TROUBLESHOOTING

This section contains important information about possible problems that may occur with Max Payne and different hardware configurations.

If solutions to the problem you are seeing can't be found below, please see:

1. Take2 Max Payne Support Pages
2. 3D Realms Max Payne Support Pages (latest version of this readme)
3. 3D Realms Max Payne Forums

Improving Compatibility

Max Payne has been extensively tested in our compatibility labs. However, due to the ever changing PC specifications in the market, we cannot guarantee full compatibility with all systems. Here are some tips to improve compatibility in case you have problems:

  1. Update your video, sound card and motherboard drivers with the latest versions available from your hardware manufacturer. (Using Beta drivers is not recommended)
  2. Install the latest service packs for your operating system. They are available from Windows Update.
  3. We recommend that you disable virus checkers, screen savers, on-line chat programs (such as ICQ), music players (such as Winamp or Media Player) and generally close all background applications during installation and operation of the game.
  4. Verify you have at least 200 MB of free hard drive space for the Windows swap file after the installation of the game.
  5. Do not overclock your CPU or video card. Overclocking may cause system instability.
  6. Set your desktop to a 16-bit color mode.
  7. Do not play on a system that is below the minimum specification.
  8. Restart the PC just before starting Max Payne.

Installation & CD Troubleshooting

Generic Information
1. Max Payne requires Administrator privileges to install or uninstall on Windows 2000 and Windows XP.

2. 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.

3. If you have done the minimum install (not recommended) and 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.

Q: I get a "The InstallShield Engine (iKernel.exe) could not be installed" error message?
A complete list of possible causes and ways to correct the problem is at Installshield Knowledge Base article Q104985.

Q: I get a CRC error during installation OR
Q: The system crashes during the installation with the error "the file c:\program files\max payne\x_level2.ras doesn't match the file in the setup's cab file. The medium from which you are running the setup may be corrupted: contact your software vendor."
Try disabling DMA on your CD-ROM drive. Here is how:

  1. Go to Start\Settings\Control Panel
  2. Double-click the System icon in the System Properties dialog box.
  3. Select the Device Manager tab. Click the + plus sign next to the cd-rom icon.
  4. Double-click the icon for your cd-rom drive.
  5. Click the Settings tab and de-select the DMA check box in the Options panel. Click Ok twice.
  6. You probably will have to restart your computer after doing this.

For the CRC errors, alternate option is to mark down the file names which have CRC errors, click Ignore during installation and copy the files manually from the CD-ROM to the game folder on your hard drive.

Q: I'm getting an R_MemoryFile error
You may need to re-install the game, doing a full install (the 830MB option). You can also try deleting the 3 x_level.ras files from the Max Payne folder on your hard drive and copying them back to the same location manually from the CD-ROM. If neither of these helps, disable the DMA (see above) from your CD-ROM drive and re-install the game (again with the Full Install option).

Q: Max Payne never makes it beyond the splash screen
The Tech Support Department has had success having people uninstall their cd-burning software (Nero Imager in particular), drivers and copy protection decryptors such as Daemon Tools and Unsafe Disc. Please try this as it has worked for some. An alternate option is to try to use a slower DVD-ROM, CD-ROM or CD-RW drive if possible.

Q: Max Payne crashes upon exiting
In your Control Panel, Double-click on Multimedia icon. Click the Advanced Properties button for both Playback and Recording devices and change both to "Game Compatible". Reduce the hardware acceleration for your soundcard to none.

Sound and Input Troubleshooting

Q: I'm having problems with the "au30wave/asp4ware" VXD BSO sounds.
Go to Control Panel, then double-click on "Aureal Vortex Audio". On the first tab, there is a check box for disabling 3d hardware audio. Make sure that this box is checked.

Q: I am experiencing mouse lag (i.e. the screen lags behind my mouse movement). This happens when the graphics card renders too many frames in advance. Try upgrading your graphics card drivers or setting VSync on in your display driver control panel.

Q: I am experiencing sound cutoff / stuttering.
Try to increase the amount of sound channels in Max Payne Options dialog.

Aureal Vortex 2 based sound cards such as Diamond MonsterSound MX300 may not work properly with the game, especially with Windows 2000. Unfortunately Aureal never finalized its drivers for this sound card, and now the company does not exist anymore. Possible behaviors are random crashes, sound may start cutting off or graphic novels may not have any voice-overs. A restart of the PC will solve the problem temporarily.

Joysticks: Max Payne does not directly support joysticks. However, some joystick devices such as Microsoft Sidewinder Dual Strike can be configured from the joysticks' control panel to work with Max Payne by creating a custom profile.

Mice: The extra buttons on some mice (Razer Boomslang and Logitech mice) may not be configurable as game controls from in-game menus if the manufacturers' driver software (such as Logitech MouseWare) is installed. Please configure the desired keys from the mouse control panel or uninstall the mouse software.

