Grim Fandango

Link · **Posted:** Sat Feb 05, 2011 10:37 am

Okay, let me describe my apparently "unique" scenario.

I have a dual-core processor, I have a patched version of the game, I've even tried this imagecfg thing, and NOTHING helps, each "fix" just causes a different problem. Running in 98 Compatibility mode even with Directdraw stuff disabled. I'm using Windows XP, SP2.

My original problem was very simple: Whenever I go to the garage, the video lags and my game crashes. Funny enough this wasn't an issue with the intro video, but only the later videos.

I investigated this hyperthreading thing, tried to disable the extra CPU, turns out... I was only using a single CPU under the Task Manager "affinity" thing. So, I swapped around, and the only thing that fixed the problem was CHECKMARKING both CPU 0 & CPU 1. The videos played fine with no lag, and nothing crashed out on me. Hoorah!

Then... IT happened. With this new "fix" my Audio would now crap out on me whenever I would go into another Window, Menu, or screen or any other number of reasons apparently. At the moment of writing this, this is the "best" environment I have to play in, but I'll go on. I read up on stuff and found out if I disabled audio acceleration it might solve the problem, and I think all this did was cause the sound to be all choppy and skippy (because of hyperthreading apparently.)

So, I tried some other stuff, I tried Imagecfg to see if it'd solve my video issue, my video still lags and I still crash. My video plays fine, but I have choppy sound, if I allow my Direct Draw Acceleration to do it's thing. But, then I have the "Manny is spread all across my screen and/or flickering." issue.

Basically, there seem to be two possible things I need solved to allow me to play:

- How do I keep my sound from not disabling while having both my CPUs running GF.

or

- How do I keep my video from lagging and crashing while only using one CPU while running GF.

The ONLY thing I haven't tried right now is disabling multi-threading in my BIOS, if the option is even there. IMAGECFG is supposed to fix that problem, and the fact I was originally running it with only 1 CPU to begin with makes me believe that this isn't the problem.

Can anyone help?

UPDATE UNO: I switched to 16 bit, which was rarely mentioned in most of the threads I looked up, and the game doesn't crash now at least when running it with 3D Excel off and on a single processor. The cutscenes are EXCEPTIONALLY laggy in Windowed mode and tolerable in speed in Fullscreen (with the exception of skipping/looping audio.)

UPDATE DOS: These threads were helpful, http://www.lucasforums.com/showthread.php?t=29995, and even http://www.gameboomers.com/forum/ubb...&Number=238507. But ultimately here is the final combination of voodoo that fixed my problem:

- dxdiag with Full Sound Acceleration and 3D acceleration turned off.
- Playing in Full Screen (haven't tried windowed yet) in 16-Bit Color.
- imagecfg patched EXE file, taken from that GRIMDATA.RAR thing floating around on this forum. (This part may not be necessary as long as you set the affinity to only use 1 CPU in the Task Manager.)
- Compatibility mode is set to... Windows NT 4.0 (Service Pack 5)

Yeah, I know, that last part was random but I was desperate and trying different compatibilities and non-compatibilities, and... BOOM! It worked. I had normal sound & voice in game, I had normal sound and video speed during cutscenes, I had everything! The sound didn't even go out after messing around in the menus for a few minutes and randomly saving and watching cutscenes and other crap. Fingers crossed that this did the trick. Hopefully this will help anyone else out there struggling with this game and perhaps highlight a few things that aren't mentioned often.

UPDATE TRES: And finally, someone else mentioned "Hey, why not try DOS Box" and I looked into it and supposedly it supports Grim Fandango, and maybe it can help you bypass all this bullcrap I had to put up with for the past 4 hours. WOO! PC GAMING!

UPDATE QUATRO: Ok, well, hey that didn't work either 'cuz now it has problems booting up (complaining about a registry key and asking me to reinstall) and the game randomly crashes now, specifically after cutting open my first guy with the Scythe, he starts talking and the music starts playing and it stutters a little and then... *crash*

Forget Grim Fandango, guess I'll never get to play it now. LucasArts, please release a special edition version of this game!!!!

Either that or I put up with the laggy cutscenes and just exit the game and re-enter the game with my CPUs dual-processing and play the cutscenes. I dunno... I'm just disheartened by all the hours I've sunk into trying to play this game.

-----------------------

MEANWHILE, if you HAVE gotten to play this game. Feel free to gloat in my face about how awesome it is.

Luffay · **Joined:** Mon Jun 30, 2008 5:53 pm **Posts:** 142

No luck here as well amigo.

I haven't got THAT good of a laptop. An AMD Athlon II dual core M320 that has 2.10GHz, and 2GB RAM. But even THIS is too powerful for it.

The furthest I've gotten with it is like you, down to the garage where as soon as I activate the cutscene, the whole game crashes. That's not mentioning how Manny's shadow leaves an everlasting trail of black behind him, as if his shoes are made of messy oil.

This game just does not want to run on modern PC's. I'll try your method though Link, if it works, I'll be so friggin happy.

