Dragon Age II Demo Forum

I modified DA:O's tie file to install this Demo, and it worked reasonably well. I need to iron out a few kinks before uploading it.

1. PhysX

I don't think DA2Demo needs this. I'll have to reinstall without it and check.

2. d3dx11_43.dll

At first run, the game immediately died because it looks for this dll. The extracted contents of the demo's .exe file includes a "DirectX" folder with dozens of .cab files, one of them is this .dll. I just dumped it into the installed "bin_ship" folder, and the game worked.

Maybe the tie file can extract this particular .cab during installation? I don't know, but I'll look into it.

3. Sound

It's disabled by default. I don't know why this happens, but I also noticed that this app cannot read the system's specs that wine provides. I know some people had the same sound problem with DA:O, but my latest test installation of DA:O did not have it.

Anyway, go to /home/youruser/BioWare/Dragon Age 2 Demo/Settings/DragonAge2.ini and flick "SoundDisabled" from 1 to 0.

Edit: Fixed paths, file names, and SoundDisabled.

Alejandro Moreno wrote:

snip<

2. d3dx11_43.dll (maybe)

At first run, the game immediately died because it looks for this
dll (I'm typing from memory here, so it's possible I've got the name
a bit wrong). The extracted contents of the demo's .exe file
includes a "DirectX" folder with dozens of .cab files, one of them
is this .dll. I just dumped it into the installed "bin_ship" folder,
and the game worked.

Maybe the tie file can extract this particular .cab during
installation? I don't know, but I'll look into it.

Hi Alex,
This is one of those situations where app_id=7558 is pretty useful.
Seeing as DA:O tie asks for directx9modern and .NET 2.0 (app_id=1578), putting
7558 in as a postdependency is only going to add msxml3|mshtml7 + MDX and I
think 5 or 6 other dll files directx9modern doesn't drag in... you can also
tell 7558 to drag in bits and pieces of directx ...

Example: if you're after d3dx11_43.dll for this app's tie, use the <rmfakedll>
tag for that dll file -- when dxwebsetup.exe is run as part of 7558, it will
detect this file missing and grab the .cab and install the native version....

Alejandro Moreno wrote:

3. Sound

It's disabled by default. I don't know why this happens, but I also
noticed that this app cannot read the system's specs that wine
provides. I know some people had the same sound problem with DA:O,
but my latest test installation of DA:O did not have it.

Anyway, go to /home/youruser/BioWare/DragonAge2Demo/DragonAge2.ini
and flick "SoundDisabled" from 0 to 1 (again, be aware I'm typing
from memory, I'll have to double-check the path when I get home).

...not sure, but, might be devemun.dll and maybe some dsound friends ; you'd
have to poke at debug to find out why it's failing - at base level, sometimes
the native dxdiag.exe has to run and return meaningful results. Again, you can
pull in most all of these dll's with 7558 by using the <rmfakedll> tag in the
crosstie profile calling 7558...

Note that 7558 doesn't have to run as a postdependency, but given how DA:O tie
stages 'as is', that's where I'd run it (else I'd replace the 1578 predep with 7558)...

Cheers!

Artist Formally Known as Dot wrote:

...not sure, but, might be devemun.dll and maybe some dsound friends
; you'd
have to poke at debug to find out why it's failing - at base level,
sometimes
the native dxdiag.exe has to run and return meaningful results.
Again, you can
pull in most all of these dll's with 7558 by using the <rmfakedll>
tag in the
crosstie profile calling 7558...

But the audio plays fine when I enable it. So maybe it's just a detection issue during installation? Do I have to debug the installation? How do I do that?

Artist Formally Known as Dot wrote:

Note that 7558 doesn't have to run as a postdependency, but given
how DA:O tie
stages 'as is', that's where I'd run it (else I'd replace the 1578
predep with 7558)...

Cheers!

Take out .Net 2.0 and add Direct X Web Installer instead? I would never have thought of that.

Played through the whole thing (about 90+ minutes). But my connection was "lost," so I'll have to play it again to get the "rewards," and to check if the loss was real or a compatibility problem.

I noticed the /bin_ship folder has some PhysX dlls, so I left PhysX as a predep.

Oh, I almost forgot. The Direct3D registry settings that are necessary in DA:O must not be set for this demo.

The audio of Bink movies is completely dead. The voices during cutscenes have really, really low volume. If Hardware acceleration is set to Emulation in winecfg Audio, there's no sound at all. If it's set to Full, however, the audio during gameplay is just fine.

RmFakeDll didn't work. I played through the game in the bottle where I unpacked d3dx11_43.dll by hand. The other bottles just kept breaking. I tried:

RmFakeDll + DXWebInstaller (as a postdep); and
RmFakeDll - .Net 2.0 + DXWebInstaller (as a predep)

Does the order of the predeps actually matter?

Edit: I suspect d3dx11_43.dll is not in DX9, so RmFakeDll + WebInstaller would not work.

Hi again,

It does work ; I was mucking with it earlier for slime army
(to get MDX + 2 dlls, like so);

/
//
<postdependency>com.codeweavers.c4.7558</postdependency>
<prermfakedll>d3dx9_27.dll</prermfakedll>
<prermfakedll>d3dx9_36.dll</prermfakedll>
///
////

those 3 lines will give me the dlls I want + MDX + .NET 2.0

• msxml3.0 + mshtml7. the directxwebsetup exe is like a thin
  client to the directx repositories ;)

Cheers!

edit: forgot to mention, what are you calling directx9modern
for?...ie; which dlls is it providing you need?

You're probably right. I shouldn't post on the forums that late at night.

Now that I think about it, I think I know what the problem was and how to fix it.

Thanks!

=)

...I know where the issue is, so if you get really stuck, give
me a yell ....

Okay! It seems like the tie file is ready for consumption. It gets the game installed and runnable.

Audio is still a pain, though. What can I run to try to identify which dlls are failing? I tried "+dsound, +ntdll" but didn't find anything interesting. Is my setting of +ntdll done correctly? I cannot find the syntax for typing multiple debug options in that box.

The full version of the game works too, all i had to do was turn down the mouse sensitivity.

and since im tired here is a video i prepared earlier.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-luH43D-Yjs

Nice. Care to submit Dragon Age II to C4?

all i did was use the crosstie and copy d3dx9_43.dll to bin_ship after full install.

however i have submitted the game and am modifying the crosstie for the full version.

dablackfox wrote:

all i did was use the crosstie and copy d3dx9_43.dll to bin_ship
after full install.

Interesting. Well, maybe the Demo's crosstie plus d3dx9_43.dll in the prermfakedlls section would be enough for the full version?

We still have the sound detection problem, and I still don't know how to "debug" it. 😥

Could you post a crosstie for Dragon Age II Full or detail how to get it running please?

Hi,

Someone will need submit the full version title into C4 to do that ;
in the interim you should be able to use the crosstie here to the same
ends -- note: unless you have the steam release, which will likely differ.

Cheers!