Very, very strange

Black Hand · Post by **Black Hand** » Mon Jan 08, 2001 6:11 am

I have a odd slowdown problem related to the Planar Sphere quest. After finishing this quest the mouse cursor and character movement becomes suddenly jumpy.

This problem continues throughout the game and is oddly even stored in the savegame! That means I can reload an older savegame and everything is smooth. Then I load the game after the Planar Sphere, and its jumpy again.

Did anyone else experience this problem too? Any suggestions how to solve it?
Although I could simply bypass the Sphere quest, I don't want to miss the gauntlets of ogre power and the wizard ring, please help!

Garcia · Post by **Garcia** » Mon Jan 08, 2001 6:32 am

good and bad news!

the good news is that it is possible to get rid of the slowdown the bad news is in order to do so you will have to play the planerS. once again. I had some problem with bugs there too. It´s only rearly there are problems but if you have a saved game just before you go in (you should have a permanent saved game before every new quest)just load it and try again.
I do understand that you don't wanna miss out on the gauntlets of ogre power and the wizard ring, they are sweet!
hope this helps otherwise I don't know what could be the course of the lag.

Black Hand · Post by **Black Hand** » Mon Jan 08, 2001 11:20 am

Unfortunately, I have already replayed the level for three times, and it did not help. Suppose I will have to do without the goodies.

Thanks anyway Garcia.

Waverly · Post by **Waverly** » Mon Jan 08, 2001 1:00 pm

This may or may not help, but I have an occasional slowdown similar to the one you describe, and it is definately not related any particular quest. The characters begin moving VERY slowly, the cursor jumps, and you simply wait and wait. For me, reloading, even quiting and restarting are not enough. I have to reboot and load again. You may want to give it a try next time.

Black Hand · Post by **Black Hand** » Tue Jan 09, 2001 5:43 am

Nope, doesn't help. I even backuped my savegames and re-installed BG2.

What happened? Well, the saved games before the Planar Sphere are fine, after PS laaag.

I have never witnessed such a damn stupid bug! A savegame-related crash, ok. But lag???

I would really like to know what causes this.

Garcia · Post by **Garcia** » Tue Jan 09, 2001 5:50 am

When exactly does the slowdown begin? just when you leave the planerS.?

Black Hand · Post by **Black Hand** » Tue Jan 09, 2001 7:06 am

Not always. Sometimes everything seems to be ok when I leave the sphere, but then certain events cause the slowdown later in the game.

One event that will always trigger the effect is when I go to the estate where Sir Sarles resides, and the butler initiates dialogue.

Maurice · Post by **Maurice** » Tue Jan 09, 2001 7:53 am

The only (serious) slow down I ever experienced was in the Mind Flayer Dungeon in the Underdark, the room with all the Slaves hooked up. Only when I finally turned off the devices (after 2 crashes or so) the game ran smoothly again.

There might be a few reasons for slowdown:
- Duration spells running their course in an area nearby. Also prevents resting.
- Many graphical effects (the reason above is a special case of this one) are occuring.
- The game is desperately trying to calculate the paths for one or more (N)PC's, but fails to, because of various obstacles in the way.
- Some program in the background decides to get active and suck up resources.
- Memory leak causing lots of memory to get lost in loops and such.

I can't think of many other reasons.

Black Hand · Post by **Black Hand** » Tue Jan 09, 2001 8:50 am

No it's not such an effect. I also had a slowdown effect in this slave room (a bit like in the matrix with the man-powered devices). But this slowdown was only temporary, as are the others you mentioned.

My problem lasts for the rest of the game (and even deteriorates), no matter how many effects, animations etc. are on the screen. And the slowdown it is really bound to the saved game, not the game session, location, characters or anything else.

thumbsgerkin · Post by **thumbsgerkin** » Tue Jan 09, 2001 5:13 pm

I've been having a similar problem. Really choppy slow mouse and character animations generally occuring around large battles. I was playing in multiplayer and thought perhaps some type of synchronization attempts were what was slowing the whole process down so I tried releasing my IP address and then playing a serial based protocol multiplayer game. Neither seemed to help. I'm still in the first dungeon of the game but this type of gameplay makes the game more frustrating than anything else... My system is a PIII 450 128MBRAM TNT video card, so I'm assuming this is a bug. Any fixes would be greatly appreciated!

Ron · Post by **Ron** » Tue Jan 09, 2001 8:40 pm

Well I do not have a top notch video cars its a 32meg I'm keeping the name secret for Pride reasons

. Anyway i find that BG2 runs better with out 3d accel then when i use my 3d card. So try turning off 3d accel mode and see what happens.

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Just a couple &cent from Ron!
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Madison the Gray · Post by **Madison the Gray** » Tue Jan 09, 2001 10:11 pm

I had the same choppy slowdown every time I went up against a dragon in my first game. With a 733 PIII, GeForce video card, and 128 RAM, I don't think it's my machine. I am playing a new game right now and I will try without the 3d acceleration.

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Go for the Eyes! - Minsc

Drakron Du´Dark · Post by **Drakron Du´Dark** » Tue Jan 09, 2001 10:19 pm

I got a PIII 450 ,68ram, a Banshee card and it runs just fine in 800 resulution 3d on.
My conclusion BGII dont like powerful PCs.

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"He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not became a monster... when you gaze long into the abyss the abyss gazes into you..."
Friedrich Nietzsche

[This message has been edited by Drakron Du´Dark (edited 01-09-2001).]

Caernarvon · Post by **Caernarvon** » Tue Jan 09, 2001 10:45 pm

Definately turn off 3d accel. I have no idea what kind of video cards they tested it on, but it definately doesn't work with a Banshee, even though the same card has no trouble with homeworld.

Have you installed any new programs? At one point, I got a VERY annoying periodic lag, where the game would freeze briefly approximately once a second. It turns out it was the virus scanner that I had just installed a few days before.

Other possible culprits are any tray programs that like to hide in the background. Try ctrl + alt + del for Win 9x/ME and use "end task" on everything except "Systray" and "explorer" and then start BG. Another possibilty is that it may be related to certain item graphics, perhaps something that you picked up during that quest?