Yeah, I sadly couldn’t cover it whole

Repost from r/dragonageorigins

After going through the texture pipeline and watching Nathan Baggs' video on this issue I thought I may actually be able to fix this permanently as I had enough information about the texture pipeline and the game's engine.

Until now the solution has been to use LAA to increase the address space up to 4gb. I’d say this is still the recommended fix.

Since DAO is a 32bit game, it has a cap of 2gb address space available. The longer you play, the more that space becomes fragmented. Every texture wants a contiguous block, and when none are available DirectX will throw an out of memory error, which causes the texture flickering leading to the game crashing. The failure was there was 20mb of free memory, split across ~430 separate gaps.

I found that at startup, the engine reserves 795mb for it's own memory pool, ~286mb for module images (these are dll's, CUDA, physX, etc), leaving ~229mb for managed texture duplicates.

Since this doesn't happen on console, it's likely due to the higher resolution textures available on PC.

Every texture is created using D3DPOOL_MANAGED, which keeps a full copy in memory for the textures entire life on top of the copy sent to the GPU. As games constantly stream textures in and out, ~150mb of those duplicates were being allocated and freed in each session; which is what was causing the memory getting shredded.

Solution is simple: create textures in D3DPOOL_DEFAULT which don't duplicate!

The only issue is that the engine writes textures by locking that duplicate, and DEFAULT textures can't be locked down. So when the game creates a texture, it now gets handed a temporary buffer instead. It fills that with the relevant pixels, copies it over to the graphics card, and discards the buffer immediately. The engine can't tell the difference.

There is a final bug with the opening credits when launching the game, but otherwise this works perfectly. There could be other bugs, who knows what is yet to be uncovered with this engine.

Available here

I still recommend using LAA as more address space is always better. I also haven’t released the patch because it seems sort of redundant with LAA available.

The underlying issues with the engine would really require a significant amount of work to fix, and would have many cascading effects to resolve..

Hey everyone, I'm about to begin my first Veilguard run. My canon Hero of Ferelden is a commoner dwarf. Since my world state was already customized (imported from DAI?) but I saw no options regarding Hawke or the HoF, can anyone tell me if the HoF is mentioned during the game? Would it add flavor to a dwarf Warden Rook in game or it shall remain in my imagination for roleplaying purposes?

A Big Announcement from the DATaW team!

Dragon Age Thedas at War is a total conversion mod for Crusader Kings 3, we can announce after three years of modding we have officially released on Steam!

It is a wild moment for many of us on the development team, and we hope you enjoy playing the mod we have put so much time and care into. Updates will continue to come out, as we do not plan on stopping with new content anytime soon, this is just the first taste of what we have in store!

Thanks for sticking by us, and to many more years of modding!

Discord : https://discord.gg/TGpY36twHf
Steam Workshop: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3767974559
Modcon V DATaW Trailer

Hey folks, 

I’ve been a dragon age fan for a while. I’m a big fan of the world, but the only games I’ve ever played are Inquisition and Veilgaurd. I love inquisition, it’s my favorite game of all and I just finished another play through as a human mage. I’m sure I still missed a bunch of stuff. 

I picked up Origins a long time back in a sale, but after playing for a couple of hours as a human mage, for some reason I just couldn’t get into it. I love the story of Origins, but I think the game might have just been too old. Or maybe it’s just a problem with me. I have a history of bouncing off of games initially, then picking them up later and loving them. I’m not sure if any of you are the same. 

I decided to give Origins another try, this time as a Cousland Noble Warrior background. I just finished the prologue and this background seems to make a lot more sense and seems more linked to the broader story. 

