[Sam2]

Mad Monk's Tomb? Slippery Slope Error? Forget all that nonsense.

Here's killer #1, and surprisingly, very rarely reported:

http://www.agdiforums.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=10618

http://www.questformoreglory.com/for...showtopic=1622

(With the 2nd link, scroll down to find my entry.)

Now, if anyone can at the very least explain to me the cause of these disastrous crashes, that would still be worth much even if no solution can be presented.

N.B. Please keep in mind when reading the entries that since writing them I've managed to discover that the Open spell glitch I mention is in fact a problem commonly reported and so, I have discounted it as a cause of the crashes.

[Olorin]

That is very interesting, because I encountered the exact same error the last time I replayed Quest for Glory IV. I, too, couldn't seem to find any information or anyone who had encountered the problem before. I am afraid that I have no new information about the cause or solution to this bug; I was forced to stop playing the game. However, perhaps the following information could help you narrow down your search.

I was playing the Windows version of QfG IV from the Quest for Glory Collection. (I don't believe the DOS version is available in this collection. Note that this is NOT the Anthology.) I had installed the NewRisingSun patches before starting the game, and was using Windows XP.

I was playing a fighter I had created in QfG I VGA and had imported into each successive game. After completing QfG III, my character became a paladin and I imported into QfG IV as such with no problems. In light of your other posts, it might be important to mention that I was playing a pure character (i.e., no points in magic, pick locks, etc.), and was not particularly working on "maxing out" the stats by the end of each game, although some might have been pretty high anyway.

In QfG IV I did not have any big problems or glitches, except that after I gained Healing some situations would treat my character as a magic user instead of a paladin (like having some characters offer to give me spells). Eventually, though, the game would crash when accessing the Stats screen, then later when accessing any sort of menu, then later when just changing screens, each time returning "not an object" or "invalid handle." This bug is definitely carried over in save games, and I could postpone it sometimes by restoring back to a save game before the corruption of the Stats screen, but this error would always come back. As I said before, I eventually could not continue the game. Which is sad, because this is probably my favorite game in the series.

I know it isn't a problem with my CD, because I had completed QfG IV on my first time through (playing a pure class wizard worked up from QfGI EGA) without this bug at all. Like I said, I never figured out what the problem was, but I hope this helps. Good luck!

[Kurufinwe]

Well, I recently played through the whole series with a paladin (mostly pure, apart from magic which I gave him since I knew it'd come with the paladin abilities anyway, abilities always maxed), and did not encounter that problem (DOS CD version, using NRS's patch, under DOSBox). So it's difficult to see what could be the source...

[Sam2]

Olorin, thanks. Your information and that of others are starting to have me think that I've been nitpicking too much in the wrong places for signs of common factors. A pure character and no 'maxing' in your case, you said? Do you recall around what day things began to come apart?

You're absolutely correct that whatever triggers the corruption during gameplay creates a 'point of no return' from where the flaw is carried over from one savegame to the next, and yes, backtracking to before that point and continuing from there only postpones the eventual problem at best. I can only wonder what lets the bastard loose and triggers the permanent corruption. I've created many savegame files before and painfully restarted my game with my imported character more times than I care to remember, and couldn't track the source down. This is a job for those who can read code, and not many of those are around to oblige. If the will is there with NewRisingSun to check corrupted savegames pertaining to this problem and see if it can be tracked down and addressed in a patch update, it could spell success. I once sent an e-mail and suggested submitting the files, but was not answered.

In any case, I'm glad to see for certain that the problem is peculiar to the game itself and latent in its programming, and also that it has been experienced by others, though I can't understand why never by noticeably enough people to have ever been cited by any Quest for Glory resource website -- and Google seems powerless to track down any scent of it. Maybe meeting the conditions that trigger these errors is the sort of thing that only the most intrepid of beta testers can accomplish. I can't say what they are, but I sure as hell seemed to be recreating said conditions every time I restarted the game from scratch and played yet once more. A tough cookie to crack.

