Black Plague Crashes Returning From Cells To Messhall

**theholysyrup** · 01-27-2009, 01:53 AM

Running the Steam Version of Black Plague Gold. Sound drivers and graphics drivers are updated to latest. The 1.0.1 patch doesn't work on the Steam Version.

The game crashes when I try to open the door and return from the Cells to the Messhall.

The same crash occurs if I try to loop around through the vent in the cell where the game begins. If I pass the vending machine, go into the vent, go across the broken floor section, tinker with the thermostat again, the game crashes in the vent during the load screen when about to enter the Messhall.

edit by jens--------
temporary fix, use the saves posted here to get by this area
http://frictionalgames.com/forum/showthr...0#pid23840

**Thomas** · 01-27-2009, 08:12 AM

There is alot of strangeness in the log. Have you tried reinstalling the game, as it seems like the installation might be corrupt.

**theholysyrup** · 01-28-2009, 01:03 AM

(01-27-2009, 08:12 AM)Thomas Wrote: There is alot of strangeness in the log. Have you tried reinstalling the game, as it seems like the installation might be corrupt.

Yes, I've reinstalled it. Same behavior.

**jens** · 01-28-2009, 08:20 AM

Have you tried starting a new game and not resume a saved game? There is indications in the log of of strange problems with files! Could you go to "My Documents/Penumbra/Black Plague/save/auto/" and take the saved game, zip it and post it here please.

**theholysyrup** · 01-28-2009, 09:47 PM

(01-28-2009, 08:20 AM)jens Wrote: Have you tried starting a new game and not resume a saved game? There is indications in the log of of strange problems with files! Could you go to "My Documents/Penumbra/Black Plague/save/auto/" and take the saved game, zip it and post it here please.

Yes, I have tried starting over. Same thing happens. Attached are two saves from the Cells. The first is shortly after entering the Cells from the Messhall. I've explored the first room, but not diabled the power. Try going back through the door.

The second save is in the Cells, just as I've been noticed by a sentry. Hide in the corner until he leaves. Then try returning to the Messhall.

Note 1:

Every nth try, I am in fact able to get back through to the Messhall without the game crashing. This is typically the very first try after a reboot. But, if it lets me back into the Messhall without crashing (like I said, this is very rare), and I go back through to the cells and then try again to go back to the Messhall, it crashes.

Note 2:

On either save (or from a brand new game played from the beginning), if I loop around through the vents and try to enter the Messhall via that route, the game also crashes as the Messhall map loads.

Note 3:

On the rare occasion that the game lets me back through the door to the Messhall, a sound of the door closing behind me plays. When the game crashes at this point, 1) The "Loading" screen is displayed, 2) the sound of the door closing plays, 3) the screen goes black, then white, and 4) I get a generic Vista "The application is not responding" error.

**usy** · 02-05-2009, 09:37 PM

Exactly the same problem here. I'm attaching log file and save.

**Panda** · 02-08-2009, 06:08 AM

I have this problem as well, so I submit my own log (basically identical to the other ones) and my own details. First off, I'm running the Steam version and my log is from a save the very first save point. All I did was play through the game to that point, save it there, quit out, go back in, load that save, and try to go back out the door. An additional wrinkle: After I go through, I hear the door clank sound as though it finished loading normally, but the screen is no longer updating. After about a minute, my screen turns black and Vista tells me that the graphics driver itself stopped responding and had to be restarted.

I'm running the game on a Radeon HD 4870 on the 9.1 catalyst drivers. I feel compelled to mention that this is a game that I'm already giving special treatment to -- If I don't turn the Catalyst AI setting down to "normal", the world lighting fades to purple (as in, the same color that everything looks when you're hiding) instead of to black even when you're just walking around. This exact same effect is seen in Overture and Requiem, and it goes away in all three when I change that setting. I wonder if the two are related and there's another weird Radeon HD 4xxx compatibility issue that still needs to be ironed out.

**lordseth** · 02-17-2009, 09:00 PM

also having the same problem as panda. im using a ATI HD4670 with 8.12 driver also attaching save and log. when trying to get back to messhall from cell after infected arrives game crashes to desktop straight after loading. get same error. graphic driver stopped and repairing or something. plz plz plz sort out a fix Smile

oh and im using

amd phenom 9850 quad-core 2.5Ghz
4gb ram
vista 64bit OS
ATI HD4670
1TB HDD

**jens** · 02-17-2009, 09:49 PM

Can't find anything strange at all. Nothing strange in the logs and the saves work OK.

An idea:
Could you go to My Documents/Penumbra/Black Plague/ and open the settings.cfg in notepad, find the entry UseThreading="true" and change it to UseThreading="false", it is located in the <sound tag.

You all have ATI HD cards so that seems to be the obvious common source that could be a problem, but would like to take a quick test so that it does not have to do with sounds.

**Panda** · 02-18-2009, 02:59 AM

I gave that a shot but still the same deal. It definitely seems like it's just crashing the video driver because each time, I can wait the two minutes or so it takes for Vista to notice the graphics aren't working anymore and it always recovers with a "Your graphics adapter needed to be reset"-type message. Hmmmmmmm.