Other Troubleshooting
Max Payne uses your "My Documents" folder for saved games. If you log in with a different user name (account) under Windows 2000 or XP, your save games may not be available. Please log in with the same account you last used when playing.

By default, Task Switching is disabled in Max Payne (i.e. you can't use Alt-Tab to switch back to Windows during game play. If you wish to enable task switching (not recommended), the setting is available in the Options menu.

Graphics Cards

Drivers
You should first upgrade the latest drivers to your graphics card. Here is a list of links to a few of the most common graphics card manufacturers' web sites:

Max Payne requires a DirectX 8 compatible 3D accelerator. If there are no DirectX 8 compatible drivers for your graphics card, it is still possible that Max Payne will run, but we can not guarantee functionality.

Common Graphics Card Problems
If you get an error message saying "Max Payne requires a DirectX 8 compatible graphics card", but you have a supported 3D accelerator, latest drivers and DirectX 8 installed, check that your Direct3D works in other games, or by using "DXDiag" application that comes with your system (Run->dxdiag; select Display tab, click on "Test Direct3D". You should get a "Direct3D test results: All tests were successful." message). If Direct3D does not work, there is something wrong in your system configuration. We recommend you reinstall latest DirectX and graphics card drivers and try again. If you still can't start Max Payne, make sure your desktop is in 16-bit color mode.

If some textures seem to be missing, please lower the texture color depth and detail settings. Also increasing AGP Aperture Size to 128MB in your BIOS may help.

If the game crashes randomly on a Windows 2000 computer that has a motherboard with a VIA chipset, please install Windows 2000 Service Pack 2 or later (more information).

The screen may flash white during the loading of the game or a level. This is a driver texture management problem, but may not affect game play. Upgrading drivers may help.

If you have multiple display adapters in your PC, Max Payne may not display all of them in the startup dialog. Primary display adapter should always be displayed and we recommend it is used for game play.

If you have problems with Max Payne and Windows XP, please upgrade your display drivers, as they may not be very mature at the time the operating system is released.

Full Scene Anti-Aliasing (FSAA) is in theory supported by 3dfx Voodoo5, NVIDIA GeForce cards, ATI Radeons and ST/PowerVR KYRO. Still, the FSAA setting may not be selectable from the Options menu, may not work or may cause visual artifacts or otherwise strange behavior in the game. We have seen:

  • Screen flashing in different ways
  • Only partial screen is rendered
  • Out of video memory errors
  • FSAA does not get enabled even though it's selected

These are all driver problems. Possible solutions are:

  • Update display drivers
  • Enable "Application Preference" in display driver's FSAA control panel
  • Lower resolution and/or FSAA setting in Max Payne

If the above do not work, enable FSAA from driver's control panel or do not use FSAA.
Note: FSAA will significantly reduce performance in most cases!

If the game crashes when loading a level, this is most probably because of a texture management problem in the driver. We recommend that you downgrade your texture color depth, detail settings and/or resolution and screen buffering mode.

If you are running in high resolutions or with FSAA enabled and experience random freezing with the game, please lower your resolution and/or disable FSAA. Many 3D accelerators simply run out of resources when running the game in high resolution.

3dfx graphics cards
Voodoo3: If you get a "Insufficient Video Memory" error, make sure you have Double Buffering selected from the Options menu. Triple Buffering may not work.
Graphic novels will look blurred as Voodoo3 supports only 256x256 resolution textures.

Voodoo5: The screen may flicker with Triple Buffering, thus it is recommended that double buffering is used with Voodoo5. Make sure you have Double Buffering selected from the Options menu.

ATI graphics cards
General: ATI Radeon based cards don't support the in-game Gamma control. You should adjust gamma from ATI Radeon's display driver control panel if needed.

People have experienced problems with the Windows 9x driver version 4.13.7075. Please upgrade your drivers if you have this version.

Radeon/Radeon DDR: We recommend that the D3D Hardware T&L setting is used. If running with Software T&L, please see Radeon VE problems below.

Radeon VE: In Windows 9x/ME there may be some visual problems with weapon and object textures, or some objects / characters may occasionally disappear partly or in full. We recommend updating to latest ATI drivers to see if this driver problem has been solved.

Save games may have a black screen instead of a screen shot of the save game position. This is a display driver issue and we recommend updating to latest drivers to see if this problem has been solved.

ST/PowerVR KYRO graphics cards
There may be some screen corruption in some locations of the game environment. We recommend updating to latest drivers to see if this problem has been solved.

Contact Technical Support

Technical support for Max Payne is provided by Talonsoft.

If the Max Payne manual or this troubleshooting information did not solve your problem, please visit http://www.talonsoft.com for up to date troubleshooting information.

If you still experience problems with Max Payne, feel free to contact technical support by:

  • Telephone: (410) 933-9191. Technical support operating hours are 9am to 5pm EST, Monday - Friday.
  • E-mail: support@talonsoft.com