Max Payne Lockup

[Fred H. Gravett]

I am running Windows XP Professional
CPU 2.9 Mhz
2 Gig Memory
Display; Nvdia GeForce FX-5500 with 256 Ram
Monitor; Sansung, SyncMaster 172n 17"

I recently purchased MAX PAYNE, it's plays for a short time then lock's up my machine tight. I also have the Fall of Max Payne and it works fine.

Any suggestions or hints as what could be the problem.?????

Fred H. Gravett
computerf@aol.com

[mylanta]

Cpu is Athlon or P4? (or Core2 duo)??
How many and where are your case fans?
I would download and install speedfan and keep an eye on temps while playing the game as that is the most common cause of such problems.
http://www.almico.com/speedfan.php

[mommalina]

:welcome: to our forum, Fred! Glad to have you aboard.
You may be the only member who is older (and I'm sure
much, much wiser) than I. .. :hail: .. I hope you, too, are
enjoying your senior years!!

We encourage and appreciate suggestions and comments
about our relatively new board. Please post them in
the KH Feedback forum for the immediate attention of
our Administrator (Smokey) and Super Moderators.

Fred, please try to also join us in our Wednesday Night
KH Computer Help Desk Paltalk chatroom, from 9 pm
EST until 12 pm. Here's how to get there:

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For more chatroom details, please check:

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In the chatroom you can receive or give one-on-one,
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-- there's enough disagreement about antivirus scanners
and motherboards. .. :)

Come join us. The camaraderie is great! .. :tea:

Lina

[athomsfere]

http://www.cpuid.com/cpuz.php
Download the latest version of CPUz.

Give us the the motherboard, CPU, RAM, and what service pack the XP is at.

You might start by double checking all the drivers and OS updates including hotfixes.

When the machine locks up do you get anything? Beeps/ reboots? Can you control+ alt+ delete the system to kill the Max Payne process?

Is there a certain spot the game usually locks up? IE step into a certain room and the game locks?

[Fred H. Gravett]

My cpu is Intel Pentium 4 CPU 2.93Ghz: Cache L1Data 16 Kbytes:
Cache L2 1024 Kbytes: Motherboard is Acer, Model G915MP:
Memory is DDR PC3200, 1024 Mbytes, 133.0 Mhz: Service Pack 2.
DirectX 9.0.

Fans, other than the Power Supply which is 480V, there is two fans on the bottom of the Harddrive, one fan on the Vieo card and a 3 inch fan in back of unit, it has a lot of breathing ar.

Max Payne just lockes the machine up tight. Nothing will move and the only salutions is restart the computer.:cheer2:

Fred

[dbarrow]

First suspect on my list is GPU or vid ram overheating.
You don't state what brand the vid card is and if it has a shroud or cooling fins.

My ATI cards have one of the worst ideas they ever came up with in cooling, a very fine fin copper heat sink and fans drawing air out through the back. The fins are so fine, they clog up about once a month.

I find when the games start locking up after playing a while it is a heat issue. Using the Ray Adams ATI Tray Tool lets you put the vid card temp display in your systray.
I know from experience that once it starts running over 135F, I can expect game dumps and lockups and it's time to clean the cooler.

ATI cards also had a problem with the fan speed, which is supposed to increase with temperature. The fans will run at idle and not crank up to full speed. The ATI Tray Tool has a setting to run the fan up to full speed and save that in your profile.

I have experienced cooling issues with so many vid cards over the years that are usually solved with additional fans right on the GPU.
3D games stress the GPU and vid ram to the max and will quickly overheat it. You don't have any problems any other time as you are not stressing the card with 3D rendering.

[athomsfere]

I have had games that locked up for so many reasons its not even funny...

Usually if only one game gives me trouble its is on the software side in my experience.

[RAK]

Hi, Fred. I was wondering: Do you need to have the game's CD in the drive to play this game? If so, it is possible that a dirty or damaged CD could cause this problem. My son has this problem often with his Playstation. Seems like the first thing that I'd check.

