Freezing issue in The Exiled Prince
Note: This issue was posted before, but the OP selected a comment as solution while it did not in fact contain a solution. I hope the issue attracts more attention if I repost it.
The issue is that in the Exiled Prince DLC, starting with the mission Repentance in Act 2, some of the cutscenes are preceded by the game starting its fade-to-black transition, but freezing halfway through the transition and it shows the word 'loading' in an infinite loop. In the quest repentance (act 2) you can skip this by pressing escape. Not so in the quest faith (act 3).
I have the Dragon Age II Signature Edition (v 1.04). I attempted reinstalling the DLC. I didn't uninstall it first because I'm not sure which files need to be deleted.
Specs:
AMD Radeon HD 6870 (Catalyst 12.10)
AMD Phenom II x4 965 BE (3.4 Ghz quad-core)
4 GB Ram
Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit
The problem occurs on both the DirectX 9 and 11 renderer. I have installed both DX9 and 11.
Update
In the quest Faith, the freeze occurs right after killing the apostates and before the cinematic starts where Leliana appears. If you do a hard save right after the fight (after the fight, hit escape really quickly), and load through the main menu (don't choose 'resume'), Hawke stands frozen but the dialog wheel does pop up. Click on one of the options, press escape, and the dialog with Leliana can initiate. However, a new freeze occurs later during the conversation and since you can't save during a dialog, the previous workaround will not help me here.
I will post more details if I find out more.
Update 2
Here's a video that shows what happens after using the aforementioned workaround, but as you can see, there's a second freeze that can't be skipped.
Video on YouTube (ACT 3 SPOILERS)
Update 3 - Solution
Patch 1.04 is the culprit. I reinstalled the game and patched it to version 1.03.
I know this is a major necro, but I've been struggling with this issue again.
I've found a workaround that actually works, without having to reinstall.
This error only happens with Legacy installed - I was experimenting, and discovered that if you update to 1.04 without Legacy, it's fine. Some more playing, and I have a workaround that works without killing saves:
1. go to your program files -> DA2 folder -> addins
2. In addins, find prc_drk_ something
3. inside that folder, open module
4. select teh 'patch' folder, and "cut" it to the desktop
Play Seb's quests - it should work perfectly normally
Replace the patch folder when you are done.
You could just delete the patch folder completely, but then you won't get the dialogue fixes it got in 1.04
