| 5 OCT 2008 at 7:10pm |
CrisGerSchattenjger
Posts : 2548
Joined: 28 APR 2007
Location: US
Status : Offline | OK
short answer, the crashes are often due to a memory problem in the way Gothic III handles memory and RAM and the memory gets overloaded and the game goes crashy. There were fixes developed by community members, and a series of patches which are amazing work by devoted fans and also the develpors. JoWood and Spellbound released a new total patch 1.6 this February
Before that, there was the required offical patch 1.12.
Then Community patches 1.3, 1.4, 1.5.2 and now we have 1.6
The memory problem lurks in all of the patches up to 1.6.
I am running 1.5.2 because i have not determined if 1.6 really helps yet or not. I have asked for updates from the community today, but there are mixed reviews. I would apply 1.6 if you want to jump to the fullest fixes and best memory fix. I may try the manual memory fix but it is more techncial. All links are below. The Gothic III forum is here:
http://forum.jowood.com/showthread.php?t=141191
and has great support for the game.
Re Save Games: Your save games may not work after you patch. Some quests may be broken or need to be redone. There is a thread below about this and it is dealt with on the Patch FAQ thread on the forum:
Save Game Problems with Adding Patches
http://forum.jowood.com/showpost.php?p=2136556
1.12 Offical Patch Required
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Community Patches fix many additional problems:
1.6 Community Patch
http://www.worthdownloading.com/game.php?gid=1219
1.6 Community Patch Full (69.46 MB)
http://www.gamershell.com/download_23102.shtml
Read Me:
http://forum.jowood.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=40559&d=1202374805
ChangeLog:
http://forum.jowood.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=40560&d=1202374829
1.6 Community Patch Incrimental (28.85 MB)
(from any other community patch and the offficial 1.12 patch)
http://www.gamershell.com/download_23102.shtml
People having problems with the 1.6 patch - ie you get more errors than the 1.52 patch -- please uninstall the game and re-install with the complete 1.6 patch which includes the 1.12 if you have the original game, ot just the 1.6 if your game is already patched to 1.12. I have encountered issues with updating from 1.52 to 1.6.
1.4 Community Patch
http://snorre.jowood.de/~community/Gothic3/Gothic_3_Community_Patch_v1.4.exe
1.5.2 Community Patch
http://snorre.jowood.de/~community/Gothic3/G3_Community_Patch_v1.5.2_Int.exe
Read Me
http://snorre.jowood.de/~community/Gothic3/CP_Readme_1_52_EN.txt
Change Log
http://snorre.jowood.de/~community/Gothic3/CP_Changelog_1_52_EN.txt
Community Patches FAQ
http://forum.jowood.com/showthread.php?t=146793
Save Game Problems with Adding Patches
http://forum.jowood.com/showpost.php?p=2136556
---------------------------------------------------
Determine if Community Patch Installed:
Up to CP 1.4: Existence of a subdirectory "Community Patch Uninstall" in your Gothic 3 installation folder.
Up to CP 1.4: If you take a look in the "software" section in your Windows control panel, there has to be an entry "Gothic 3 Community Patch v..."
CP 1.5: The version number of the file "engine.dll" in your Gothic 3 installation folder is "1.50.25931.0". (The same applies to some other dll-files, like "game.dll".)
CP 1.6: The version number of the file "engine.dll" in your Gothic 3 installation folder is "1.60.25931.29". (The same applies to some other dll-files, like "game.dll".)
----------------------------------------------------
Memory Problems before 1.6 Patch
ChessDragon136 Fix
http://forum.jowood.com/showthread.php?t=141191
depending on the OS you have installed you may not be able to use more than 2 GB of your RAM for one application without changing entries in the boot.ini and the file headers. Even more - trying to avoid this problem and losing play time by saving every 5 minutes makes it even more likely that your game will crash, since up to and including 1.52 there is a remaining memory impact of more than 100 MB for every saveload activity. This means - every time you save a memory hole of 100 MB remains in your memory which will sooner or later cause such an out of memory gap. This is fixed for 1.6.
