Bizarre Glitch

Vargoradaath

Vargoradaath

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Elder
Joined
Aug 30, 2003
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After spending hours fooling around trying to get my essential hardware drivers installed (something Windows couldn't do, apparently.  it's also apparently incompatible with the drivers it suggests for my integrated soundboard  :rolleyes), I finally managed to install BW2.  All was going well until I decided after conquering the final village of land 3 (Norse island) that a) I'd been stupidly evil, and b) that my creature's mind was screwed up beyond salvation.  So, I restarted my first profile. 

Land 1 was completed without a hitch, and I was looking forward to training my new wolf (as the old one was hideously evil, severely depressed, and had a habit of ignoring my orders whenever it came to 'good' deeds (building leash apparently meant "I'm going to attack that animal")... well, I click the scroll and patiently wait through the brief load time that should lead to the in-engine/interactive cutscene of the Aztec raid...

...only it immediately crashed to the desktop with no error message, and crashed on startup next time I tried to boot it.  Restarting allowed me to start up without problems, and continuing from my land 3 backup save worked reasonably well, too.  However, I decided that perhaps a second profile was in order.  Quitting to the main menu, I created the new profile, and began play.

Not only did the advisors' mouths fail to open and close on each syllable as programmed (instead staying wide open during dialogue), but now the game is stuck in the 'pre-creature selection' dialogue... right after Beardy's first line, the game ceases to function.  The creatures' idle animations play, and the advisors are still on-screen, but the cursor is non-functional (and absent) and the game seems stuck, waiting for the next line of dialogue to begin, which never does.

I've tried deleting all BW2 data from My Documents, and even reinstalled and repatched, but to no avail.  Having no audio whatsoever leaves me at a disadvantage, as I've no way to determine if anything else is afoot...

It seems the only way to start a new profile that works is to purge all profile info from the registry, or maybe just delete the Lionhead Studios folder; the former requires knowledge of things which I sorely lack, and the latter requires the patience to delete and reinstall under the blind assumption that this might fix the problem. 

Any advice would be most appreciated, if anyone knows what might be causing this problem.
 
Well to start, what kind of hardware do you have that's creating such problems with drivers? What exactly are you doing to install them?

Next, I quickly perused the registry and found no evidence that parts of the profile is stored in there like BnW1. Get some other opinions first, but I believe all of your profile data is in my documents this time around. I don't see the need for you to start messing around with the registry just yet.

Whenever you're doing an uninstall, it's always a good idea to blow everything away that you can think of. This includes basic things like the install directory. I don't think that's the problem in this case, however. Given that you've already tried a reinstall, I'm highly suspicious of the drivers.
 
I think it's only the uninstall data which is in the registery now.

What I would do since it did work, would be to uninstall the game by using the button which appears when you pop in the cd. Delete all of the folders in the Black & White2 directory, then empty the recycle bin, do a defrag and then reinstall. There could be a corrupted file somewhere and this should give you a clean install.

All of the profile data is in the Black & White folder in the My Documents folder. Delete that or rename it for a fresh start. If that works well the rename it back and see what happens.

Good luck.
 
It's even worse than it was before... after I got home from the library, minutes after starting this thread, I turned my computer back on, and apparently, I was missing "\windows\system32\config\system" ... or perhaps it was simply corrupt.  Having played around with the recovery console, the tools of which apparently could do nothing to restore my system, I decided to reformat and reinstall Windows, since I had nothing to lose at that point.  All went fine; I installed my drivers in no time (this time knowing which ones to use, as opposed to hunting for them out of a long list), and after disabling some nuisance software that was cluttering my desktop, restarted so as to prevent any potential problems.

Sure enough, upon startup, Windows claimed that the same system file was missing or corrupt.  At this point, I gave up in frustration and went to bed.

This morning, I reformatted once again, reinstalled everything again, and started a new profile in B&W.  The brand new profile started up like all the other failed ones did; the intro movie's final grey scene (during the transition from cutscene to game) froze, requiring that I hit Esc to abort it.  Once again, the advisors' mouths were gaping, and once again, the subtitle box stayed stuck in place while the cursor remained invisible and unable to move (although the evil advisor apparently reacted to it as if it were there). 

