Baldur's Gate II & ToB - Win7 64 Consistent Lockup in Inventory Screen

[icelt]

So I've got a new Win7 64 build machine (AMDx4 945, Radeon 5770, 4GB 1600 RAM) and I was all excited about finally being able to run BG II in all of its proper glory. Full disclosure, yes until now I have not owned a proper PC since the one I bought in fall '96 .

Anyway... BG2:SoA installed smooth as silk. So I took it for a test run right quick and everything seemed to run just fine. I even manged to get it to display nice and uniform on my 23" 1080P Samsung LCD. Then I got to the point in the opening chapter where I was looting the key and some equip from what's-his-mage. After a few minutes of equipping and transferring items the game locked-up. Next I ran the program compatibility utility a few times w/o any significant improvement.

After some googling I then installed ToB, then the "official" ToB patch, the G3 Fixpack, the G3 Tweaks Pack and the Widescreen fix. I also "upped" the permissions on the ToB folder and all siblings to administrator and then re-launched BG2. As before all was fine until I started playing with the inventory where it eventually locked-up/crashed again.

Update, limiting myself to the highest supported res, 800x600, seems to prevent the lockup issue. However I'd really like to be able to use some of the higher resolutions, any ideas out there?

I know this game is realllllly old now and not too many hear are likely to have played it, much less on Win 7, but there are some very clever cats on this board so I'm hoping one of you might be able to help me some .

 

[Pako]

Have you tried to run the game in XP Compatibility mode? I wouldn't think at 800x600 you would be pushing the system causing heat issues, so lets rule that out for now.

 

[icelt]

Have you tried to run the game in XP Compatibility mode? I wouldn't think at 800x600 you would be pushing the system causing heat issues, so lets rule that out for now.

Yep I currently have it identified to run under XP/SP2 I believe.

Just to make sure, 800x600 is fine but also the "best" resolution I can run currently w/o problem. I'd like to use at least 1280x9XX, and it does run for a fair bit at that res, but then eventually it freezes.

Also when it does freeze I can't imagine it is a heat issue as Prime95 in "stress test" mode only got the CPU up to 62 degC. Now that I type that, I suppose it could be the VC overheating.... ? How would I test that?

Update....
I've managed to get it to run in 1600x1200 mode, the highest possible resolution, and in windowed mode. This allowed me to have the ATI Overdrive software running and viewable at the same time. So while I was walking around and whatnot in BG I didn't see the VC temp rise above 47 degC. I can't find an official max operating spec for this card but I'll assume it is similar to the CPU at 62 degC. So based on this test I'm guessing the freeze up issue is not due to the VC overheating.

 

[Pako]

I would doubt it's an overheating issue on the VC as well. Huh, now this is where the fun begins. Is it software or hardware? Not sure if you are running very tight timings on your ram, and if you are over clocking your CPU currently, but if you can't find a software fix, maybe a decrease of 10% OC on Ram and CPU if you are in fact over clocking to see if that helps.

 

[icelt]

I would doubt it's an overheating issue on the VC as well. Huh, now this is where the fun begins. Is it software or hardware? Not sure if you are running very tight timings on your ram, and if you are over clocking your CPU currently, but if you can't find a software fix, maybe a decrease of 10% OC on Ram and CPU if you are in fact over clocking to see if that helps.

I haven't OC'd the CPU, VC or RAM even a smidgen. I'm thinking it is most likely a software conflict, just don't know what to fiddle with to try and fix it.