 7 pair, and then you can run the game install. Here is a corrected DA2 requirements list
What are the Dragon Age system requirements?
Windows XP Minimum Specifications
OS: Windows XP with SP3
CPU: Intel Core 2 Single (or equivalent) running at 1.6Ghz or greater
AMD 64 (or equivalent) running at 2.0Ghz or greater
RAM: 1 GB or more
DVD ROM (Physical copy)
20 GB HD space
Video: ATI Radeon X850 256MB or greater (this is clearly wrong)
NVIDIA GeForce "6600 GT" 128MB or greater (and this one is more wrong)
(Note: IMO, the practical choices for the two video cards above should be the Radeon X800 Pro, and the Geforce 6800 GS, at least, for small textures - it will take a Radeon X1650 XT (or X1800 GTO, same thing, almost) for medium or better textures)
If you don't understand those requirements, particularly the confusing Geforce graphics naming, fill in an information query blank like this for your system to discuss it with the current hardware forum residents.
Retail or Digital: Retail CD / Retail DVD / Direct (Vendor name)
Processor Manufacturer: AMD / Intel
Processor Type: Athlon 64 / X2 / Phenom, or Intel Core / count of cores
Processor Speed: * ?.? *Ghz (or AMD Performance Number)
Operating System / Service Pack: WindowsXP with SP # ?
System RAM:* ? ? *GBs (or MBs, if less than 1024)
Video (GPU) Manufacturer: ATI / Nvidia (only those are supported)
Video Card Model: (examples) Radeon x1950 Pro / Geforce 7800 GTX
Video Card onboard RAM: *???* MBs
Video Card Driver Version: Catalyst ?.? / Nforce ??.?? (use numbers, not
the word latest)
Power Supply Make, Model, and 12 volt amperage
Sound Card Manufacturer:
Sound Card Model:
Sound Card Driver Version: ?.?? (again, numbers please)
Problem Description: Explain your problem here
(To be expanded below)
_________________
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Various of the PC components require a piece of software called a "Driver" that makes the connection between Windows and the hardware devices, such as Audio Processors, Network Interface Cards, and especially Video Graphics cards. For a fairly new computer, the newest drivers are usually best, and you need to explore the 'Net to collect those, and then install them in the PC. Older machines that are still capable of running the games sometimes need an "in between" driver, newer than when the PC was brand new, while not actually the very newest available. You need to seek game-aware geeks' advice in this regard about an older high performance PC.
After the install has been completed, run the first test of the game with the AV still off, no 'Net connection, no bevy of background processes running, and see what happens. If the test ran nicely, but the next day you find the second run does not, it's the background processes you'll want to work on. The games we are dealing with here in the Social Forums Community are more demanding of resources than many other games are. Such things as IM / PM processes cause tons of problems (Xfire is a frequent cause of difficulty). Several popular AV programs have pro- active procedures that cause games to stutter, stop, and generally misbehave.
Microsoft has several pages' worth of advice on their web sites about how to use the "Clean Boot" startup to deal with gaming trouble (different pages for each of their OSes):
http://support.micro...kb;EN-US;331796
Just since Dragon Age was brand new, the popularity of various "Social" internet sites has exploded, and many game players think nothing of having Browser windows/ Tabs for Facebook, MySpace, & Twitter all active in the background at the same time, all of the time. None of the several games that Bioware has used the UT3 engine, or their own, to design, were intended to run in competition with sites such as those. Those are only the tip of a truly huge iceberg of luxuries that gadget-happy people are loading in their PCs every time they start up.
I constantly see that game players have over 2 GBs of programs and services loaded, running in the background, which is twice as much as should be there.
Proper use of the Clean Boot procedures can identify the programs and services that are conflicting with the game. Black Viper's web site can assist regarding Windows' own excesses.
Before starting still another message thread about the same old problem, please check the FAQs on the official support pages, and run searches in here to see about any work-arounds that other gamers are suggesting, while we wait on permanent fixes, if your problem is with the game, rather than a background process. Use the site redirection criteria] in Google or Yahoo, pointed back to here, rather than the very bad in-house search.
(If for any reason you want to try using my thread as your springboard to flames or any other debate society initiation, please forget it. I will just lock the thread and start it over to get rid of your "contribution"). The only focus is on logical trouble shooting technique.
To describe your problem, I'm going to quote a friend and Community Director from here, Chris Priestly, and his description
Problem Details
a. When it comes to problem details, think about the five basic questions: Who? What? When? Where? Why? Okay, so “Who?” doesn't really apply here, but the others do.
b. What? What is the nature of the problem that you're seeing?
c. When? When does the problem occur? Every time you engage in a particular action or only after so many hours of play?
d. Where? Where does the problem occur? Is the problem localized to a particular planet or does it occur everywhere?
e. Why? As much as possible, can you isolate the problem to a specific set of steps?
If you follow these guidelines, and provide the requested information when posting, it will increase the likelihood that someone will be able to help you diagnose the problem and find a solution.
Please report issues, after checking these steps, in new threads of your own.
P. S. Please use every day business style paragraph breaks, punctuation, and spelling.
The section on the Pagefile size was copied into a separate reference article / message on Jnuary 25th.
If today was still similar to the situation when DAO launched, I think that a sticked article like this one would have helped a lot of people then. I am anticipating that DA2 will be a less palatable game to the long-time Bioware / Black Isle fans, and the audience may be diluted by many newer people, whose overall attitudes differ immensely from those of more traditional CRPG players.
Stickies seem (IMO) to be a waste of forum space where most of that crowd is concerned. Be that as it may, when there is a PC Tech forum opened for DA2, a copy of the original post above will be created there, and anyone who agrees then that it is suitable for such use then and there, do send your PMs to your favorite moderator and say so.
Good Luck,
Gorath
(If you want to know who I am, read this: http://social.biowar...25883/8#5783066 )
Modifié par Gorath Alpha, 30 avril 2011 - 05:13 .
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