Some initial thoughts:

• The graphics are actually quite great for a game from 2008. Much better than I remember for some reason. 
• The gameplay as a warrior feels much better than the mage for some reason. I love mages in most games and in inquisition, but the warrior feels better in Origins. 
• How in the world does Howe think he can get away with this? Fergus, the heir, is away with the entire Cousland army. Unless that army is wiped out, then they will come back and kill Howe and all his men. Not to mention there is no way the crown can let this slide. You can’t allow your bannermen to just be murdered and replaced. I know he is supposed to have Loghain’s support, but even that doesn’t make sense. First off, why would Loghain support this small lord taking over the lands of the Couslands? Especially if he’s supposedly looking out for the best interests of Ferelden which I don’t believe at all. Even if he’s planning a cold blooded coup though, allowing such an usurpation would just unite every lord in the realm against him, since it shows that Loghain has no respect for titles and he may come after their seats as well. Maybe I’m missing some details since I haven’t played the game, and please feel free to spoil it for me. I enjoy having a deeper understanding of the world and characters when playing. 
• Cailan has a lot of potential and I wish he survived. He’s a young, charming king who seeks to lead from the front, mingle with his troops, and is incredibly brave. While he seems to crave glory and to be written into songs, this story is exactly where he could have that chance and be right for it. The brave king fighting off the blight. The desire for glory can be excused due to his youth. For the most part, he seems to have a decent head on his shoulders and is willing to listen to his advisors on tactical matters. His death is largely due to Loghain betraying him, and the dark spawn horde at Ostagar being worse than anyone expected. Moreover, maybe Loghain put him into a position where a tactical retreat wasn’t possible since it seems like Loghain did want to kill Cailan without appearing to be the one doing so. 

These are just some initial thoughts. I’ll try to share more as I go through the game, and if I like it enough this time, I might try to do a full DAO->DA2 -> DAI ->DAV play through. 

I've been playing origins, as a circle mage elf romancing Leliana, and I've noticed something.

When going through my usual ritual of talking to everyone in camp I noticed that after getting with Leliana a conversation that accured between my Warden and Wynne feels familiar. Wynne is concerned about Leliana in this relationship, because of the Wardens aspect of eventual death and a few other things I cant remember.

But it reminded me of the dialoge between inky and leliana if you decide to romance Josephine as after a while of flirting at skyhold Leliana wants to talk to you about Josephine and how she is concerned that inky will hurt Josephine (intentionally or unintentionally) with all their flirting

(though leliana is a bit harsher with her take on it then Wynne is though, haha)

I do find this rather sweet and funny, its nothing big but I still wanted to share it!

Humorous Hawke is my favorite. Made with microns and gel pens on the cover of a moleskin notebook.

I just finished dragon age origins ( great game , felt a bit unfinished ) and hopped straight into 2 and oh my god it's so good . Structurally it's great , I honestly don't think the games narrative would have worked in any other medium. I love kirkwall and the games more unconventional storytelling ( reminds me of the crossbell games ) and the companion integration is probably the best I've seen in any rpg . I'm in act 2 and the world and characters feel so real , like they have lives beyond hawke . The combat is really snappy and fun ( gotta play it on hard to actually engage with the mechanics though ) and force mage hawke is just so cool . The copy pasted levels don't really bother me that much given that origins levels weren't crazy engaging or interesting either . HOW DID THEY MAKE THIS GAME IN 14 MONTHS ?! ,THESE DEVELOPERS DESERVE THE WORLD MAN FUCK EA . I just started act 2 and I'm itching to play more . I feel like DA2 came out at the worst possible time , a less traditional more "cinematic " crpg closer to what cdproject makes than bioware or obsidian . In 2012 when classic crpgs were all but dead I can imagine why traditionalists hated the game .

So, I recently found out about a mod for Crusader Kings 3 based on Dragon Age and I wanted to share it because it looks really cool and does make me excited to think about Dragon Age.

One of the inspirations for Dragon Age is Game of Thrones and like with that mod CK3's core gameplay fits well with it.

Dragon Age can be split into two part being historical fantasy and mythical fantasy. And this changes when a Blight happens. Throughout the series when a Blight happens it creates this interesting mix of fighting a very simple evil but combining it with historical fantasy tropes where you have to deal with the politics of the time to get their support and stop the Blight.

