Max Payne

[AOmalley]

When running Max Payne it sometimes crashes to the desktop with no error. There is nothing in the event viewer either. I have actually had my computer reboot when running this game. Is this a heat issue?

MSI k7 master
1.4 athlon
Geforce 2 GTS
Win 2k

[KoOk]

Does your computer only do this in max payne ??
and if so do have all the Payne updates, I believe there is two 1.01, 1.02.

make sure you have video, agp, mobo drivers up to date

also on windows 2000 there is a setting to restart the system on
error (system error) so it may not be Payne thats doing it, just a thought.
and there should be a log of the error somewhere within the Admin tools somewhere ( havent been on 2k in a while )

If your a hardcore gamer you should use a 9x OS, 98 or ME, people dont seem to like them, but for games they are the best but when you get a random restart on them its easier to figure out what went wrong.

note: 2K is a supported os for Payne but XP isnt ?? they are pretty much the same, so it may not be totally stable ?

[mike breck]

Also try disabling any DOS drivers for your soundcard. In Windows 98 you can do this through System Configuration Utilty. You just untick any references to your soundcard. I don't know how you do it in W2K though.

However, it must be said, that some games run on some systems are just like that. If it's only happening occasionaly, then you can probably live with it.
Sometimes it not worth the hassle trying to fix. Your next game will probably run without trouble.

BTW now you mentioned it - what are your CPU and mobo temps according to the bios?

[Venturer]

I have Max Payne also and have exactly the same problem. I have tried it on my friends computers and they have the same problem (5 in total). It has got to be a bug in the software.

[Xayd]

Perhaps game companies should debug their software before release! What a novel concept...

This is why I don't buy games much anymore, and when I do get a new one it's something that 10 or more people I know are playing and regularly with no issues.

The last straw for me was Sacrifice. In all areas a truly great game, possibly the best real time strategy game I've played when originality is figured in. But, it had some balance issues, so they decided to release a patch for it that fixed those for multiplayer, great!

Not so great, actually. The patch corrupted the game under Win2k, requiring you to reinstall and lose all of your saved games. There was never a response to this issue by the developers, so there will never be another penny transferred from my pocket to theirs for any future games they may produce .

In fact, I think this will be the only good thing to come from Windows XP. Game developers will be forced to develop games that run under both 98 and NT out of the box, or risk cutting their customer base in half. The world will be a better place if the game developers who drag their feet on 2000 and XP compatibility just go ahead and go bankrupt, sparing us the trouble of trying to use their half-finished games.

[cobra]

Xayd,
I could not have said it better.
When will the game developers realize many of us are way past win98, and are NEVER looking back. I buy very few games nowadays, the last ones were Max Payne, and Serious Sam, both ran fine on win2k for me, or else I would have returned them like I did with Tribes 2 (yuck, 2FPS!!!!)

[mike breck]

To be fair to the developers, I think the situation's a little more complicated than it was a few years ago. If we exclude DOS, games were made to be compatible with Wins 3.1 and Win95. Now we have people trying to play games on 95, 95SR2, 98, 98SE, ME, W2K, and XP. A veritable nightmare for any developer.

Each time Bill offered a new OS lots of gamers rushed out to buy it and then complained in suprise, yet again, that this game or that wouldn't work. Wiser gamers held on to previous version, which they knew worked, until the inevitable bugs were ironed out. In other words, they let the first flood do the public beta testing.

I've always bought games because I like gaming. And because I like gaming, I will support the developers who produce the games by buying their games. I am sure there has never been a game made that didn't cause crashes, have bugs, or be incompatible with some hardware or OSs. But that's just the way it is. Making a game is not Rocket Science - and even Rocket Science is not perfect.

If all the game developers went down the plughole tomorrow, then the world would be a duller place. It's the sheer variety and energy of all the gaming genres that keeps the gaming community alive, vibrant, and have something to argue about.