Game constantly freezing for 5 seconds at a time.

[cardician]

The initial problem was fixed, now I'm having another error that I've detailed in my other response to this thread.

[Kevin]

Do you have some other app (like an IM client or something) running that might be trying to get your attention while your playing?

[cardician]

I was running google desktop and I tried closing that and it seems to have helped with that issue. Now I'm experiencing an even worse issues. I'll list it here to see if I get a response, but if not I'll start another thread.

Whats happening now is that the game is constantly locking up for about 5-10 seconds and then it will continue. I'll be playing and the game will just completely freeze for 5 seconds or so. Then it just starts back up again. At first it was just every once in awhile but then it starts occurring so frequently that its impossible to play and makes it hard to access the menu and quit. Any thoughts?

This really sucks considering it seems like such a great game so far.

[Kevin]

You can try using "Laptop Mode". This will make the game use less CPU (and therfore less battery on your notebook) and that might free up whatever is choking on your machine.

[cardician]

You can try using "Laptop Mode". This will make the game use less CPU (and therfore less battery on your notebook) and that might free up whatever is choking on your machine.

Well I'm playing on a desktop. Sorry, I guess I removed my system specs when I edited the post:

AMD 64 3400
1gig ram
GeForce 6800 GT 256mb ram
Windows XP SP2

I highly doubt the game is coming close to using up my CPU or anything else. I tried Laptop mode and the problem still occurrs. Any other thoughts?

[Kevin]

Your machine certainly should run the game, it's a nice machine. Make sure you're not running any other applications, and perhaps try running in a window and watching the task manager to see if you can tell what other application is using CPU or memory. It seems like some other process is blocking the game periodically.

[cardician]

Your machine certainly should run the game, it's a nice machine. Make sure you're not running any other applications, and perhaps try running in a window and watching the task manager to see if you can tell what other application is using CPU or memory. It seems like some other process is blocking the game periodically.

Wow, this is quite maddening. I tried your suggestion and have two things to say. First, there are no other processes taking any of my cpu resources, just Bone. So its definitely an issue with the game of some sort. Second, I quit the game after having switched to Window mode, and now, the game won't start up again. I receive an error:

Error: Access violation at 0x10083DAA (tried to read fro 0x00000000), program terminated.

This is fantastic! I see that you apparently knew of this problem too as you'd talked about it in another thread. So now not only can I not play the game without it freezing, but I have to reinstall the game and start over from the beginning because the game won't even start after I switched to window mode!

Needless to say this is quite frustrating and quickly making me want to stop playing. I hope that the new version you guys are supposedly releasing soon will fix some problems, otherwise I'd like to receive a refund since this product is unplayable.

Update: I downloaded the "new" version and installed it. While I was happy to see that my saved games were still around, the problems still remain as well. Game still constantly freezing making it entirely unplayable. Guess thats just my luck.

[Kevin]

The new version is live (just went live). It's version 1.0.1. It will fix the starting in a window bug, but no changes have been made should make a difference on the "choking". I've run the game on a system very similar to yours with no poblems. Try downloading the new installer and see if that helps.

[cardician]

The new version is live (just went live). It's version 1.0.1. It will fix the starting in a window bug, but no changes have been made should make a difference on the "choking". I've run the game on a system very similar to yours with no poblems. Try downloading the new installer and see if that helps.

I uninstalled the game and reinstalled it. No change with the choking. Guess I'm just screwed. Thanks anyway.

[Huyderman]

I'm having the same problem. Currently, it's the only thing keeping me from buying the full version.
I've got:
Dual AMD Athlon MP 1.5ghz
1 gb ram
GeForce4 Ti 4600
Windows XP SP2

EDIT: I tried running the demo again, this time with fewer background apps. There was less freezes this time. But the freezes didn't start until I had been playing a little, so it might just be because I played through the demo faster this time.
I tried check the performance under the task manager, and it never went over 50-60%, altough one of the cpu's kept at about 80%, and might have peaked witouht me noticing.

