6 réponses à ce sujet

[Seraph Kaoru]

First thing's first.

Operating System:     Windows 7 Ultimate64-bit
CPU:           Intel® Core™ i7-2600K CPU @ 3.40GHz
RAM:     8 GB
Video Card:    2x nVidia GeForce GTX 460 in SLI
Audio:     Headset (Sound Blaster Headset) Driver Version: 6.1.7600.16385
DirectX:    DirectX 10.0  (Mar2009) or later

Good enough for the game. More than good enough, really. 

1. What version of the game are you playing: physical disc or digital download (along with which vendor)?
v1.02 - Digital Download via Steam.

2. System Details
      Configuration Utility | Summary Tab
           * Intel® Core™ i7-2600K CPU @ 3.40GHz / 3385 MHz / 7.98 GB
           * NVIDIA GeForce GTX 460 / 1.00 GB / 8.17.12.6658
           * Headset (Sound Blaster World of Warcraft Headset) / 6.1.7600.16385
      Configuration Utility | Platform Tab
           * Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate 
           * DirectX 10.0  (Mar2009) or later

Details about your problem.
1. What is the nature of the problem you are seeing?
      As recorded here ("Illium Unplayable after installing LotSB") and here ("ME2: Lair of the SHadow Broker: Game crashes going back to Normandy.") - I am having an issue on Illium. My crash happens specifically in the plaza at the foot of the stairs to Liara's office - the crash itself is slightly variable, in that it takes a slightly different amount of time each instance, but it generally goes like this: Any time I pan the camera out to the cityscape the market plaza overlooks, the game crashes. This does not happen in any one specific spot, but rather, any time the camera angle would adjust to show that view, or I walk out into that area.

2. When did the problem start occurring?
    The problem began after downloading and installing Lair of the Shadow Broker, and had never occurred beforehand. (In fact, I'd only ever had one or two non-recurring ME2 crashes before this, and was very impressed with how smooth the game ran.)

3. Where does your problem occur?
    The problem occurs on Illium, so far it has not appeared anywhere else. It specifically began occurring after I began taking the main-game, non-DLC sidequests from Liara (terminal hacking & data packet hacking) and has not stopped since.

4. What are the steps in replicating the problem?
     The other forum threads suggest that it is not so much the steps, as the platform, which matters. So , then  - on a Windows 7 64-bit installation, proceed through the game until you reach Illium. Speak to Liara and accept her sidequest to hack terminals to get data. Complete it and return back to speak to her. Either upon exiting the passageway right beside her staircase, or after coming back down those stairs upon talking to her, look out at the beautiful panoramic view of Illium. Observe your game crash. Repeat as necessary.     

5. Have you modified your game in any way?
     My game is completely unmodified and unchanged from the day of installation. All updates have been installed, the game data cache has been verified, and I have not ever made use of a save-game editor, or any other third-party tools.

----------------------------------------------------
The other threads I linked suggest various workarounds for this particular issue, but I don't really have any interest in playing in Windowed mode, or otherwise compromising my gaming experience unless someone official says that Bioware and their techs have no intention of addressing this issue any time in the near future. I realize that it may seem redundant to create this thread when there are other threads on the forum with this issue, but I did not see any of the others following proper Bioware error-reporting procedure. I look forward to hearing from a representative or tech support staffer what can be done about this, and what is being done to patch or correct this error. 

[Moondoggie]

Hmm let me wave my magic wand and fix this unfixable problem that nobody has been able to solve and you'll be on your way.


Seriously just read all the documentation available about the known problem. There are workarounds to it but no total fix to it since nobody can figure out why it happens. The main workaround that seems to do the trick is doing that part in windowed mode which seems to avoid a crash.

[Seraph Kaoru]

Moondoggie wrote...

Hmm let me wave my magic wand and fix this unfixable problem that nobody has been able to solve and you'll be on your way.


Seriously just read all the documentation available about the known problem. There are workarounds to it but no total fix to it since nobody can figure out why it happens. The main workaround that seems to do the trick is doing that part in windowed mode which seems to avoid a crash.

If you read my post - most importantly, the bottom-most part of it - you'd see that I acknowledged the windowed-mode workaround, and that there had been a great deal of discussion about other workarounds. However, none of the topics I've found include a response or explanation from anyone at Bioware, any forum tech-support personnel, or any forum moderators.

I don't think it's unreasonable to say that I and every other player having this issue should not have to play the game in windowed mode to deal with an issue that's been reported for either six months or a year - at least without hearing from BW that they are aware of the issue, and are either taking steps to resolve it (a good choice) or have no intention of ever fixing it (not such a good choice.)

Primarily, my desire here is to be either told that Bioware intends to fix issues like these (introduced in their paid  DLC) in a future, final patch, or that they have no intention of doing so. If the former, I'll gladly hush up and find a workaround that does it for me, until such time as the issue is resolved. If the latter...

Then that'd be sort of disheartening to hear, honestly, that they weren't going to fix problems introduced by additional content we had to pay money to access. I don't know about you, but it'd probably influence my decisions on purchasing additional DLC, or recommending Bioware's products to others. Thanks for your input, though!
~K

Modifié par Seraph Kaoru, 25 mars 2011 - 10:33 .

[Moondoggie]

Unfortunately fixing a problem like this one is not as simple as it sounds. Programming games and patching is a bit of a tricky buisiness unless everybody is experiencing the exact same problem. In this case it's only some players who are experiencing issues so then you have to gather a bunch of information from these players to see if their are any common themes that may be causing the crash again in this case their really isn't so it makes things a bit complicated. If you fix the problem for the peoiple who have the problem you might cause a bigger problem somewhere else or cause the same problem for everyone else who never had the problem before and you just end up going around in circles.

