<font color=plum>As many of you know, I've been having a LOT of problems with BGII on my main PC. It's been almost 2 months since I was able to actually play a game on it without the PC or game crashing or freezing.

I got my PC out of the shop again yesterday (it was crashing and rebooting with ANY application). They did a fresh installation of Windows XP. I had to re-install BGII and ToB, but all of my Mods are apparantly still there.

So I load one of my games, start to play, and the game CRASHED AGAIN!!!! [img]graemlins/madhell.gif[/img] As soon as I try to move the characters, the game crashes back to my desktop (at least it isn't completely crashing and rebooting the PC anymore).

I'm at the end of my patience here. Does anybody have ANY idea WHY my game keeps crashing???

One thing I noticed in another thread is that I have to have the same Mods installed as when I started the games. I have added some extra Mods since Re-installing the game that were NOT on the PC when I first started playing these games.

Could that be the problem? PLEASE HELP!!</font>

Throw your crappy-non-working-together mods away.

Make sure your 3d card is configured and all that.

I'm sorry I haven't a clue how to help you, just wanted to say I feel bad for you with all the trouble you're having.

I'd offer you some time at my house to play on my machine but you might not dig the commute. [img]smile.gif[/img]

Delete all the mods, reinstall them 1 by 1 and check it out.
Otherwise i have no idea at all. Sorry. :(

<font color=plum>That's the same conclusion I've come to. I'm just going to completely Un-install the game and all components and delete ALL the Mods and then re-download and re-install them.

And leave a bunch of them out

I really like Tactics, Ease of Use and Item Upgrade.

I had also added Ascension, Redemption, Kelsey, aPack (Rogue Rebalance), Unfinished Business, and Oversight

I'm gonna skip Ascension and Redemption. I only have 1 party in ToB and I haven't even STARTED playing it yet. I would like to keep Kelsey just so any female characters I create would have an alternate Romance option (other than Anomen) and I really like Unfinished Business and Oversight.

I could live without them, but I like the things they add.

Still, I was getting along fine with just the first 3 (Tactics, Ease of Use, Item Upgrade) and I may just have to go back to them.

I only have one game that I would really hate to lose. All the others I have no problem deleting and just starting over from scratch.

Any other suggestions are always welcome.</font>

Cerek, try and get it working "clean" first - get rid of all the non-official add-ons and see if that fixes the problem. If it does, then add each mod one by one and test to see if they cause any issues. It's the only way you'll find out what's causing your problem.

Memnoch is right. Try playing the game with out any mods installed. If it works, then play with as few mods as possible.

I suggest making sure your registry is cleared when you uninstall. (If it's not you'll find out soon enough, when the game fails to reinstall cuz it will say TOB is already installed).

After your fresh re-install (SOA, TOB, patch 26498 from Bioware, and TOB Baldurdash Fix-Pack --- in that order skipping none)... THEN I think you would be safe with Kelsey, Tactics, Ease of Use, Item Upgrade.

Of course in every case check the README files and forum for each mod. Some componants of Ease Of Use are not compatible with other mods, for example.

I also think that Ascension/Redemption will cause no problems with this set up, however, you can safely wait and install those when you get into TOB chapters. You'll have many hours of playing SOA first without the potential troubles of yet another mod, and you can decide later if you want to add those onto the end-game.

I have not tried Unfinished Business, Rouge Rebalancing, or Oversight. I hate to accuse a stranger, but I think one of those could be causing problems in your mod-mix, perhaps.

I think your save-games are probably toast, man. Sorry. Best thing you could do is export your characters and save them in another folder. And also, look at them and write down their stats and experience. You could remake them fresh and CLUA them up to match their current level, on your new install.

<font color=plum>Well, for one thing, there were several files in my BG:SoA file that seemed to be completely unrelated to BGII. Things like "GameSpy Arcade" and even a zip file on bif animations.

I Un-installed ALL the Mods on this machine (Kelsey, Valen, Expanded Thief Stronghold, Ease-of-Use, Tactics and Item Upgrade). I had tried un-installing them one at a time and had some moderate success after getting rid of the Expanded Thief Mod, but my old problems soon came back.

So after un-installing them, I also deleted ALL the files and folders associated with them. I also deleted any files (like the GameSpy Arcade) that didn't seem to belong.

I have done a complete fresh install on SoA and ToB. I am currently downloading the ToB patch and will get the Baldurdash Fixpack next (if that is still working. I thought Baldurdash Fixpack was no longer a valid download???)

