It's nice to see DRM crippling a fantastic game. I almost feel sorry for buying the game instead of pirating it.
We know there are problems with DRM and with ours specifically, and we're working to fix them. And I'm glad you paid for the game instead of pirating it. Being told about issues and receiving feedback from paying customers always holds more weight and gets more of our attention than someone who leaves a snotty post on our forums saying that they hope we're happy that they pirated the game.
I'm taking a guess here, but I've seen a performance boost in Episode 3 after uninstalling the StarForce drivers on my computer (compared to when I had them installed). There is still some minor lag, but it's not as noticeable. I can't be 100% sure about this though, as I haven't experienced these problems in Ep 2 or 1, and StarForce isn't the DRM used for S&M, but StarForce has been known to screw around with the performance of some games. Can anyone confirm this? Open up the Control Panel, go to System > Hardware > Device Manager, click "Show Hidden Devices" (under view) and check if anything with StarForce shows up. For those who want to help test this out, the removal tool is here. Please note that you won't be able to play StarForce protected games after removing the drivers
I put Sam & Max under FRAPS and it was showing a significant improvement around the main areas (Casino, outside Sam & Max's apartment) and it didn't appear to be memory leaking. I know Telltale has already nailed the problem, but I'm curious whether this may be a factor for others as well.
We know there are problems with DRM and with ours specifically, and we're working to fix them. And I'm glad you paid for the game instead of pirating it. Being told about issues and receiving feedback from paying customers always holds more weight and gets more of our attention than someone who leaves a snotty post on our forums saying that they hope we're happy that they pirated the game.
Yeah, I posted too hastily and I was angry. Sorry about that. I've just seen too many products being crippled by DRM (and it won't even slow pirates either). Anyways, I don't pirate games because I want to support the game makers. What I meant with the pirating part is that the DRM is bypassed in those cracked games. I didn't post to encourage pirating, because we might not get to see another sam and max game if we don't show our support. I think it's great too that you listen.
i had the same memory problem as posted before and I am happy to say
that this does not occur with EP4. the game takes up 700mb of my RAM
but my FPS stay steady the whole game thru.
no stuttering and jittering and having to restart the game from a save.
and, and BTW:i noticed a little error in the episode plotwise:
after you get the truth serum from bosco you can still ask him about
his defence-system and he will reply with the usual line: he has to wait
for the fundings, which is at that point of the story: wrong. he already
got the money and has the system in full operation.
So now that I have read the posts here and noticed that we are all having the same issue and it appears TellTale is aware of this I see no mention of a fix or a time frame. I am one who has paid in full for the whole series and willing to wait fro a proper fix but the evil rabbit next to me seems a bit hasty
the fix has already been implemented in EP4 and the Devs wait for our
response if it worked out. After that Fixes should be released for
EP2+3 only since EP4 upwards already incorporate the fix.
so go check out EP4 and post here if it has been fixed for you.
IT HAS BEEN FOR ME !!!!! wohoooo EP4 at 1280x960 at a constant unjerky 45fps.
yes, i too noticed a major improvement in the frame rate for episode 4................ and i was able to play the game all the way through without restarting
Say, is the fix for this going to be incorporated into the GameTap version?
When I played it it was fairly choppy by the end.
The problem was caused by the copy protection software we use, which is not present in the GameTap version. If there's choppiness in the GameTap version that's probably due to something else.
I'm glad to see that Episode 4 is working better for some of you. We're currently working on getting that fix implemented into eps 2 and 3 so we can rerelease them.
The problem was caused by the copy protection software we use, which is not present in the GameTap version. If there's choppiness in the GameTap version that's probably due to something else.
I'm glad to see that Episode 4 is working better for some of you. We're currently working on getting that fix implemented into eps 2 and 3 so we can rerelease them.
Well, okay then. There's something else going on. As I continued playing Episode 4, loading got longer and longer and choppier and choppier. Finally, when I quit, it brought up a message saying virtual memory was low and it was increasing the size of the pagefile. I looked at the task manager and GameApp.exe was using about 850 MB of physical and virtual memory total. Any idea what was causing this, then?
We have not released the updated versions of episodes 2 and 3 yet.
