50 réponses à ce sujet

[Draconus Kahn]

I have this quote posted in another post, but since I believe this more than warrants its own post, here it is again.

There is no 64bit support, and here is a direct quote from a Bioware tech support agent in response to problems I have been having with crashes and keyboard interface issues (all in the quote):

"Thank you again for contacting Tier 2 Customer Support.

I apologize for the inconvenience caused to you so far.

I have gone through the e-mail and found that you are facing problem with the crashing of the game "Dragon Age II". I am sorry to hear that you came across such an incident.

Unfortunately the game is not tested on Windows 7 or 64 bit environment. There is a work around that you can try but still there is no guarantee about it. You can try to run the game as administrator, to run the game as administrator:

1. Right-click on the shortcut icon of the game on your desktop.
2. Choose the option "Run as Administrator".
3. Choose to allow the game.

If the game still not runs properly, Please try to play it in Compatibility mode. Please visit the following link for the steps to play the game in compatibility mode:
http://www.sevenforu...ility-mode.html

I truly appreciate your understanding regarding the issue.

We look forward for your reply.

Regards,

EA Rep Andrew
Tier 2 Customer Support
Customer via via CSS Web 03/08/2011 03:41 PM
My game hangs, crashes, and then restarts after minutes of gameplay when I am at very high settings and 720p with MSAAx4. I have also had a bluescreen crash because of this issue. I have the latest drivers from my manufacturer (Alienware) as well. If I set the game to high settings, then the game plays fine.

Another issue I am having is my keyboard movement in game. It runs very choppy with a rubberbanding effect on frame rates whenever I use it to turn the camera and move my character. If I use my mouse for movement and camera, I have no issues with frame rate, but as soon as I need to take control with my keyboard, it's a mess."


Here are my specs:

Alienware Aurora
i7 920 @ 3.6ghz OC'ed (turbo on)
Radeon HD 5970 (2gb VRAM--dual gpu)
6gb RAM
Realtek HD audio (onboard. up to date drivers)
Windows 7 64bit

Get a patch out to us ASAP BioWare; This is rediculous.

Modifié par Draconus Kahn, 11 mars 2011 - 02:11 .

[Draconus Kahn]

You should also note that playing this game in compatibility mode does nothing to resolve this issue.

And the keyboard problem happens on any setting.

Modifié par Draconus Kahn, 11 mars 2011 - 02:09 .

[mosanger]

Unfortunately the game is not tested on Windows 7 or 64 bit environment.

Seriously?! With nearly 40 % market share (http://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey)? How could you NOT test DA2 with that Operating System.
I'm slowly coming to the conclusion, that QA isn't taken that seriously here. wow.

[TallBearNC]

The game does support, has been tested and does run on win 7 or vist 64bit. However ANY 32bit app running in a 64bit environment has to be "emulated" and that causes about a 5-15fps hit on any 32bit game. Normally this isn't a problem, but when a game is so complex, it matters when people can't hit the 30fps marker. There's NO EXCUSE not to have a 64bit client. Crysis and other games have them, and there's VERY LITTLE code to change to compile a 64bit version of a game.

Modifié par TallBearNC, 11 mars 2011 - 02:33 .

[MaxPayne37]

I'm sorry, but you are quoting an *EA* rep's answer, that doesn't know what he's talking about. This game does support Windows 7 and 64-bit, and doesn't need compatibility mode, they guy's an idiot. *DO NOT* base EA's support on BioWare's. You should know better.

[Karmana]

Yet the homepage, humorously, says for tech support, to go to ea.support, I believe...

[Draconus Kahn]

The guy represents EA, so he is EA... If they are authorized to literally bulls**t everyone to death, what does that say about BioWare and EA? I have had enough of these people.

[Draconus Kahn]

Karmana wrote...

Yet the homepage, humorously, says for tech support, to go to ea.support, I believe...

Yes, companies like this annoy me so much. If the right doesn't know what the left is doing, what is the point?

I have a feeling the EA tech guy was told to say what he said because these two companies are the laziest I have ever seen. I am very seriously considering getting this nonsense out to the media.

When one guy is telling me the program isn't supported by my OS or has not been tested on it, and one company, via their game box, is telling me that the game DOES support windows 7, is it any wonder I am confused?

BioWare and EA:
Do you or don't you support windows 7? Have you or have you not tested Dragon Age 2 on Windows 7 64bit?

I want answers.

[Xongo]

TallBearNC wrote...

The game does support, has been tested and does run on win 7 or vist 64bit. However ANY 32bit app running in a 64bit environment has to be "emulated" and that causes about a 5-15fps hit on any 32bit game.

Most games do not support 64bit. Adoption has been really slow. I would partly blame MS for releasing a 32bit version of Windows 7. Additionally, 64bit does not always help performance, regardless of how well its coded. 

