Mage's Initiation: Reign of the Elements Common Technical Issues

[GameDevChris]

Listed below are some common issues that you may encounter while playing Mage's Initiation. If you follow the suggested solutions, in most cases you should be able to resolve the problem.

Please consult the guide below before posting any issues on our technical forum, as a solution may already be available for the problem that you're experiencing.

Q) Where are the save-game files and configuration files located for Mage's Initiation?

A) The default save-game directories are:

Windows: c:/Users/USERNAME/Saved Games/Mage's Initiation (Where USERNAME is the name of your Windows account)
Mac: ~/Library/Application Support/Mage's Initiation/
Linux: ~/.local/share/ags/Mage's Initiation/

Q) When I run the game, I get an error message saying that my display resolution is not supported.

A) This could happen for a number of reasons. If your video card is an older model (or if you are running the game on a netbook or laptop), your system may not support a particular graphics driver. In this case, you will need to run the settings program and change it to use one of the other options. For example, if OpenGL doesn't work, try the DirectDraw driver instead and vice versa. You may also need to change the "Fullscreen scale", "Windowed Scale", and/or "Scaling method" settings if your system doesn't support specific resolutions. Most users who experience these types of issues are able to get it working after experimenting with different combinations. If all else fails, you can try clicking the "Start in windowed mode" checkbox to run the game in a window if nothing else helps.

Q) I can't see the cutscene movies. I just get a black screen or a static video frame.

A) If you run an older system or a netbook or low-end laptop, your system may be too slow to play high-resolution Ogg Theora movies. Running the game with the OpenGL driver may help.

Q) The game doesn't stretch to fill my entire screen.

A) This may happen if your desktop display resolution is set very high. You can run the settings program and change the "Fullscreen/Windowed scale" setting to "Stretch, preserving aspect ratio." This should allow your system to pick the closest maximum game screen size that is compatible with your current desktop resolution. You can also try the "Fill whole screen" and "Max round multiplier" settings

Q) The game automatically changes to letterboxed mode and displays black bars at the top and bottom of the screen. How can I run the game stretched to fill the entire screen?

A) The game has been optimized to fit 16:10 wide-screen monitors. On older 4:3 monitors, the game will intentionally put black bars at the top and bottom of the screen to keep the wide-screen effect.

Q) When I run the game in full-screen mode, the game screen appears in a 640x400-sized rectangular window in the very center of the monitor. The outer edges are completely black.

A) On rare occasions some video cards will draw the game window like this. You can usually overcome the issue by running the winsetup.exe program and changing "Fullscreen/Windowed scale" setting to "Stretch, preserving aspect ratio." This should allow your system to pick the closest maximum game screen size that is compatible with your current desktop resolution. You can also try the "Fill whole screen" and "Max round multiplier" settings. You may need to experiment with a combination of settings (including the "Scaling method" field) to find something that works.

Q) When I load the game, the screen constantly flickers on and off every few seconds. I have tried using all different resolutions and checking the checkbox option for CRT monitors and then un-checking it but nothing seems to work.

A) There are a number of suggestions to help resolve this issue:

  1. Close all other applications before you run the game.
  2. Select the "Stretch, preserving aspect ratio" option in the setup program.
  3. Try running the game in windowed mode.
  4. If all of the above fails, try downloading the latest drivers for your video card,
     downloading the latest DirectX, and lowering your video card's refresh rate.


Q) I receive the following error message when I try to load the game:

"WARNING: Please run the setup program and ensure that valid 'Digital Sound' and 'MIDI Music' options are selected. These options must be enabled for the game to run. Individual music settings may be adjusted, enabled, or disabled from within the game."

A) The audio.vox and speech.vox files must be present in the game directory for the game to work. If you have deleted these, the game will refuse to run. Ensure that these two files exist in your game directory and then run the winsetup.exe program, making certain that the "Use speech pack if available" box is checked.

Q) The game crashes on start-up with an audio error message pertaining to room300.asc.

A) This crash occasionally happens when the system doesn't have any sound drivers installed. Ensure that your sound card is using the latest drivers and try launching the game again.


Q) I'm having trouble with the digital sound feature (i.e. sound effects), as the game says it failed to initialize.

A) You need to select an option other than "No Digital Sound". The audio.vox file must be available for the game to run. Individual sound settings can be adjusted from within the game.


Q) I selected "Disable music" as my "Music" setting in the winsetup.exe program and now the game will not run.

A) You need to select an option other than "Disable music". The audio.vox file must be available for the game to run. Individual music settings can be adjusted from within the game.


Q) I can hear a lot of static in the sound effects or digital music.

