Max Payne is max pain!

[mofo]

Don't get me wrong, the game totally rules! But the video keeps crashing, no matter what level of details i'm using. The image freezes, but the sound still works but i can't do anything else but re-boot. Has anyone experienced this on a similar setup?
V3 3500 16mb
Athlon 1.2 stock
A7V
1 Ghz RAM
Soundblaster 128 pci

when you go to start the game, you can fickle with all lot of video settings but i don't really know what they all mean. I only tried switching the LOW MED HIGH detail settings. Couldn't find a game patch or anything. Been there?

[mike breck]

Hi Mofo,



Try reducing sound settings to low and see if that helps.

Also make sure the Soundblaster is not loading any DOS drivers in Config.sys or Autoexec.bat.

In Windows 98 you can access these in the System Configuration Utility. I don't know about Me or beyond.

Just untick any references to sound or soundblaster.

Try reinstalling the game so it overwrites the existing Max Payne files. Run set-up again and make sure it points to where the game was originally installed. This is just in case it was a bad installation.

See if that helps.

[southrk]

It could just be your Video card, I dont know anything bout the V3 3500 but i know when the game says "minimum requirements" it means that "the game will start but might not work" especially is the V3 3500 is a lower end 16mb. But then again i dont know much about the v3. do you know someone who has a better card that they would let you use to check out and see if that is it?

[CroniC]

mofo its probably the video card u should get a new card because the recomended card for max payne is 32mb card and as southrk said the game will start but might not work so its just my opinion

[troysvihl]

Is Max Payne played from the 1st person or 3rd person perspective?

[mike breck]

troysvihl

Third person

mofo

Yes, Southrk and CroniC may be right.

But it might be worthwhile playing around with the Voodoo3 to see if you can get that work. The Voodoo3 is still a great card. In fact in one of systems (Duron 600), I have a TNT2 Ultra in AGP and a VOODOO2 12mb in PCI. So far, the Voodoo2 has been able to handle any FPS I've thrown at it. Of course, being a PCI card with less memory, it doesn't get the same resolutions or frame rates but it's still very playable.

Sometimes half of the fun in gaming is getting games running at a decent rate with older hardware without splashing out on "this month's latest and fastest".

However, if you've got money to burn, then a stock Geoforce2mx will handle Max on your system as it did on my T/bird 1200.

[mofo]

I've tried different video and sound settings, but no cure. The friend who gave me the game is having same problems, i think he has a TNT2 or something. Ran all the DirectX tests and everything seems fine. Never had any problems with my Voodoo3 before, but is it possible to add more memory on my card?

[mike breck]

Good news.

I tried running the game on my Duron with the 12 mb Voodoo 2 instead of the TNT2 Ultra @ 800x600x16 and it runs brilliantly.

So memory-wise your Voodoo3 should have no problems. It is listed in the Max Payne Readme as an acceptable card. Even if the lack of memory was an issue, I would expect to see "slow down" not crashes.

That's why I think this is either a soundcard problem or a Voodoo driver issue.

What drivers are you using for the Voodoo3?

Are you using the latest drivers for the Soundblaster?

[mike breck]

I've researched your Freezing problem and it seems to very common in Max Payne -along with dozens more problems.

In fact there was so much information and debate that I have started a new thread here

http://forum.pcmech.com/showthread.p...threadid=18256

listing some potential fixes for different systems.

Hope one of them helps you.