Hello everyone!

Since there are a lot of general or specific threads out there puzzling around with various crash issues I'm going to open this thread.

The user WDeranged drew my attention as he was eliminating his issues by using the version 2.20 of the widescreen mod –since later versions from 2.60 onwards changing things within the engine (as stated in release notes)– so I was going to give it try. MANY thanks to WDeranged who provided the file which I wasn't able to find in the world wide web (oldest version was 2.60).

Whether I started a new game or patched my saves, nothing has worked with the latest versions. And the widescreen mod was definitely causing the issues since I've had no problems without it. I was giving up all hope playing PS:T in high resolutions. BUT:

Hell, the version 2.20 works! I couldn't force any crash by using this version.

So maybe you should give it a try, too!

I provide you two download mirrors for the sake of not getting those files off the www ever.

Mirror 1: https://www.dropbox.com/s/lgbg1vwrkcsbe1l/widescreen-v2.2.zip
Mirror 2: http://www.mediafire.com/?uealsm50g22wtjb

Let me know if it works for you!

FYI, I completely uninstalled the UI mod first, then the latest widescreen mod. Then installed the 2.20 widescreen and then the UI mod again (didn't even bother with deleting the temp and cache folder, but you could probably delete them) and started a new game (I was beginning again anyway so it didn't bothers me)

I just installed it along with the improved UI. Only looked into it for 5 minutes, but it seems to have improved my situation since it is the first time that I can use my prior savegames. Also neither entering new nor prior discovered areas did pose a problem in that brief test.

I've been emailing the file to people for a while now, I'm glad to be of help, thanks for the mention :)

Going to give it a try! I´ve tried everything on this game, but always crashes at art gallery or in the store were you buy the "special" quest stuff...

In fact I was considering playing the game at it´s native res (no mod), but it looks pretty bad on a 16:9 at 1920 x 1080...

Thanks!

Ok, I can already confirm that this solution at "least" solves the crash bug at the art store!! Going to start a new game and see if with a new save there´re more porblems... Hope not!!

Thanks again!

For me, this crash only occurs when this one guy next to the old lady appears on screen. It takes a while for him to come out of the fog of war after entering the gallery. Actually, I managed to circumvent this crash by entering, pausing, getting the scale, keeping the party near the exit, sending TNO to talk to the old lady, keeping the POV away from the lower part of the gallery as much as possible and exiting as soon as the talking is done. I never saw the guy and the game never crashed.

I can vouch for the 2.20 version of the Widescreen Mod. I uninstalled 3.05 then reinstalled 2.20 and all of my mods--and the game isn't crashing at all. I'd even replaced several files which had not decompressed properly during the install, and while this helped in some ways--notably, I was able to hear my character and Morte and lots of other NPC's in the game talk for the first time!--I still kept getting random crashes in and out of buildings. No more! So far, so good.

As of four days ago...

The crash when entering small areas
and the Art gallery "like" crashes

Have both been fixed in the 3.06 dev build
https://github.com/vbigiani/widescreen/archive/master.zip

Distributing or using a version that is 4 years behind in bug fixes is never a good idea.

I'm sorry, but perhaps not the latest version 3.5

Thanks much--3.06b is working splendidly so far...;) I didn't have any particular desire to use 2.20, but as 3.05 wasn't working properly with the game, installing it seemed like good advice and I took it and the crashes upon entering structures ceased. Happy to say that 3.06b, again, seems to have fixed this problem relative to PST & 3.05.

You know as well as I that when you're doing a generic patch for several games, same engine or not, that something you do to improve one game might cause unexpected complications in support of one of the other games. That's sort of common, really--updates often introduce unintended results, and so sometimes the older software really does work better. But thanks to 3.06b, that's something we don't have to consider any more relative to this mod and PST...;)

Again, I cannot thank you guys enough for your work and effort! I'm enjoying the game a lot more than I did when I originally bought it. I have a 28" rgb monitor and so 1920x1200 is not too small at all, and I love being able to see so much more of the map in each frame. Thanks again, aqrit; your ddraw fix, with a couple of lines erased, solved all of those problems with the game for me, too! *Special place in heaven for you guys, no doubt...;)

Well...it sure looked like the beta 3.06 had fixed the problems....but when visiting the Alley of Dangerous Angles I find I can no longer enter any of the tents *as I was doing* repeatedly without a problem with the 2.20 version of Widescreen installed. I'm running Win8Pro x64 and this is a hard crash that gobbles up the cursor--only way out to the desktop again is to log off. (At least I don't have to reboot for any reason...) But the same thing happens repeatedly and it's the same exact cursor-robbing crash--even bringing up the TM manager doesn't restore control--you have to log off so that when you log back on you once again have control of the cursor and the desktop. I have to say this is *the worst* crash I've had with a program under Win8Pro x64 since I bought it for $39.99 back in January.

What I'm doing at the moment is trying to revert back to 2.20, and yet even that no longer seems to be working and is producing the very same crash--but prior to trying out the beta 3.06 WS, this had never been a problem (with the 2.20 version of the WS mod.) Darned if I know what is going on at the moment--I've reinstalled the game, installed all of the mods carefully--and the game is still hard-crashing right there--no deviation, the crash is the same every time. It almost sounds as if the beta 3.06 has put a file somewhere that I'm not covering and it's just sort of in the background through everything else I'm doing--although what such a file might be also has me stumped. Damn--game was playing perfectly up until I switched out the 2.20 mod for the 3.06b--what I said earlier about how older software is sometimes better certainly seems true in this case.

Any suggestions? (It's a good thing I enjoy tinkering so much else I'd be rather frustrated at the moment.)

a good way to check I think would be to:

delete the contents of the cache and temp folders
Install WSM v2.2
load your save
travel to some other area and save the game again.
quit the game
delete the contents of the cache and temp folders
load the game and travel back to the Alley of Dangerous Angles...


edit:
>> ddraw fix, with a couple of lines erased, solved all of those problems
the newer version of that has the cursor trail fix optional ( though neither support win8 very well )
http://bitpatch.com/ie_ddrawfix.html

I'm able to enter tents here 1440x900 from a new game.

Thanks much--off to try it! Will let you know (thanks so much for hanging in there with me--I *love* this game because of what you guys have done with it. When I bought it new so long ago it just never tripped my trigger, so to speak.)

Edit: the eyelids are sagging...;) Coffee is steaming. I've been using your ddrawfix 2.21--you've linked me above to version 1.0--is that what you'd want me to try? (2.21 was working perfectomento a few hours ago--that's what was so baffling about this.) Anyway, let me get back to cleaning the cache. I'll be back...

OK, I'm back with nothing positive to report yet. I do find that version 1.0 of the ddrawfix using the emulation only (no toggle) works perfectly for me in the sense of no D3d lag in the game and absolutely no cursor trails (I don't have to use 2.1 and remove those two lines, etc.) So I'll stick with 1.0.

Problem is the same with small buildings in the alley--trying to enter them creates a hard crash which locks the cursor. Doesn't bring down the OS, of course, but only way out is to log off and then back on. Followed all your suggestions several times to no avail. Another symptom I have is that in medium-small buildings like the mid-wife's I can see and navigate the interior in the top left quarter of the screen, but in the right-center screen I see the loading screen of the previous loading page at the same time--with a loading bar that's full and blinking as if in time to no-vsync. In larger buildings everything works as it should.

Here's the mystery, again. Just last night, a few hours ago, I had none of these problems and the game was running perfectly! For hours on end! No crashes, no failure to clear screens after loading them, etc. I haven't figured out how I did that yet, so I will keep trying...