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Gorasul Problem with German demo
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RPGDot Forums > CRPGs General

Author Thread
Cantello
Village Dweller
Village Dweller




Joined: 18 Jul 2001
Posts: 3
Gorasul Problem with German demo
   

Every time I try to start the German demo (the 120MB one) it displays the logo, then the 'Gorasul' startup-screen (with the dragon) and then it kicks me back to the desktop with the following:

"Break! ID: 8009 Text: Variable ASV_VideoInfo not defined Func: UNKNOWN Call-History: N/A"

I'm running Win2k/SP2, Directx8.0a with a Geforce2MX video card.

Any ideas what could cause this?
Post Wed Jul 18, 2001 6:49 am
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Stefan Hoffmann
Silver Dragon of Gorasul
Silver Dragon of Gorasul




Joined: 07 Jul 2001
Posts: 47
Location: Berlin/Germany
   

Hello Cantello!

Ok, let's try to find out what's going wrong on your machine.

When does the program stop? Do you see the dragon screen fading out or are you kicked earlier?

And some more questions about your machine:
- Is there enough harddrive space left for the swap file? (This is normally drive C, if you don't change it)
- Are there programs like netmeeting running at this time? If so, stop netmeeting (better: close *any* open program in the background, just to be sure, that there are no side effects)
- Does video working fine generally on your machine? If you are not sure, try to start some videos with the media player.



_________________
Stefan Hoffmann
Silver Style Entertainment
Post Wed Jul 18, 2001 7:46 am
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Guest







   

quote:

When does the program stop? Do you see the dragon screen fading out or are you kicked earlier?



It does not fade out but goes black and then I'm back in Desktop-land.

quote:

And some more questions about your machine:
- Is there enough harddrive space left for the swap file? (This is normally drive C, if you don't change it)



Yep, over 1 Gig free on the drive where the pagefile resides.

quote:

- Are there programs like netmeeting running at this time? If so, stop netmeeting (better: close *any* open program in the background, just to be sure, that there are no side effects)



No, tried it with programs open and with a freshly booted Win2k.

quote:

- Does video working fine generally on your machine? If you are not sure, try to start some videos with the media player.



Yep, videos play just fine.

I'll give it another try this evening when I'm back from work. Perhaps it was something I oversaw.

Thanks for the help!



[/quote]
Post Wed Jul 18, 2001 8:03 am
 
Stiletto
God Emperor
God Emperor




Joined: 06 Jul 2001
Posts: 312
Location: Orlando, Florida
   

Stefan: do you use the same video format as Baldurs Gate? Do you know what video format they use? Whenever I hear about problems playing a video in a game, I always have to think about my BG experience <: Why don't you guys just use MPEG's or some standard format?
Post Wed Jul 18, 2001 10:53 am
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Stefan Hoffmann
Silver Dragon of Gorasul
Silver Dragon of Gorasul




Joined: 07 Jul 2001
Posts: 47
Location: Berlin/Germany
   

@Stiletto: I agree with you, that fooling around with own experimental video formats may cause more problems than it solves.

To be honest: Therefore we didn't do that. We're using standard video formats and we're using standard windows functionality to play them. I'm quiet sure that we can help Cantello with the demo and that it's just a little configuration problem on his machine.

_________________
Stefan Hoffmann
Silver Style Entertainment
Post Wed Jul 18, 2001 11:26 am
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Stiletto
God Emperor
God Emperor




Joined: 06 Jul 2001
Posts: 312
Location: Orlando, Florida
   

How common is it in game making to use custom video formats? I am definately liking the general direction of games that use 3D engines to use the game engine with scripts to do cut scenes. It definately makes it a more seemless event.
Post Wed Jul 18, 2001 4:08 pm
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Stefan Hoffmann
Silver Dragon of Gorasul
Silver Dragon of Gorasul




Joined: 07 Jul 2001
Posts: 47
Location: Berlin/Germany
   

@Stiletto:
Well, I don't think that's uncommon just to use these custom video formats. Though I can't say anything more exactly to this, like "30% of all games using these formats".

And yes, it's a fine way to implement cut scenes just by using the 3D engine for this. But a real video has other qualities: We can show much more detailled 3D models and light and shading is much softer. So for me, both techniques have their advantages.

_________________
Stefan Hoffmann
Silver Style Entertainment
Post Wed Jul 18, 2001 6:46 pm
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Stiletto
God Emperor
God Emperor




Joined: 06 Jul 2001
Posts: 312
Location: Orlando, Florida
   

You are right about getting more detail in a full blown cut scene. But I stick by my statement of prefering the game engine rendered movies. While you get more detail, you also get more of a break in game play. It sort of forces you out of your game mode where you just sit back and watch a movie. While with the game engine rendered scenes you are more likely to sit at the keyboard and get ready for what comes next. Thats my opinion anyways <: Another point I was making was that the 3D engines are getting good enough that you don't lose much in the way of quality compared to a pre-rendered movie. Sure its better, but the line is definately getting thinner!
Post Wed Jul 18, 2001 7:07 pm
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Jay
Fearless Paladin
Fearless Paladin




Joined: 07 Jul 2001
Posts: 245
   

I like a good cut-scene in a game. It can feel like a reward. Final Fantasy has some amazing stuff, but they can overdo it a little bit. FF X looks like it could be amazing, but its console only, so I won't be playing it.

For me the demo did'nt play a film at the beginning. Am I missing something?
Post Thu Jul 19, 2001 6:15 pm
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Stefan Hoffmann
Silver Dragon of Gorasul
Silver Dragon of Gorasul




Joined: 07 Jul 2001
Posts: 47
Location: Berlin/Germany
   

@Jay: No, you don't miss the intro. There are just the little logo animations. The intro itself is be much too big for a downloadable demo.

_________________
Stefan Hoffmann
Silver Style Entertainment
Post Thu Jul 19, 2001 7:44 pm
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Cantello
Village Dweller
Village Dweller




Joined: 18 Jul 2001
Posts: 3
   

Just an update: I tried anything I could imagine and still the demo crashes right after the dragon screen.

One thing I noticed, though, is that when I leave the 'Silver Style' logo alone it sits there forever, so I press escape to advance to the dragon screen and again, if I do nothing, it stays there and once I press escape, I'm back to the desktop after a short while with the above error message.

Post Fri Jul 20, 2001 4:25 am
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Stefan Hoffmann
Silver Dragon of Gorasul
Silver Dragon of Gorasul




Joined: 07 Jul 2001
Posts: 47
Location: Berlin/Germany
   

@Cantello: Check your private messages here in the forum. We'll find that problem.


_________________
Stefan Hoffmann
Silver Style Entertainment
Post Fri Jul 20, 2001 6:37 am
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