Gothic III Tech Support FAQ
http://forum.jowood.com/showthread.php?t=151710
Gothic III Interactive Map
http://aeons.planetquake.gamespy.com/rpgs/imap_intro.php?MENULIST=ma_no_my_va_an_al_pn_pm_pv&MENU=1_0_0_0_0_0_0_0_0_0
a cool map of the world of Gothic III
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| 6 OCT 2008 at 2:14pm |
CrisGerSchattenjger
Posts : 2548
Joined: 28 APR 2007
Location: US
Status : Offline | And tho it may take a little work to decide about patches and to work with some of the save/crash challenges at times, Gothic III is one of the most beautiful game worlds i have seen yet, it has a detail and complexity and an immersion that is truely global and enthralling. And there is Gothic IV on the way and great expansions in the works plus a devoted community that has done much to help patch and improve the game.
The game world detail is beautifully done...
[img]http://img352.imageshack.us/img352/9170/settingsbeautifullydetaks1.jpg[/img]
Nature including wild animals really is well made...
[img]http://img352.imageshack.us/img352/8919/naturalgameworldbeautifnc4.jpg[/img]
as is the dynamic day night cycle....
[img]http://img352.imageshack.us/img352/1443/dynamicdaynightcycleambwi3.jpg[/img]
and the varied locals and regions are truely stunning....it is a huge world
[img]http://img352.imageshack.us/img352/6066/adesertcityqb4.jpg[/img]
the desert night ambience is wonderful and moody....
[img]http://img352.imageshack.us/img352/9025/nomadsinthedesertyc8.jpg[/img]
interiors are lovingly crafted...
[img]http://img352.imageshack.us/img352/1151/interiorofafreindlymercgq9.jpg[/img]
and your in game avatar is nicely imaged.... The Stranger....
[img]http://img352.imageshack.us/img352/1311/myingameavatargothiciiifw2.jpg[/img]
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| 6 OCT 2008 at 3:56pm |
| Deleted User | Gee, Crisger! You don't do things by half-measures, do you?
Wow, thanks for all of the above! I've currently got 2 Gigs of RAM, as I'm still only on XP. I wonder if going to 3Gig will help?
EDIT: I've just spoken to a friend who said that although I'm still on XP, even 4 Gigs of RAM might not be a bad idea. So I'll go get myself 2 more sticks of RAM tomorrow or the day after. [smiley=thumbsup.gif]
Hm, love your screenshots, but it needs some of Nordmar as well - I loved running around there in the ice and snow!
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| 6 OCT 2008 at 4:29pm |
Mr Innocent.Journeyman
Posts : 1317
Joined: 15 JAN 2008
Location: GR
Status : Offline | Getting more ram is always a good idea .
But that is not Gothic 3's problem, problematic memory usage is not fixed when you throw more memory at it to abuse .
So if Gothic 3 is the sole reason you consider adding more ram, don't.
32-bit versions of both Xp and Vista see only 3,25GB of ram, even if you have more installed, but that is not much of a problem. Opinions differ on if the excess memory is effectively used by the operating system as hardware components' cache anyway, with the most likely answer being no.
What you must be careful about is getting the exact same type of memory sticks (Frequency, latencies and just to be on the safe side, manufacturer) or at the very least you will lose the motherboard's dual data rate feature, resulting in performance loss. At worse, even a slight difference in the memory sticks can result in system instability.
A couple of months back they said Patch 1.7 was in the works and about to be released, is it still not available?
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| 6 OCT 2008 at 5:05pm |
CrisGerSchattenjger
Posts : 2548
Joined: 28 APR 2007
Location: US
Status : Offline | 1.7 is indeed in the works but not out yet. There were some things about 1.6 that were much better but some systems varied in response, i am polling the group to see what is the latest opinion.
I dont have a lot of Nordmar but i love that region....but i worry about my guy, he needs at least a jacket or something? Mittens? A wooly hat?
[img]http://img225.imageshack.us/img225/3053/41381728ub6.jpg[/img]
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| 6 OCT 2008 at 5:23pm |
| Deleted User | Crisger, I've already (just) finished downloading 1.6, and will let you know of the result tomorrow.
Nik, yes, thanks for your advice. I have already made the decision and the appointment with the RAM, it was only a matter of time. Hopefully my RAM will last me quite a while into the future, I'm currently sporting a set of DDR2 800's. My board can support up to 1200, but that's still a bit expensive for me at present.
By the time I jump a category higher, DDR3 might be the way to go, we'll see.
