BACKENDS: WII: BLADERUNNER: freezing on ScummVM 2.1.1

[Tetsuo-78]

I'm trying ScummVM 2.1.1 for the Nintendo Wii.
The game Blade Runner (italian CD version) is correctly recognized, but after a couple minutes of game time, it will freeze forcing me to hard reset the console.
ScummVM is on the SD card and the game is on my USB hard drive.
Booting from the Homebrew Channel.

[antoniou79]

• Does it freeze always at the same spot in the game or is it random?
• Is it during a video cutscene or in-game?
• Is there any action that is more likely to reproduce the issue?

[Tetsuo-78]

No it is random. It happens in game, in the very first location while clicking around, but it can happen anywhere. Never happened during a movie though.
I was getting random freezes also in 2.1.0 but not so often, they could happen after 1 hour or so.

[Tetsuo-78]

Started from scratch. Now I have both scummvm and blade runner on USB.
Played for about an hour, I had no freezing issues. So it could've been my SD card.
But during a dialogue the game crashed with a "code dump".

[antoniou79]

Good to know that the (original) issue might be resolved for you.

About the crash during a dialogue:

• Is this reproducible (even if random)?
• Does it always happen for the same dialogue (and if so, which one)?
• Do you play the vanilla game or the restored content version?
• Does the crash happen when running the Desktop version of ScummVM too?

[Tetsuo-78]

The crash is not happening in the same spot. It just happens randomly, after a long playtime. For example, after resetting the console and reloading the game, it happened during the small transition movie, where you drive your car.
I'm playing the vanilla version.
Ok I will try the desktop version on my PC and report back.

[Tetsuo-78]

played the pc version, it didn't crashed.
I had another crash in the Wii version. This time a different message (a very strange one indeed)

[antoniou79]

The text above the "Abort called" is standard for when you start a new game for Blade Runner. Also the very first scene of the game (outside Runciter's shop) can produce a few extra such text comments when interacting with objects or talking to the police officer at the scene.

There comments are some form of developer commentary (only affecting the start of the game and the start scene) that was in the game's source files and we just print them out to the background console (if the console is available then the user may view them). We think that they are part of some early demo or press kit build and were disabled for the final release -- while still remaining in the source code. I still have to verify that with one of the original game creators from Westwood.

About the crashes. It's encouraging that they don't happen to the Desktop version. This means that it is an issue with the ScummVM app port for the Wii or some Wii restriction that conflicts with the requirements to run Blade Runner specifically.

I think we may need further feedback from a ScummVM Wii porter on this.
If I find the time I'll try to set up a wii emulator to see if it can be reproduced there too.

[Tetsuo-78]

I'm attacking another image. The crash happens in act 2, during the conversation with the injured man after the explosion.
It happens each time in the same spot. Hope it helps.
I tried another setup: game and app on SD, but there was no difference.

[antoniou79]

This could be either due to a corrupted audio file (ie. a corrupted game archive file because audio files are packed inside those) or an issue with the reading of the input stream on the Wii port specifically. It's probably the later, seeing as it could better explain the other crashes as well.

[notimp]

I'm also experiencing random crashes with Blade Runner (german version) on 2.2.1 pre. The issue pops up randomly after about half an hour of playtime, and mostly in (ingame) cutscenes, where a bunch of voicefiles (presumably) are loaded - and seems to behave like a memory leak or something similar.

After restart and reload, the same sequences play through just fine, its just that after a while (after a few cutscenes), the crashes start happening again.

I am getting error codes (so crash to debug screen), and will provide screenshots in the future, its just - that I havent captured them so far.

I'm also positive, that it isnt 'corrupt files' in my case (used the installation on other plattforms without issues).

[antoniou79]

Hopefully someone more familiar with the details of the Wii port can be of more help about this issue.

I suggest however, if possible, to try with a developer build (2.3.0git) and see if anything is changed. (Although developer builds may be slower due to the debug code).
There were some fixes and potential improvements in the code for audio, so maybe those help with this issue as well?

[somaen]

Is this still an issue in 2.8.1?