Sam & Max: Culture Shock - Computer resets when entering new areas.
This is totally ruining my Sam & Max euphoria. 
I started a new game, tried to leave the office—computer resets. Started a new game, got out on the street this time, tried to enter Bosco's—computer resets. I imagine this will continue happening for each new area. What could be the problem here?
P4 2.4Ghz HT
Asus P4C800-E Deluxe
2x512MB PC3200 400Mhz
Radeon 9500 Pro 128MB
Audigy2
Despite the technical difficulties the game is really fun.
I started a new game, tried to leave the office—computer resets. Started a new game, got out on the street this time, tried to enter Bosco's—computer resets. I imagine this will continue happening for each new area. What could be the problem here?P4 2.4Ghz HT
Asus P4C800-E Deluxe
2x512MB PC3200 400Mhz
Radeon 9500 Pro 128MB
Audigy2
Despite the technical difficulties the game is really fun.
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Comments
Running Windows x64 on a Pentium D 2.8Ghz
But it's just because My virtual memory is low. Probably due to the fact I only have less then 200MB left on my hard drive.
A fix would be really nice.
If I start a new game I can then load a save and exit an area once, but it will crash upon trying to enter a new one.
Start->Run->Control Panel->System
Go the the "Advanced" tab
Click the button under "Startup and Recovery"
Uncheck the "Automatically Restart" box
That shoudl stop the system from automatically rebooting when a system error occurs, so you have time to write down the error message. I'm guessing this has to do with a hardware driver, personally, as that's something that's happened to me in the past (not with Sam & Max, though).
It's already disabled, one of the first things I do when I format.
Mine has a factory fault, which makes it turn off if it's displaying something - but only if I've got the power cable plugged in. So I charge the battery each time before playing Sam & Max..
Once when I entered new areas the game either 'blinked' & minimized.
The second time it rebooted my computer.
I'm now playing in window mode, and it is running fine so far.
Nothing in the event log, when my computer rebooted. (I have reboot on error set to off in XP also)
Nope, it's stationary.
What I did was lower the resolution by one setting, and the problem went away.
Hmm, I would also try updating your sound drivers, and maybe defragging your harddrive. Though you may have already tried that.
And just for the sake of trying, reduce the resolution to absolute minimal...
For those of you with a Radeon video card who are having unexpected reboots while replaying, get the newest drivers for your card. An older set of drivers had a problem with our games that essentially caused the card to overheat and the computer to reboot. We informed Radeon of the problem and they fixed it in the most recent drivers.
SplitSoul, since you've already updated your drivers, can you tell me when it's crashing to the desktop? Is the crash always at a certain point, or is it random? Does it persist if you drop the resolution down to 800x600 and the graphics settings to "low"?
Duncan - in your case, it sounds like a problem with the auto saves. I'm not sure what to suggest, but I will check in with the tech guys about it.
The first thing I did was update my video drivers but my problem persisted, it was only when I reduced the resolution it started working fine. But perhaps I had a different form of the problem, since my computer didn't reboot, it was only the game that crashed.
Btw, I notice your replying alot, Emily, thats commendable.
It seems to be completely random, after playing the game for 10-20 minutes and then entering a new area or triggering a cinematic.
I also did what you suggested to no avail.
Running the game with ATI Radeon 9800 Pro makes the system crash randomly when entering new areas.
Computer freezes and has to be reset.
Newest drivers installed and everything else updated as well...
Please help.
Thanks. Just trying to keep up!
The problem with crashes when entering a new area sounds like it could be related to low virtual memory. Is there anything running in the background that's hogging memory, that could be turned off while playing Sam & Max? Maybe do a fresh reboot before you start playing?
(I'm really out of my league here since I'm pretty much a dunce when it comes to messing around with Windows... but maybe increasing the size of your paging file would help?)
I've closed everything expendable before starting the game: Anti-virus, calendar, etc. And my page file is a static 2048MB. I'd try to run it windowed to see if that helps, but the game runs terribly like that, as in unplayable. Maybe it's a general issue with Radeon cards?
I'm really, really glad you guys are taking the time to respond personally to these issues, it means something. Thanks.
I'm afraid your video isn't supported, which could be the reason for your crashes.
In related notes: Could you tell me exactly what the minimum system requirements for this game are? They don't seem to be listed on the Telltale Games Website. This Wikipedia page states "requirements 800 MHz processor, 256 Megs RAM, 3D card with 32Megs of RAM" and my system easily tops that (1GB of RAM, 128MB RAM for th 3D card).
Edit: OK, I just found the FAQ stating that my gfx chipset won't work because it doesn't support hardware T&L. Well it mostly does work anyway. Apart from the Intro and Credits scene which seem to have distorted color, and the crashes during scene changes which other people seem to be experiencing too, the game worked fine (I've actually finished it yesterday). If you wanted to make sure it didn't work, you would have had to build in a check for hardware T&L support that makes the game refuse to start up entirely.
Steltek, you're right that we need to get the requirements up on our website. We are still working on getting a lot of things fixed on the site and unfortunately that's fallen through the cracks. As for the video, the reason we don't want to prevent people with certain chipsets from starting the game is that (as you've found) it does work in some cases, although often not as well as it should. Some people choose to play the game in spite of the problems, and we don't want to prevent them from doing so. But as a small company we unfortunately don't have the bandwidth to test every video card configuration, which is why we posted the link to those chipsets that are unlikely to work and are not officially supported.
In any case, I'm glad you were able to play through to the end, in spite of the problems.
Can someone please help me i have tryed all the tips in this thread.
/X
Just letting you know cause it might help you track the problem down.
Oh... Cheers for the best game I've played in 13 years.
Event viewer is registering error ID 1000 on the application log
Description:
Faulting application sam & max - culture shock.exe, version 0.0.0.0, faulting module t3.mll, version 0.0.0.0, fault address 0x00147ff5.
I've already tried switching desktop resolution to 800x600, updating nvidia drivers and lowering game graphics... still same issue
Thanks!
I have a Dell laptop with a Radeon Mobility X1400 (128M dedicated) with 2G RAM and no other applications running when I play the game. It feels like either a display driver problem or a Direct X problem. I have the latest (Oct 2006) Direct X refresh. I have the latest version of the ATI drivers that is available for my laptop, which I think is one version behind what ATI has released.
Sorry to hi-jack the thread, but I am having similar problems. I just purchased the bundle today. The demo worked fine, if a little slow, so I thought I'd risk it.
When playing the purchased game, everytime I try and leave the office it hangs on the water cooler for at least 3 minutes, then eventually gets onto the street (after about 3 attempts of reloading the game). However, once on the street, it hangs again and I haven't been able to get it to work from there on. It managed to autosave on the street and that was it.
I'm playing it on the lowest resolution possible and even in window mode.
I'm running on minimal requirements I think: 3000+ processor, 256MB RAM, 64MB Via UniChrome Graphics card.
What happens if I can't get this game to run properly?
I'm not familiar with that graphics card. Just did a Google search and it looks like it's onboard graphics, not a 3D-accelerated graphics card which is what's required for the game. Have you played other 3D games with it?
It's got to the stage where I can reload the autosave from the street, but then loading is really slow and the graphics move like one frame every 3 or 4 minutes.
At least that would be my uneducated guess.
I managed to play it a bit today by closing other programmes down (like anti-virus and firewall) and turning the sound off. I was able to go into Bosco's and Sybil's and even on the car sub-game.
I'm thinking it may be a memory thing, because 64 MB of my 256 MB RAM is used up by the graphics card. So really, I have like 192 MB?