There was also some rumor and talk about porting Grim Fandango to iPhone and and iPad. Which would make me very sad, because that would mean I would HAVE to buy one then.

Link · **Posted:** Sat Feb 05, 2011 2:11 pm

Well, most of my methods failed. The "best" Method I've had so far is just playing in fullscreen and dealing with laggy cutscenes that so far haven't crashed the application. I may just reinstall the program too so I get rid of this registry error. I dunno yet, I probably won't fuck with this for a few weeks or longer and just play games that work right now.

Crono · **Posted:** Sat Feb 05, 2011 2:26 pm

http://www.glennsguides.com/2007/07/cla ... -grim.html

Have you looked at this and the comments? The commenter sounds like he had a similar issue to you.

Link · **Posted:** Mon Feb 07, 2011 11:04 am

I'll have to mess with the imagecfg thing, but I've already had my stuff running like this I believe, and unfortunately it wasn't a permanent fix. It might be worth one more try to reinstall the game and repatching the EXE with imagecfg. I'm 90% sure Multi-Processor PCs don't have a hyperthreading option that I could turn off and that's only a Pentium 4 thing. I'll investigate the matter though.

Crono · **Posted:** Mon Feb 07, 2011 10:07 pm

i7s and such have HyperThreading. AMD's version of a similar speed up is Hyper Transport.

Mongo · **Posted:** Tue Feb 08, 2011 11:42 am

this thread got me wondering if i could play this on my comp, so i tried very little things and had success. i installed the game using an updated setup program - http://quick.mixnmojo.com/grim-fandango-setup

then i installed the patch, launched the game using the setup program in win98 comparability and it worked, cutscenes worked fine, got down to the garage and no graphical errors, sound errors or anything.

Link · **Posted:** Tue Feb 08, 2011 12:56 pm

Mongo wrote:

this thread got me wondering if i could play this on my comp, so i tried very little things and had success. i installed the game using an updated setup program - http://quick.mixnmojo.com/grim-fandango-setup

then i installed the patch, launched the game using the setup program in win98 comparability and it worked, cutscenes worked fine, got down to the garage and no graphical errors, sound errors or anything.

Lucky ass.

Mongo · **Posted:** Tue Feb 08, 2011 1:25 pm

im using windows 7 too so i expected lots of problems, but i have an amd processor, not intel so maybe that is a factor. i really dont know

Link · **Posted:** Tue Feb 08, 2011 2:44 pm

I may try to set this up on my Fiancee's PC and see if I have any luck on hers. She has Windows Vista, so I'm also worried about that since it apparently has all those weird install issues.

Luffay · **Joined:** Mon Jun 30, 2008 5:53 pm **Posts:** 142

Mongo wrote:

this thread got me wondering if i could play this on my comp, so i tried very little things and had success. i installed the game using an updated setup program - http://quick.mixnmojo.com/grim-fandango-setup

then i installed the patch, launched the game using the setup program in win98 comparability and it worked, cutscenes worked fine, got down to the garage and no graphical errors, sound errors or anything.

Thanks dude, worked like a charm!

I also figured out how to get rid of the shadow glitch. Just turn off 'Accelerated 3D' or whatever its called in the options menu. Don't know if this affects the rest of how the game looks though.

Indomitus · **Posted:** Sat Feb 12, 2011 3:31 pm

http://residual.sourceforge.net/

Like ScummVM, but specifically for Grim Fandango and Escape from Monkey Island.

Tested it (on Windows 7) and went smoothly like a charm. Warning however, it is still in alpha so there might still be issues.

Edit
Yeah ok, there are some issues... And sadly I just noticed the emulator haven't been updated for a long while. (hopefully not abandoned)

Edit #2
It's been updated to status "completable with a few minor glitches".

Link · **Posted:** Mon May 02, 2011 9:42 am

Bump because of Indomitus' edit.

Furia · **Posted:** Thu May 05, 2011 1:43 am

I've did almost everything I could to get Grim Fandango to run on my computer. I was ripping my hairs out and I just gave up. I still have the discs so maybe if I run into an old tower someday I'll be able to play it, until then I'll be waiting for a remake.

Link · **Posted:** Thu May 12, 2011 12:20 pm

Furia wrote:

I've did almost everything I could to get Grim Fandango to run on my computer. I was ripping my hairs out and I just gave up. I still have the discs so maybe if I run into an old tower someday I'll be able to play it, until then I'll be waiting for a remake.

Glad I'm not alone. You should check out the thing Indomitus linked, they JUST updated that emulator shit in April, and supposedly it plays GF with a handful of bugs/glitches at the most.

Brakywaki · **Joined:** Fri May 29, 2009 7:22 am **Posts:** 457

Dude, just buy an old Windows 98 computer for like 20 bucks.

Seriously. I just kept a spare cheap computer around for the longest time and it's the easiest way to go.

I need a new one right now though.

Er, new old one.

Grim Fandango

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