The Raven: Legacy of a Master Thief - Any NVIDIA owners having problems loading it?

The Raven uses the same engine - Unity, I think - as Haunted Memories (free to try on Steam!), which I've just downloaded and played. Haunted Memories did bomb to the desktop while trying to change the resolution but as soon as I disabled EVGA Precision X's OSD then I was able to set 1920x1200 with no problems and the game ran fine.

So why doesn't The Raven? :3eyes:

 

Unity stores it's settings in the registry with different names for different developers so it can be tricky to track down but deleting those might help.

For example Shadowrun Returns uses HKEY_CURRENT_USER\\Harebrained Schemes\\Shadowrun\\ and Might and Magic X uses HKEY_CURRENT_USER\\Limbic Entertainment\\Might and Magic X Legacy\\

You could also try searching for a common registry setting such as the UnityGraphicsQuality one which is a DWORD and defines the quality preset the game uses but not every Unity game uses this.

There's also "Screenmanager Resolution" Width and "Screenmanager Resolution Height" but many games (That I've looked up in my Windows registry at least.) uses custom settings.


Could also try to find the profile file or what the game stores saves and such to and rename that folder to see if that works but I'd check the settings via the registry first as that's more likely to be what's causing the problem.

 

Interesting information, thanks, Jonas.

*EDIT*
I'm looking at the registry now and Might & Magic X, which does work on my system has the following settings under Limbic Entertainment (HKCU > Software):

Screenmanager Is Fullscreen mode_h3981298716 = 1
Screenmanager Resolution Height_h2627697771 = 1080
Screenmanager Resolution Width_h182942802 = 1920
UnityGraphicsQuality_h1669003810 = 26

(All values are decimals)

Those make sense since the game doesn't support 16:10 resolutions (yet) so it runs at 1920x1080.

Now The Raven shows these values under KingArt:

Screenmanager Is Fullscreen mode_h3981298716 = 0
Screenmanager Resolution Height_h2627697771 = 1171
Screenmanager Resolution Width_h182942802 = 1914
UnityGraphicsQuality_h1669003810 = 2

A resolution of 1914x1171 and not fullscreen? They look weird. If I change them then the game actually crashes and produces an error log (instead of stopping responding at a black screen).

The error is:

Faulting application name: raven_game.exe, version: 4.1.0.1574, time stamp: 0x513c3581
Faulting module name: unknown, version: 0.0.0.0, time stamp: 0x00000000
Exception code: 0xc000041d
Fault offset: 0x77b71a91
Faulting process ID: 0x225c
Faulting application start time: 0x01cecabe3f620fc8
Faulting application path: E:\Steam\steamapps\common\The Raven\raven\raven_game.exe
Faulting module path: unknown
Report ID: 82652ed8-36b1-11e3-800b-74d02b28a5e8
Faulting package full name:
Faulting package-relative application ID:

And this is the error log produced by the game:

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/105663038/The Raven Error Log.log

Any ideas on what I should try next?

 

Like you said the first setting seems to indicate that the game is running in windowed mode so the resolution is probably adjusted to be just under native so there's nothing wrong there although changing it to fullscreen and native shouldn't have caused it to crash either.

Unfortunately if that's all there is in the registry then it's probably some other error but what could it be then?


Have you tried right clicking on the executable and selecting "Run as Admin", it's just a suggestion but it might help though the game shouldn't crash like that anyways although it might have problems saving certain settings depending on the location it stores these files.
(Which is normally the User directory in newer games which should work regardless.)

You could also right click on the exe and go into it's properties and from the compatibility tab set either OS to Windows XP or Windows 7 to see if that changes anything, very few games requires this though and those are mostly very old too.


Other than that I don't know what else to suggest at the moment, I'll have to search around a bit and see if I can find something on this game.


EDIT: Does changing the graphics quality setting from "2" to 1 or 0 do anything?
(Someone on the Steam forums had a black screen error when using the "high" quality setting.)


EDIT: This is pretty far-fetched but some games also have problems with Windows audio set higher than 48000 Khz, such as when set to 96 or 192 but many of those games have been updated to fix this compatibility problem.
(I'm using 24-bit 48000 myself.)

 

Hi Jonas.

I've tried Windows XP/7/8 compatibility mode - doesn't work - I've tried Run as Admin - doesn't - I've tried both together - doesn't work either. When I edit the registry settings to fullscreen 1920x1080 then the game crashes with that error log I posted above. I've also tried deleting the registry key for The Raven and running the game; the key is recreated using the following values:

Screenmanager Is Fullscreen mode_h3981298716 = 1
Screenmanager Resolution Height_h2627697771 = 1080
Screenmanager Resolution Width_h182942802 = 1920
UnityGraphicsQuality_h1669003810 = 2

I've even deleted the Config file from Documents\The Raven but nothing fixes the crashes.