It is absolutely something we're going to do, but with the busy production schedules for the episodes we have not been able to yet. When season 1 wraps up, we'll finally be able to do a lot of the things we've been wanting to do for the past several months.
After some testing with Sam and Max episode 3, I have found exactly when the slowdown occurs, at least on my system. Ep.'s 1 and 2 had virtually no issues on my xp-pro or vista machines. But episode 3, thankfully my least favorite, does have odd bouts of slowdown. The slowdown occurs exactly at the time that lovable, psychotic little max is roaming around the environments. When he stands still, the framerate snaps back to normal. Emily had mentioned DRM as well, but at least from my experience, the slowdown only occurs precisely when Max is roaming around the environments, when he stops, and he frequently does, the problem resolves. This leads me to believe that there is something up with Max's ability to explore the environment on his own. I dunno, just my take from extensive playing. Here are my system specs for the testbed. -Ryan West
AMD 64 4000+
ASUS K8V VIA Chipset
2gb DDR400 Ram
Windows Vista Ultimate
We noticed that Max walking around caused some problems during testing, but thought it was due to the memory leak in the DRM software. Maybe it's actually a separate problem?
After some testing with Sam and Max episode 3, I have found exactly when the slowdown occurs, at least on my system. Ep.'s 1 and 2 had virtually no issues on my xp-pro or vista machines. But episode 3, thankfully my least favorite, does have odd bouts of slowdown. The slowdown occurs exactly at the time that lovable, psychotic little max is roaming around the environments. When he stands still, the framerate snaps back to normal. Emily had mentioned DRM as well, but at least from my experience, the slowdown only occurs precisely when Max is roaming around the environments, when he stops, and he frequently does, the problem resolves. This leads me to believe that there is something up with Max's ability to explore the environment on his own. I dunno, just my take from extensive playing. Here are my system specs for the testbed. -Ryan West
AMD 64 4000+
ASUS K8V VIA Chipset
2gb DDR400 Ram
Windows Vista Ultimate
That describes what has been happening to Ep3 for me precisely. I'd more than likely enjoy Ep3, but I spent most of it wishing I could just tie max up and leave him in the Desosto to stop his meanderings.
AMD 64 35000+
MSI nForce3
2 gb DDR400 Ram
Windows XP-64 Pro
In episode 3, this does happen, and it's due (at least in part) to the memory leak in the DRM system.
When we release the new versions of episodes 2 and 3 -- which will likely be after Season 1 wraps up at this point -- the memory leak will be out of the equation and at that point we'll have more luck pinning down this other problem that some of you are having.
I have been experiencing a similar problem to what everyone is experiencing, but I may have found a small solution, hopefully. So far all five of the Sam & Max games randomly halt for no reason on my system. This can happen any time, usually after about five minutes of play. Sometimes it occurs after only playing a few seconds. When the game freezes the sound continues for a few seconds, and then sounds like a drum roll, and then continues later. This also happens with some other 3d games on my system, including a game called Track Mania Sunrise, which is a popular racing game. I removed this program some time ago, but it did the exact same thing. The freezing usually occurs about three times, and then locks up the entire system. Sometimes, instead of freezing the whole computer, a Virtual Memory error will appear. Just moments ago however, I may have found a fix. Maybe. I set my system colour quality to 16-bit down from 32-bit. After playing Episode 5 for about fifteen minutes, no lockups occurred whatsoever. While doing this I had the game in the lowest resolution, and in window mode. I don't know if it will lock up again in full screen. Here are my system specs:
Windows XP Home Edition 32-bit with the latest updates installed
512 MB of RAM
80 GIG hard drive
NVidia GeForce FX 5500 AGP video card
Direct X 9.0c
I also have Symantec Norton System Works Premier Edition installed. Disabling all Symantec services and any Starforce components in the Non-Plug and Play section of device manager, did not help at all. This was mentioned earlier in the thread. At the same time I also tried disabling all startup programs in the STARTUP tab of the System Configuration Utility (MSCONFIG.EXE), and disabled all NON-Microsoft Services in the SERVICES tab of the same program. This ended up corrupting my anti-virus, and I will now have to re-install it. Performing a system restore did not repair it.