One of the few unlucky bastards

[Olorin]

Originally Posted by Sam2

Olorin, thanks. Your information and that of others are starting to have me think that I've been nitpicking too much in the wrong places for signs of common factors. A pure character and no 'maxing' in your case, you said? Do you recall around what day things began to come apart?

Note: slight plot spoilers ahead.

I don't remember exactly when it first appeared, but I think it got unpassable around the time

Spoiler:

I finished the Tanya and Toby sequence, since I remember being really frustrated with having to reload a lot for that quest. Granted, it's not a completely linear game, but I don't think I had confronted Ad Avis yet, so that should give you some idea.

NewRisingSun seems to deal mainly with timer bugs, but perhaps he'll be able to help with this if you have the corrupted save game file to test with. For that matter, you could ask if someone here is willing to test a corrupted save game with their version of Quest for Glory 4. Then if they have the same issue, it must be a problem carried within that saved game and not peculiar to certain installations. Also, if you have the full text of the error(s), it might be good to post them here so that people know what the game itself is returning.

I don't know if it is important, but I did have to move my save game files from one directory to another at one point. It doesn't seem like a likely cause, since that would have had to corrupt every single one of those files in the same way, but I thought I would mention it just in case. If you did not do this, then obviously the errors came from something else.

Just a couple thoughts.

[avatar_58]

Windows version? I'm not familiar with it, as they tend to be a bit on the buggy side from my experience.

Playing all 4 (since 5 is windows) through DOS, I must have finished them a billion times using different combinations and tricks (having one char with all stats-abilities) so I can tell you that no matter what you do to your stats.....such as "accidently" getting magic with a paladin/thief it will not mess up.

I've tried them all in dosbox and it works great so long as I don't raise the cycles any more than nessesary. In QFG4 it requires some testing to make sure the "danger-zones" don't kick you out (swamp, slide). As soon as you get a decent cycle-amount without crashing or going slow then it works great.

But anyway, the point is I have never seen a corrupt character/save in all the years I played. I always do things the game does not expect and try to get abilities that aren't meant for my character (Qfg1 I am a thief with magic, parry etc) so I don't think thats a problem.

[Sam2]

Originally Posted by Olorin

NewRisingSun seems to deal mainly with timer bugs, but perhaps he'll be able to help with this if you have the corrupted save game file to test with.

Perhaps this is related to fast processors in some way, but I can't confirm it one way or the other. I could try e-mailing NewRisingSun again; he didn't reply back to me before when I suggested submitting a file, but I could try again. He remains the best source of help right now.

For that matter, you could ask if someone here is willing to test a corrupted save game with their version of Quest for Glory 4. Then if they have the same issue, it must be a problem carried within that saved game and not peculiar to certain installations.

I have experienced the problem on different C.D.s, so I am sure that the savegames are tainted with bad code.

Also, if you have the full text of the error(s), it might be good to post them here so that people know what the game itself is returning.

'Invalid Handles' or 'Not an Objects', but I will need to check to get the numbers and rest of the message.

Originally Posted by avatar_58

But anyway, the point is I have never seen a corrupt character/save in all the years I played. I always do things the game does not expect and try to get abilities that aren't meant for my character (Qfg1 I am a thief with magic, parry etc) so I don't think thats a problem.

Good to know. That's my style and I worried about whether an unorthodox style of play could cause problems. Also, I haven't come across DOS players like myself experiencing these crashes yet. Strange.

[Sam2]

Olorin, I just realised that I have the Quest for Glory Collection (the main working C.D. I use for the games -- and yes, it has the DOS version) as well as the Anthology -- I've always thought that any C.D. version of the game was termed the Anthology. I don't think there's much of a difference as the former creates a QGANTH directory anyways. It just has a bonus sneak peak at Dragon Fire.

Anyways, here's the general gist of what general form the error messages take:

Error 47: Not an object: $ffff8000
Script 64920/$108

or

Error 76: Invalid Handle 4294934528
..\memmgr.hpp (393)
Script 64920/$2ee

If I remember, sometimes you would crash back to DOS with a whole mess of large font command prompt text scrolling down the screen.