[Kane]

I also have the same issue. I heard of this same problem happening with Everquest 2. It was narrowed down to a fault with the 6800GT, and nvidia are supposed to be releasing a fix in their next patch. Perhaps this problem is also resident on the ti4200.

It's the same symptoms, at least. Possibly the solution is the same too

[Terry]

I believe that you are correct about it being a driver issue. I have seen many threads, on various froms, from several different publishers all describing this problem. The two solutions which seemd to have had some success involve either finding an older version of the video driver or going directly to the manufacturer website and manualy installing the new video drivers along with the corresponding desktop monitors. For myself, I was experiencing these issues until I also installed the Nvidia Settings display moniter. While it is another background app it seems that the newer drivers do not work correctly without it on all systems. The other two options that may be helpful would be to install 3rd party free drivers(This helped me once with my old ATI card as it seems the manufacturers are in no hurry to make sure the old cards are supported), or it may be due to an unclean registry. Lastly it could be a registry issue. If your registry has too many errors in it you can experience some crazy performance issues.

[laffer]

I have this problem too and it's driving me insane. It doesn't seem to happen in the demo of Bone episode 2 though.
Is there still no way to fix this? I want to replay it before playing episode 2 :(

[Emily]

Did you try running the game in laptop mode? Try it even if you're not using a laptop.

[laffer]

Tried it, didn't help.

This doesn't happen with Bone ep.2 either.. strange eh?

Anyway, I also tried rolling back my drivers.. didn't work either.
I also removed all Bone related stuff I could find in my registry and reinstalled it but that didn't help as well.

I've tried shutting down every other program running in the background, but it doesn't help at all.

I also tried running it in offline mode (the demo of course, I can't lauch the game in offline mode without manually entering a code I never got.. check my other thread) but that didn't help either.

It's totally unplayable in its current state.. it's not fun at all to play a game that locks up every minute or less :(

[Emily]

Laffer, please send an email to support@telltalegames.com describing the problem you're having. Include your system specs. It shouldn't be running like that.

[laffer]

I'll do that. But just in case anyone with a solution stumbles over this thread, here are my specs :

Intel Pentium 4 3,4 Ghz
1 GIG DDR ram
Nvidia Geforce FX 5500 ( [:-&] )

[jp-30]

I've had this issue with some other game, and I think it was due to my virus checker interrupting things continually. Maybe disconnect from the net, and try running the game with your virus checker / firewall off and see if that has any effect.

If so, then there are probably some tweaks / settting in your anti-virus software that can be changed so as not to interfere with Bone.

[Emily]

Good point about the virus scanner. Another thing that can cause games to freeze this way is spyware. Have you run Spybot and AdAware lately?

[laffer]

I tried turning off my virus killer and disabling my firewall but it didn't help.
It's been a while since I scanned my PC for spyware, I'll try that now.

[laffer]

I had some spyware but removing it didn't seem to help.. oh well it was due time for that anyway.

But I still have the same problem :(

Edit - I tried killing every running process Windows would allow (and I mean everything, I don't even have sound now) and tried running Bone. There was an error message that it couldn't initialize sound or something (of course) but the game still ran.. but the bug is still there even with so to speak no processes running in the background (only critical system processes that Windows won't allow me to end).

[Cleggster]

I might have the same problem. But first.

Windows XP
AMD 64 3500
1gig ram
Nvidea 6800 128


So I should not be having problems there. And I don't have any antivirus software running.

I just downloaded the demo to check out, but as soon as I run it I can hear my hard drive start to clunk. Basicly there is a clunk like the spindle is resetting, followed by the platter getting back up to speed. It does this constantly. So when the platter start running, the whole games freezes. And 5 seconds is roughly how long it takes. And it dosn't matter what I'm doing in the game. I could be staring at the screen eating a sandwich or clicking on everything. I had to stop playing because this really dosn't sound healthy for my hard drive. And it's new. Less then 4 months old. And I should point out that it only does this when running the Sam and Max demo.

So does this seem like the problem that other people are having? Because I am and old fan of Sam and Max, but I can't buy a game that is going to damage my hard drive. I hope that this information proves helpful to someone.