4 Gigs RAM, here I come, and I'll be sure to let you guys know if it makes any noticeable difference.
I do remember that when I jumped from 1 Gig to 2 Gig RAM, it reduced my Oblivion loading times drastically. So now I'm holding up high hopes for The Witcher loading times..... :
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| 6 OCT 2008 at 5:31pm |
CrisGerSchattenjger
Posts : 2548
Joined: 28 APR 2007
Location: US
Status : Offline | Fantastic, re RAM i may do that too, and i am curious about 1.6 i will try it if it seems ok for you..thanks for giving it a go. I would like more RAM myself for Oblvion and Gothic and other yummy worlds....I was able to run Mass Effect full scale and that was cool, after upgrading my vid card this year. I am at FX 7600, and love my AMD so hope i can stay with what i get. your set up sounds very nice.
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| 8 OCT 2008 at 11:44am |
| Deleted User | Ok, simply upgrading to patch 1.6 didn't seem to make any obvious differences, but I didn't read all the effects it's supposed to have - I don't think it's harmful in any way, though.
However, since I upgraded to 4Gig RAM, and increased some of the cache values in my .ini file, (Image and Animation); this game is running like a dream.
One can also decrease your sound cache from 80000000 to 40000000, in order to increase your other cache values.
I'm having some incredible fun. I'm level 16, and can kill a Ripperbeast without getting killed in return. 8-)At this stage, a Shadowbeast might still be another story though, and I haven't had the guts to take on those huge trolls yet. I'll shoot them with the crossbow, though - that eventually wears anything down.
I'm trying my best to stay as much in the Orc's good books as possible - whilst being a rebel at heart. I've heard if your reputation with the rebels rise too high, orcs start attacking you on sight, so I'll leave any city liberating until very last.
Have not found Xardas yet.
I love G3! [smiley=love.gif]
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| 8 OCT 2008 at 4:28pm |
CrisGerSchattenjger
Posts : 2548
Joined: 28 APR 2007
Location: US
Status : Offline | Great news... thanks for the details.
yes PLEASE be nice to the Orcs, if you conquer more than three towns or sites, they will turn against you and that locks up many quests. i had to restart a ways back after i had solved some of the really tough quests in the desert lands..... sigh..... my sin was to slaughter a whole army of Orcs right after i landed, i was exploring towards the capital city which is under that nifty force barrier and found an army there, and so i honed my fighting skills by doing them all in. but unfortunatley that put me eventually and too soon in their bad graces.. Monterra i think was where i found i was persona non grata with the ugly ones
congrats on Level 16! you have been working hard indeed!
/me cheers
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| 8 OCT 2008 at 4:59pm |
| Deleted User | Originally Posted By CrisGer (8 OCT 2008 4:28pm)
Great news... thanks for the details.
yes PLEASE be nice to the Orcs, if you conquer more than three towns or sites, they will turn against you and that locks up many quests. i had to restart a ways back after i had solved some of the really tough quests in the desert lands..... sigh..... my sin was to slaughter a whole army of Orcs right after i landed, i was exploring towards the capital city which is under that nifty force barrier and found an army there, and so i honed my fighting skills by doing them all in. but unfortunatley that put me eventually and too soon in their bad graces.. Monterra i think was where i found i was persona non grata with the ugly ones
congrats on Level 16! you have been working hard indeed!
/me cheers
[smiley=laughing.gif] Please don't tell anyone, but I've been a real El Bastardo and I even kill bunnies, snakes and lizards for exp. when nobody's looking. I've become quite hardened to way they sickeningly lurch trough the air when you cut them with your bastard sword. [smiley=evil.gif]
Yup. 8-) I looted some trouble-seeking mercenary's bastard sword off him - just outside Monterra, btw. I didn't have enough cash for that nice fire-sword to start off with. How did you get to Varant, btw. Cris? In my previous playthrough I swam across the river, and did some some quests for those hashish-smoking hashishin there, but I suspect I also did that too soon, and returned, this time to go to Nordmar, which was probably also too soon.
Easy to wander off the beaten track in this game. :-/ And it's so huge! Much bigger than Morrowind and Oblivion and Two Worlds, even...
You know what I hate, though? When I'm happily skipping along the pretty countryside (just like little Red Riding-hood), with sword and crossbow packed away because I'm a compulsive herb and flower and mushroom picker (I always am, in these games [smiley=shaking_head.gif]), and some horrible beast sneaks up behind me, and just as I bend down to pick some nice flower or something, the thing storms me from behind, and I have to hastily fumble around to get my weapon out in time..... Ouch! [smiley=boggled.gif]
Oh, and the Orcs are such wimps in G3. They weren't in the first 2 games, though. :-?