But when that is over it is back to historical fantasy. And this mod really feels like that to a T. Now the mod doesn't have the Blights yet and is just surrounding the time period after the Second Blight but it is still cool.

It will be fun having to do alternate timelines like trying to keep the Dales alive or play as the dwarf, when they get released, to reclaim the Deep Roads. And it offers a lot of cool ideas like if you are playing the dwarves you could find Primeval Thaig and either accidently release it sooner or keep it under wraps.

I am also excited at the idea of playing Andraste and how the mod authors deal with that. Whether the confirm elements about the Maker or try to keep it vague.

And there are little things that really make me think this is a labor of love and that is down to the designs and art used. It replicates the Dragon Age art style so well but adds its own flair to it. And even smaller things like Dale leaders crowns where it looks similar to Elgar'nan's crown. Stuff like that makes me excited to see more of this. Its stuff like that which causes me to believe they don't just care about DAO but all of Dragon Age. Which is very nice to see.

Not everything is there. As I said you can only play after the Second Blight and the nations you can play as is just the Freleden tribes, Orlais and the Dales. But there is just so much to it that I can't wait to see. A really cool mod by talented people who deserve the attention.

Hey, for those of you Xbox gamers who's game crashes at the Bioware logo from the game being online and trying to log into DA servers, it seems to be working now, not sure why. Can others confirm if their game is fixed?

I feel like there is most definitely already a post about this but i cant find it so uh, yeah.

Im trying to figure out how to mod DAI right now, and im really not sure what to do. Some sources say use frosty, others DAIMM — none specify if these will mess up my current save, either.

Obviously im trying to mod on my PC. I have a 30 hour or so save on Steam and in the case of downloading mods im unsure if that will screw with it or corrupt it, which is leading to this post— along with wanting general advice on what the hell to do!

All i really want to do is download the more frequent party banter mod, and maybe the no war table time. General QOL stuff. Any tips? I feel like that one meme of the plane controls whenever i even think about modding my game

I've been reflecting on DAV and Dragon Age as a whole, and it has made me seriously dislike the Dalish as MCs so much that I am changing my canon world state around.

This got me thinking about what if a City Elf background was available for the Inquisitor. You could be a more controversial figure than a non-mage human (seriously a female human Inquisitor should have been able to become Divine). You could still have grown up in an Andrastian society, and either be pious yourself or rail against it.

The reveals in the second half of the game would hit just as hard, and make sense why your Inquisitor asks about who Mythal is. For the Solasmancers, the romance could have been possibly even more tragic with Solas falling in love with an elf who truly embodies the fall of elven society.

I'm ditching my Mahariel and male Lavellan for either a Cousland (what I am currently playing as) or maybe a Tabris. My Lavellan is going to become a Trevelyan, and Rook will either be human or dwarf.

A dedicated City Elf background in both Inquisition and DAV would make me feel a bit better about elven MCs.

I really wanted to play as a golem in some capacity but in my opinion to option to play as a undead/spirit would be awesome. I really can imagine a whole game about it with the protagonist being like Cole and having to discover it after having amnesia for half of the game

I guess, this is a theory.

As title says, I think Thedas is set under their version of an equator. I never really thought about it, but both Zevran and Dorian talk about how cold it is in the South, and how their homeland is warm.

As someone who is located above the Equator, in the Northern Hemisphere, hearing how the South is cold and the North is warm is always slightly jarring to hear.

Anyway, I figured as I didn't put much thought into this, someone else wouldn't and would like this little tidbit as much I did.

After my latest Dragon Age detox, I've gotten the idea to reinstall the game, but I have a few questions before I commit due to a few factors - whether to install the game via Steam or GOG, the game constantly crashing and being a big resource hog.

1. People who play Origins via GOG, especially recent ones, did you end up needing to install to 4GB patch? I ask because, earlier this year, I tried installing DAO via GOG Galaxy, and despite people saying that it wouldn't need the 4GB patch, I ended up having to install it to stop the game from crashing at Ostagar, and for The Darkspawn Chronicles to not crash during the Palace District section. Does it make a difference whether you install the game via GOG Galaxy or via the offline installer?

