help!! - crash at start leaving town

[thresher]

hoping someone in here can help, coz I can't take much more of this!

The game crashes me out just after I leave town on either side every time. Have reinstalled the game, upgraded sound card drivers and tried the patch. I also tried running in software mode, uninstalled and reinstalled direct x, but no luck. My pc isn't great but it got through BG2 ok.

Here's my pc stats:
AMD II 350 mhz
64 mb ram
20 gb free disk space
creative live sound card
creative banshee blaster 16 mb vid card
direct x 7.0
win 98 2nd edition

The games crashes to the desktop as soon as I try to do anything with the mouse.

If anyone has had this problem or has suggestion, I'd really appreciate some good advice, coz I've run out of ideas.

Thanks

[Wyvern]

Greets!

I think your problem maybe that your town.avi are not opening properly. Now how do you do that? Well, what you have to do is wait patiently for Saz to get on the board and tell you what to do!

But at least I think your problem is resolvable!

Wyv

[Wyvern]

Decided not to keep you waiting - I grabbed this from a Saz post on the win 2000 problems. The fix should also solve your problems. Hope it does!

SAZ QUOTE:
The problem is that in Windows 2000, the town .avi files are compressed and won't work properly. To uncompress them, you need to go to the following site:

http://www.geocities.com/virtualdub/index.html

Once you get there, load the file townmsk1.avi from the Townavi directory in your Wizards & Warriors folder into Virtualdub. Save it with the "Save as old-format AVI". You will get back a 32MB file. Rename this file townmsk1.avi (over the old file).

Now restart Wizards & Warriors. You should be able to get inside all the buildings. This also prevents crashing from inside towns.

(Saz) and Wyv

[thresher]

thanks for the advice wyv...tried all of the above, but no change...the crash comes just outside of town, as soon as I try to select a character

[Wyvern]

Yikes!!

Is this happening on all of your save games? Or just one??
I'm hoping someone else will have some ideas but I'm beginning to wonder if you have a corrupt save.
If you can load that save without crashing - load it and try "revert" and see if that helps.

(where is Saz of infinite knowledge when we need him??)

Wyv

[carg]

64 MB memory is the minimum requirement for the game, and it should work with it, although it will be slow at times. Do try to deactivate all unnecessary programs running in the background, and disable the screensaver (although I haven't seen problems with that, HP advices it.)
You could try to disable all sound in the game; I have troubles with some games with soundblaster liveware 3 and up, so I still use 2.1 which works fine for me.
If you're thinking about adding memory (not a bad idea I think, and not expensive currently), you might try to remove the old temporarily to test if it might be bad. (Or run a software memory tester if you have one.)

[Wyvern]

Carg - many thanks for jumping in and giving other options for Thresher to try!!

This is such a fun game, I really hate to see folks having problems running it!

Wyv

[Ostrich]

Hmm, try installing DirectX V.8

No promises

Hi Thresher!

I had the same or at least a very similar problem. To be precise, several seconds after leaving Valeia, shortly after the speech ended, I crashed to the desktop, but it didn't depend on what I was doing. It was, as it seems, literally just a matter of time.

The good news first: I got the problem solved.

The bad news, you ask?
I had to buy a new computer to do so.

Now for the details - they may at least give you a clue about what's wrong.

My old computer was a PII 266, 64MB, SB clone, DX7, and almost no more HD space, but judging from what I have seen the problem is caused by the graphics card or driver (in my case a Matrox Millennium II). Here's the evidence.
I contacted Activision's customer support, and they told me to upgrade my graphics and sound drivers. I did that - no effect.
Then they suggested a manual install using xcopy (Those where the days! *sigh* But I'm getting off subject). Don't even try, the game will probably crash before you see Valeia.
That was about when I told myself: 'Okay, let's give it up. Your gonna buy yourself a new computer anyway, and everything will be fine then.'
Now I personally despise those guys who use boards like this to boast with their new hardware, so I'll restrict myself to the essentials. The graphics adapter is a Prophet II MX w/ 32 Mb and the operating system I initially used was Windows ME. Eagerly I installed W&W and, guess what, it crashed again. What a downer. I asked around for help, and the reaction I got when describing the problem and my system specs was something like: 'Oh god, you're using Windows ME, don't do that, it's even crappier then the rest of their products.'
Fine, I went back to Win98 SE, and THE GAME FINALLY WORKED!
However, when I checked the drivers on the CD that came with my graphics card, I found there was none specifically dedicated for WinME, ie with the proper drivers it should work under WinME, so I concluded that the OS is not the problem, but rather the graphics hardware and drivers.

I know that's not overly helpful, but it's all I can tell you.

Two final suggestions, however:
Check this board. There may be older posts concerning your problem.

Secondly, contact Activision's customer support. They really try to help you, and maybe in the meantime they've figured out what's wrong.

Oh, and carg: In my desparation I've fiddled around with my old system a lot, trying most of what you are suggesting - no way. I'm pretty sure it has to do with the graphics card. Might be nice if someone who also uses the banshee blaster could share his experiences.

[skywalker]

Hi All,
I doubt it is the Banshee 16MB Vid Card. This is the card I played through once and in all video modes. It seems at first I had the crashing to the desktop problem and then as I continued on in the game it rarely happened at all. Really don't have any answers, just thought I'd add in my 2 cents on the Banshee.

Mark