[Olorin]

Originally Posted by Sam2

Olorin, I just realised that I have the Quest for Glory Collection (the main working C.D. I use for the games -- and yes, it has the DOS version) as well as the Anthology -- I've always thought that any C.D. version of the game was termed the Anthology. I don't think there's much of a difference as the former creates a QGANTH directory anyways. It just has a bonus sneak peak at Dragon Fire.

Yeah, that makes sense. I just always had problems trying to install the DOS version of QfG IV. No matter which installer I tried for it, DOSBox kept giving me an error saying that it was a Windows program and wouldn't run. I thought this was kind of odd, as the other three games were all DOS versions and I knew there was a DOS version of QfG IV out there somewhere, but I just assumed they hadn't included it on this compilation. But if you got it to work, maybe I should mess around with that some more (especially since I now run Linux and can only access these games through DOSBox).

The fact that this bug is so rare and that you are the only one to have experienced it in the DOS version is somewhat strange, but those are the exact same error messages I was getting. Let's see: it occurs in both DOS and Windows versions, it is not dependent on specific CD's (as my CD ran the game fine once and corrupted once), it is carried over in save game files, happens late in the game (but also occurs every new game, in your case), and neither DOSBox nor the patches fix it. Do you know if it only occurs with imported characters? That might account for some of its rarity. I really don't have any good ideas. NewRisingSun has been very supportive in the past (I e-mailed him about a timer bug in QfG III and he fixed it very quickly), and it would certainly be interesting to see what he has to say about it, but again, if it isn't related to processor speed, he might not be able to do anything (I also don't know if he is still involved; his page hasn't been updated in almost a year).

I just don't know. It's a very confusing bug.

[Sam2]

I have Windows 98, so I didn't encounter any problems installing the DOS version of the Collection Series.

A word about my testing with DOSBOX. I didn't play the game from the start with DOSBOX (so I'm not sure if that would fix matters), but from a point in my savegame archives where I had reason to think the bug did not set in yet, and this was met with failure. I cannot be sure whether starting from scratch with this utility would solve the problem, nor do I want to find out.

As for imported characters, I have played Shadows to as far a point as I could only with this super hybrid Paladin I imported. I haven't seen whether an imported character of another class, or a character created from scratch by Q.F.G. IV faces the same problem. Again, I have no will to test theories anymore.

I just don't know. It's a very confusing bug.

I need some mean pesticide.

I can only try again to contact NewRisingSun, though his inactivity over at his website the past year has me thinking he's done making patches.

[Junkface]

Ah, Quest for Glory 4, the game that just keeps giving. It's sort of beautiful to think we may still be discovering bugs in it for milennia to come. Anyway, I haven't encountered this particular problem, so have nothing constructive to say except good luck.

[PsychoGoatee]

Qfg4 was pretty buggy. Still, its the best adventure game ever made.

[avatar_58]

Originally Posted by Sam2

As for imported characters, I have played Shadows to as far a point as I could only with this super hybrid Paladin I imported. I haven't seen whether an imported character of another class, or a character created from scratch by Q.F.G. IV faces the same problem. Again, I have no will to test theories anymore.

I've had many different hybrids in all games. I've never faced any game-stopping problems or corruptions as a result. You will get odd behavior such as spells and other items will be given to you as a mistake (hardly a bad thing ) but the games have always been completable.

I've never come across a problem related to the import file.

[Olorin]

Originally Posted by Sam2

I have Windows 98, so I didn't encounter any problems installing the DOS version of the Collection Series.

A word about my testing with DOSBOX. I didn't play the game from the start with DOSBOX (so I'm not sure if that would fix matters), but from a point in my savegame archives where I had reason to think the bug did not set in yet, and this was met with failure. I cannot be sure whether starting from scratch with this utility would solve the problem, nor do I want to find out.