After that, I will try doing one Mod at a time.

Ideally, I would like to have Ease-of-Use, Tactics, Item Upgrade, Unfinished Business and Oversight.

<font color=silver>SixofSpades</font> was very harsh in his criticism of the aPack (Rogue Rebalance) Mod - so I guess I'll skip that one.

I can live with the first three Mods if nothing else. Those are the ones I've been using in my last few games.

If this doesn't work, I plan to Copy my Saved File to a CD and then delete everything in the SoA folder and start completely over.</font>

Solution is easy, remove the mods. -_-

<font color=plum>I'm afraid the solution isn't quite that easy. I have removed all the mods. I've also deleted ALL of my Saved games that were played with the mods installed. In fact, I totally erased everything in my BG SoA folder, then Un-Installed BGII, then went back into my Program Files and even deleted the empty folder titled "BG SoA".

After doing that, I did yet another fresh install of BGII (SoA and ToB). Once installed, I downloaded the official Bioware Patch and the Baldurdash Fixpack and nothing else.

I then tried to create a new character just for a "test run". I was going to play BGII with NO Mods. If that worked, I was going to add one Mod at a time and test each of those before downloading the next one. But my PC buggered up again and started rebooting the machine <font color=red>again</font> on a regular basis. I wasn't even able to finish the character generation for the new game. The game kept freezing or the PC would crash before I finished rolling stats for the character.

I don't know WHAT'S wrong with the machine. I don't know if it is a problem deep in the programming or Windows. Or if I have an infected copy of BGII from eBay. While the CD's look the same, I did notice that the primary color on the labels is <font color=cyan>cyan blue</font> instead of <font color=gold>gold</font> like the labels on my other copy of BGII (Collector's Edition).

Does anybody know if there are any "issues" with the <font color=cyan>blue label</font> CD's? The PC seemed to be working fine after I got it out of the shop this time. I had even given them a game to test the machine with <font color=red>Dragon's Lair 3D</font>. It's graphics are much more intense than those of BGII and the game worked fine according to the tech. I didn't have any problems with the machine until I installed BGII on the machine again with this new set of CD's. And it didn't start crashing and rebooting again until after I had done two complete Un-Installs and Re-Installs of the game last night.

So I don't know WHAT the problem is. All I know is that I'm about to save money on a haircut, because I'm close to just pulling my hair out all by myself!</font>

[ 07-01-2004, 12:01 PM: Message edited by: Cerek the Barbaric ]

Check if any of your other games work fine. If they do, then it could be BG2 that's the problem. If they don't, then it could be something wrong with your PC setup.

Do you have ATI Rage 128?

Quoted from the readme, it says

It's possible that the problem could be the same in Windows XP.

[ 07-01-2004, 09:33 AM: Message edited by: Assassin ]

About your copy of BG 2: why don`t you give it to one of your friends. Then if the computer will crash it is something wrong with your BG 2 and not with the computer.

<font color=plum><font color=gray>Assassin</font> - What is ATI Rage 128?

<font color=silver>Xen</font> - I doubt I would be considered a good friend if I caused a buddies PC to start having the same problems I am. ;) </font>

Cerek, I have a copy of the blue CDs and I was having the same prob withe extreme lag. I also had the EoU, IU, UB, and Tactics installed, so it may be a bug with the original version and one of these mods.

Go to ->Start<- then ->Run<- then type ->dxdiag<- if there is some things which are incompatible then you are going to see them.

It's a video card. What video card do you have?

<font color=plum>It's a GeForce card, but I don't know who the manufacturer is.</font>

I'm cringing at the thought of what you must be paying this shop to replace everything.

Whats the brand name and wattage of your computer's power supply? Has the shop replaced it? If you are spontaneously rebooting the power supply is an immediate suspect.

Update your video drivers, sound drivers, motherboard drivers, and BIOS to the latest versions. Run Windows Update and download the latest service pack and all other critical updates.

Make sure you have up to date virus protection, spyware protection, and a firewall. Are you running any garbage P2P apps like Kazaa or Morpheus?

Install any other games you have with any necessary patches, NO MODS, and play them for a few days to see how they work.

EDIT: My labels are blue, nothing to worry about.

