Fable The Lost Chapters

[scottishhans]

I'm monitoring the Lionhead forums for patch info, will link any corresonding data here as soon as it's available 

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Black and white2 review 50% not worth buying.

(I think they will be busy on B&W2 patches)

I have been in contact with Creative who are helping and confirm problems, lionhead are not responding to creative, so dont hold your breath.

Your monitoring the forums is appreciated, and ill be sure to follow any advice you can offer.

[Lagamorph]

Y'know I never expected this thread to go on this long, lol. Looks like we've identified a major issue with the PC port of Fable here....

[quinriva]

Just thought I would let every know about this. Just something that we've figured out relating to the crashes. I didn't find this out myself but I have confirmed that it does work. So heres the full details:

Fable The Lost Chapters for PC, C++ Visual Runtime Error Crash to Desktop during the Archery training scene and others.

Cause: Apparently the game doesn't like non-standard keyboard layouts

Solution: If you have set the keyboard layout to anything other than the Default WASD layout change it back. If you have a DVORAK keyboard the go into Regional & Language Options (in the control panel) under WindowsXP or Keyboard under Windows 2000 and add:

English United States - Keyboard layout: US and apply this as the default keyboard layout.

And this should work. If it doesn't then it is likely that you have a different problem.

Take note Fable does not support GeForce4 MX series cards (they don't have pixel shaders which are needed) apparently there might be a work around but the game looks and plays like s***. Buy a new video card. Even a cheap GeForce 6200 would do the trick.

Also there is known issues involving Creative Audigy drivers. If you have a GeForce4 MX or a Creative Audigy then read the post relating to those specific topics.

[Jakanden]

Also there is known issues involving Creative Audigy drivers. If you have a GeForce4 MX or a Creative Audigy then read the post relating to those specific topics.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Where would the Audigy post be located?

[iron_guard]

it is probably beacause the game was made with very bad computers so try playing the game for 2 hours at minimum specs (everything turned down to zero) or it is either that you are setting the refresh rate higher than what your monitor can handle.

[iron_guard]

what is windows blinds

[Varden]

Ok here's a problem I have run into and its repeatable.

The game seems to want to crash at specific points where it autosaves after completing a quest.

The first time I experienced this was with the "Break the Siege" sidequest. The quest ran fine but afterwords I would attempt a save or autosave it would crash. I did not try anything here but simply sidestepped the issue by not doing the quest all together

The second instance is 100% repeatable and is Main Quest critical. At the Necropolis where you must dig up all the glyph tablets once I actually complete the quest and get the 4th tablet by defeating the "summoners" and opening the grave. I get the quest completed window and the experience rewards and the Summoner guantlet trophy and immediatly the autosave window comes up and then crashes to desktop.

I have tried to do the following:

Update my graphics card driver and sound card driver

Reduced video settings to lowest settings and resolution

Turned off music and sound

Adjusted configurations on character in game that had particle effects

Attempted clean boot procedure as described at support.microsoft.com/games

I have found no other documentation of this problem thus far or any patches to date on the game it being a fairly new release I don't suspect I will any time soon.

Setup is the following:

AMD Athlon 64 X2 dual 3800+

1.0GB RAM

ATI Radeon Xpress 200 series 256mb integrated

Realtek AC'97 Audio integrated

[Lagamorph]

Hm.....from what I can see....a lot of the problems seem to center around when the game tries to save. It looks like that's where the problem is.....ok that doesn't really help us get any solutions to the various problems we're all having, but at least we seem to be getting closer to a possible cause.

When the game crashes for other people, are you getting error message boxes or anything? Or is the game just suddenly crashing and you're brought back to your windows desktop with no error messages or anything like I get?

[Varden]

There have been instances where there was a world save in progress and the game shutdown and I got an error box saying it needed to shut down and I did the submit info. I would have to experiment more with some of my earlier saves to try and duplicate it to see what exactly happens.

In this case with the autosave it simply kicks me out to desktop with no error messages at all.

Here is the message in the Event viewer I received from one of the crashes last night.

At 12:45:16

Faulting application fable.exe, version 25.7.13.149, faulting module msvcr71.dll, version 7.10.3052.4, fault address 0x000029c1.

0000: 6c707041 74616369 206e6f69 6c696146

0010: 20657275 62616620 652e656c 32206578

0020: 2e372e35 312e3331 69203934 736d206e

0030: 37726376 6c642e31 2e37206c 332e3031

0040: 2e323530 74612034 66666f20 20746573

0050: 30303030 31633932 0a0d

At 12:45: 28

Fault bucket 223255251.

