Episode 3 Problems

[Snake]

Hey

I'm having a few problems with Episode 3, mainly that the game seems very laggy in performance compared to the other episodes. The load times are longer, the sound seems messed up and the frame-rate is dropping really low. I'm running a pretty powerful computer with the latest drivers, but if I had to guess its bound to be another glitch that Vista is responsible for. I dont know if anyone else is experiencing this but any help would be appreciated.

Thanks

[Guybrush Threepwood]

The game ran fine for me in Vista, but this should probably go in Game Support.

[Snake]

Oh damn I didnt see that! My bad

[AdamG]

Yeah, it's probably Vista. It sounds like a memory leak of some kind. I don't think there's really anything that can be done about it. :/ Is it laggy from the start, or does it take awhile before it starts to slow down?

[Snake]

Well it starts up ok but it seems as soon as I go to the Casino it begins to get really bad performance-wise.

[AdamG]

It seems like other people were having the same problem with the Casino. If it's a memory leak, it must be a really big one. But I'm guessing something in Episode 3 is just poorly compatible with Vista (Which is kinda the same thing.). : / You could always minimize it when it starts getting sluggish and check task manager for memory usage. Even if it is a memory leak though, the only people that could fix it would be the programmers. But, if that is it, there are 3rd party memory managers.

[Guybrush Threepwood]

AdamG, please stop blaming Vista! I run Vista and Sam and Max Season 1 ran perfectly fine.

Although, just to cover my back... sorry if it is Vista's fault. But like I said, everything was smooth with me.

[jmm]

[Edutainment]
The main problem with games in Vista is drivers. Vista has a new architecture for drivers and building them is not as *easy* as in XP (which have 5 or so years of development already)
The other component of complaints with Vista (Security settings, popups, etc.) is mainly a configuration problem which has nothing to do with performance problems.
[/Edutainment]

So AdamG et al, stop blaming Vista, start blaming NVidia et al (specially NVidia)

BTW, if the problem is an application memory leak, it will be present in all Windows versions and if it is indeed a Vista memory leak it will be present in all the apps that use the same APIs as S&M s1e3 does.

[Guybrush Threepwood]

Originally Posted by jmm

[Edutainment]
The main problem with games in Vista is drivers. Vista has a new architecture for drivers and building them is not as *easy* as in XP (which have 5 or so years of development already)
The other component of complaints with Vista (Security settings, popups, etc.) is mainly a configuration problem which has nothing to do with performance problems.
[/Edutainment]

So AdamG et al, stop blaming Vista, start blaming NVidia et al (specially NVidia)

BTW, if the problem was an application memory leak, it would be present in all Windows versions and if it was a Vista memory leak it would be with all the apps that use the same resources as S&M s1e3 does.

The only complaint I have about Vista is the constant security pop-ups and stuff. ARGH!! I have to go about three of them to delete a file sometimes.

[AdamG]

Heh heh heh. As for the drivers, I don't recall ever not blaming Nvidia ect.

[jmm]

Originally Posted by Guybrush Threepwood

The only complaint I have about Vista is the constant security pop-ups and stuff. ARGH!! I have to go about three of them to delete a file sometimes.

You can always disable UAC and get rid of all those popups (Though you will get the "security problem" icon in the system tray)

[Guybrush Threepwood]

Originally Posted by jmm

You can always disable UAC and get rid of all those popups (Though you will get the "security problem" icon in the system tray)

Yeah, but it is needed for security and stuff... it's just over secure.

[Cyberlink420]

Season 1 playability is just about the one thing that I don't complain about in regards to Vista...

[jmm]

Check http://www.tweak-uac.com/ they have a tool to tweak UAC (I'm not sure if it is free or how good it is). The site has lots of info on UAC.

I disabled UAC completely from my system. I don't need it, but thats me -

DISCLAIMER: I DON'T ADVICE YOU TO DISABLE UAC OR ANY OTHER SECURITY FEATURE.

[dg10050]

Originally Posted by jmm

DISCLAIMER: I DON'T ADVICE YOU TO DISABLE UAC OR ANY OTHER SECURITY FEATURE.

I do. :P
Just practice safe browsing habits and use a real anti-virus (aka, not McAffee or Norton).

[Emily]

This is not a Vista issue, it's related to the buggy version of the activation software that was used to wrap episode 3. We didn't find out until it had already been released that the version of the activation software we were using had a memory leak in it.

We keep meaning to fix this, but our QA staff is very small and it keeps getting pushed for other things. It is not an issue in the disc version.

[AdamG]

Oh, I thought he was using the disc version. :/

[Snake]

Ah so it should be fixed in the disc version? Fantastic! That's all I needed to know! Now I need it to turn up...lol

[-=[The_Razgriz_Ace]=-]

Just to let you know, I use XP and I had the same problem although probably not as pronounced...it was somewhat laggy but the framerate was bareable so I didnt pay much attention to it...but I havent tried the disc version yet...will do shortly though...just to check it...