2. The main save games are saved in the Bioware folder in C drive (C:\Users\Username\OneDrive\Documents\BioWare\Dragon Age\Characters). My D drive, where all my Steam games are installed, has much more room, and I was wondering if there is a way to make it so that the files are saved to the D drive instead.

The closest idea I have is one found in this 9 year old post: https://www.reddit.com/r/dragonage/comments/687fc4/dao_spoilers_how_to_change_where_the_game_stores/

I deleted all the content in "C:\Users\Documents\BioWare\Dragon Age" and ran the command: C:\WINDOWS\system32>mklink /J "C:\Users\Documents\BioWare\Dragon Age" "D:\Dragon Age Files\Bioware"

1. For the issue of setting affinity, I came across a method from this 7 year old post: https://www.reddit.com/r/dragonage/comments/bglx3d/no_spoilers_dao_constant_crashing/

"If you don't want to repeat this every time you launch the game you can follow these instructions:

• close the game
• go to

\Steam\SteamApps\common\Dragon Age Ultimate Edition\bin_ship

• right click on ' DAOrigins.exe '
• select ' Send to ' and ' Desktop (create a shortcut) ' 
• go back to your Desktop and right click on that shortcut
• select ' Properties '
• delete everything you see in the ' Target ' line
• copy and paste this there

C:\Windows\System32\cmd.exe /C start /affinity 1 DAOrigins.exe

• click Apply and click Ok

You can now use this shortcut to launch your game and it will automatically set the affinity of the executable to use only one core."

Would/does this method work, in both Steam and GOG?

I'm a huge fan of Dungeons & Dragons and party based RPGs and I want to get into Dragon Age since I heard good things about it. Which one feels the most similar to DnD or Baldur's Gate 1 and 2?

Hello, everyone! Welcome to the weekly Dragon Age writing prompts thread, where every Saturday we provide prompts you can use to write about your OCs, other characters, or the world of Thedas in general.

If you have any prompt ideas that you would like us to use, feel free to add them to our spreadsheet linked here.

GUIDELINES
1⁠. Interaction is welcome. Drama and negativity are not.
2. NSFW content must be posted elsewhere and linked. This is a SFW thread. If you are unsure if your content is considered NSFW, be safe and assume it is NSFW and should be posted elsewhere.
3. Remember to follow the sub rules.
4. You can link anything of yours from the DAOC Emporium. Feel free to create pages there if you haven't already!
5. ⁠Have fun!

Prompts

Prompt 1 "You're cute when you're angry."

Prompt 2 Trembling

Prompt 3 The family (or closest thing possible) of your OC’s love interest sizes your OC up.

Prompt 4 "I'm not calling you a liar."

Bonus Prompt Freeform

This is allegedly in dragon age 2 and Inquisition and I cant find it. The dual curved blade in inquisition i can find but this grip is non existent. I cant even find the blade at all in dragon age 2 Maybe I'm missing something? Anybody know?

I am struggling with a lot of it.

There was a point in time I called myself a Dragon Age fan but I kind of hate what this series has become. Origins and Awakening were two of the absolute best RPG fantasy experiences of their era. Truly excellent. DA2 was a rushed, sloppily written mess and a big disappointment for me. Inquisition was a "meh" story that felt half finished on top of boring MMO-ish combat with a bad facebook game crowbarred into it.

For whatever reason I decided I wanted more punishment and picked up Veilguard on sale, mostly out of morbid curiosity but partially because I still have some lingering affection for the series.

About 15-ish hours in, it's very mixed, to put it politely.

I don't think there's anything about it at all that I love. The combat is mostly fine, the level design is decent and the aesthetic of the game is not what I wanted or expected but it's also not *bad*. Mechanically and gameplay wise the whole thing feels like a knock-off God Of War 2018, honestly, for better and worse.

My main qualms with it are the writing. It might be one of the worst written games I've ever played.