DLC is still one of those relitively new things and programmers are still looking at better ways to implement it where it does not have an effect on the main game in any way that isn't intended. Bioware could come out and say they are looking into it they might be researching it we don't know but until they have an answer they can't say much more than "we are aware of the problem" which they have done.

[Seraph Kaoru]

Moondoggie wrote...

Unfortunately fixing a problem like this one is not as simple as it sounds. Programming games and patching is a bit of a tricky buisiness unless everybody is experiencing the exact same problem. In this case it's only some players who are experiencing issues so then you have to gather a bunch of information from these players to see if their are any common themes that may be causing the crash again in this case their really isn't so it makes things a bit complicated. If you fix the problem for the peoiple who have the problem you might cause a bigger problem somewhere else or cause the same problem for everyone else who never had the problem before and you just end up going around in circles.

DLC is still one of those relitively new things and programmers are still looking at better ways to implement it where it does not have an effect on the main game in any way that isn't intended. Bioware could come out and say they are looking into it they might be researching it we don't know but until they have an answer they can't say much more than "we are aware of the problem" which they have done.

You raise a lot of good and valid points - but I'm going to have to dispute one of them. You said there aren't any 'common themes', but there is one very large, overriding common theme that can be observed in the reported crashes - everyone who's experiencing them uses a 64-bit operating system, for one.

The nature of the quick-fix can also shed light on the nature of the problem itself, the fact that disabling advanced graphical filters, or playing in windowed mode, solves the issue in almost every case, reveals things about the problem that - at least to the programmers I know - are useful in addressing it.

Some users have already theorized solutions to the problem based on all of the available data. Trust me, I know how finicky code can be, how easy it is to introduce errors by trying to fix others, but this is an easily-reproducible problem that apparently affects a large proportion of Windows 64-bit users. (There are certainly enough topics about it - many more than just the two I linked.) 

Such a widespread problem with a common underlying theme, I think, is at least deserving of - as you said - an acknowledgement that it is either being looked into, and will hopefully be fixed by the next patch, or an admission that the problem has been deemed not-important-enough to bother with, and will not be.

I'm not trying to be confrontational, here, and I appreciate your input.

But the fact remains - no matter how 'new' DLC is, players are paying for content that, when added to the game, introduces game-stopping crashes100% of the time in the given conditions, that prevent further advancement in the main game. Those of us with the problem are paying for content that prevents us from continuing the game without making use of unofficial workarounds that diminish the storytelling experience of the game, and that a good number of players having the issue will never know about, because not everyone thinks to check forums.

It'd just be nice to get some reassurance, as a consumer, that Bioware intends to fix this. I'm sure you can understand. What if The Arrival makes it so 30% of players can't proceed past Horizon, for some reason? 

If Bioware demonstrates a habit of not wanting to even comment on issues like that caused by their paid additional content, then both for their satisfaction with the company as a whole and for their own gaming experiences, people - maybe people like me! - would be better off not buying that content in the first place. There'd be less anger against Bioware, and fewer games rendered unplayable, and more money in the pockets of consumers. Hopefully, you see where I'm coming from.
~K

Modifié par Seraph Kaoru, 25 mars 2011 - 11:47 .

[Moondoggie]

Firstly as i have said they HAVE commented on the issue. Unfortunately they aren't going to give us a play by play of what if anything is being done to fix a problem and i imagine it's not a priority because it only effects a small minority of users. As a buisiness they need to use their resources effectively and sometimes that means not dedicating valuable engineers to working on a small problem effecting a few people.

Second this is a problem that has no common themes. It doesn't just effect 64 bit operating systems. Usually people with 64bit OS's like to think a problem only effects them but it's almost never the case It effects a number of 64 bit and 32 bit users not just one . The only actual common theme is the crash tends to happen in the same area and it can effect any OS and a rig with any sort of hardware. That's not an awful lot to go on and even the most seasoned engineers wouldn't know where to start there's a very long list of elminination to look at before you narrow down a cause.

If it were simple we'd have an amateur modder making a mod fix for everyone if Bioware wouldn't have fixed it already.

[Seraph Kaoru]

Moondoggie wrote...

Firstly as i have said they HAVE commented on the issue. Unfortunately they aren't going to give us a play by play of what if anything is being done to fix a problem and i imagine it's not a priority because it only effects a small minority of users. As a buisiness they need to use their resources effectively and sometimes that means not dedicating valuable engineers to working on a small problem effecting a few people.

Second this is a problem that has no common themes. It doesn't just effect 64 bit operating systems. Usually people with 64bit OS's like to think a problem only effects them but it's almost never the case It effects a number of 64 bit and 32 bit users not just one . The only actual common theme is the crash tends to happen in the same area and it can effect any OS and a rig with any sort of hardware. That's not an awful lot to go on and even the most seasoned engineers wouldn't know where to start there's a very long list of elminination to look at before you narrow down a cause.

If it were simple we'd have an amateur modder making a mod fix for everyone if Bioware wouldn't have fixed it already.

You continue to be aggravatingly reasonable and sensible about this whole thing. ...Hats off to you. All right, all right. Bioware is a business, and does need to allocate its resources effectively. I don't have exact numbers regarding 'a small percentage of users', so I can't really argue that it's all that widespread. Most of the people reporting the problem - whose messages I read, at least - in the two linked threads and others about the issue, on the board, seemed to have 64-bit OSes, but if that's not the case, then there is a bit less to go on than I was claiming.

Anyhow, like I said, I'll just take a break from Mass Effect for the moment. One final curiousity, though - could you link me to where Bioware commented on the issue? I can't seem to find the post. Thanks!
~K