[ 07-01-2004, 07:36 PM: Message edited by: SpongeLikeCow ]

<font color=plum>I'm cringing too, <font color=yellow>S.L.C.</font>. I got a new motherboard, a 120gb HD (upgrade from a 40gb), a 3.4mhz processor (upgrade from 1.2mhz) and a new DVD drive (the old one had just completely died). The grand total for this was $350 - which is more than I wanted to pay originally, but considering I basically have a brand new computer now, I suppose it was worth it. They had added a charge of $55.00 for RE-Installing WindowsXP the second time (when I took it back after it started spontaneously rebooting) - but I just told them I did NOT agree with that charge and the owner got very terse with me but said "If you don't agree with it then don't pay it." I took his advice. [img]graemlins/cool.gif[/img]

I have a few options. A friend of mine has a brother in Atlanta that is very knowledgeable with computers and he has offered to take a look at it for me. According to his brother, if it can be fixed, his brother can do it. There is also another PC shop in my hometown. I know the owners personally and like them - but I felt they ripped me off 2 years ago when I first got this new system and asked them to set it up and copy all the data from my old PC to this one. I called them today and they agreed to take a look at it and let me know what they felt was wrong AND how much it would cost to fix it BEFORE they did any work on it. I do feel these guys would give me a fair deal, because I don't there is anything seriously wrong with the system.

I also have a 2nd PC at the house (PC2 for future reference). I've installed BGII on there and downloaded several of the mods with no problem. But then again, PC2 did do the "spontaneous reboot" on me the other nightafter I had been playing BGII for about 30 minutes.

On PC1, Baldur's Gate was not the only game that would cause it to reboot. That is why I eventually decided it had to be something the techs did when tey re-installed XP. The PC1 even died and rebooted when my wife was trying to play a game of Scrabble (not very intensive on the graphics).

Well hopefully, somebody will figure out what the CRAP is wrong with my machine sometime soon. Then I can get back to playing BGII again full time.</font>

<font color=plum>The PC techs supposedly did update ALL the drivers and downloaded ALL Windows updates. According to the tech that worked on my machine, it was hooked to the internet for almost 3 hours downloading all the necessary Windows updates.

I do NOT have Kazaa, Morpheus or any other P2P on the machine any more. I did have both of those (along with WinMX) before the upgrade. But they are not on PC1 now. (Sadly, neither are any of the files I had downloaded using them. Lost many songs and videos. [img]graemlins/verysad.gif[/img] </font>


<font color=plum>Glad to hear that. [img]graemlins/thumbsup.gif[/img] I didn't really think that was the problem - but I'm completely brainfuzzled so I figure it couldn't hurt to ask.

Hey, one other question. My CD2 on my original BGII game wen't bugger up on me and quit working completely. Other members said that Bioware will replace defective CDs. Does anybody know how to contact them and what info they need to send the replacement?</font>

NOT Rogue Rebalancing--it's Shadow Thief Improvements for which I ooze contempt. Rogue Reblancing is excellent, the only flaws I can find with it are that he chose to make a (noncombatant) character unkillable for no good reason, there's some curious strangeness surrounding the Short Sword of Backstabbing, and he could have chosen a better Description picture for the Returning Frost Dart. That's it. Rogue Rebalancing gets an A in my book.

Rogue Rebalancing is one of the components in aVENGER's aPack mod, and all of those components are installed separately. Another component is Shadow Thief Improvements, and the chasm between the two is so vast that you'd never even suspect they're by the same person (are they?)--kind of like the difference between Mike Barnes's Improved North Forest and Improved Small Teeth Pass.

NOT Rogue Rebalancing--it's Shadow Thief Improvements for which I ooze contempt. Rogue Reblancing is excellent, the only flaws I can find with it are that he chose to make a (noncombatant) character unkillable for no good reason, there's some curious strangeness surrounding the Short Sword of Backstabbing, and he could have chosen a better Description picture for the Returning Frost Dart. That's it. Rogue Rebalancing gets an A in my book.

Rogue Rebalancing is one of the components in aVENGER's aPack mod, and all of those components are installed separately. Another component is Shadow Thief Improvements, and the chasm between the two is so vast that you'd never even suspect they're by the same person (are they?)--kind of like the difference between Mike Barnes's Improved North Forest and Improved Small Teeth Pass. </font>[/QUOTE]<font color=plum>Thanks for clearing that up, <font color=silver>SixofSpades</font>. I do like most of the components of aPack and it actually installed just fine on my PC2 machine. I started to wipe it out this morning, but instead I will just Un-install the Improved Shadow Thief component.

Thanks again for the info.</font>