I'm stumped. I've been trying for 3 days to get MP3 to stop crashing on loadup. Where it stops for me is... after logging into Social Club with my login/password. I can take my time in the Social Club window, switch between all the tabs, enter my login and password manually, use the "remember my id" and "remember my login details" as well as even the auto-login options. As long as I stay inside the Social Club app, everything is fine. Soon as I hit LOGIN, then the game just goes silent, black, and then drops to the desktop, with one of those Windows Error boxes that wants to send your details to Microsoft (like they could help!) The error in this box is a failure in kernel32.dll at offset 00012afb.

I'm on Windows XP SP 3, Nvidia GTX 260, 3MB RAM, Intel i7 920. I've tried EVERYTHING on the Rockstar Max Payne 3 Troubleshooting website, so please don't direct me to their site if you have no other ideas. I've tried all of the following (and more) but just to give you some idea...

disabling firewall and anti-virus
reinstalling the game twice
patching the game, launcher, and Social Club manually
alt-tab out to Task Manager and setting CPU affinity to 1
moving the game to c:\maxpayne3 and changing registry to match
run as administrator
upgrading to latest nvidia drivers
reinstalling all Visual C++ redist, DirectX and .NET frameworks from Disc 4 AND then direct from Microsoft websites
validating email with Social Club, filling out all user settings on their website
trying every single command line parameter
removed documents\rockstar\maxpayne3\graphics.xml
setting all graphics.xml settings to 0
tried different resolutions in graphics.xml
disabled .NET 4.0 services
disabled Punkbuster service
rebooting windows with ALL services and startup options turned OFF (msconfig options)
force DX9 only in graphics.xlm and command line

(sigh)

So I'm exhausted and ready to throw in the towel. I'm hoping some GOG kindred spirit may have gone through a similar gauntlet, tried something I haven't tried, and came through victorious! I'd love to hear that I will be able to play this game some day, but it's not looking likely at the moment. Thanks for looking!

Does that game use Games for windows live ?

I think I remember having a similar issue which was fixed by downloading the latest GFWL files from the microsoft website

It doesn't,It has The rockstar social club,I have it on steam also WIN XP,forgot how did i fix it

Hmm...

I definitely do remember having trouble starting this game, but it was solvable. I did it many moons ago so I can't quite remember.

Did you try launching the game from the .exe and not steam (presuming you have steam)?
Have you tried different compatibility modes?

Check the first three threads in this steam forum, they have some ideas you may not have tried. http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=1439

It's a pretty awesome game, so its worth trying to fix!

Try re installing Direct X and do a clean install of your graphics driver

Use Driver Fusion to remove any remnants etc before re installing the Nvidia drivers

http://treexy.com/products/driver-fusion

I did also have issues getting the game to run (LA Noire also thinking back), can't remember how I fixed it though.



Crazy idea, download Kernell32.dll and put it in the Max Payne 3 folder within Steam, put it in a few of the folders just to have all bases covered. Its usually the root folder though where the main exe file is located.

http://www.dll-files.com/dllindex/dll-files.shtml?kernel32

Had to do this with a few games in the past, Hitman Blood Money was one of them if my mind serves me right.

Some good ideas here, thanks!

I don't have the Steam version... just retail boxed. But I did peruse some of the Steam forums for advice. I'll try some of these ideas out tonight.

Call Rockstar and tell them to go fuck themselves. Might be worth a shot...

Although it is not for your game, this is actually from the MS community.
With a bit of luck you are having the same demand on your systems memory. Everywhere I have looked references your error identifier as memory grabbing by another program, so with some luck this could at least help.

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_xp-windows_programs/microsoft-lifecam-crashes-when-i-start-it-windows/b8611117-96dd-4e88-8f12-db026e4b3562 Please do not encourage this behavior. Rockstar might hold the PC as a second rate option for gaming because they are a little short sighted, but they do make some really nice games that I would like to play one day without the hassle of DRM everywhere.