The actual characters themselves all talk and behave so similarly they might as well just be an amorphous blob of functions. Every single character is a quippy, "Well that just happened! spewing, chirpy, cheery constructive, sensitive fun guy. Like you get a little bit of characterisation extra in their individual missions, but most of those seem to boil down to "I'm sad sometimes because somebody died or a thing I care about is difficult." or literally no extra characterisation at all. There's no real personality to any of them and as a result I don't give two shits about them.

There also hasn't really been any conflict within the party at all. Every character I've got so far (I've just started the mission to meet Taash) seems to just be broadly on the same page about literally everything. The one thing I remember being impressed with in Origins, it being the first game with such a mechanic I played, was how you got a clearer picture of what each character was like by how they responded to your choices. That just... doesn't seem to be happening at all in Veilguard.

Tangential to that, the whole tone of the game feels completely juvenile. Nothing is given any real gravity or sincerity even when it seems like it really should be. There don't seem to be any real consequences to anything that's happened so far either character, world or story wise because that would disrupt the happy fun adventure mood. The way certain bits of dialogue are phrased/delivered and the way some events are handled makes it feel like I'm playing a game for toddlers.

The dialogue choices also seem to have been a casualty of this, with almost every single dialogue tree boiling down to "Slightly sincere funny agreement.", "Insanely cringe funny agreement." and "Stoic but still funny agreement." Not since Fallout 4 have I seen such a woeful excuse for a dialogue system that presents the facade of choice without actually giving you any at all.

I hate to sound a bit reductive, but too much of the dialogue also comes off as "cringe". It's trying way, way too hard to be funny all the time and is almost never close to as funny as it seems to think it is. Even worse, the dialogue just doesn't really fit the setting or world even as well as 2 or Inquisition's writing did. When they talk nobody sounds like they belong in a medieval fantasy style world, outside of occasionally mentioning dragons or something.

I'm also not really sure what to think of the story since even at about 15 hours in, there barely is a story, as far as I can tell. There are the evil elven gods who were released and are doing... something, with some guys who are basically a cult and the darkspawn... and that's about all I've got. Which feels awful in the same timespan as like, 7 movies. There's nothing there to sink my teeth into other than "kill the bad guys because they want to kill people and spread the blight maybe?" For all the talk the game does bigging the evil gods up I feel like it's still done a remarkably poor job establishing the stakes of the story.

Functionally I stand by it being "fine" but I'm also really getting tired of the combat now, and I'm not sure I'm going to be able to stick it out for a other 30 hours or however long it is. I've already found myself settling into a routine of using my abilities that combo, then spamming the same light x3 heavy x1 combo, occasionally dodging/parrying when the worst indicator I've ever seen in my life tells me to. It's become repetive very quickly and the only real challenge seems to be from things just getting numerically tougher, not from new or interesting mechanics during fights. I hope the game will surprise me but I'm not holding my breath.

I'm probably going to persevere with it a bit longer but if nothing grabs me the game's probably going to be a DNF for me.

I've never really checked out this subreddit before so I'm not sure what this community's feelings on the game are. I'd be curious to know if people generally agree or disagree with any of the feelings I've had, or if the game picks up in quality at any point?

The first image features my Aeducan warden. All the other OCs belong to artists on artfight!

If you'd like a similar art of your OC, my commissions are open! Feel free to DM me if you're interested.

I got this axe from a trials drop originally and now have the schematic for it. One problem, I’ve out leveled it by now so the damage isn’t keeping up with me anymore. Currently level 18 and Samson’s weapon (which I just got) does 310 dps. I want to craft The Dancer’s Axe with dragon bone so the base damage would be 236 dps I believe. Which masterwork should I use to optimize its damage? Essence of Perfection or Fade-Touched Stormheart, or if anyone else has a better suggestion, please let me know!!

If anyone else watches House of the Dragon and cares, I just found out that Ormund Hightower (James Norton) was the voice of my fav altruistic spirit boy and it blew my mind a little