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| 9 OCT 2008 at 5:42am |
CrisGerSchattenjger
Posts : 2548
Joined: 28 APR 2007
Location: US
Status : Offline | To Varant, i took the road which is kinda obscure...you to to Trelis, and then west and to the Orcs waiting on the farm there, if you havent done that quest yet, and then just keep going to the west and souith, you have to deal with a good number of beasties, and some bandits, they are camped out at the pass, which is a little tricky to get thru, but you can and eventually you end up in the southern desert lands.
here is a little map for you
[img]http://img515.imageshack.us/img515/6781/tothedesertcz6.jpg[/img]
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| 9 OCT 2008 at 6:23pm |
| Deleted User | Thanks, Crisger. I'm not quite there yet, maybe I should work Myrtana first. Anyway, there seems to be some urgency to reach Xardas in Nordmar, so maybe I'll go there first, anyway.
Ooh, I see what you mean by bad beasties in that area. Gothic has pretty ugly and fearsome beasties, and even the skeletons are rather scary compared to your usual hack n' slasher.
Up close to your marked area, there does seem to be some pretty nasty specimens, including a dragon or two I saw in a cave. I am not quite the master of minecrawlers yet, so I decided to keep my distance from the dragons for now. Have you ever fought one?
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| 9 OCT 2008 at 8:07pm |
CrisGerSchattenjger
Posts : 2548
Joined: 28 APR 2007
Location: US
Status : Offline | heheh, yep they are tough, i managed to deal with those two, but lost a lot of health, luckly had restore potions wtih me but then the bandits jumped me as i was checkout out the route again for you....DEAD waaaaaa. One even gloated as he knifed me in the back,...said
"Guess you will regret coming aginast me" or something to that effect.
He was probably not pleased with me either as i had done in all his gang.....so i guess it was fair.
I was not pleased. but it was fun to see the route again, it is a neat little back door down to the desert. I love exploring up into the hillls and odd corners in that game.
My way of dealing with the Minecawlers is to keep spining and move unpredicatably.... it seems to confuse them and gives me time to whack em.
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| 11 OCT 2008 at 8:52am |
| Deleted User | Oh, no! now I keep getting that "where is the Guru?" error, and I'm not sure what to do about it! :'( :'(
EDIT: I seem to have squashed the Guru with a few ini file tweaks, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed..
However, I've 'died' after falling off of a ledge, when I realised that the skeletons in the Nordmar cave are a bit too strong for melee combat. I ran away and fell into a group of Goblins... :
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| 12 OCT 2008 at 2:30am |
CrisGerSchattenjger
Posts : 2548
Joined: 28 APR 2007
Location: US
Status : Offline | O O the dreaded missing GURU! glad you squashed it, it seems to be still popping up even after 1.6.
What ini tweaks did you do, in case i have to too //?? i havent had that one yet.
ys skeletons are nasty critteres.
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| 12 OCT 2008 at 12:10pm |
| Deleted User | Yup, after 1.6, and after the official patch 1.08, which was the one that was supposed to deal with it. I've read on the forums, though, that the sequence in which you install the patches makes a difference (because the patches also tweak the ini file themselves), and that an earlier video driver can sometimes be better than a later one.
Anyway, what I did was, in the general ini file I disabled shadows (set them all to false) and in the 'debug' ini file, I made sure that the following were all set to false:
DisplayOnScreen=false
DisplayEntities=false
DisplayModules=false
What I also did, was that I avoided the action that was causing the error to appear (Which in my case was talking to a certain orc), and I went and did a few quests first before returning and talking to him again. This time i did not get the guru crash.
Whether it was the ini tweaks or the probability that the dialogue that was triggering the crash had changed due to me having completed quests in that town, I'm not sure, but disabling shadows had not degraded my graphics quality to any noticable dgree, so i'm just going to leave them off.
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| 12 OCT 2008 at 4:42pm |
CrisGerSchattenjger
Posts : 2548
Joined: 28 APR 2007
Location: US
Status : Offline | Excellent, good work. Glad you dodged that one. I will be in Gothic today myself ....so if i see you i will wave. too bad there is no MMO of Gothic but well, probably not considering the bugs we have with this one
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| 13 OCT 2008 at 7:15pm |
| Deleted User | Oh, where, oh where can Ejnar's helmet be? I've finally killed all the skeletons in the cave with Gorn's help. Here's the last one, along with some yummy meatbug.
