So I've run into a distracting graphical glitch, in which the animation for the main character is choppy/jittery instead of smooth when he's running about the game world. Basically his coat (and possibly all of him) just sort of seems to shift back and forth a bit with each frame so it's position flickers a bit. I'm not having general performance issues and I've already done the config.ini fix. My computer is a laptop with an i3-330m processor and accompanying integrated intel gpu. Does anyone know how to solve this problem? If not, is anyone else experiencing it? I'm hoping to get a new computer in a few months, so if it's just something funky about my current rig that can't be fixed, I'll just play the game then. Thanks!

I get the same glitch here in my machine. I'm running it in an AMD FX6100 with a Nvidia 560GTX Graphics card. It's kinda annoying =(

There are more things with this bug. The game itself starting to lag after a while.
I got all fixed by OS rebooting.

I started to develop this issue a few hours into the game, and I couldn't make the issue disappear through restarting my PC (I even tried a fresh installation of the game to no avail). Then I tried running the game using my integrated graphics processor (as opposed to my Nvida 320m) and voila! problem solved!

Since idontknowscurvy and rezenderay are also using Nvida cards I'm guessing that this is the source of the problem. Unfortunately, I started having performance issues using integrated graphics, but luckily it looks like you can use your Nvidia processor as long as you run anox in Windows 98 compatibility mode and this glitch won't reappear. I've been playing for the last couple of hours and the animations have all been normal so far.

My game is very jittery as well, using an nVidia chipset. The game is obviously rendering a very high amount of frames per second, but the animations and camera movements are anything but smooth. I managed to alleviate the problem somewhat by using nVidia Inspector (a 3rd party application) to force a hidden FPS Limiter setting. I set it to 30fps and it made the camera movement smooth and nice, though player characters are still warping about in that unsightly jittery fashion while running. While not pretty, it makes the game and the cinematics playable. Just don't look at the back of your head while running, I guess. Anything fast moving gets wierd, but characters walking about and the cinematics look like they should.

I was actually using an integrated card and having that problem. Since posting this I got a new PC, which may fix the problem. Honestly haven't tried it yet, though.

I found a possible solution! I had to disable Intel Speedstep, a CPU function that dynamically adjusts the CPU clock speed depending on work load. With it disabled, your CPU will run at a fixed rate which seems to remove all camera and character jitter in Anachronox. The problem seems to have nothing to do with nVidia chipsets, but is entirely a CPU related issue in that an unstable clock speed sees the game being computed erratically, speeding some parts up excessively in very quick and frequent bursts.

I just happened to remember this fix while browsing my BIOS settings to fix another problem. Years ago I was trying to prevent IO Interactive's Freedom Fighters from running at hyper speed (the game seemingly ran 100-1000 times too fast!) which I eventually managed to fix by disabling Intel Speedstep.

If anyone is having trouble with Anachronox or other games running at erratic and excessive speeds and you are using an Intel chipset, have a look and see if you're using Speedstep and try disabling it. I've had two Intel rigs where this setting is found in the BIOS menu.

Protip right here folks!

I can finally play the game without running and stuttering all over the place like an idiot.

Yeeesss!!! Finally a real solution!!! It worked!! Tks a lot!

Thank you as well Wanbler! I just tried to do the fighting tutorial, but after the first part was finished I found my character outside of the map/level and falling into the.. green.. funky.. abyss. But now with the Vsync forced everything seem to be smooth now =]

Just wish I didn't have to suffer with this mouse smoothing now, but thank god the combat is turn based.

Glad to know I wasn't the only one who had that issue. Move enough and you can land on the ceiling of the level. :)

Will someone please explain exactly how this is done so that it only applies to this specific game and won't interfere with anything else?

If you have an ATI card:

You need to open your Catalyst Control Center (you can access this by right-clicking your desktop, and finding the appropriate option on the menu that appears) and then look for the "3D application settings" button (usually listed under "gaming"). There should be options for lots of things, including forcing Vsync. I forget the EXACT sequence here, but I think you simply choose to force Vsync and then hit the "save profile" button. It will ask you which .exe file you want to apply it to. Go find the .exe for Anachronox and choose it. Should now force vsync every time you run Anachronox, but not for other games. If my instructions here aren't exactly right, you should still be able to figure it out from that screen in the Catalyst Control Center.

NOTE: You may have to switch Catalyst Control Center to "Advanced" mode to access these options.

If you have an Nvidia card:

Open the Nvidia Control Panel (same method as for ATI). Go to "Manage 3D Settings". In the window that appears, click on the "Program Settings" tab instead of the "Global Settings" tab. At the top it will say "Select a program to Customize". Hit the "add" button, find the .exe file for Anachronox, and choose it. Then, scroll down in the box below until you see vsync and switch it to be always on. Then hit "apply". Anachronox should now force vsync every time it runs, while other games will not.

Alternatively, you can force vsync globally (i.e., for every game) and then turn it off when you play other games. But that is annoying.

To check if it works: the best way is to get the free version of FRAPS and use it to get the frames-per-second overlay while playing Anachronox. With vsync on it should never go higher than 60, with it off it can go to very high numbers (too high for your monitor to display).

Thank you so much for the guide Waltorious (+1) - it's much appreciated. :)

Wow, that made a world of difference; everything runs so smoothly now, the camera movements during battles and the like are up to speed and the characters don't get stuck as often. That just made my day!

As recommended I checked the fps with FRAPS and before activating the vsync the average was approximately 600.