Looking at the log it shows the following:

Unity Player [version: Unity 4.1.0f4_88f3bc4c76f9]

raven_game.exe caused an Access Violation (0xc0000005) in module raven_game.exe at 0023:00000000.

Error occurred at 2013-10-16_230944. E:\Steam\steamapps\common\The Raven\raven\raven_game.exe, run by Darren.

22% memory in use.
1024 MB physical memory [1024 MB free].
2048 MB paging file [1024 MB free].
0 MB user address space [3728 MB free].
Write to location 00000000 caused an access violation.

It is an older version of the engine than the one Haunted Memories uses for starters but what puzzles me is the amounts of memory shown - I have 16 GB with 6 GB of fixed sized pagefiles split across three drives of 2 GB each. Also, it looks like it is writing to location 0x0 and that causes the crash. And what does 0 MB of user address space mean? Shouldn't it be higher?

This is a game I previously played without issue on Windows 8 Pro on my old i7-920 build with the same GTX 780 graphics card. It failed to work on a CLEAN install of Windows 8 Pro on my new Haswell build with the same card, albeit different graphics drivers and it continues to not work on Windows 8.1. My audio is and has always been set to 24-bit 48 kHz, the same as it was when it was previously working.

I really do not understand why it isn't working as other Unity engine games work fine, including Anna: Extended Edition and Haunted Memories, etc. The Raven is the only one that doesn't.

 

It's a 32-bit game I guess so maybe it only sees 4 GB but the log file is still a bit odd, 0x0 isn't anything as far as I know and simply means the game crashed.

EDIT: Actually I looked it up better and it means the program ran out of available memory but that shouldn't be possible.

Have you tried the NTCore 4 GB (The "LargeAddressAware" flag.) program?

http://www.ntcore.com/4gb_patch.php


EDIT: According to this:
http://steamcommunity.com/app/208600/discussions/1/828927580791240871/

Which is also a Unity engine game, deleting (Or moving/renaming.) the profile folder (You already tried with the config file.) and registry string (Resetting the game completely to it's defaults.) can work to resolve problems like that, apparently that specific issue was due to profile or save file being corrupted.

 

I also deleted the Remote folder in UserData/233370 or whatever it was. That rebuilt the saves from the Steam cloud but the game still crashed.

I haven't tried the Large Address Aware tweak though. It wasn't necessary before when I played the game on Windows 8 Pro, i7-920 and GTX 780 so why now? Also, wouldn't it prevent the game from loading since Steam would recognise that the file had been hacked? I will certainly try it although I'm doubtful it'll make a difference.

By the way, I really do appreciate you trying to help. I'm not sure whether it helps or not to explain in detail exactly what happens but I will anyway...

The launcher opens normally, I click on Start Game then the screen goes black (fullscreen) and a second or two later a spnning mouse cursor appears. Nothing else happens no matter how long I wait. At this point, I can no longer Alt-Tab back to the desktop or switch to the Start screen with the Windows key. I cannot even bring up Task Manager with Ctrl-Shift-Esc instead I have to press Ctrl-Alt-Del to bring up the screen where I can select Task Manager from the list and then I'm returned to the desktop with Task Manager opened. Because the mouse pointer is 'busy' I cannot end the raven_game.exe process so I have to use the command prompt and taskkill /im "raven_game.exe" /f to force it to close (the game shows as "Not responding" in Task Manager).

 

I still cannot play this game. I even had the brilliant idea of uninstalling it from my main E Steam partition and installing it on my D drive but that doesn't work either. I even tried it inbetween reinstalling RTSS (part of EVGA Precision X) as I thought that might be stopping the game from loading but, nope, still doesn't work, just as it hasn't even since I did a clean install of Windows 8 Pro back in June.

I'm beginning to think it is an issue with the Haswell i7-4770K processor as the game worked absolutely fine in Windows 8 Pro when I had my i7-920. Looks like I may have to contact the developers about this issue but somehow I doubt they'll do anything.

 

Darren is there a demo? I could give it ago on my system if its any help?

 

@ antonyfm - No, unfortunately, there isn't. Thank you for your kind offer but I suspect you'd be wasting your time as I'm pretty sure it'd work fine for you anyway.

The thing is that it worked fine for me to on Windows 8 Pro 64-bit when I had my i7-920 build + GTX 780 but since I built my i7-4770K system (with the same graphics card) I've not been able to play the game. It hangs on a black during loading every time and I have to manually close it.

It's very frustrating because I don't cannot work out what the problem is. It uses the Unity engine but I have loads of those games on Steam and all the others work fine (e.g. Surgeon Simulator 2013, Anna: Extended Edition, DungeonLand, Endless Space, etc).