The emulation does not have a noticable performance hit unless something is wrong. This has been tested repeatedly since the release of 64bit XP several years ago, and the performance difference is negliglbe and hardly possible to measure. It is not in the 5-15fps range (which is a meaningless number anyway since it does not take into account the fps you start with). The only thing you'll notice is slightly higher memory usage. 

[Draconus Kahn]

I have plenty of 64bit compatible games guys, and none of them perform as bad as this one does.

You can tech speak me to death if you want to, but at the end of the day, the proof is always in the pudding.

With my system, I don't usually get anything less than 60fps at nearly all times; whether or not the game was designed as a 32bit program.

Modifié par Draconus Kahn, 17 mars 2011 - 07:14 .

[JamesX]

The game runs as bad on 32 bit vista as it does 64 bit Windows 7. It is not an issue with operating system. With the new Nvidia drivers (not sure if yours is Nvidia) you get 2x the fps. The low fps is not OS problem, it is optimization/driver issue.

[Draconus Kahn]

Anyway...

All of this is fine and great, but it still doesn't explain why this company lies to its customers about support issues. I have had more support tips since getting the response from EA about the 64bit thing. I have followed every trick that is out there from reinstalling my game, to register cleaning,.to process clearing and safe booting. Since none of this works, and based on an email I recently recieved from EA support, these people at EA and BioWare are deep in investigating this issue about the keyboard/mouse frame rate issue.

Just as a quick recap, I and many others are experiencing not just crashes, but frame rate problems as soon as we attempt to steer the camera and character with our keyboards. Frame rates are steady as long as the "steering" mouse button is pressed. We can move at 60+ fps all the time, but as soon as we let go of the mouse button to disengage mouse looking, we experience choppy, rubberbanding, stuttering movement. We do not believe this is an issue related to video card drivers btw. To me, it seems more of a problem with the interface between the keyboard input and the game.

I just got done defragging and reinstalling this game and I can tell you, while my mouse is in mouse look mode, this game runs at 100+ fps at ALL times on high @ 1080p with 4xMSAA, FSAO on, and high resolution textures. With mouse look off, the frames stay the same, but the camera movement is jerky and absolutely unbearable. Don't mistake this for something stemming from video card frame rate. This is something else. But, then again, I don't know what to make of it.

BTW, Im on an ATI Radeon HD 5970. Since my PC is from Alienware, I am restricted to Dell drivers, so I hope that EA and BioWare work with PC manufacturers like them to get driver updates out to us. Knowing Dell, I will be waiting months.

Since I have read posts from people with the same issue as me, and they have new drivers from ATI and NVidia, I am going to assume that the problems extends to more than just my small corner of the market.

[xoxiin]

The problem you mentioned also goes away if you leave the cursor over the ability bar. Therefore it's not a keyboard issue, but likely a problem with the code for the cursor interacting with the environment.

Are you unable to install generic drivers directly from AMD for your HD 5970?

[mjordan79]

I have bought ALL the relevant titles from 2007 to now and none of them are NATIVE 64 bit (with the exception of Crysis). I have done MANY tests with many programs, comparing 32 bit and 64 bit versions. Very few applications take advantage of 64 bits considering performance, with the exception of rendering programs, compression and memory intensive programs that needs more than 4GB of RAM. Some programs are even slower in 64 bit versions than their 32 bit counterparts, considering they use 64 bit integer arithmetic (rarely needed in modern consumer software). Games are one of those programs that would have little benefit from a 64 bit binary. Not only that, but optimizing code for a 64 bit target architecture is a much harder task for a compiler than generating plain 32 bit code. That means: in many cases the resulting binary is slower than the 32 bit equivalent.
In fact, on my Core i7 2600 Crysis 64 bit has no real advantage over the 32 bit version performance wise. I don't understand why people need 64 bit binaries (for games). Dragon Age 2 is slow because is a demanding game. We can discuss the fact it's too heavy for what it offers, sure. But this has nothing to do with the fact it's a 32 bit application. Adapting and recompiling the game with a modern 64 bit compiler would not give any advantage to your crusade. Dragon Age 2 runs on 64 bits systems the way it's meant to be played: 32 bit mode. And it works flawlessly.
All of this to say that a game doesn't really need to be "64 bit compatible", because:
1) Windows 64 bit is capable of running 32 bit applications by default and unchanged via its 32 bit layer (WOW64).
2) Processors run 32 bit code in 32 bit mode at full speed. The overhead introduced with the 32 bit API layers is irrelevant with modern architectures.

EA support is not lying. They're just  over working, under payed guys with a bad contract. No interest in replying to your questions and no real incentive in understanding what the problem is. In practice, they don't care. They're not lying. They simply don't have a clue on what they're saying. Plain simple. Oh, by the way: EA is not Bioware.

Modifié par mjordan79, 19 mars 2011 - 05:32 .