[dbarrow]

On most PC games, the game engine and all the necessary files are installed on the HD. The game only requires you to insert the cd to verify you own the game. There are usually no cd bypass cracks available for most of them so you don't have to insert the cd.

Playstation consoles run off the cd, therefore, scratches and dirt can be a problem.

Software issues, where particular vid settings and effects can cause a crash, are not uncommon with hardware compatibility issues however, I think a majority of crashes can be attributed to overheated vid ram as 3D will push it to the max and many vid cards do not adequately cool the vid ram.
If the game dumps with some type of memory error, it usually traces back to either vid ram overheat or mobo ram overheat.
Remember that the heavy number crunching necessary for 3D fully saturates both and the slightest deficiencies can throw a hardware error. Your mobo ram, that may perform just fine with a desktop application may unexpectedly crap when fully populated with throughput from a 3D rendering process. The only way to determine this is to run 2 instances of Prime95 to stress your ram to the max and heat it up for a full day. If the mobo ram passes the test, then you are back to issues with the vid card.
In some cases, having a side intake fan flowing directly on the vid card may be all that is needed or adding a 40mm fan to the vid card may do the trick, especially on vid cards that only have a heatsink. Just super glue the fan on top of the heatsink. I had one vid card like that where a $1 fan and four drops of glue solved the whole problem.

[RAK]

I suggested that because i did find this on a page:

Max Payne requires the game CD to be in the CD Drive that you installed from during the start of the game. Max Payne utilizes Macrovision SafeDisc to prevent software piracy, and copies of the game CD will not work.

If the drive letter of your CD-ROM changes after installing Max Payne, you will need to uninstall the game and reinstall it with the new drive letter, or manually edit the "cd.ini" file in your Max Payne installation folder.

Some CD-ROM/DVD-ROM drives may have problems reading data from the CD during game play. If you experience problems after a minimum installation when loading levels, we recommend that you uninstall Max Payne and re-install the game with the full install option.

http://www.rockstargames.com/maxpayne/support/html/troubles.htm

Of course, I neglected to ask Fred whether he had a full or minimum install.
Since Fred's other games are working fine, it could be a software problem. I see that there are patches available . Well, this is out of my field, anyway. Good luck, Fred.:)

[Fred H. Gravett]

I though that my old Max Payne disc might be bad, so I ordered a new one and by mistake got two. I do a full install of Max Payne from all three disc and the same thing happens, a Lockup. This lockup does not give any errors, just locks the machine up tight.

Max Payne gives Support@talonsoft.com as their Tech support site, but try to logon that sit. Does anyone have any or know Max Payne Tech Support
web sites. Rockstar games is no help.

My Video card is a Nivida GeForce FX-5500 with 256 Ram memory, I am told this is a gamers video card.:cheer2:

Fred

[Fred H. Gravett]

These Max Payne disks are the PC versions and yes the disk is in the cd-rom drive.

I have tried using all three Max Payne disks in both my CD-Ron and DVD drives with the same results. I cannot logon to Max Payne's tech support web site. I'm about ready to trash Max Payne.

Fred:mad:

[athomsfere]

I'm sayin' start with the drivers
http://www.nvidia.com/object/winxp_2k_93.71.html

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=0856eacb-4362-4b0d-8edd-aab15c5e04f5&displaylang=en

And the lastest drivers for your MOBO.

Get those all updated and try the game again.
If it still locks up you might try Memtest just to double check your RAM (doubt thats the problem anyway)

Also see if a program like Speedfan supports your motherboard and check the temps with that.

Lastly you could check the system log for any glitches which occur during gameplay.

[dbarrow]

Google Max Payne lockup and Max Payne freeze
Appears to be common problem
-Many- posts
Possible patches
Nforce chipset problem

[Fred H. Gravett]

Has evertbody gave up on the Max Payne lockup????? I know I have, there's no hair left. and Max Payne Tech support left town.

Support@talonsoft.com

Fred:mad: