TOMI Launch of Narwhal keeps freezing

edited February 2010 in Game Support
Have just started episode 1. Unfortunately the game keeps freezing in the dock area. The cursor moves about once a minute, possibly as delayed reaction to moving mouse , music continues all the time. Jungle scenes OK so far though. Have tried re downloading and reducing resolution to 800 x 600 and quality to 5 but no change. Have Vista business and Radeon X1300PRO. Have updated DirectX when I downloaded .Any suggestions?
Thanks,
Dave

Comments

  • edited December 2009
    Reduce the quality to 1 just while you do that part of the game and see if you can get through.
  • edited December 2009
    Thanks! that appears to have worked! Happy New Year!
    Dave
  • DjNDBDjNDB Moderator
    edited December 2009
    Though I think it might work with quality 5 you could try 1 just to see if it works then.
    I think it's best to start with a dxdiag log.

    dxdiag
    Windows XP: Go to your start menu and click on run. Type in "dxdiag" and hit enter
    Windows Vista / 7: Press the windows key on your keyboard or click on the start menu. Type in "dxdiag" and hit enter.

    Now click on the button that says "save all information".
    It will prompt you to save a file. Save it where you can find it.

    Then zip the file and attach it to a message.
  • edited December 2009
    File attached. seems to work OK on quality 1 but haven't checked everywhere in the scene.
  • DjNDBDjNDB Moderator
    edited December 2009
    Card name: 256MB ATI Radeon X1300PRO
    Driver Date/Size: 10/25/2006 04:40:20, 2493952 bytes
    

    Try the latest graphics driver.
  • edited December 2009
    Thanks. Have downloaded new drivers. Launch of Narwhal still freezes in docks on quality 5. On quality 1 it is also freezing but not for so long! start up screen - settings, save etc- also freezes when I press escape to get there - starts as a large part of the screen before reducing to normal, and usable, size.
    Off to bed now, will check tomorrow! Thanks for the help so far!
    Dave
  • edited December 2009
    I wonder if the problem is caused by high tempratures... Do you encounter the same problem when playing other episodes of ToMI, or even unrelated games?
  • DjNDBDjNDB Moderator
    edited December 2009
    Falanca wrote: »
    I wonder if the problem is caused by high tempratures... Do you encounter the same problem when playing other episodes of ToMI, or even unrelated games?
    Good idea.

    I'll give you a bunch of stuff you can try one at a time.

    Let's make sure your Installer is not corrupt.
    MD5 Check
    Please download and install Hashcheck.
    Then unzip and copy the attached MD5 File into the folder that contains the installers you downloaded from Telltale.

    Finally just double click on the .md5 file for verification and tell us the results.
    Green: File is okay.
    Yellow: File is missing.
    Read: File is corrupt.



    Boot clean to rule out that any other software interferes.
    Booting clean in Windows Vista / 7:
    1. Click Start --> Run --> Type MSCONFIG --> Click OK
    2. On the General tab, choose Selective Startup
    3. Uncheck Load Startup Items
    4. Select the Services tab
    5. Check Hide all Microsoft services
    6. Click Disable all
    7. Click on OK
    8. Click Restart.
    9. After reboot, run game to see if it works.

    After performing the necessary steps, restore your system by doing the following:

    1. Click Start --> Run --> Type MSCONFIG--> Click OK
    2. On the General tab, choose Normal Startup
    3. Click Ok
    4. Click Yes, when asked to restart your computer

    Based on Will's post



    Logging your CPU and GPU Temperatures

    CPU: Download Core Temp. Start it and activate logging in the menu under "Tools/Logging on".

    The log file created is called similar to "CT-Log [TIME][DATE].csv".

    GPU: Download GPU-Z.
    Start it, select the "sensors" tab, and activate "Log to File" at the bottom of the window.

    The log file created is called "gpu-temperature.xml".

    Zip the files and attach them to a message.
  • edited December 2009
    Sorry. I am confused! Downloaded Hashcheck Installer but second file ' source code' not sure what to do with it! Downloaded evaluation version of winzip but don't know what to do with the file from there.
    Tried to extract MD5 file to folder below and got error message as follows. Is that the right folder to put the MD5 file in? Sorry to be a pain!

    Extracting to "C:\Program Files\Telltale Games\"
    Use Path: yes Overlay Files: no
    Error: Access is denied.
    Cannot create C:\Program Files\Telltale Games\ToMI.md5.
    Administrative privileges may be required

    p.s. This is the first game I have played for some time -Christmas present!! - so have no other experiences to report on.
  • DjNDBDjNDB Moderator
    edited December 2009
    No problem. The ToMI.md5 needs to be in the same folder as LaunchOfTheScreamingNarwhal_Setup.exe.
  • edited December 2009
    GPU file not the same name but the only one I can find! Hope it is the correct one!
  • DjNDBDjNDB Moderator
    edited December 2009
    dc1606 wrote: »
    GPU file not the same name but the only one I can find! Hope it is the correct one!

    Looks like GPU-Z is unable to read your graphics cards temperature at all, so we can't analyse that.

    How about the cpu?
    I forgot to mention that the logging should be done while you run the game and until the problem occurs.
  • edited December 2009
    MD5 attached All green except launch of the Narwhal - maybe the problem lies therein?

    Will try to check cpu soon. Might be tomorrow now! Happy New Year!
    Thanks for your continued support.
    Dave
  • DjNDBDjNDB Moderator
    edited December 2009
    You're welcome. Happy new year to you too.
    Yes, that might be the problem.

    Uninstall the game and choose not to delete your save games.
    Then make a clean download as described below, and install it.

    Deleting the browser cache:

    Before downloading the game again you should delete your browsers cache/temporary internet files so that it is not loaded from there:

    Internet Explorer 7: In the menu choose "Extras/Delete Browsing History...". In the resulting Window select "Delete files..." for "Temporary Internet Files".

    In recent Firefox and Internet Explorer 8 you can delete the cache/temporary internet files with CTRL-Shift-Del.

    In Firefox you would only select "Cache".

    In Internet Explorer only select "Temporary Internet Files".
    Uncheck all other boxes in each case.

    After installation check if the error still occurs.
  • edited December 2009
    OK. Will do later today! Meanwhile I attach cpu file - it took a long time to get out of the game on quality 5! temp highs were 54 on Core 0 and 56 on Core 1
  • DjNDBDjNDB Moderator
    edited December 2009
    dc1606 wrote: »
    OK. Will do later today! Meanwhile I attach cpu file - it took a long time to get out of the game on quality 5! temp highs were 54 on Core 0 and 56 on Core 1

    The CPU temperature is okay then. After downloading you can MD5 check the file again to see if it's correct this time.
  • edited January 2010
    Reload successful - MD5 shows all green. However game no different!
    Have tried MSCONFIG changes but that appears to make little difference. On Q5 game froze during clothesline sequence and froze worse after Guy had fallen down. Q1 managed this sequence with slight pauses then got stuck going up the plank. Reverting to normal startup in msconfig Q5 managed clothesline with slight pauses then got stuck on the plank.
    This is almost as puzzling as the game itself!
  • DjNDBDjNDB Moderator
    edited January 2010
    dc1606 wrote: »
    This is almost as puzzling as the game itself!

    It sure is. Let's brainstorm.
    - Since we can't check your Graphics card temperature check that your fans and heatsinks are free of dust and the fans are working.
    - Did you explicitly uninstall the old graphics driver before installing the new one? If not, uninstall everything from ATI and install the new driver again
    - Let's Blame your sound chip for a moment. Try if it runs better when sound is disabled via BIOS or device manager.
  • edited January 2010
    ATI folder on C Drive only appears to contain the 2 items I downloaded. I cannot find another ATI folder anywhere but a search revealed that there are some files e.g. ati2edxx.dl_ , ati2erec.dl_ , ati2evxx.ex_ , atiadlxx.dl_ and others . Some of these appear 3 times. I have no idea what they are though!

    Fan appears to be working and can't see any dust.
    Have tried without sound on lowest display setting and at quality 1, if anything it seemed worse!
  • DjNDBDjNDB Moderator
    edited January 2010
    I think I am running out of sane ideas. Let's hope it's just an anomaly with the first episode and the others will run fine.
    How do other 3D games run on that PC?
  • edited January 2010
    Kick the computer....hard!?
    Haven't actually played any other 3D games on this computer but we have Simon 3D somewhere - will look it out and see what happens!
    It seems odd that it is only in the dock area around the ship that the problems occur. Jungle is fine!
    Thanks for all your effort! Vielen Dank!
    Will report back if anything new happens!
    Dave
  • DjNDBDjNDB Moderator
    edited January 2010
    dc1606 wrote: »
    It seems odd that it is only in the dock area around the ship that the problems occur. Jungle is fine!
    Thanks for all your effort! Vielen Dank!

