Dragon Age: Inquisition

[KadashmanEnlil]

@Unkindled:

Sucks man. But if you’ve been playing 153 hours since launch a break might not be a bad thing. It might be a good idea anyway, even if the game was stable on your setup. DLC and an expansion are inevitable; here’s to your second DA:I binge on a stable system with a fully expanded and patched DA:I in X months’ time

I’ve had 3 or 4 CTD’s in about 60 hours (about 50 hours actual gameplay – the machine stays on during phonecalls and lunch / dinner breaks). The game has a fair number of (mostly relatively minor) bugs and glitches as far as I can tell, my perception is that the game is about as buggy and glitchy as Skyrim at launch. Meaning it’s not bad for a large game shortly after launch; by all accounts I had a reasonably stable and fairly playable Skyrim experience compared to others, and DA:I seems about the same.

And yes, my machine is fully up to date, reasonably modern (15 months old, i7 / GTX 670) and very stable. While there are probably plenty of guys and gals around with systems with obsolete drivers or one really unstable component or other, it does seem to me that there’s some element of luck or bad luck involved, meaning hardware or software components that work as intended, but for some reason ‘fell through’ QA?

 

[gadrael]

I had some game crashes at start (on AMD Phenom overclocked by FSB), but after increasing voltage on processor everything is fine. This game heavily uses multithreding, so processor may be the problem.

 

[Unkindled]

Well, I'm not sure how many of those hours are just me with the pause menu displayed on my screen, or looking up how to fix this fucking game, lol, but that's what Origin says. I did explore most of the game my first run with the exception of the elven temple and the oasis, which I'll do this time. Currently working on the shards and doors now while doing other tasks.

Well, it's playing better now but of course, each time I say that, the game shuts down and starts fucking up, lol. But normally I'd suffer a few crashes in the morning. I completely deleted Nvidia drivers, cleaned my PC with system suite professional AND Ccleaner, reinstalled everything, then played around with the graphics a bit, mixing high and ultra, mainly leaving background settings for the land to high and ultra for stuff that'll effect my character.

What seems to have worked so far is messing with resolution scaling and the in game resolution. Had it on 1920 X 1080, so I set that to 1200 X 720 and didn't notice a difference, besides in framerate. Before that I set the resolution scaling down a bit, but I could notice the effects of that, both performance and graphics wise. Less sharp.

Worst case scenario, if the game still acts up, I'll just have to lower the resolution scaling a tad. Also set tesselation quality to high. Don't need that maxed, as that with the graphics settings I have would probably really wear on my GPU.

Granted, I should be able to handle that, but whatever is in my game and others makes it to where some of our copies are too sensitive to imbalance. So while the computer and GPU can handle the pressure, the game as is just can't. And I know it can, as the temps without the fans on never exceed 65 C, and with them on it's around 45 C,

So far so good though. But I'm expecting that to change at any minute.

---------- Updated at 07:58 AM ----------

I had some game crashes at start (on AMD Phenom overclocked by FSB), but after increasing voltage on processor everything is fine. This game heavily uses multithreding, so processor may be the problem.

What's your voltage on?

 

[gadrael]

What's your voltage on?

I have just increased it a little from default value in bios, I will check exact value when I will be back home.

 

[Unkindled]

I have just increased it a little from default value in bios, I will check exact value when I will be back home.

K. I saw people recommending that too and wasn't sure if I should mess with it. My value's higher than theirs on default already, but they were talking about older games so it may need more.

 

[gadrael]

K. I saw people recommending that too and wasn't sure if I should mess with it. My value's higher than theirs on default already, but they were talking about older games so it may need more.

I think it also depends on processor type. My mainboard tells the maximum safe values, so I don't need special knowledge , I just increase few steps and checks if everything is ok.

 

[Unkindled]

I think it also depends on processor type. My mainboard tells the maximum safe values, so I don't need special knowledge , I just increase few steps and checks if everything is ok.

I upped it a tad. It only lets me go up in three notches from max increase possibility, so I went up two. So far so good. Temperatures are good with the fan on too. Also increased the limit in temp and percentage. Gonna do some stress testing in game and see how it does. It mentions this stabilizes overclocks, and overclocking is exactly what the clock boost thing does against your will, so hopefully this helps...

 

[Veleda.980]

I get a lot of DirectX CTD. Most annoying is when it happens in the opening cutscene, after you've been through the character creator but before the game has made a save.

 

[Unkindled]

Fuck, I know. Then I have to get rid of the frame code I put in or else I'll start a new character in the fade.... LOL. Just a developer testing zone I think.

Before anyone asks, no, getting rid of that doesn't help. Game actually did run smoother today, but the crashes did eventually come back. Just not as bad. I want to get rid of them completely though, at least the ones where they crash to desktop with no error message. I hear people say that's due to a lack of visual C, and I bet that I installed those incorrectly or something.

I get conflicting info saying that I should download both the x86 and x64 versions of 2012, while others like myself thought you should only download x64, since 64 bit is what I have, not 32 bit. Either way, I'm reinstalling dragon age so it'll redownload the visual c packs that come with it, since I deleted them for a clean reinstall, and downloading just the one x64 visual C++ 2012 pack.

---------- Updated at 04:47 PM ----------

Never been so afraid to play a game before. I'm avoiding fights n' such as much as possible for now, going in cutscenes to talk, testing testing, doing work like gathering stormheart ore, just waiting for a crash of some sort. When I loaded up the game from the troublesome save, it crashed pretty much immediately twice in a row, so I figured the save got corrupted. Deleted those, as they were just test run saves anyway, then continued and nothing bad so far. Only choppiness from opening a door to a new area in skyhold briefly before smoothing out.

