Need help with multi-player crashing

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If I try and start a multi-player game it crashes as soon as I click "create game"
Any idea what I can try? I'm already running in the XP compatibility mode.


It does it in Shadows of Alm and also in the Throne of Bhaal expansion.

 

Assuming you can start a single-player game,
check what the network settings are set to. Make sure it's set to TCP/IP as it is extremely unlikely that you are using anything else these days, especially IPX.

 

Yes single player works fine thankfully.
Also, yes I try usingTCP/IP. It is the only connection type it will let me use. I get the option for Serial but it just shows the option. It wont let me try to play a game.

 

I'm not sure off-hand what else to suggest, and I had to replace both hard drives in the system with BG2 on it. I may have to retire that computer. In any case, I can't bring up the game at the moment to help you further. Maybe later this week when I've finished restoring the system. I'm mostly going to be doing it overnight since I have to restore the images via a USB 1.1 connection, and it's going to take two nights. One to restore the Windows 98SE drive, and one to restore the XP drive.
Sorry, if I get any other ideas I'll post back later in the week.

 

98!!? Sporting the old school eh? Lol. It's good for older games like BG and all those. Heck I thought about getting windows ??? (the original version. Don't remember what it was called. 3.1 or something?) to try and run the real old games like the darksun wake of the raveger.
Have fun. It's a pain restoring everything. I can only guess, and cringe, at what it will be like doing it that way. Sounds painful. Lol.

 

Eyebreaker, if I remember correctly, you have been having other problems in your game also (something about certain dialogues not working properly).

It might not be a bad idea for you to perform a full uninstall and reinstall of BG. After you do a clean install, including the official patch, test your ability to start a multiplayer game.

Then carefully reinstall your mods, paying very careful attention to the install orders suggested by the mod creators. Make sure everything is still working before you pick your game back up, and hopefully you'll be able to carry on without any issues.

 

Well I did a full uninstall, reboot, and ran the game. Same problem. It crashes when I try to start a multi-player game. I've tried it in:

windows 7
vista
XP service pack 2 & 3
I even tried the old school 98 (which wouldn't even start the game)

And tried both SoA & ToB.

Single player seems to work fine still.
Also I can only get the kensai to dual into a cleric or mage and that's it. but that's going into another one of my posts. Just thought you, whoever you are, might want to know.
Oh yea, I haven't installed any mods yet either.

 

Just to be very clear here, did you do this exactly?

1) Fully uninstall Baldur's Gate 2 - including moving any sub directories left behind to an alternate location, to ensure your new install was completely fresh?
2) Reboot your system (always a good idea, but I don't know if it's strictly necessary).
3) Install Shadows of Amn
4) Install Throne of Bhaal
5) Install the Official Bioware Patch
6) With no mods installed, attempt create a new Baldur's Gate 2 multiplayer game

If you did all that and it still isn't working, I'm not really sure what to tell you. The next thing I would suggest is to look at the operating system itself, as there may be something network related that isn't working as it should. Troubleshooting could get very involved, and isn't something I'd likely be able to do a good job assisting with by offering a random post here and there.

I have run multi-player games in BG2 going back more than a decade, and have done so without issue using Windows 98, Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7. Not sure what the issue is in your case. :/

 

It's another no go. Guess I'm stuck in single player mode. At least I have Shadowkeeper to change some stuff if it will.
Thanks for trying to help people. I really appreciate it.

 

I doubt Windows 3.1 would run on any hardware that you can buy nowadays.
Also, I haven't seen support for it in virtualization software like VirtualBox.
So unless you still happen to have an old PC + peripherals of that time laying around, this solution probably won't get you very far.

However, there actually is a solution for playing those old games from Windows 3.1 and Windows 95 times:

Most of those games, including the one you mentioned, are actually DOS games, so with any luck you can run them in DOSBox, a free cross-platform program that fully emulates a virtual Intel x86 PC running MS-DOS, inside a window in your modern operating system (Windows XP/Vista/7, Mac, Linux, ...).

Working with DOSBox directly requires some DOS knowledge and lots of patience, but there there is a graphical front-end called D-Fend Reloaded that makes managing and running your DOS games and configuring DOSBox profiles for them easy even for casual computer users.

Btw, the GOG.com versions of several old games (Sim City 2000, the Ultima series, ...) which are part of the currently running Massive EA Selection promo (just 12 hours left btw.!), also use DOSBox. What the GOG.com installer for such a game installs, is basically a folder containing:

• The original game files
• A bundled copy of DOSBox, pre-configured for the particular game in question
• A launcher that launches the DOSBox executable with the game inside

PS:
Here are three screenshots of DOSBox running on my Linux PC (click to see full sizes) - the first one showing plain DOSBox when it is started directly, the second one running Ultima 7 at its original resolution (yes, the game's native resolution is a measly 320x200 pixels, back then that was not unusual), the third one also with Ultima 7 but letting DOSBox size it up by 300% using a smart pixel scaling algorithm:

 

Ah yes the OLD days. Lol.
I remember the gold box series as well. I remember running through the Pool of Darkness and finding the vorpal blade. You could equip/use items before identifying them. I had everyone using +5 silver swords. When I found the vorpal blade I equipped it and saw that it was only +3 so I almost dropped it. Instead I decided to see what it was since it was the lady's (forget who) personal sword. I about **** a brick when it said it was a vorpal blade. obviously the silver swords got put on the back stage from then on

As for GOG.com, that is what I originally used for BG2 & ToB but I ran into the multi-player problem. So when I took the advice and did a re-install I used a copy off of the D&D Anthology "The Master Collection" but still no luck.

The worst part about the whole deal is that BG2 with ToB is my favorite game. But it has to have the ToB expansion with it.

Such is the way life runs sometimes.

 

I'm using a copy of the Collector's Edition, so it may be something unique to your copy. Nuking your current install and reinstalling should have fixed most problems.

I'm having trouble getting my images to go onto the new larger drives, so it looks like I'm reinstalling from scratch. Joy. I'm seriously considering forgoing Windows 98SE entirely as I don't use it much and can't think of anything that doesn't like XP that I can't run under DOSbox. I'm going to post a list of the games I intend to reinstall in techno-magic and ask if anybody can think of a need for Windows 98SE.

 

I don't know, I accidentally took an MS-DOS 3.30 book disk instead of one made using Windows XP and managed to boot a computer that had a "Windows Vista Ready" sticker on it in the last year. Unfortunately I couldn't read the NTFS partition on the hard drive, so had to go home and get the real emergency boot disk.
I normally use a flash drive these days, but I couldn't find it and didn't want to take the time to make another so I used my old tool.

 

Something that always worked for me (at least until I installed the Widescreen mod... oops!) was, when I reached the main BG2 menu I would press ALT + Enter at the same time to enter windowed mode, then start a multiplayer game. Once it had loaded the party arbitration screen, pressing ALT + Enter again would return it to full-screen mode, and I could then easily make all the 6 party members and start the game properly.

I had exactly the same problem the OP is describing, and at least for me, the above seemed to be a work-around for it. It's also a good idea, once you've made the party, to save the game and then copy that save from the multiplayer to the singleplayer save folder (in your game directory); then you can run the custom party using singleplayer mode, avoiding the whole hassle of windowed mode (at least until you want to make another party from scratch!).

Hope that helps.