    You're welcome.

    The opening sequence with all the moving stuff ran fine as well?
  • edited January 2010
    Yes. No problems.
  • edited January 2010
    Bonnie from Telltale support came up with this link: http://www.techspot.com/vb/topic92579.html Looks like the X1300 graphics card (on my Dell Dimension C521) isn't up to it!
    So may well have to purchase a new card, but have no idea where to start looking - don't have unlimited funds!
    Come to think of it our old computer was the one on which we played Simon 3D so maybe we could use that, though the problem is I don't currently have an internet connection where it is!
    Thanks again for your help!
    Regards,
    Dave
  • DjNDBDjNDB Moderator
    edited January 2010
    I realized that your card was not good, but I would have estimated that it could at least run ToMI at level 1 in 1024x768.
    I would be interested in seeing your 3dMark06 Result.

    I suggest you also make a fresh dxdiag log so i can see where we are at now.

    As for new graphics cards, good ones have become pretty cheap the last few years. From the cheaper cards I would pick a ATI Radeon HD 4650 or NVIDIA GeForce GT 220 which offer decent performance for a low price. Both usually don't need an extra power connector.
    According to Dell you have a PCIe x16 slot.
  • edited January 2010
    3DMARK06 error message; hardware does not support the features required to run 3DMARK06. Pixel Shader 2.0 or higher is one of these. 3DMARK06 is thereby not a suitable benchmarking tool for your system. Suggests I use version 03 or 2001. Maybe that says it all?

    3DMARK03 error message : Hardware does not support compressed textures DXT1 and DXT3

    2001 results attached - 2 versions one game detail low, the other high.
    Also attached system analysis from Mark 06 and latest dxdiag log
  • DjNDBDjNDB Moderator
    edited January 2010
    dc1606 wrote: »
    3DMARK06 error message; hardware does not support the features required to run 3DMARK06. Pixel Shader 2.0 or higher is one of these.

    3DMARK03 error message : Hardware does not support compressed textures DXT1 and DXT3

    That's odd. Your Graphics card should support all of that. Also others were able to benchmark that card. I can't imagine why it doesn't work in your case.

    Strangely 3DMark06 reported "Pixel Shader Version 3.0" correctly in your system info.


    Your 3DMark2001 files do not contain the result. That are only project files with settings. I was looking for the numerical result of the benchmark run with default settings in order to loosely compare it to other results on the net. If they are similar we can assume everything is okay and your card is just too slow. If not there's something else going on as implied by the benchmarks not working.
  • edited January 2010
    Results were :low detail 11375 high detail 11302
  • DjNDBDjNDB Moderator
    edited January 2010
    dc1606 wrote: »
    Results were :low detail 11375 high detail 11302

    That doesn't look too bad.

    I have a very wild theory. Imagine 3dMark03 is right and for some reason (strange software configuration) "DXT1 and DXT3" really don't work on your system although they normally should. Assuming ToMI uses these features for texture compression it could explain a slowdown, because Direct3D then would emulate them on your processor as far as i know.

    I don't know a good way to test that though without installing a fresh windows+drivers+directx on another harddisk and running the benchmarks and the game.

    It would be nice to have a tool that checks for these features, but i know none.

    EDIT: There is a much easier way of testing. You could test your graphics card in another system.
  • edited January 2010
    I don't know exactly what DXT1 and 3 are (components of DirectX?). Clearly there would appear to be no way of finding out why they don't work or downloading something to make them work, otherwise you would have said. In theory I could try and see if the card will fit into our other older computer (XP, built to own spec by someone else)assuming that it is compatible, but this might take a while as the other computer is surrounded by piles of things I need to sort out!!
  • edited February 2010
    Hi,
    have just discovered that it works fine if I don't use full screen mode, so, though not my preference, will continue with that!
    Regards,
    Dave
This discussion has been closed.