Trouble with Gamersgate Anthology Installation

Discussion in 'The Temple of Elemental Evil' started by Anthropoid, Jan 4, 2014.

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  1. Anthropoid

    Anthropoid Established Member

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    I recently purchased the "Dungeons and Dragons Anthology on Gamersgate." This package includes several games: Baldur's Gate; BG2; Icewind Dale; ID2; Planescape Torment; and of course Temple of Elemental Evil.

    The package that is installed looks like this:

    [​IMG]

    I have opened the Properties on that "Classic" installer application and attempted to give full control permission to all users on this machine.

    Even when I run the installer as an administrator however I am not able to select an installation path other than the default path (the button to browse is disabled). The path for installation of the Anthology package is:

    C:\Program Files (x86)\Atari\DnDMC

    With each game having its own folder inside of that, for example:

    C:\Program Files (x86)\Atari\DnDMC\Temple of Elemental Evil

    I encountered the bug with followers overburdening themselves with loot, and was led to the Co8 mod as the best fix.

    I have installed the mod and see some items in my ToEE directory that are clearly related to it, but I suspect it is not fully installed as I get an error when it should finish. I'm guessing this is a result of my having installed the game in the Programs directory?

    Any suggestions on how I could either:

    1. Get the Gamersgate installer to install the game(s) where I want it to install? (I have sent a help ticket to Gamersgate but thought you guys might be quicker if anyone knows a fix)

    2. A workaround on getting the mod to install even though the game is installed in the Programs directory?

    3. Or simply, where I can change files so that the follower looting bug is fixed?

    4. ADDIT: alternatively, as a short-term workaround (until I can manage to get Co8 installed) any suggestions on a playstyle / group composition where having the followers will not matter?

    I've restarted a few times to get the hang of the game, and did manage to survive through to Level 2 with a five man group and the man-at-arms from the Trader in Hommlet. Is is tenable to make it through most of the game with just five characters?
     
    Last edited: Jan 4, 2014
  2. nyarlathotep

    nyarlathotep Merry Murder Maniac

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    Even a party of 3 can finish most of the quests - though I'm not sure about the later quests in the New Content Co8 patch.
     
  3. Anthropoid

    Anthropoid Established Member

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    Thanks Nyar. My latest strategy is simply to copy and paste the ToEE folder to the C drive. Then see if that copy of the game will launch. If it will, then see about installing the mod in that copy.

    I don't quite understand why some applications are fine to just copy and create second copies of and they will run fine whereas others won't. I see to recall that I had at least two copies of some games so I could make modifications and load different mod permutations and what not.

    ADDIT: Hmm, still getting the same error as before even with the ToEE folder copied to the C drive (and checked that it runs) and then a fresh DL of the mod.

    [​IMG]
     
  4. Anthropoid

    Anthropoid Established Member

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    Ah well. I'm just now reading up and I see Gaear saying that the 3rd patch fixed the looting bug, which is the main thing I'm looking for. If one of the experts happens to peek in here and can suggest a fix for my issue I'd love to get this mod running.

    But for now, I think maybe I'll just see about installing the official patches (now that I have a copy of the game outside the Programs directory) and enjoy as vanilla for now.

    ADDIT: Argh, even that isn't working. Seems like maybe the Anthology collection version is not being recognized by the patch installer?

    [​IMG]

    I had read someone saying that the Anthology collection comes "pre-patched" but the looting bug certainly exists in my game. Maybe it comes patched up to level 2, but not the 3rd patch?

    I'll try that one too and see if I can get it to install.

    Appreciate any pointers.

    ADDIT^2: Nope same error trying to install Patch 3. Even when I've reset both the game app and the patch app to have full control privileges and launch the patch with a right-click Run as Administrator.

    The phrasingof that error message is what is weird to me:

    Makes me think that the version that is getting installed by the Gamersgate package is not being recognized by either the patch installer or the Co8 installer.
     
    Last edited: Jan 5, 2014
  5. Anthropoid

    Anthropoid Established Member

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    I've found a sort of workaround that will allow me to keep playing the game until I either hear from Gamersgate or someone here.

    I downloaded and installed the ToEE Front-End X and that launches the (copied) Gamergate version of my game that I have in my C drive.

    With that I can just up my max party size to 8 and skip NPC followers altogether.

    Does the "humble NPC" setting make them not take loot?
     