0000: 6b637542 203a7465 32333232 35323535

0010: 0a0d31

Second Attempt and Error at 1:19:27

Faulting application fable.exe, version 25.7.13.149, faulting module msvcr71.dll, version 7.10.3052.4, fault address 0x000029c1.

0000: 6c707041 74616369 206e6f69 6c696146

0010: 20657275 62616620 652e656c 32206578

0020: 2e372e35 312e3331 69203934 736d206e

0030: 37726376 6c642e31 2e37206c 332e3031

0040: 2e323530 74612034 66666f20 20746573

0050: 30303030 31633932 0a0d

No other errors are displayed in the Event Viewer for my crashes this morning.

On a side note after a crash during a save or autosave the save becomes corrupted and can no longer load.

I just did an uninstall and moved a copy of my save games out of the folder to try and see if this will fix anything.

I am fairly certain that during any crash with an Autosave there will be no error messages and any crash during a world or hero save will give an error message. I will try to see if I can duplicate this too.

[Varden]

Reinstall did not work for my particular case. Still crashes at same point and during autosave.

No error message no error recorded in event viewer.

Hero Save did work in the Necropolis area though.

Upon actually trying to restore a Hero Save when saved in the Necropolis it also crashes to desktop no warnings.

Edited October 7, 2005 by Varden

[quinriva]

This seems to be another coding error can you report details regarding:

The location of your save files (the game may considered some of the characters in the file directory to be illegal under certain circumstances)

Windows version including service packs

Keyboard and keyboard drivers (yes I'm serious, this has been one of the culprits)

Your keyboard layout, is it default WASD or have you changed it.

Insallation directory

background tasks

Anything about your computer that may be non-standard, for instance having you language settings set to a non-US language (for instance Australian English) can also cause trouble.

It seems that the game was only tested on 1 or 2 computers and that many of the errors seem to be stemming from people useing something that isn't a Genering HP or Compaq. That fact that you have a dual processor may well be the cause, the game may have some error trying to addressone of the processors during the save.

Honestly, the game isn't worth playing. If you're a fan of any decent RPG's like Morrowind, KOTOR or Neverwinter Nights, you'll be sorely disapointed with Fable. Where you are at now is the pinacle of the game. You probably already have the beast weapon and armour there is. Seriously I wouldn't bother.

[dougiefresh]

One thing I've done, especially with graphics drivers, is go to the source! I'm using a nVidia GeForce4 MX440 card and get my drivers directly from nVidia Drivers Software page. Microsoft releases another version for use through Windows Update, but performance ALWAYS sucks. Intel drivers are generally on par with Microsoft WU site drivers, but the hardware sucks anyway.

Hope this suggestion helps!

[Jonestown Massacre]

Well add one more to the Fable All-star Crash Team.

MSI Delta KT600

XP 2500+ Barton (2x11) at 2.2 Ghz

(2) DDR 512 MB 2.5 CAS PC4200

Leadtek Winfast AGP 128 MB 6600GT

I've been running 2000 for ages, always updated via Winupdate. I was running Fable with the default specs, I tried lowering the resolution, the settings and it would lock up my sytem randomly on occasion, not a whole lot - just enough to occasionaly be a pain in the butt. Sometimes after 15 minutes, sometimes after 2 hours. Doing different things in the game.

So I decided to give XP SP2 a try and now it's even worse, and this after a clean install (not upgrade - that's amother story), updating to latest VIA drivers, most recent Nvidia graphic driver.

My BIOS has System Memory Cahe set to off, AGP fast writes, master 1WS Write, master 1WS read, Read Sync all enabled. DirectX 9.0c installed.

I'm going to try some other games but it looks like Fable is going on the shelf till a patch is released. Under XP it crashes every 10 - 15 minutes, even crashed in safe mode. The nicest thing though compared to a crash in 2000, is XP comes back up so much faster

[js33]

It seems like the main reason this game is crashing is because of AMD processors. My wife just bought this game and she has an AMD64 and had a GFMX4200. She got the C++ Runtime error. So we installed the game on my PC. Intel P4 2.5Ghz/GF5500FX. It works fine on my machine no crash at all. So we figure it must be the crappy video card she had. So I went out and spent almost $200 to get her a GF6600GT. Bring it home install it and the game....still crashes. Although the C++Runtime error is gone now the game still crashes. The videos play fine but as soon as the game tries to load it crashes or just pops back to the desktop. So now I'm going through her system with a fine tooth comb until I fix it.

Cheers,

JS

Edited October 19, 2005 by js33

[Varden]

It does look like it is a common theme among the crashes listed here with the exception of Scottishhans who I believe posted he had an Intel Pentium 4 processor. Might be something to this though.