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Psychonauts locks PC on starting...

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 Chieftain
08-21-2005, 5:37 AM
#1
I'm having a problem here which is doing my head in. People keep going on about how amazing this game is, so I had it imported (I'm in the UK) only to find out I can't even load the flipping game! Problem as follows:

It all install absolutely fine, no problems. It's when I try to load the game, the cursor turns to an egg-timer then the whole PC just locks up - this is still at WinXP desktop. It doesn't get to any type of splash screen or anything, just a little bit of HD activity, then the egg-timer, then lock... the PC then requires a reboot as ctrl, alt & del does nothing.

I have tried many different things, loads of different graphics settings, turning on / off settings I've never touched before, tried installing it to the defauly directory rather than my dedicated games drive, all of my drivers are up-to-date. My system is as follows:

ASUS A7N8X-E Deluxe
Athlon XP2800+ (o/c to 3200+)
1gb PC3200 RAM
XFX GeforceFX 5900XT (o/c to 5950Ultra)

It's 100% stable, BF2 running like a dream. I consider myself a pretty experienced gamer and techie, but this has got me completely stumped. Has anyone else experienced this problem? Any ideas from anyone?

Thanks for your help in advance,
Tim
 sanberg
02-27-2007, 7:09 PM
#2
bumping a (very) old and as of yet unreplied thread may not the most effective means of getting a solution, but so far, only the OP has come close to an accurate description of this problem.

I have recently saved a copy of Psychonauts from the discount bin and installed it as soon as i got home. However, when i start the game, i get a black screen with an hourglass cursor. Then the trouble starts: i can hear sound as (i assume) the Double Fine Productions logo and the intro are played and eventually the game starts, but i can only see the black screen...

I have downloaded the most recent patch i could find, updated all my drivers and have dug through as many forums and support sites as i could find, but as of yet, a solution is lacking.

Please help.
 martmeister
02-27-2007, 8:25 PM
#3
not sure if this helps:
Go to your task manager and see what's running. I've found that some anti-spyware programs suck the hell out of resources and want your undivided (or at least on the desktop) attention. Try them one by one and Psychonauts should eventually work.

To see different startup programs (http://www.sysinfo.org/startuplist.php)

I found this one useful to check out processes (http://www.processlibrary.com/)

......this all assumes you're playing on WinXP.
You may have to reinstall the game. I had problems with Oblivion starting up properly and eventually resigned to reinstalling it (yay! for it saving to another directory and keeping my mods!)
 sanberg
02-28-2007, 7:06 AM
#4
thanks for the reply, i'll go see if i can get the game to work with what you suggested.
 martmeister
02-28-2007, 8:03 AM
#5
sure anytime.
 sanberg
02-28-2007, 9:56 AM
#6
Sadly, nothing changed. I can still hear the game but i'm only faced with a black screen, reinstalled it three times to be sure, shut down all other programs with the task manager, even tried to run Psychonauts in windows 95/98/2000/NT compatiblity modes. tried alt-tabbing in and out, tried to get it to run in windowed mode. But nothing seems to be working. i'm close to giving up.

As for system specs:
Windows XP Pro
Asus Motherboard A8R-MVP
AMD Athlon 64 3700+, MMX, 3DNow, ~2.2 GHz
1024MB RAM
Sapphire VGA Radeon X1900 XT 512 MB
 martmeister
03-01-2007, 8:38 AM
#7
Errr, one thing I had to do with an old game called Fallout and Fallout 2 back when I had a Win2K system was to do the msconfig, Startup tab, (remember current settings), disable all, restart then see if it runs. If it runs, then there's a process causing conflict.
Have it to Run in compatibility mode for a lower Win? <--Don't know about that one, since Psy seems like an XP-only game.
Make sure it installs and runs fine on another system (friends, family, coworkers...).

This one here is essentially your last resort and I wouldn't use it unless other programs aren't running properly: Clean install of Windows.
 sanberg
03-04-2007, 7:32 AM
#8
the compatibliity modes has had it's uses in the past, and did have a minor effect, but it did not do much. Tried the MSconfig thing, still nothing, i think there might be some driver i'm missing, or a driver that i have that is conflicting. anywho, reinstalling windows probably won't have much of an impact since i did that about 3 weeks ago, don't think much could have changed since then.
i surrender, the wonderfull world of personal computers has done it again.

Guess i'll just wait till Psy gets its backwards compatibility for the 360 and buy the xbox version -_-'
 Smon
03-04-2007, 7:51 AM
#9
the compatibliity modes has had it's uses in the past, and did have a minor effect, but it did not do much. Tried the MSconfig thing, still nothing, i think there might be some driver i'm missing, or a driver that i have that is conflicting. anywho, reinstalling windows probably won't have much of an impact since i did that about 3 weeks ago, don't think much could have changed since then.
i surrender, the wonderfull world of personal computers has done it again.

Guess i'll just wait till Psy gets its backwards compatibility for the 360 and buy the xbox version -_-'
http://www.godmodeonline.com/comics/gm20061218.jpg)
It's there. GO BUY HURRY C'MON GO GET IT HURRY GAH GO YOU DAH OH OH NO... you missed it.
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