[Lux]

Strange. I'm playing in a 64bit environment and DA2 has been the most stable game I played on release (minus the gameplay bugs).

Windows 7 x64 with Service Pack 1
i7 870
8Gb RAM DDR3
AMD/ATI Radeon HD 6850
1680x1050 on a 22'' widescreen monitor
Running on very high, high textures installed

Try installing SP1, and update display drivers to see if it helps stabilize your rig.

Modifié par Merkar, 19 mars 2011 - 04:57 .

[mjordan79]

Merkar wrote...

Strange. I'm playing in a 64bit environment and DA2 has been the most stable game I played on release (minus the gameplay bugs).

I guess you don't play many games, then. :innocent:

[mjordan79]

Sorry, double post.

Modifié par mjordan79, 19 mars 2011 - 05:21 .

[vania z]

Obviously, they didn't test the game at all before release. Mourning bug has near 100% chance of occurring, dx11 was not working on nvidia, almost all systems had missing drive bug with dx11 and so on. They just couldn't miss it, if they tested.

Modifié par vania z, 19 mars 2011 - 05:32 .

[Lux]

mjordan79 wrote...

Merkar wrote...

Strange. I'm playing in a 64bit environment and DA2 has been the most stable game I played on release (minus the gameplay bugs).

I guess you don't play many games, then. :innocent:

That's your assumption.

In more than a decade playing I've always got a crash to desktop, or a computer freeze, or a blue screen of death. I'm surprised by this game being so stable, on release, without the inevitable patches. Computer troubleshooting is also a big part of my professional work.

I like my new gaming rig a lot.

[mjordan79]

vania z wrote...

Obviously, they didn't test the game at all before release. Mourning bug has near 100% chance of occurring, dx11 was not working on nvidia, almost all systems had missing drive bug with dx11 and so on. They just couldn't miss it, if they tested.

Never had those bugs. And DirectX 11 problems are not directly related to Bioware. In fact, it's a driver problem.
Also, consider it's almost impossible for a software house having a 100% working title for every configuration on the planet. That's why final users are the real beta testers. That's not bad: it's how software engineering works.

Modifié par mjordan79, 19 mars 2011 - 05:42 .

[mjordan79]

Merkar wrote...

mjordan79 wrote...

Merkar wrote...

Strange. I'm playing in a 64bit environment and DA2 has been the most stable game I played on release (minus the gameplay bugs).

I guess you don't play many games, then. :innocent:

That's your assumption.

In more than a decade playing I've always got a crash to desktop, or a computer freeze, or a blue screen of death. I'm surprised by this game being so stable, on release, without the inevitable patches. Computer troubleshooting is also a big part of my professional work.

I like my new gaming rig a lot.

Modern games are made by thousands of lines of C++ code. Statistic says there is 1 bug every 40-50 lines of C++ code. And somewhere in the code, there is surely a dangling pointer waiting to be dereferenced. In short, don't speak too early.

[Lux]

mjordan79 wrote...

Modern games are made by thousands of lines of C++ code. Statistic says there is 1 bug every 40-50 lines of C++ code. And somewhere in the code, there is surely a dangling pointer waiting to be dereferenced. In short, don't speak too early.

That is true. It's just unexpected. Maybe they QA'd the game in a similar rig as mine. Maybe I'll get a crash when I get to my second playthrough.

[vania z]

mjordan79 "In fact, it's a driver problem."
Are you trying to tell me, that it was impossible to make it work on nvidia? I wonder, how other games worked. It had to be by sheer chance that every other game worked.
Also, scripting bugs do not depend on configuration. Tbh, very little depends on configuration apart graphics card vendor and os version.

[dbt-kenny]

nothing new I do n ot know of a game developer that does support 64 bit.
By ow they should there are a lot of us out hear and they should say support is for only 32 bit OS on the box.

[Sadinar]

This thread is filled with a lot of very bad information.

A 32-bit system simply means a single word in memory holds 32-bits. On the other hand, a 64-bit system's words are all 64-bits long. Since a 32-bit word obviously fits inside a 64-bit word, there is absolutely no problem running a 32-bit program on a 64-bit machine. The reverse, however, is not true and a 64-bit application would absolutely not work on a 32-bit system.

There is also no complex conversion taking place to allow a 32-bit application to run on a 64-bit architecture and a 32-bit program will run at the same speed on either a 32-bit or 64-bit machine. The CPU simply performs sign extension if needed to store a 32-bit word as a 64-bit one. Once the variable is sign extended, all math takes place as usual and results in exactly the same numbers as a 32-bit system would. I won't go into an explanation of the two's complement system or how infrequently variables are freshly loaded (therefore needing sign extension), so look it up on wikipedia or something if you are dubious.

Until a developer needs more than 4 gigs of memory for his application, they are highly unlikely to force the application to be 64-bit since doing so will exclude all potential customers who are still using a 32-bit system.