  6. Anthropoid

    Anthropoid Established Member

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    Re: ToEE Front-End X Options...

    Sweet. This just solved the probems that were stopping me from playing this great game.
     
  7. Anthropoid

    Anthropoid Established Member

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    Re: ToEE Front-End X Options...

    I am having what to me is a somewhat strange problem with Front-End X.

    I have it installed, and it runs fine. I've selected some options that I want to play with (no modules though). For example, I have humble NPCs turned on, I have increased the party size limit to 7 PCs. I set the HP to max for HD and Lvl, etc.

    I launch the game via the launcher. The first time I did this, I noticed that tapping -Esc- did not skip through the intro. However, everything ran fine, at least for a while. I generated some new characters and sure enough, they had max HPs. I started a new adventure and sure enough I had all 7 PCs in my starting group. Didn't play long enough to see if any of the other options I selected (e.g., humble NPC) were in effect or not.

    I forget why I had to restart the game the first time; it might have crashed, or I might have started to develop the mouse problem described below, or I might have just wanted to go back and change some of the options. Basically, this first time I launched, other than the -Esc- key not stopping the intros I didn't notice any other problems immediately and I was able to generate 5 or 6 new characters, so there must not have been any problem for a good 15 minutes or more.

    The 2nd time I booted the game using the TOEEFX launcher, my mouse is intermittently unresponsive. I figured maybe my battery in my wireless mouse was low and put in a new one and rebooted the game; 3rd restart from launcher, new battery didn't seem to help; unresponsive mouse might actually have been worse. So I use task manager to close it out (mouse becomes responsive with task manager open), check my mouse drivers are up to date, close out any apps that could be interfering and try again. 4th reboot from launcher, mouse problem is definitely worse, might have been 2 minutes after the intro that I had any responsiveness in my cursor at all. I task manager out of the game again and reboot the whole machine and let it run some of the auto-update thingies I've been putting off, then turn off all applications and processes that could interfere again.

    5th time I launch the game from the TOEEFX launcher it is definitely not getting any better. I may have repeated this process once or twice more, trying to trouble shoot anything that could be causing problems, but basically it just seemed to get worse with each time I closed out the game and attempted to restart it launching from the TOEEFX launcher.

    If I wait for 3 or 4 minutes after all the intro cinematics, sometimes I get a responsive cursor back. I was able to get into the character generation screen once or twice (again had to restart because of a crash or mouse became unresponsive). After the 3rd or 4th time this happened and I had to restart, the responsiveness of the mouse seemed to be getting worse. I had to use the task manager to shut down the game: *poof* mouse responsively immediately back once the game window is minimized and task manager is up.

    The weirdest part to me is that: now that I have changed game options using ToEEFX, I can launch it using the ToEE application icon and (a) the settings changes are still in effect (well, at least the 7 PCs per group); (b) no problem whatsoever either with unresponsive -Esc- key or unresponsive mouse. I skipped right through the intro and mouse shows normal responsiveness.

    It certainly seems that booting the game via the TOEEFX launcher is causing the problem with my user interface devices becoming unresponsive. As a non computer science person I find that very weird, but there you have it.
     
    Last edited: Jan 5, 2014
  8. sirchet

    sirchet Force for Goodness Moderator Supporter

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    The Atari patch #3 is not recommended.

    Please read the install instructions again and follow them closely.

    A direct quote from the installation instructions:

    STEP 3: DO NOT INSTALL ATARI PATCH 3

    There is no need to install Atari Patch 3. The only additional feature Atari Patch 3 contains is a fix for the infamous DirectX 9.0c looting bug, but this particular issue is also fixed by the Circle of Eight modpack. If you have installed patch 3 already or if your game comes pre-patched with Atari Patch 3, dont worry. It doesn't matter.
     
  9. Gaear

    Gaear Bastard Maestro Administrator

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    Okay, let's take a step back. There really is no reason (and indeed it's ill-advised) to deviate from our installation instructions at all. They're tried and true, and they work for most people. I assume that thus far you've been using them, but if not, please see this thread and consult it as necessary:

    Circle of Eight Modpack Installation Instructions

    Okay, first obviously you have to get your game itself installed. So first things first: uninstall whatever you have installed at the moment. Do that through add/remove programs or whatever the equivalent is on your system. First do that for the Co8 modpack, then do it for ToEE. Once you've done that, navigate to wherever it had been installed via Windows Explorer and remove any remnants of ToEE that might remain. (There could be things associated with the modpack left over.)

