[Cerek the Barbaric]

Originally posted by LennonCook: The Official patch and the fixpack are linked to in the forum FAQ (second post, I believe, under the heading 'Where do I get the patches'), and in millions of other threads about the place. [img]smile.gif[/img] If you have TOB, you should get and install the TOB patches only. But, since you I'm fairly sure you have been advised to download them before, I think it a fairly safe bet that you have them installed already. [img]smile.gif[/img] As for your problem, it sounds like that fight has alot of stuff happening in it which your computer can't handle. This is very famous when they're alot of creatures moving or casting spells - such as every second fight in the Tactics mod. How much main memory do you have? How big is your swap file? And do you have any idea of anything about your processor's front side BUS? All of these can have an impact - having a flashily fast 2.4 GHz processor is all well and good, but not if your system can't get data to it quickly enough.

I thought the number of characters moving, fighting and/or casting were also having an effect on the game crashing. That is why I took it in to have it upgraded in the first place, but the fight with the two street rogues shouldn't have had any effect on this. I've played SoA all the way through once and had a full party through the entire game. THAT game was without Tactics, but I have played a 2nd party through a good portion of SoA with Tactics installed. This party also has six members. I've gained the Thief Stronghold, Planar Sphere, De'Arnise Keep, and even the Bard Stronghold (not to mention defeating the Shade Lord and Shadow Dragon). In addition to those battles, my assassin was outraged at the very notion of paying the Cowled Wizards for the privilage of casting spells, so I set up a series of ambushes and cast spells to lure them into my trap. I did that until they finally quit coming. I've also fought the Random Attack Party (RAP for short) several times with this party. I never had a problem at all with the number of characters and/or actions on the screen at one time until just a few weeks ago. Since then, I've had nothing BUT problems with it.

Also, as I pointed out previously, this ONLY seems to occur AFTER the Chateau for some reason.

As for my PC specs...I don't know how to determine all of that, so here is a breakdown of what my machine now has and how it is set up.


Operating System
Windows XP Home Edition (build 2600)

Processor
3.20 gigahertz Intel Celeron
8 kilobyte primary memory cache
128 kilobyte secondary memory cache

Drives
120.02 Gigabytes Usable Hard Drive Capacity
97.30 Gigabytes Hard Drive Free Space

_NEC DV-5800A [CD-ROM drive]
MSI CD-RW MS-8340 [CD-ROM drive]
3.5" format removeable media [Floppy drive]

WDC WD1200JB-00EVA0 [Hard drive] (120.03 GB) -- drive 0, s/n WD-WMAEK2441716, rev 15.05R15, SMART Status: Healthy

Main Circuit Board
Board: SiS-645
Bus Clock: 132 megahertz
BIOS: Award Software International, Inc. 6.00 PG 01/11/2002

Bus Adapters
HPT372 UDMA/ATA133 RAID Controller
SiS 7001 PCI to USB Open Host Controller
SiS 7001 PCI to USB Open Host Controller

Memory Modules
256 Megabytes Installed Memory

Slot 'A0' has 256 MB
Slot 'A1' is Empty
Slot 'A2' is Empty
Slot 'A3' is Empty

Local Drive Volumes
c: (on drive 0) 120.02 GB 97.30 GB free

Communications
Intel(R) 537 Data Fax Voice V.92 Modem
SiS 900 PCI Fast Ethernet Adapter
Network Card MAC Address: 00:50:2C:02:77:7B
Network IP Address: 10.0.0.5 / 8

Multimedia
CMI8738/C3DX PCI Audio Device
Standard Game Port
Unimodem Half-Duplex Audio Device

Display
NVIDIA GeForce2 MX/MX 400 [Display adapter]
Sampo KM-718 [Monitor] (15.7"vis)

Controllers
Standard floppy disk controller
Primary IDE Channel [Controller]
Secondary IDE Channel [Controller]
SiS PCI IDE Controller

If any of that suggests a possible problem with the game, then PLEASE feel free to enlighten me. In the meantime, thanks for your advice and suggestions.