A) Some sound cards appear to have trouble with the "Default WaveOut Device" setting for digital sound effects. If you hear static, try running the winsetup.exe program and changing the "Digital Sound" setting to "Default DirectSound Device" instead. Note that sometimes the reverse situation may be the case.


Q) When I run the game, my screen is misaligned.

A) Your monitor's settings may not have been previously calibrated to the game's video mode. The first time you run a game in a resolution that your monitor hasn't encountered before, you may need to adjust the monitor's horizontal and vertical settings to accommodate that specific resolution. Making this adjustment should not affect your Windows desktop resolution settings, and the monitor should remember these adjustments subsequent times you run this game in the same resolution.

Q) The game has frozen or locked up and I can't quit back to the desktop.

A) If, for some reason, the game freezes irrevocably, you can press ALT+X at any time to close the program and return to your desktop.


Q) D'arc seems to have gotten stuck and cannot walk or run anywhere.

A) There are two possible solutions to this problem:
 
  1. Try pressing the Z + U keys together to unfreeze the game if it gets stuck.
  2. Press CTRL + P to bring up the debug parser. Type .unstuck (including the dot) and press Enter.


Q) I'm playing on Linux and the game won't start up. I just get a black screen.

A) This is a known issue that affects Linux systems with a dual-monitor setup.

To bypass this problem, dual-monitor Linux users can run the game in Windowed mode.

If you would prefer to play in full-screen mode, you can try temporarily setting your desktop to "Single Display" mode in the Screen Display properties of Settings while you play the game.

Q) I changed my save-game folder to a custom one and all my game settings have reset to the default values. I have also lost all of my earned achievements when I press F2 and view the Achievements menu.

A) To resolve this issue, you will need to copy all the .dat and .cfg files from your old save-game folder over to the new one. When you next launch the game, your settings and achievements should be successfully restored.


Q) On Linux, my mouse cursor movement is jerky and/or slow.

A) If you're experiencing jerky or slow mouse cursor movement and you're using a high DPI mouse, this can be corrected by adding a line to ~/.local/share/ags/Mage's Initiation/acsetup.cfg using a text editor. (Make sure you're editing the acsetup.cfg file in the save-games folder and not the game's root folder).

In the [mouse] section, add the line: control=never

This should eliminate the mouse lag. It causes AGS to use the system input directly to control the mouse position instead of passing it through a library.

If that doesn't fix it, you'll either have to use a non-high-DPI mouse (or reduce the mouse's polling rate to around 125 and disable acceleration).

One other thing might be worth trying would be to change the speed=1 value in the [mouse] section from 1 to 2.

If experiencing this issue on Windows, you might also try running winsetup.exe and altering the mouse speed settings there.

Q) I'm playing on MacOS and the F-Keys (E.g. F1, F2, F5, etc.) don't work.

A) On MacOS you need to press the function (Fn) key while simultaneously pressing the F-key in question.


Q) How do I enter full-screen mode on MacOS?

A) You can enter full-screen mode using the View menu: View -> Enter Full Screen


Q) There's no setup program for the game in Linux. How can I change the game's configuration options?

A) The acsetup.cfg (configuration) file can be found in the following folder on Linux. It can be edited with a text editor:

   ~/.local/share/ags/Mage's Initiation/acsetup.cfg


Q) There's no setup program for the game in MacOS. How can I change the game's configuration options?

A) The acsetup.cfg (configuration) file can be found in the following folder on MacOS. It can be edited with a text editor:

   ~/Library/Application Support/Mage's Initiation/acsetup.cfg

Q) I'm running Windows and I keep getting a crash with the following error message when launching the game:

  Loading game failed with error: Script link failed: Runtime error: unresolved import
  'AGS2Client::SetAchievementAchieved^1'.
  The game files may be incomplete, corrupt or from an unsupported version of AGS.

  How do I fix it?

A) The Steam and GOG versions of the game have a .dll dependency that's tied to in-game achievements. Sometimes, this causes the above crash to appear on some systems. There are a few solutions you can try to resolve the issue:

Download Microsoft Visual Studio C++ Redistributable packages for 32bit intel architecture (Microsoft puts x86 in the file name for those). You will need two versions: one for 2010 and one more for 2012. You can pick whatever language suits you.

2010: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=5555
2012: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=30679

Both of these files have the same file name (vcredist_x86.exe) so don't let that confuse you.

Open the Windows Control Panel, go to the Programs and Features, and Uninstall both versions (if you already have them installed). Again make sure to remove only the 32bit versions (with x86 in the name). This may stop some software from launching so please make sure to download the two files listed above FIRST. After removing them, install both packages you downloaded.

The game will launch now.

After installing these Redistributable packages, you may want to run Windows update. In Advanced Settings make sure to enable updates for "other Microsoft products" - this will allow Windows to update any outdated versions of the runtime and fix any security issues discovered since these versions were released. This should be the definitive solution to this start-up crash on Steam and GOG. However, if, for some reason, it doesn't work, you may also try the suggestions below.