    Be aware that this might be a longish procedure overall (big picture, getting everything up and running), since no one is there helping you in real-time, but it's important that you don't deviate from the instructions at all. That will just compromise everything and we'll have to start over. So no home brew attempts at fixing anything or alternate solutions, please.

    Question: what is your operating system?

    Other info: to the best of our knowledge, all modern versions of ToEE come patched (not always to the same degree, but there should be none that have no patches at all). That said, you should be aware that we're by no means associated with Gamersgate or anything else, and we don't know for a fact exactly what they've done with their utilities and whatnot, so while we can try to help you on that end, we don't speak for them. If their installation utility won't allow certain things like installing to a custom directory, you may be best served by purchasing a different edition of ToEE. GoG for example allows custom directory selection, and it only costs $5 US or so.

    Let us know when you've got all the above done and we'll go from there, thanks.
     
  10. Anthropoid

    Anthropoid Established Member

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    Thanks for the responses guys. My OS is Win 7.

    I've got the game running with the Front End X, and I think I'll sit pat for awhile and try to enjoy the game a bit. However, when I get to a point where I feel like I've used up the possibilities for vanilla with just the slight changes using the TOEEFX I'll uninstall everything and try again.

    Main thing that got me off on this 'home brew' approach was the Gamersgate installer for the Anthology not affording me the opportunity to install outside programs. That right there prevented me from being able to follow the installation instructions exactly.

    The copy-pasted version of the game folder that I created in my C drive still suffered the same error as when I tried to install the mod in the Program directory. Which makes me think that I should be happy to have an install that is working like I want with TOEEFX.

    Sorry for the longwinded posts, but maybe they are of some use :)
     
  11. Anthropoid

    Anthropoid Established Member

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    Okay, followed your directions Gaear. Uninstalled everything. Bought the GoG edition. Installed it in the C drive

    C:\GOG Games\Temple of Elemental Evil

    Everything was going good right until the end of the installation when I get this error.

    [​IMG]

    Here is what was in my TFE-X .txt file

    I'm guessing this is likely a problem with my Java not being up to date? I'll see about updating it and try again.

    Will I need to uninstall and do a fresh install of the game after I update Java?

    ADDIT: oh that is kinda weird. Seems this machine had two copies of Java installed on it.

    One is Java 7 Update 45 (the latest evidently) Other was like

    "Java 6(TM) Update 26 64-bit"

    I'm uninstalling the weird one and see if that helps.

    ADDIT^2: eh voila. Whether it was uninstalling that funky old Java 6 or making certain to right-click + Run as Administrator on the Circle of 8 mod installer, I cannot say. But I have passed the 'install TFE-X' phase and am installing the module now so I expect I'm good to go.

    Will post one last time to confirm I got it running.

    In sum, if my posting here is of any help to you guys as modders/developers, maybe look into on your end if your can get the Gamersgate version to run fine. It is possible I guess that the settings on their Anthology installer were what was causing me to get errors in installing CO8.
     
    Last edited: Jan 11, 2014
  12. Anthropoid

    Anthropoid Established Member

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    Okay, Circle of Eight, new content installed and running.

    However . . . when I boot the game using the TFE-X launcher (right-clicked Run as Administrator) my mouse is completely unresponsive.

    Open Task Manager and mouse is immediately responsive again.

    When I boot the game using the shortcut for the game .exe I get a couple seconds of mouse responsiveness then it locks up.

    Any ideas?

    My wife has some "Synaptics touchpad accessory" app installed on this machine. I turned that off in the Task manager but same problem.
     
  13. sirchet

    sirchet Force for Goodness Moderator Supporter

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    Have you rebooted your PC since fixing the java installation?

    I would try that first.
     
  14. Anthropoid

    Anthropoid Established Member

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    Yep I just did. I then launched the game via the ToEE shortcut and took my dog for a walk, maybe gone 15 minutes to see if the unresponsive cursor goes away after a while (assuming it is a result of the game doing a bunch of processing on initial load).

    Cursor was still unresponsive when I got back and I had to end the game via the task manager.

    Am I a magnet for these weird problems or what!?
     
  15. Gaear

    Gaear Bastard Maestro Administrator

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    No idea on that one, sorry. Maybe try playing in windowed mode.
     
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