Vanguard Saga Of Heroes - Player made screenshots released

[Harovan]

It's an ASUS board and I doubt they design or produce it in Germany. In fact I doubt any board manufacturer does that.

The NWN2 problems were caused by a bad memory stick. Bad CRCs were computed this way and the game refused to patch (probably assuming an illegal copy). But I changed memory and checked it with 2 different tools, neither of which reported an error.

The distance PCI express slot to memory banks is only a cm, may be less. But back when I bought the board, my old NVIDIA 6600 was a modern card, and it produced MUCH less heat than my current 7800 does.

I had the game running for another 3 hours (truth to be told, I didn't play all that time, just went AFK) and no problems so far apart from being slower and choppier due to less RAM. Probably time to turn down graphics settings.

[DrSpike]

Yeah, you are clearly very keen to play and you shouldn't let bad board design frustrate you.

[Quillan]

I've seen it, Spike. The fan on the graphics cards points down, yes, but some of the newer cards are quite a bit longer than the older ones, and that can put the actual graphics chip right under the ram slots. The backside of those cards gets pretty hot, too. I wouldn't touch mine while it's running, that's for sure. The sensor reports about 75°C when under heavy load, so I'm sure the chip itself is a bit hotter than that.

Ralph, how many ram slots do you have? If you have 4, you might be able to shift them over slightly.

[Harovan]

That looks like the reason for the poor design. My old 6600 was considerably shorter and slimmer and didn't reach to the memory slots. I remember when I bought and installed the 7800, I had trouble to fit it in and had to relocate quite some cables etc.

I do have 4 slots, but the board manual says they have to be loaded in a certain order. I don't know if I have to follow it to the letter, though.

[Quillan]

Sometimes yes, sometimes no. On my last two boards, it didn't matter much. I had two different color slots, 2 of each color. I had to put matching memory in the same color slots to get dual channel, but it didn't matter which pair I used for it, light or dark. An older Abit I had did matter, though. I had to start at slot 4 and backfill; it wouldn't boot if I put a stick in slot 1 without having a stick in 2, 3 and 4.

What you might try is switching your single stick out with the one you removed and see if it crashes with just that stick in it. If it does, it's pretty certain that memory is the problem.

[Harovan]

I don't think it's the memory, I ran multiple checks from boot disks with 2 different tools and there was no error in half a hour. I won't touch my memory just to test things, I'm glad it works and don't want to screw it up. I have a GB and that is ok to play at "Balanced", except perhaps for well populated city zones like Tursh. But outdoors I'm having 35-45 fps, and in dungeons 25-35 in a full group, and that is good enough for me. The only thing I definitely can't do is swapping to the desktop, because pretty much everything else has been moved to the swap file. Also, it takes ages to quit the game, for the same reason. But I can live with that.

I'll write some more impressions for the not-yet-playing later, my workmates are calling for my assistance.

[Jon Miller]

We will never see him again.

JM

[conmcb25]

SR sure is trying to find a way to play this game

[DrSpike]

He sure is - I told you it wouldn't take long.

[Harovan]

Vanguard is a wonderful game. Look whom I encountered in the depths of Telon (on Kojan, to be precise)... And he wasn't leet at all, in fact he was pretty lame (oh surprise!):

[DrSpike]

teh usurper! (or perhaps teh photoshopper)

[DrSpike]

By the way don't think that we all didn't notice your obvious attempt to direct attention from the fact you are playing.

[Harovan]

First, what nonsense do you talk about? How can I possibly "direct attention from the fact I am playing" by posting a screenshot from in-game? This is a disturbing sign that academical grades are greatly devalued nowadays. In my time they weren't handed to riffraff that can't comprehend the simplest rules of logic.

And second, what exactly is your point? I clearly stated "I may play next week" and I'm playing. I mastered my problems, I got back my MMOG mood and hence I play. If you're unable to comprehend this, your loss; it's one more sign for the conclusion I drew in point one.

Third, you convinced me to actually play this character. It's a goblin shaman, not the brightest, not the prettiest, so I think he matches you well.

[Harovan]

And fourth, I believe this thread served its purpose of gathering pre-release information. If you want, you can open your own Vanguard thread. I don't think it will be of interest for me, though.

Can any mod please lock this?

[DrSpike]