I'm beginning to suspect that this bug is, in fact, caused by a Windows corruption of something in the installation. Most of the people who have experienced this problem (from what I gather by reading your various threads) were playing the Windows version, and while you played the DOS version, you installed it under Windows, which is notorious for having problems with bugs in command.com and other DOS necessities. DOSBox doesn't deal with the Windows process of installing a DOS game, and could easily have avoided this type of corruption. However, since we have already determined that this bug has to be carried over in saved games, this could account for it arising in using DOSBox to play a game that was saved under the corrupted installation. Perhaps there are certain Windows setups that don't introduce this corruption, which could explain why some people (myself included, the first time through) were able to play the Windows version without this error. Plus, this theory would indicate that playing the DOS version from the beginning under DOSBox (as most people nowadays do) would eradicate the bug, explaining why it is so rare.

Of course, this would imply that the corruption would have to be present from the beginning (because you loaded a saved game in DOSBox that you thought was from before the error set in). However, it isn't that hard to believe that a corruption could occur during installation and only manifest itself later in the game. It could start small, something the game is programmed to ignore, but build upon itself until it cascades into something the game is simply unable to read, so it crashes. It's hard to say what could actually be causing the error; perhaps the Windows installation corrupts some Stat data at the beginning, and the corrupted data is written into the save game file. Maybe it's a problem with the save game file writing process itself. It would be interesting to take a save game file from a clean DOSBox installation that has had no errors at a point late in the game, and load it in a corrupted installation. If no errors occur before the first time you need to save, then it must be a problem with the way Windows (or in your case, DOS running under Windows) handles writing the save.

Originally Posted by avatar_58

I've had many different hybrids in all games. I've never faced any game-stopping problems or corruptions as a result. You will get odd behavior such as spells and other items will be given to you as a mistake (hardly a bad thing ) but the games have always been completable.

I've never come across a problem related to the import file.

This kind of leads me to believe that the problem is not related to anything in-game, as we had suspected at first. Perhaps the import file is involved in the initial Windows corruption of data, as that could explain why the error always occurs first in the Stats screen, but it wouldn't be related to anything special about the import file itself.

Again, this is just a theory, and would require some pretty intense testing to validate (which we certainly don't need to go into), but it explains all of the data available to us, and provides a likely solution: simply play the game under DOSBox from the beginning. I hope this helps.

[Sam2]

All good thoughts there.

Playing on a Pentium computer with a processor speed of 450 Mhz, using DOSBOX means having to contend with playing the game much too slowly. Even with all programs closed, at the default cycle level -- too slow for this game -- I still had to increase frameskips to 4 for the system to manage with its limited power. I would still have to raise cycles up several notches to give the game sufficient speed, but that would be too demanding on the computer.

It would be good to use DOSBOX for the purpose of installation and then play the game without it as normal, but as you suggest, the savegame writing process itself could be a problem, hence requiring playing the game in full from within DOSBOX just to be sure.

Finally, though you present a good theory, it would be invalidated if I had encountered the crashes during the days of my 486, when DOS was the main O.S.. Unfortunately, I can't recall whether difficulties began with my 486 or my Pentium. It has been a long time.

Nontheless, those are helpful thoughts to keep in mind. Thanks a lot for providing them. Maybe I should provide NewRisingSun with this thread for reference when e-mailing him.

Seeing how I failed to receive a reply from him last try, I would suggest providing this thread with the text of the e-mail I would send him, and whoever would like to volunteer could send it to N.R.S. as a forward. I figure if a few more individuals alongside myself take the trouble to alert him, he might be more disposed to respond.

Still, the idea would have to wait. I noticed that savegame files for Shadows are quite large compared to previous games, and I have a slow Internet connexion. It shouldn't be too long before I get myself a new computer system with high-speed Internet access. At such a time I would be able to e-mail a savegame directory quickly. If people are willing, I could bump this thread up when those affairs are in order and then I could go ahead and e-mail, offering to send import characters and bad savegames for N.R.S. to study.

However, if anyone who has experienced these crashes is willing before then to write an e-mail himself and alert N.R.S., and also has some bad savegame files he could send him, then please do go ahead and take the initiative.