I will try the game in full screen mode and post what happens. If you forgot what I did in this long post, just set the system colour down from it's highest setting. To do this just right click on the Windows desktop, and click Properties. Then choose the settings tab. You should find the colour setting on the left or right side. Hope this helps. For those of you who have Vista, I am not sure if this is how it is still done.
A big thank you to Tell Tale for these great games. They have been very enjoyable despite the strange glitches that happen on my system.
Having the color set to 16-bit sometimes causes an error about the game being unable to initialize Direct3D at startup, so it might not be a solution for everyone, but it's worth a try.
You might also want to try the Nvidia drivers available here -- they seem to be working for a lot of our customers who have Geforce 4 cards, and your card is very similar to the Geforce 4.
Thank you for the reply, and the download link. I am downloading the file as we speak. Unfortunately the lock ups did not stop at all by switching to 16-bit, but they are not as bad either. The game is much more playable since it only freezes for about a few seconds. It is still a bit frustrating when this happens, but not as bad. I have continued to play the game in the window mode at the lowest resolution, and I imagine the lock ups would be worse if I switched it to full screen. I will give this new driver a try and see what happens.
Thank you for your help. By the way, Episode five is absolutely hilarious. The 8-bit music reminds me of my younger days of playing a Nintendo or Atari 2600 (which I still play to this day).
I just started played ep3 and the lagging started for me as well. I thought I'd check out this tech forum to see if anyone else had the problem and...what do ya know!
Glad that a fix is underway though!
Just curious, guys, but what's the latest on this? Deleting the prefs file helps somewhat, but the problem soon reappears. Any other fixes would be appreciated--definitely didn't have this problem in episodes 1 or 2.
After we finish up the disc version, which is what we're working on right now, we will be releasing new download versions of the episodes that were wrapped with the buggy version of the activation software.
I find that the leaks get worse when I switch windows during the game and come back. So I'm playing the game and hit alt-tab to switch to my e-mail or the windows key and launch a web browser then I click back to the game on through the taskbar and the game seems slower. Then when I quit the same it seems to still be in memory and I have to open task manager and kill the process. I have had this problem with all of the games. I have windows xp pro and 1 gb of ram.
Episode 3 is my favorite episode thus far as is presents new qualities and dialogue not seen before. I am laughing at new perceptions and find that the game increases in quality as one increases in concentration of perception of where the game is heading. It is very rewarding to keep getting the clues correctly and answering the puzzles as they come up! A successfull predcessor to Hit the Road! great 3d too.
We were working on getting the new versions out but hit an unexpected snag this week. It's something that's very much at the forefront of our minds right now!
The good news is, the DVDs (which will probably start shipping next week) should not have the same problem, since it's not wrapped with the buggy version of the activation software. If you're not getting the disc, the fixed download should be coming this summer. I don't want to say anything more specific than that because I always turn out to be wrong.
I have finished all the episodes. 6 had the best graphics. Level 3 gave me similar problems for a bit. I solved it by updating drivers on my ATI 9600. Waiting patiently for the disk to arrive, and then on to the new game!
Got the same prob, posted this in the main forum without noticing:
I'm having a few problems with Episode 3, mainly that the game seems very laggy in performance compared to the other episodes. The load times are longer, the sound seems messed up and the frame-rate is dropping really low. I'm running a pretty powerful computer with the latest drivers, but if I had to guess its bound to be another glitch that Vista is responsible for. I dont know if anyone else is experiencing this but any help would be appreciated.
As mentioned several times already in this thread - the version of the activation software that episode 3 is wrapped with has a memory leak in it. We're working on getting out an updated version.
As mentioned several times already in this thread - the version of the activation software that episode 3 is wrapped with has a memory leak in it. We're working on getting out an updated version.
Episode 2 and episode 3 are wrapped with the same version of the DRM software, so they both have this problem. Sorry if that was not clear.
I'm working on getting updated versions up as we speak. They might be available tomorrow.
EDIT: Actually they're up now. Please look up your order at www.telltalegames.com/support/findmyorder and redownload episode 3, and hopefully it'll work better for you. *crosses fingers*
Episode 2 and episode 3 are wrapped with the same version of the DRM software, so they both have this problem. Sorry if that was not clear.
I'm working on getting updated versions up as we speak. They might be available tomorrow.