After looking a bit on Steam's game subforum, looks like a problem with the rockstar game social club. (i could be wrong)

there are lots of complaint ... >_>

When the publisher will care to their customers , before playing dumb with their unecessary DRM.... i'm just amazed how ridiculous this situation has gone .... too far in my opinion.

Have you tried NOT signing into social club? You don't have to.

MP3, that's the most recent one, right? Does that even run in WinXP & DX9? Seems most recent games require a more up to date version of Windows or Direct X. I have no idea about this particular title, though. Been a while since I bought any "AAA" PC games, except for some older ones.

For that matter, did you ever get the game to run properly, or has this been happening right from the start?

SUCCESS!!

But in a totally round-about way. What I didn't mention before was, although the 4-disc installation went flawlessly, after the game installs it launches into an auto-update mode where it tries to install FOUR patches to the game. On my PC, this process always failed on the 3rd patch, saying the patch was "corrupted". Over and over I would launch the game and a "required download" was needed, but it would always fail on the 3rd file.

That's when I found a link at Rockstar with manual links to the patches to apply... but surprisingly they only give THREE patches on the website. What is the 4th patch? Am I missing a crucial patch?

So tonight I tried something else... installing the game to my Windows 7 laptop. The installation, patching, launching, and activation sequence went FLAWLESSLY. As it was auto-updating, I happened to notice the name of one of the patches was http://patches.rockstargames.com/prod/mp3/Game_EFIGS/MP3_Patch_Update_1_0_0_113.exe. The 4th patch was the _114.exe patch that Rockstar gives out on their website. My theory is that there is something in the 113.exe patch you ALSO need that is missing from the 114.exe patch.

But as a further test, I had actually installed the game to an external harddrive attached to my laptop. On a whim and a prayer, I plugged it into my desktop, and VOILA... the game runs like a champ on my WinXP machine!

So I think the problem was missing files all along, but I don't believe I've seen any reference to needing to install BOTH a 113.exe and a 114.exe patch, but maybe I missed it. But I don't think so, especially if you look at Rockstar's main troubleshooting page for applying manual patches...

http://support.rockstargames.com/hc/en-us/articles/200152926--Updated-4-16-13-Links-to-Max-Payne-3-patches-Social-Club-App

I haven't actually gone back to my original desktop folder and tried applying both patches yet, because I'm happy just to have copied a good installation from my laptop install and it works! But I hope to try that. It may not be the answer, but it stands to reason that a kernel32.dll (memory) problem might happen if there were files missing, or file sizes were off.

So thanks to all the posters that kept me going. I'll try the other patches in a day or two and see if that helps with my original desktop install. There are lots of people complaining about that auto-update giving them "corrupted downloads"... maybe this is a clue?

Glad you got it working!

This is one of the defining features of PC gaming, staying up all night, scouring every source, trying a 1000 solutions and then the feeling of satisfaction of finally getting your game working.

I remember the many headaches I used to have with the old games "autoexec.bat", extended memory etc. etc.

Yes, for sure! I also used to think the old DOS multi-floppy installations took forever. In particular, I remember spending about 45 minutes feeding (about a dozen?) 3.5" floppies into an old (probably) 286 to install Tex Murphy's Martian Memorandum back in "the day", and thought that was the longest I ever spent installing a game. However it wasn't a complete bore... I think the installation would put up "fun facts" about Mars, and ask you trivia questions while you waited!

But Max Payne 3 is in a whole new league for me. Forget the problems... forget the mandatory auto-patches... I think it took a solid hour for my laptop to read and install the 4 DVDs that came with MP3. Plus all the other headaches on this one in particular... I think this game will surpass Murphy in my Installation of Shame(tm) pantheon!

I was thinking about the old "Stacker" program the other day. I used to think Stacker was the single hardest-working piece of software ever written, since 100% of every program you ever played had to run through Stacker to get decompressed. I lost a lot of data to Stacker corruption once. But only once. :) Lesson learned.