*EDIT*
Normally, I wouldn't try this because it is a Steam game but I've downloaded a couple of NoDVD cracks for the Steam version so I will try those to see if the problem lies with some third-party DRM the game might be using. (The crack for FIFA 13 allows me to play the game on Windows 8.1 for example but the official Origin version crashes after the EA Sports splash screen!)

*EDIT 2*
Nope, the NoDVD cracks don't work either so it's not a DRM or Steam-related issue.

 

Well the game still isn't working on Windows 8.1 but at least FIFA 13 now works so that leaves The Raven as the only game I have installed that I cannot play.

In an effort to get the issue resolved, I registered and posted a request for help on the Nordic Games GmbH forums about two weeks ago now. I received a response asking for various files (logs, DXDiag.txt, etc) and then an infraction because this forum unbelievably has no check on the length of your signature so you can preview it fine but there's no warning that you've exceeded the limit. My signature, which was my PC specs in small text, was on display for a fortnight before a mod noticed and complained about it! It took up just two small lines at the bottom of my posts and was actually smaller than the allowed signature graphics size of 730x1000!!! I then voiced my displeasure at the unfairness of this (without naming the mod) in my thread, since every other forum I've used checks the signature is valid before allowing you to save it, and then received another warning from the mod that basically said that I shouldn't post negative comments!

Talk about a draconian forum! Thankfully once my issue is resolved, if it ever is, then I'll have no reason to go on that forum again.

 

Same issue 760 gtx sli also without sli

Hello Darren,

I have the same issue. The game starts but if in game screen goes black at random. If you don't play for something like 10 -30 seconds the screen goes normal but keeps getting black after 10 seconds.
The sounds keeps working and you hear the story progress.
Reinstall of the game didn't solve the issue. (deinstall first)
Sometimes screen stays black and through task manager I need to kill the game. In total I can't play the game at all.
All other of my games work correct. Talking about ± 100 games from the new generation.

I read on the steam forum about 1 guy changing the settings to high and then getting the bugs. Going to try normal graphics now. And will report back.

*update*
seems that in normal graphics level mode the game keeps running.
I still don't understand the issue. It seems to have something to do with the way how the graphics for the level have been created and the newest Graphic Cards.
Hope turning it on normal solves it for you too,
"I was really mad that I couldnt play the game."

If there are more bugs with the Graphics I will get back to you.

Balder

 

I was thinking about this few days ago Darren I picked up a copy and don't seem to have this issue at all. I did have something once first time I tried to run it but that seemed to be down to KIS 2014. Works well with Win 8.1.1

Sorry if its not much help but lest I can do is confirm it works.

 

In normal mode issue came back

Dear Darren,

In Normal mode the issue came back too.
But it seems longer before the issue occurs.

Balder

*update*
played the game further in normal mode and seems that the kernel driver crashed for nvidia 337,50 driver build. Don't know but maybe this is your issue to. Now trying reinstall of the NVidia graphics driver (clean install)

 

Possible sollution

I used the Display Driver Uninstaller

Info:
Search in google for nvidia uninstaller first link

Don't want to read:
1)
Download this program:
Display Driver Uninstaller
Search in google first link

2) Go to safe mode
a. Create registry backup if you want to be sure.

3) Run the program in safe mode

4) Reboot to normal mode

5) Install the latest driver. 335 from Nvidia

Greetings Balder

 

I haven't been able to play this game at all on any driver since I rebuilt my PC with an i7-4770K last June. It worked perfectly before on Windows 8 on my i7-920 with 12 GB of memory. I've tried uninstalling and reinstalling on a different driver; nothing works. When I contacted the developer, they said the issue might be caused by the onboard Intel GPU even though I'm using a dedicated GTX 780 graphics card. However, disabling the iGPU in the BIOS changed nothing.

I suspect the game either doesn't like having 16 GB of RAM and/or my i7-4770K CPU. By the way, the CPU is running at stock clocks.

 

P.S. This games uses the Unity Engine but I have many other games that also use this engine and they all work perfectly.

 

I have 4770k and 16gb ram and the game works fine.

 

Don't think its the ram as we have the same

 

Are you also using any of the following:

EVGA Precision X or MSI Afterburner
D3DOverrider
Creative AutoMode Switcher
Razer Synapse 2 (mouse software)
Tt eSPORTS Meka G-Unit (keyboard software)
iCloud
Dropbox
Bluetooth Devices
Origin / Steam / Battle.net (set to run with Windows)
Any Stardock software (Start8, Decor8, ModernMix, ObjectDock, etc)
FingerPrint (used to print onto my PC printers from my iPad)
Content Manager for PlayStation (PS Vita transfer software)

I have all of those running with my PC, although I'm sure I tried running the game with them all disabled and it still didn't work.