Dragon Age 2 bug fixes on the way

BioWare is working on fixes to a few bugs in Dragon Age 2, including DirectX 11 compatibility issues and an auto-attack command glitch on consoles.

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BioWare is working on fixes to a few bugs in the console and PC versions of Dragon Age 2, reports Eurogamer. Lead designer Mike Laidlaw detailed the two biggest bugs,which he says the team is "aggressively patching."

The first bug is a compatibility issue with DirectX 11. He suggests that if you're seeing stuttering or slowdown, you should move the renderer down to DirectX 9 until the patch arrives to fix the issue. "We're working with NVIDIA/AMD to make sure patches are coming out, because some of it is actually the driver compatibility," he said.

The second bug only impacts consoles. Apparently the option to turn on auto-attack exists in the game, but it's invisible in the menu. To attack one target continuously, players need to keep tapping a button, or find the auto-attack order in the radial menu. But selecting it that way "wasn't the intent for the core gameplay" according to Laidlaw.

The PC patch will most likely hit as soon as BioWare can properly test it, but the console versions need to pass by certification. "I can't really speak to time-frame because obviously they need to go through the quality assurance of Sony and Microsoft to make sure that they're up to their standards and so on," he said. "So that creates a little bit more delay than we'd hoped for."

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From The Chatty
  • reply
    March 11, 2011 10:30 AM

    Comment on Dragon Age 2 bug fixes on the way, by Steve Watts.

    • reply
      March 11, 2011 10:34 AM

      http://www.shacknews.com/chatty?id=25464612#itemanchor_25464612 every time I see this it's you Steve, what's up?

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        March 11, 2011 10:39 AM

        Good question. It's a glitch on the backend and there's a workaround for it. I've been making a habit of doing the workaround, but it didn't take here for some reason. Be patient, everybody, the new site isn't entirely ironed out yet.

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          March 11, 2011 11:38 AM

          C'est la vie, I'll try not to be so annoying about it but I make no promises

    • reply
      March 11, 2011 10:38 AM

      Summary: BioWare is working on fixes to a few bugs in Dragon Age 2, including DirectX 11 compatibility issues and an auto-attack command glitch on consoles.

      • reply
        March 11, 2011 10:43 AM

        Looking forward to that DX11 fix. The game is a disaster if I enable Very High settings on DX11. Works fine at "high" however. And then there's a pair of greyed-out checkboxes for some blurring options, even with DX11 enabled.

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      March 11, 2011 10:39 AM

      What do you really lose by going from 11 to 9?

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        March 11, 2011 10:44 AM

        Mostly things like fullscreen motion blue and depth of field stuff. There's more complex shit I don't understand dealing with tessellation as well, i believe.

        A good DX11 game just looks leagues better than DX9.

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          March 11, 2011 11:39 AM

          Pretty much the last sentence here due in part to the first two.

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          March 11, 2011 5:17 PM

          Runs perfectly for me on DX 11, very high. All options enabled.

          running 11.2 catalyst, 6950 2x crossfire. I'm going to upgrade to 11.4 preview and expect performance to pick up even more. I'm getting 45-60(vsync) right now. Hopefully the min frames pick up at least 10%.

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            March 12, 2011 2:59 AM

            ATI users seems to have minimal problems. It is the nVidia cards that are having most of the problems. ATI helped Bioware do the DX11 stuff in the game so it is obvious why ATI cards run the game better.

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      March 11, 2011 11:43 AM

      it really hits my system if i crank everything up, but runs great on DX11 using the high res texture pack, high settings and details, as well as 4xAA.

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        March 11, 2011 11:45 AM

        I couldn't event get it to run on dx11 it would just crash right at the Bioware screen.

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        March 11, 2011 1:29 PM

        Same here. But if it put the graphic settings on "ultra", or whatever the highest is, the game stutters like crazy.

        It's funny how well the game runs on "high" settings and the high res texture pack, though.

        nVidia 460 btw.

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      March 11, 2011 11:44 AM

      needed more demo time? :[

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      March 11, 2011 1:53 PM

      DX11 runs rubbish for me at very high native res, annoying as don't like playing games at lower settings... that's not what spent loads of cash on my system for!

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      March 11, 2011 4:25 PM

      I don't know how a bug like, "Auto attack doesn't work like we expected" can get through QA and not be noticed on consoles before they... printed the master disc. That one seems pretty bad. Almost as bad as it taking a month or more to create a high definition texture set as a patch after the game ships or having your game not work properly with DirectX 11...

      Oops. I wonder if they had anyone at all play this game in testing before signing off on it as complete. Or did they bother to call it complete?

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        March 12, 2011 3:20 AM

        No shit. This is like Toyota shipping a new vehicle and then going "Oh, whoops, we didn't realize the brights don't work. And neither does the defrost."

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        March 12, 2011 5:45 AM

        Well the game was rushed out: http://uk.music.ign.com/articles/115/1154594p1.html

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        March 12, 2011 6:07 AM

        Laidlaw talked about it too at eurogamer, good interview that touches on some reasons why DA2 is what it is.

        http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2011-03-10-biowares-mike-laidlaw-a-defence-of-dragon-age-ii-interview

        "Well it's hard to know exactly what's going on with scores that are really, really negative. One possible culprit could just be a change backlash, i.e. this isn't Origins and I wanted Origins 2. There may be some degree of what I would honestly say is emotional investment in the Origins story, or in the way Origins was presented which is leading to a stronger than average reaction of disappointment. That's understandable, and if anything that really is a compliment to the work on Origins. I'm not sure it's an entirely fair assessment to say all games must be like the previous game. I think we would have seen just as much negativity if we just, as I used to joke, stapled two Archdemons together and called it a super blight. It boils down to a game that challenges a fair amount of convention: it doesn't tell the usual fantasy story or present the usual fantasy combat, and in doing so it does run the risk of someone going, "Wow, this is just too different and I cannot handle it.""

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          March 14, 2011 8:23 AM

          "cannot handle it" ? Really? More like, "this is boring" and "I like other games better".

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      March 12, 2011 6:09 AM

      among other things, I hope Bioware is also planning on regular ol' bug fixes. A few broken or unable to hand-in side quests and achievements for The Exiled Prince aren't working either at the moment are what I experienced on the 360 so far.

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      March 16, 2011 10:49 PM

      I hope they get a nice sized patch out soon. I've been playing the console version and I've noticed a number of bugs. Though I have to wonder how in the world some of these made it past Quality Assurance and the Playtesters. Mostly because ones like "Flickering" during some of the cutscenes and untextured NPCs seem glaringly obvious.

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