I noticed something odd, which is that even though I don't have the 60 fps code in for the game anymore, the game in cutscenes runs as smoothly as if it had. I did change a lot of stuff in the control panel to high performance, both for this game, nvidia and other related files. Also lowered resolution below mine a tad, set the clock back on the GPU only by 5 since I think underclocking severely may have the same negative effect as overclocking. Don't think it cares about which way it goes, unstable for Frostbite is unstable.

Still, I'm really afraid to put stress on it now and have the same issue repeat, though I'm wondering now if the frequent crashes after one comes from a corrupted save due to the initial crash. Could mean using a previous save before the one would help.

I'd feel better if there were a fucking patch already. I've got work to do tonight anyway so I'll just stick to farming ores and talking for a bit. I need some fade touched obsidian anyway. Sigh. And fighting for me is so fun too.

 

[Sana_mia]

I've had a few crashes in the begining. something was runnig amok. After deleting the whole settings file and carefully adjusting the specs, not a single one. 16hours without ever closing the game without a single crash so that's perfect.

There are some other issues, cut-scenes in the middle of combat annoy the hell out of me... Yes Cassandra drink ALL of my health potions because you can't shut up your pie hole while a single archer is shooting at you... We only have to do the boss right after this... UGH

Sometimes characters get stuck in a T position, a quick load and save solves that...

Now my biggest problem is a reason to fucking HATE bioware/EA multiple layers of hidden shit DRM.

The keep is the vilest piece of shit DRM ever. Spend 20 minutes carefully reconstructing YOUR warden. Needing Internet and shit to get that data in there and then just fucking ignore all of it. Lelliana admitted to being killed by my FEMALE warden who's married to the king.... Then suddenly she says she was there at the end of the fifth blight? the fuck?
But hey it gets worse...

Spoiler

So everyone talked about how SHE the warden did stuff, along comes Morrigan... With a child apparently from her lover the MALE warden hero of Ferelden... Not even a word about how my female warden stabbed her after she tracked down her and the demon brat she had with Alistair.

This happens all the time, my warden switches gender every few hours. Whenever it makes a better story it seems the game ignores the keep choices. The ONE female character I made in the last 10 years suddenly is a gender bender...

Ugh back to riding the bull...

 

[Cheylus]

The Keep, a DRM? Interesting.

 

[CostinRaz]

You've got some problems there. Remember that you have to export, also it's been suggested by Gaider to rename your export version name to be sure it's the correct one.

It's not DRM by the way. You don't have to use it to play the game, though of course there's fucking little point in playing DA:I as a DA veteran without importing.

Anyway I"m working on a tribute video for the game, about two thirds of the way there. Now I just have to string some action pieces together but I've got the hardest part covered, as in the part with heavy dialogue.

 

[Unkindled]

I had Farcry 4 working beautifully on max settings, and the game didn't wear on my GPU nearly as much as Dragon Age Inquisition does. I'm at a loss for words. I have no idea what's wrong, but I'm now officially confident it's nothing from my side. It has to be an issue with the game itself, likely an issue with Nvidia and DA: I together. Don't know what to say. I at least beat the game and saw most of what there is to offer, so I'm luckier than a lot of people already. Got my screens, good memories. But I just can't play this game anymore as is. I'll keep trying of course, until they give me a patch, but I'm not even going to attempt to get my hopes up that it's truly ever fixed for good until then. I think I'm done though. First game I've ever encountered so many issues with, PC or console.

 

[Eversong]

Didn't have much time to play lately, just got to Skyhold, like it so far. Shame I have to come up with artificial reasons for exploring areas though, since they don't really seem to be connected to the main plot. Game runs pretty stable for me, apart from some random fps spikes here and there. The only real problem is the Mantle, whenever I enable it, game starts running like shit, which is odd, considering it's supposed to give me some performance boost.

 

[octavian123]

DA:I won GOTY. Out of all the contenders I agree. I liked the game but not as much as I expected...maybe it's because I'm growing up lol. I'm not the same person I was 4-5 years ago.

 

[EliHarel]

Without spoiling it, I haven't played, how's the ending? Is it touching? And does it branch out? Did they learn their lessons from ME3?

 

[octavian123]

It's pretty good, not an embarrasment like ME3. Stay after the credits though.

 

[Cheylus]

They learned their lessons from their past games yes (but not only for the ending, for the whole game and its marketing). Ending was good, nothing more -- basically DAO ending 2.0. If you care about the lore there is an interesting scene at the end. A lot of themes end with the game too, one way or another.

Also, kudos to BioWare. More attention to party-based RPG is needed.

 

[Sana_mia]

It's horrible wonky, apparently the answer is to import another world state and start a new game... grr.
The behavior is also flaky as hell, it's like tossing a coin every time I do something. Interestingly it started only after 30 hours or so, before that every remark to past games was correct.

I know that technically it's not DRM, but it sure has all the symptoms. Need to be on-line to use, prone to failures otherwise wouldn't exists, annoyingly cumbersome to use and if it where removed and replaced by a save game editor / importer the annoyances, failures and on-line requirement would be gone.

 

[Unkindled]

Without spoiling it, I haven't played, how's the ending? Is it touching? And does it branch out? Did they learn their lessons from ME3?

It wasn't a fail. That's all I can say, though the ending fight was horribly rushed, like they ran out of time or something. But the game's about the journey.

Just killed a dragon on a whim to stress test the game, lol. I wasn't even prepared to fight it, but that "to the death" champion ability is just so boss that I didn't need to.