-You may need to download or update Visual C++ Redistributable for Visual Studio 2015 - this is a small one-time download, see details here: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=48145  Install it and then try launching the game again.

-If the game is complaining about other .dll files (msvcr110.dll and msvcp110.dll) missing, go to your C:/Windows/System32 directory. You should see two .dll files called msvcr110.dll and msvcp110.dll Try copying and pasting both of them both into your Mage's Initiation game folder and then launching it.

-Sometimes certain anti-virus software can cause the issue. Try temporarily disabling your anti-virus software before launching the game. If it works then, you may need to add the game and winsetup .exe files to your whitelist.

If none of the above works, please post a report on our technical forum or e-mail support@himalayastudios.com and we will assist you further.

Q) I was able to play the game earlier, but now I'm getting a start-up crash, which says "Error: File read back in wrong order". What can I do?

A) Go to the save-game folder, depending on your OS:

Windows: c:/Users/USERNAME/Saved Games/Mage's Initiation (Where USERNAME is the name of your Windows account)
Mac: ~/Library/Application Support/Mage's Initiation/
Linux: ~/.local/share/ags/Mage's Initiation/

Look for the file called options.dat and delete it from the save-games folder, then try launching the game again. If you're still experiencing the crash, open the game's root folder and locate the options.dat file there. Copy and paste it into your save-games folder. Be sure to overwrite any existing file with the same filename so that it bears the exact filename: options.dat

Try launching the game again and now it should work. However, please note that this will reset all your custom settings back to their default state. You will likely want to go to the in-game Options menu and change your interface style and other settings back to how you prefer them.

Q) I'm getting a start-up crash when launching the game, which says "in SaveLoad.asc, line xxx Error: File. ReadStringBack: file was not written by WriteString". How can I resolve this?

A) Go to the save-game folder, depending on your OS:

Windows: c:/Users/USERNAME/Saved Games/Mage's Initiation (Where USERNAME is the name of your Windows account)
Mac: ~/Library/Application Support/Mage's Initiation/
Linux: ~/.local/share/ags/Mage's Initiation/

Look for the file called tme.dat and delete it from the save-games folder, then try launching the game again. If you're still experiencing the crash, open the game's root folder and locate the tme.dat file there. Copy and paste it into your save-games folder. Be sure to overwrite any existing file with the same filename so that it bears the exact filename: tme.dat

Try launching the game again and now it should work. However, please note that the most recent in-game timestamp of your autosave file will be inaccurate. This will automatically resolve itself the next time the game autosaves.

Q) How can I change the save-game folder on MacOs or Linux?

A) In Windows, you can do this directly from the winsetupexe program. But on MacOs and Linux, you'll need to take a few precautions and follow these steps:

1) First, manually create the new savegame folder you want and name it something appropriate, like "MagesSaves".

2)  Go to your current (default) savegame folder and open acsetup.cfg in a text editor. At the bottom of the [misc] section, add the following line containing the absolute path to your new savegame folder. For example, in Windows it would look like this:

user_data_dir=C:\MagesSaves

Tip: On MacOs, you can easily copy long pathnames by selecting the desired file or folder (in this case the Save Game folder that you created), and using Cmd+Opt+C to copy the full pathname. Paste this (using Cmd+V) into the the game's acsetup.cfg file as indicated above.

Note: For MacOS Steam installations, the Mage's Initiation acsetup.cfg file is typically found here: ~/Library/Application Support/Steam/SteamApps/common/Mages Initiation/Mage's Initiation.app/Contents/Resources/acsetup.cfg

Save the acsetup.cfg file and close it.

3) While still in the current (default) savegame folder, copy and paste all files ending in .dat into your new savegames folder (don't move or cut them - just copy and paste). This is important if you want to retain your achievements and in-game settings.

4) Now when you run the game, it should start up and look in the new savegames folder you created (which should be empty, so your in-game savegames list will also appear empty).

5) Repeat the above process for every new savegames folder you wish to create.

6) If you ever want to switch back to an older savegame folder, you'll need to open acsetup.cfg in your original (default) savegames folder and edit the user_data_dir= line to point to the folder where your desired savegames are stored. Then save the acsetup.cfg file and close it. This needs to be done prior to running the game.

(Note: at this point you should copy & paste (overwrite) all .dat files from your most recent savegames folder into the savegames folder you're switching over to, if you want to retain your most up-to date achievements.)

To go back to using the default savegames folder, simply delete the user_data_dir= line from acsetup.cfg all together and save it.

It's a bit fiddly, but there's currently no GUI set-up program for non-Windows AGS games.