EDIT: Actually they're up now. Please look up your order at www.telltalegames.com/support/findmyorder and redownload episode 3, and hopefully it'll work better for you. *crosses fingers*
Sorry, my bad. I thought that the update had already been released.
I used to have a problem with certain episodes de-activating themself after a number of re-installations and then refusing to be re-activated. But the problems seems to be gone with the updated files.
I used to have a problem with certain episodes de-activating themself after a number of re-installations and then refusing to be re-activated. But the problems seems to be gone with the updated files.
Glad the updated versions seem to have the problem resolved, but if you run into any other activation weirdness, please email support@telltalegames.com describing what happened and how you tried to reactivate that didn't work, so we can look into it. Keep in mind that activating the games by clicking "I've already purchased this" and then entering your order number and password almost never works for Season One customers. Supported ways for Season One customers to activate their games are described here.
Comments
We know there are problems with DRM and with ours specifically, and we're working to fix them. And I'm glad you paid for the game instead of pirating it. Being told about issues and receiving feedback from paying customers always holds more weight and gets more of our attention than someone who leaves a snotty post on our forums saying that they hope we're happy that they pirated the game.
I put Sam & Max under FRAPS and it was showing a significant improvement around the main areas (Casino, outside Sam & Max's apartment) and it didn't appear to be memory leaking. I know Telltale has already nailed the problem, but I'm curious whether this may be a factor for others as well.
Yeah, I posted too hastily and I was angry. Sorry about that. I've just seen too many products being crippled by DRM (and it won't even slow pirates either). Anyways, I don't pirate games because I want to support the game makers. What I meant with the pirating part is that the DRM is bypassed in those cracked games. I didn't post to encourage pirating, because we might not get to see another sam and max game if we don't show our support. I think it's great too that you listen.
i had the same memory problem as posted before and I am happy to say
that this does not occur with EP4. the game takes up 700mb of my RAM
but my FPS stay steady the whole game thru.
no stuttering and jittering and having to restart the game from a save.
and, and BTW:i noticed a little error in the episode plotwise:
his defence-system and he will reply with the usual line: he has to wait
for the fundings, which is at that point of the story: wrong. he already
got the money and has the system in full operation.
response if it worked out. After that Fixes should be released for
EP2+3 only since EP4 upwards already incorporate the fix.
so go check out EP4 and post here if it has been fixed for you.
IT HAS BEEN FOR ME !!!!! wohoooo EP4 at 1280x960 at a constant unjerky 45fps.
Didn't have issues with the game slowing down to unplayability like I did with Episode 3, which is fantastic. Thanks, Tell Tale!
When I played it it was fairly choppy by the end.
The problem was caused by the copy protection software we use, which is not present in the GameTap version. If there's choppiness in the GameTap version that's probably due to something else.
I'm glad to see that Episode 4 is working better for some of you. We're currently working on getting that fix implemented into eps 2 and 3 so we can rerelease them.
Well, okay then. There's something else going on. As I continued playing Episode 4, loading got longer and longer and choppier and choppier. Finally, when I quit, it brought up a message saying virtual memory was low and it was increasing the size of the pagefile. I looked at the task manager and GameApp.exe was using about 850 MB of physical and virtual memory total. Any idea what was causing this, then?
It is absolutely something we're going to do, but with the busy production schedules for the episodes we have not been able to yet. When season 1 wraps up, we'll finally be able to do a lot of the things we've been wanting to do for the past several months.
AMD 64 4000+
ASUS K8V VIA Chipset
2gb DDR400 Ram
Windows Vista Ultimate
Thank you for sharing this info.
That describes what has been happening to Ep3 for me precisely. I'd more than likely enjoy Ep3, but I spent most of it wishing I could just tie max up and leave him in the Desosto to stop his meanderings.
AMD 64 35000+
MSI nForce3
2 gb DDR400 Ram
Windows XP-64 Pro
When we release the new versions of episodes 2 and 3 -- which will likely be after Season 1 wraps up at this point -- the memory leak will be out of the equation and at that point we'll have more luck pinning down this other problem that some of you are having.
