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The game keeps crashing anywhere in the game. In menus, in dialog, in cinematics.
Never twice at the same place.
Is there anything to ease the ride, it's quite rough at this moment.
No posts in this topic were marked as the solution yet. If you can help, add your reply
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Swordfishbone: Here's what worked for me: To prevent the game from crashing I use the MS DirectShow SDK CPU Grabber, which slows down the computer but apparently makes the crashes not happening anymore.
Here's the site where I found that tool: http://www.reocities.com/kulhain/ (Reocities seems to be some kind of archive for the now defunct Geocities service of Yahoo). Look for "CPU Grabber". That's the only place where I found that tool, and this is the only tool that had been mentioned in two or three other forums to fix that issue with Sanitarium. But it could be that this works with other CPU slowdown tools as well. Anyway, with this one I haven't had a single freeze up.
(posted this in another thread before, but I guess people forgive me for being repetitive)

I don't know why I didn't see this reply earlier but thanks very much.
I managed to slog through most of the game by saving every 5 minutes. It got better after a while but never went away entirely. I'll try that program when I get around to finishing the last chapter.
How I fixed this was just open a few other applications before I started playing Sanitarium... everytime I go to play the game I open mozilla firefox, msn messnger and ScummVM. It slows down your system or something like that, thus letting you play the game. I'm on the 3rd chapter and haven't had a crash since I've done that. I was also able to leave my DirectDraw acceleration and everything else on. Hope that helps.
I get these on Win7x64..but they seem to occur only when an event occurs (i.e. breaking open the school door or starting the hide n seek game in Ch. 2). Compatibility mode doesn't affect anything.
Post edited February 27, 2010 by chautemoc
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coldwater: How I fixed this was just open a few other applications before I started playing Sanitarium... everytime I go to play the game I open mozilla firefox, msn messnger and ScummVM. It slows down your system or something like that, thus letting you play the game. I'm on the 3rd chapter and haven't had a crash since I've done that. I was also able to leave my DirectDraw acceleration and everything else on. Hope that helps.

I can confirm this works best without any extra legwork. I just run a McAfee Virus Can in the background + DosBox or several applications. (My computer only uses 20% of its CPU power due it having two Quad Cores but it seems to be enough) - With this I was able to get through at least 5 or 6 chapters without any crashes.
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coldwater: How I fixed this was just open a few other applications before I started playing Sanitarium... everytime I go to play the game I open mozilla firefox, msn messnger and ScummVM. It slows down your system or something like that, thus letting you play the game. I'm on the 3rd chapter and haven't had a crash since I've done that. I was also able to leave my DirectDraw acceleration and everything else on. Hope that helps.
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Margaret7321: I can confirm this works best without any extra legwork. I just run a McAfee Virus Can in the background + DosBox or several applications. (My computer only uses 20% of its CPU power due it having two Quad Cores but it seems to be enough) - With this I was able to get through at least 5 or 6 chapters without any crashes.

Will this fix work with Win XP? Cuz I'm getting the crashes every 5 mins (especially during cut scenes or zoom ins) too.
@requin Yes im using a windows xp. Same thing happened (crashes every 5 mins or less) until I opened up a few applications.
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coldwater: @requin Yes im using a windows xp. Same thing happened (crashes every 5 mins or less) until I opened up a few applications.

THanks for replying, I'm going to try this. Will post how well it works (or not).
Ok, opening other applications actually made it worse. It crashed the moment I opened it.
However, I messed around with the resolution and compatibility settings and it seems to be working a bit better now, doesn't crash quite as much (but still does, so I still save all the time). Win 98 256, 640x480 I think is how I'm running it.
At any rate, I've been able to play, so I'm dealing with the crashes. Just started level 4...it's fun.
Post edited March 21, 2010 by requin
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chautemoc: I get these on Win7x64..but they seem to occur only when an event occurs (i.e. breaking open the school door or starting the hide n seek game in Ch. 2). Compatibility mode doesn't affect anything.

I'm living this problem too and I tried the other solutions; what can we do?
BTW, LOVE gog.com, you made my year !!
Hi,
I posted this in another similar thread, but here's what worked for me...
I'm on Windows 7, with a dual core + HT processor.
I had continuous random crashes, especially when a scene was about to change or a video to be played.
This is what worked for me:
- I downloaded the Microsoft utility imagecfg.exe . It was in some old resource kit, but you can still find it around the web.
- From an administrator command prompt, I changed to the Sanitarium directory (C:\Program Files\GOG.com\Sanitarium for me)
- I run this command:
imagecfg -a 0x1 sntrm.exe
Everything is now OK. I managed to play the game to completion.
The effect of the command is forcing the program to run on only one core (process affinity), and this is a known measure for old programs acting up in a multi-core environment. The improvement some people see when running multiple applications together with Sanitarium is most probably due to this.
The .exe header is permanently modified, so you need to do this only once.
I hope this can help someone else!
Two notes:
Be sure to download the utility from a trusted site, and scan it!
To get an administrator prompt in W7/Vista hit the Win key, write "cmd" in the search box in start menu, right click on "cmd.exe" icon and choose "Run asAdministrator"
Post edited April 20, 2010 by newbrain
Hi guys,
Here's a fix that's worked for me.
There's a 'Performance' slider in the in-game settings accessible from the main menu. Turn that thing down to the minimum, so that it tells you the game might run slower. That's it.
I run it on WinXP and was experiencing crashes all the time. Managed to get to Chapter 8 this way, but the Warrior's Rite cut-scene just came up with a crash every time. Tried all the various compatibility settings, DirectDraw - those didn't work. In the end it was as simple as the above Performance adjustment. Please note: I also still have 256 colours and Disable Visual Themes ticked in the compatibility tab of sntrm.exe (but not 'Run in compatibility'), but I doubt if these make any difference. Just couldn't be bothered to test after all the fun with fixing the crash.
Hope it helps some of you.
My PC is a Dell Inspiron with integrated Intel graphics and WinXP SP3.
Have you tried installing the v101 bug fix patch? I was having random crashes and gfx errors all the time until i installed the patch. Now all is well and ive nearly finished it. The patch isnt very big & im not sure what it actually does, But it worked for me. Try it. I uploaded it to Megaupload
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=1M9RDYID
Post edited August 31, 2010 by Solo187
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BSz: There's a 'Performance' slider in the in-game settings accessible from the main menu. Turn that thing down to the minimum, so that it tells you the game might run slower. That's it.
Thank you! Works great on Win7 x64 with a 3-core Phenom. For the record, I also ticked off 256-color mode and Disable Visual Themes on the compatibility tab.

I was getting a crash in the first scene, always at the point where you slide down the power cable. I got past it with compatibility mode, but then I just kept getting random crashes. Since I changed that performance setting, it hasn't crashed once.

It does seem to pause for a couple of seconds now and then (usually when performing an action), but I can live with that. Also had one occurrence so far of a weird bug that minimized the game, and I couldn't keep it restored! I eventually got it to stay in the game by being quick with the <Esc> key to drop it to the menu. So far it hasn't happened again.