02-11-2007, 10:38 AM
Quote:Most likely you've been playing a Diablo mod which uses a modified PATCH_RT.MPQ, like Dr.Zeds mod. The easiest solution is putting the original PATCH_RT.MPQ in your hellfire folder.
It's explained in more detail in this thread
Irony of all ironies... thank you very much Zamal. I wasn't using any kind of mods for Diablo at all that I got elsewhere, lo, the modified patch_rt.mpq file was my own doing over a year ago when I tired of Diablo's original soundtrack and dumped all the files out of the patch_rt.mpq file into a folder, .wav'ed some new music that I felt enriched the game's atmosphere, and recompiled the file. No problems with Diablo, no problems connecting to Battle.net - in theory the only thing that should have been modified was the music, and seeing as how it didn't cause any problems anywhere, I left it that way.
The music has been muted in the game for some time now, though, as while initially being too lazy to want to tab out and change music every time I entered a different area of the game so it felt immersive, I realize that this took significantly less effort than creating a new patch_rt.mpq with music replacements every time I got bored with the one I had.
So, this error was self-inflicted because of a file I had completely forgotten I had ever touched for a long time now, and came back to haunt me when I brushed the dust off of Hellfire. :blush:I really need to learn pattern recognition and realize this kind of thing happens to me so much as to predict this kind of silliness... and it is kind of silly, isn't it? Why would Hellfire access anything in Diablo's patch file?
After removing that it runs fine. Thanks a million, I never would have remembered that unless you specifically mentioned patch_rt.mpq! Now, to keep my word and get to sleep.
A.) How to fix Diablo's random "storm_invalid_player" crash on certain PCs when sending a chat message.
A couple of my friends and I experienced this random crash (Alamara: no, this has nothing to do with anyone using crash 'hacks' or mods) that occurs in any type of multiplayer game when sending a message. As it turns out this seems to be a crash unique to computers equipped with multiple processors, making it rather uncommon (websearches trying to reveal the cause and cure for this crash prior to investigation turned up nothing also).
It may only be unique to Windows XP, but if you're experiencing this "storm_invalid_player" crash message occasionally when you hit that Enter key to send your message, here's what I found fixes it.
With Diablo running, press CTRL+ALT+DEL to open your Task Manager, and right-click on Diablo in the applications list and select "Go To Process". It'll switch to the Processes list and highlight Diablo.exe for you, right-click on that and select "Set Affinity..." and in the following dialogue box, uncheck all of the CPUs but one. Click OK, close Task Manager and you're done. Now D1 is running on a single processor and the chat crash should be history - but unfortunately, your system doesn't remember your affinity selections, so each time you start Diablo you must follow this procedure again to prevent it. Hope that helps someone.
B.) How to configure an XP system's network adapters for IPX play across the internet utilizing a wonderful third-party program that is NOT Kali and does NOT cost you a thing. Yes, that's right, free LAN games across the internet, including Hellfire and Diablo, over a secure connection with a hassle-free application.
Alamara, okay... didn't expect nobody at all here would know about Hamachi, but I did see threads asking how to setup LAN games of Diablo and I'm sure some of this knowledge could be applied to it. On top of that I only ever saw Kali mentioned, so for anyone who didn't know... there is a wonderful little program called Hamachi that creates a virtual network between your computer and anyone else's, just like their computer was next to yours - save the physical distance, of course.
You can get Hamachi here: http://www.hamachi.cc/
As for configuring your network adapters for Hamachi in XP so you can use IPX with it, pretty simple. Just make sure you have "NWLink IPX/SPX/Netbios Compatible Transport Protocol" installed - note that highlighting this and clicking Properties produces a window that has three settings: Internal network number, and Frame type + Network number. I got IPX working over Hamachi by setting the Frame type to Ethernet 8082.2 (as opposed to Auto Detect) and assigning a unique Network number (00000001, 00000002, etc.) to each connection.
Poof... should work, or at least get you started. Okay, sorry that's probably not the most thorough or professional little guide, but I hope it helps someone. Been a long day, my eyes are bloodshot, and I'm in a hurry to get some sleep now that I've typed this up.
Thanks again Zamal... gotta love how those things that should be so blatantly obvious to the involved person sometimes aren't, then someone else comes in and the first thing they suggest hits the mark. I was actually thinking about trying to append a graphics patch to that patch_rt.mpq file for regular Diablo to change some of the item graphics like Lem did with Hellfire Fixed, but now that I know Hellfire is sensitive to that file for some reason I'll leave it alone.
Take care everyone!