I have been experiencing a similar problem to what everyone is experiencing, but I may have found a small solution, hopefully. So far all five of the Sam & Max games randomly halt for no reason on my system. This can happen any time, usually after about five minutes of play. Sometimes it occurs after only playing a few seconds. When the game freezes the sound continues for a few seconds, and then sounds like a drum roll, and then continues later. This also happens with some other 3d games on my system, including a game called Track Mania Sunrise, which is a popular racing game. I removed this program some time ago, but it did the exact same thing. The freezing usually occurs about three times, and then locks up the entire system. Sometimes, instead of freezing the whole computer, a Virtual Memory error will appear. Just moments ago however, I may have found a fix. Maybe. I set my system colour quality to 16-bit down from 32-bit. After playing Episode 5 for about fifteen minutes, no lockups occurred whatsoever. While doing this I had the game in the lowest resolution, and in window mode. I don't know if it will lock up again in full screen. Here are my system specs:
Windows XP Home Edition 32-bit with the latest updates installed
512 MB of RAM
80 GIG hard drive
NVidia GeForce FX 5500 AGP video card
Direct X 9.0c
I also have Symantec Norton System Works Premier Edition installed. Disabling all Symantec services and any Starforce components in the Non-Plug and Play section of device manager, did not help at all. This was mentioned earlier in the thread. At the same time I also tried disabling all startup programs in the STARTUP tab of the System Configuration Utility (MSCONFIG.EXE), and disabled all NON-Microsoft Services in the SERVICES tab of the same program. This ended up corrupting my anti-virus, and I will now have to re-install it. Performing a system restore did not repair it.
I will try the game in full screen mode and post what happens. If you forgot what I did in this long post, just set the system colour down from it's highest setting. To do this just right click on the Windows desktop, and click Properties. Then choose the settings tab. You should find the colour setting on the left or right side. Hope this helps. For those of you who have Vista, I am not sure if this is how it is still done.
A big thank you to Tell Tale for these great games. They have been very enjoyable despite the strange glitches that happen on my system.
Having the color set to 16-bit sometimes causes an error about the game being unable to initialize Direct3D at startup, so it might not be a solution for everyone, but it's worth a try.
You might also want to try the Nvidia drivers available here -- they seem to be working for a lot of our customers who have Geforce 4 cards, and your card is very similar to the Geforce 4.
(Also welcome to the forum!)
Thank you for your help. By the way, Episode five is absolutely hilarious. The 8-bit music reminds me of my younger days of playing a Nintendo or Atari 2600 (which I still play to this day).
Glad that a fix is underway though!
Thanks for your patience, everyone.
I've been suffering this issue too. Gameplay starts out ok and eventually just stutters so much I save n'quit. My specs...
Quad core Intel, 2.66ghz
4gig of DDR2
GeForce 8800GTX
Any news on when the fix will be available?
-Errol
Thanks! We love the game and have been recommending it to our friends!
The good news is, the DVDs (which will probably start shipping next week) should not have the same problem, since it's not wrapped with the buggy version of the activation software. If you're not getting the disc, the fixed download should be coming this summer. I don't want to say anything more specific than that because I always turn out to be wrong.
Thanks, everyone, for your continued patience!
I'm having a few problems with Episode 3, mainly that the game seems very laggy in performance compared to the other episodes. The load times are longer, the sound seems messed up and the frame-rate is dropping really low. I'm running a pretty powerful computer with the latest drivers, but if I had to guess its bound to be another glitch that Vista is responsible for. I dont know if anyone else is experiencing this but any help would be appreciated.
Thanks
Bit odd for a game with only 235MB of assets.
did he/she not say episode 2??
I'm working on getting updated versions up as we speak. They might be available tomorrow.
EDIT: Actually they're up now. Please look up your order at www.telltalegames.com/support/findmyorder and redownload episode 3, and hopefully it'll work better for you. *crosses fingers*
Sorry, my bad. I thought that the update had already been released.
Thank you, downloading now
*edit*
Works like a charm so far.
Great, I hope it continues to.
Glad the updated versions seem to have the problem resolved, but if you run into any other activation weirdness, please email support@telltalegames.com describing what happened and how you tried to reactivate that didn't work, so we can look into it. Keep in mind that activating the games by clicking "I've already purchased this" and then entering your order number and password almost never works for Season One customers. Supported ways for Season One customers to activate their games are described here.