[IMG]http://i307.photobucket.com/albums/nn305/jeniho/gothyummymeatbsm.jpg[/IMG]
I cannot find the helmet in the cave, even though I put the stone into the Runed Pedestal.
When I went up to the hut to speak with Pedar, I found this set of Siamese twins..
[IMG]http://i307.photobucket.com/albums/nn305/jeniho/Gothcroppedsiamese.jpg[/IMG][IMG]http://i307.photobucket.com/albums/nn305/jeniho/Goth2hdclose.jpg[/IMG]
Most of the time they live in happy symbiosis, [IMG]http://i307.photobucket.com/albums/nn305/jeniho/Gothttwohclsmall.jpg[/IMG]
But sometimes they get into each other's faces..
[IMG]http://i307.photobucket.com/albums/nn305/jeniho/gothineachotersface.jpg[/IMG]
Heh heh... -for some reason, NPC's seem to love standing "in" one another in Nordmar - it must be their way of keeping warm... :
And here is the the sad image of an empty healthbar....
[IMG]http://i307.photobucket.com/albums/nn305/jeniho/gothdead.jpg[/IMG]
Sniff...sniff... RIP, oh nameless one....
Yup, this is what your own death looks like in Gothic. Note the healthbar on top of the thing that killed me - no idea where it is... a pack of wolves and some ripperbeasts decided to all go for me at the same time. :'( :'(
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| 14 OCT 2008 at 3:05am |
CrisGerSchattenjger
Posts : 2548
Joined: 28 APR 2007
Location: US
Status : Offline | Aww, face down in the snow. that is sad. poor nameless one.
you have been busy indeed! those glommed on NPCs are really funny. they are supposed to have collision on each other lol, ah well. it is funny.
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| 14 DEC 2008 at 9:40am |
| Deleted User | Maum, I found this old thread while searching for a POP4 thread, so I bumped it just for you.
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| 22 SEP 2009 at 7:47pm |
| Deleted User | Ah, time to bump our Gothic 3 thread again..-this time I'm bumping it for Ray...
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| 22 SEP 2009 at 8:20pm |
ThaumaturgeJourneyman
Posts : 999
Joined: 11 MAY 2006
Status : Offline | I think that we might now call you you Traveller, Revivifier of Threads, Braver of the Deep Pages of the Forum, Delver into Archives, She Who Calls Forth Discussions...
On a slightly more relevant topic, I seem to recall that I actually bumped into Gothic 3 today, and was tempted to get it (I have it on a fairly good recommendation, I think), but for the price.
(My apologies if this is too great an off-topic post. ^^; )
MWAHAHAHAHAHA!!!
*ahem*
Sorry.
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| 22 SEP 2009 at 8:45pm |
| Deleted User | Hmm, well I do hope this thread has whetted your appetite, Thaumaturge. Oh, I'll go search through my game shelves tomorrow to see if I still have that spare copy of G3 for you.
Hang on! Wait! I saw G3 as part of a bundle that might actually come out quite cheaply... I'll look for it, too, tomorrow.
You know, I had quite recently partly restarted the above playthrough, and again I got killed in Nordmar, and I remember posting a screenie of that death... and now I'm feeling rather puzzled as to exactly where I had posted it... -possibly the "What are you playing " thread?
(My apologies if this is too great an off-topic post. ^^; )
Oh, didn't you know that it's mandatory to stray off-topic at Ja+? :
You have to do it - it's the 'done thing" around here, dontcha know?
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| 23 SEP 2009 at 2:41am |
CrisGerSchattenjger
Posts : 2548
Joined: 28 APR 2007
Location: US
Status : Offline | hoooray Gothic III emerges from forum basement!!!
I LOVE THIS GAME... .did i say that loud enough??
it is soooo beautiful. And now that i have 3 GB of RAM it just sings on my compy
Traveller if you have time sometime, can you PM me the certain orc to NOT talk to to avoid the GURU bug if you remember? i havent gotten that far yet..... and hope to avoid that nasty. those tips you shared a while back look good. i am in the toasty desert.
/me cheers for the Nameless One who keeps getting killed in Nordmar. Make sure he has his wolly socks.
[img]http://img269.imageshack.us/img269/6909/arabiangothicsq4.jpg[/img]
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