How to stop the game from crashing
By: refuze
Most of you are probably receiving crashes which send you back to the Desktop (this happens during the time when the game is loading). It usually depends on what type of computer you have and your videocard. New and powerful PC's out there can handle high-resolution patches but older computers can have trouble. I have found out a way to dimish crashes with a simple EAGraph Import Wizard trick.
Below is a list of the common .fsh files in NBA Live 2003 along with their file sizes that will stop the game from crashing. Those type of .fsh's are what patchers usually update for new cyberfaces, jerseys, etc. Please remember that there are possible combinations of naming those files such as bsho_away, etc. and this applies to all of them. If a patch you download is larger than these file sizes, they might be the ones that crash your game so be aware.
bsho.fsh - 11KB
hbnd.fsh - 6KB
player.fsh - 43KB (this is the first 2 letters of the player's first name and first 5 letters of his last name, ie. mijorda for Michael Jordan)
player_acc - 257KB (this is the first 2 letters of the player's first name and first 5 letters of his last name, ie. mijorda for Michael Jordan)
prxx.fsh - 175KB or 176KB
So now, here's the proven way on how to stop those crashes and convert those large file sizes (known as high-resolution patches) into the ones above. Follow the instructions carefully. I won't answer any questions that are already in this tutorial.
1. Download EAGraph (I'm assuming most of you have it already but if you don't, get it at
http://www.nba-live.com or
http://www.nbalive.org)
2. When you finish downloading, open up EAGraph.exe and just ignore it for now.
3. You also need a that has the same file size as the ones I listed above. So let's get Tony's Michael Jordan cyberface (43KB exact) from
http://www.nbalive.org. Save the mijorda.fsh from the zip into your Desktop.
4. Now go to the patch that has the large file size. In this case, we'll use Alex's Ray Allen cyberface (which is around 129KB) as an example. You can get it at
http://www.nbalive.org. Put the raallen.fsh to the Desktop as well.
5. So now we have both mijorda.fsh (43KB) and raallen.fsh (129KB).
6. Go back to EAGraph and click File > Open (CTRL + O). Find Desktop and click on the mijorda.fsh so EAGraph will open that.
7. You will see bhed at the left side of EAGraph. Click on it and the Michael Jordan face will appear.
8. Click Tools > Import Wizard and choose "Import an existing external file..".
9. The Michael Jordan cyberface will be shown smaller on the window. Click Browse, then go to Desktop and find raallen.fsh.
10. Click Next and EAGraph will import the 129KB raallen.fsh to the 43KB mijorda.fsh cyberface.
11. Delete the 129KB raallen.fsh file and rename the mijorda.fsh to raallen.fsh.
12. Stick that in Ray Allen's folder (xplayer\raallen).
Finished!

We have successfully converted a 129KB file to a 43KB file. There is not too much quality loss in the new 43KB file, it still looks the same as the original ingame. Now do that converting technique with all the files that are larger than the ones above. I hope this tutorial has been helpful to you.
Last edited by
Full Surface on Wed Sep 03, 2003 7:09 am, edited 7 times in total.