I just don't know what's going on.  I'll try clearing the profiles again, and this time, not upping the detail and resolution in the starting menu, rather, waiting until the game begins (as I did the very first time around).  Assuming I can even start up without reformatting and reinstalling Windows due to file corruption.  :rolleyes

If it helps, I'm running the stock Catalyst driver (the one on the CD) on a Radeon 9600, with no Service Packs, on a 160 GB hard disk.  System RAM is 1 gig, processor is 1.9GHz AMD Athlon XP 2200.  Driver and Service packs are laughably out of date due to my inability to download them myself.  BW2 is using the v1.1 patch.

 
When using Win2K it seeems that it is necessary to install up to SP4 and then do the windows update for it to work properly. Also the updated Catalyst drivers do help.
 
Windows 2000 with no service packs is going back quite a ways. I'm not surprised to see driver issues and general OS instability in your case. I thought I remember seeing the game requirements technically requiring SP4 also - don't remember. Keep in mind Windows 2000 with no service packs is not unstable by itself. I feel that problems are arising when you're installing drivers meant for a more recent update of Windows.

You can download SP4 as a single file (a rather large single file). This is useful if your gaming computer doesn't have Internet access. Just use a computer that does and burn it to a CD. If you want to get really slick you can also download the hot fixes in a similar fashion. It would be as if you're running windows update on your computer.
 
SP4 is only 129 MB. :rolleyes

I've seen the updates thing posted on the BWGame boards and at least one member here was able to get it going by doing the updates.
 
Well, thanks for your help, all.  I've not had much of a chance to attempt your proposed fixes, but it was decent of you, nonetheless  :yourock:.  I should have checked to see if I even specified WinXP in my system profile blurb.  And once again, Windows is down.  Oh well, no biggie.  I'm going to try something I just read online:

Q: \WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\CONFIG\SYSTEM is corrupt. HELP! (#3546) 
A: Your system displays the error message.

Windows could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt: \WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\CONFIG\SYSTEM

That means the System Registry Hive has become corrupted.

There are two ways to get back up and running. The easy way which doesn't always work, and then there is the hard way.

Easy Way --- Note that this doesn't always work.
When you are booting your system, press the F8 key during the start of the bootup sequence, meaning after it does the Power On Self Test.

Once you press the F8 key, you will be taken to a Menu. Select "Boot Using Last Known Good Configuration".

It will now attempt to load Windows XP using a past set of configuration files.

If that doesn't work, there is the next step....the hard way.

Hard Way
Boot your system with the Windows XP Install CD, let the system boot into the Setup. Once in the Setup, choose to run the Recovery Console.

You will now be presented with a screen similar to good old DOS.

First, we will recover the System Hive.

Now, type in the following commands with pressing Enter after each line.

md tmp
copy C:\windows\system32\config\system C:\windows\tmp\system.bak
delete C:\windows\system32\config\system
copy C:\windows\repair\system C:\windows\system32\config\system

Be very careful when you are typing in these commands, one wrong move, and you know, broken Windows XP.

Also, change the C in the commands to whatever your Windows XP drive letter is.

Attempt to boot the system, if it doesn't boot, get back into the Recovery Console and do the following commands.

md tmp
copy C:\windows\system32\config\software C:\windows\tmp\software.bak
delete C:\windows\system32\config\software
copy C:\windows\repair\software C:\windows\system32\config\software
Click to expand...

As far as BW2 goes, I figured out that most of my problems stem from:

1. Attempting to reconfigure my resolution and detail settings before starting up for the first time

2. hitting any keys during the initial "This is the beginning, the birth of a god" video. 

All attempts to create a second profile have failed, but maybe that's because I've not been paying close enough attention to the apparently hypersensitive nature of BW2 on my system.  Maybe this warrants a posting (and therefore reregistration) at the LH boards...

Either way, I've got a working profile (learning the ways of veiled evil: good alignment with several enormous platoons just waiting to unleash upon the slightest provocation  :devil), and so all I have to do is figure out what causes the Wolf to become hideously ugly (tiny, close-set eyes, long, needle-like teeth, and a bulbous, misshapen snout), seemingly at random.  Methinks it may have something to do with attention paid, and at what time of the day you put the creature to bed... but this is getting off topic...  :sorry
 
Vargoradaath said:
and so all I have to do is figure out what causes the Wolf to become hideously ugly (tiny, close-set eyes, long, needle-like teeth, and a bulbous, misshapen snout)
Click to expand...

Well I hope you get everything working. About the above - it has nothing to do with you. See my post here. You see this problem at random because it's contigent on your creature's alignment. Some alignments are ok, while others are not (40% good may be fine, but 45% will be no good etc).
 
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