Replying to an old message (since I just installed the game for the first time):

Do you see other movies ok in the game? If you mean the dialog by two asylum workers where one says to leave you be, I think you are not supposed to see any video there (only audio), as in you are asleep or unconscious while you hear them talking.

I could check if it is the same on my retail version (on an old PC). Windows 7 64bit on Lenovo ThinkPad T400 laptop:

At first I got an error that it can't run sntrm.exe, or somesuch, when I tried to launch the game.

But after I went to Sanitarium compatibility properties and enabled "Run as administrator" (all other compatibility options are disabled), the game seems to work fine, at least so far. In chapter 2, no other problems so far whatsoever.

Is that compatibility option supposed to be disabled by default?

More info: with the admin compatibility flag, the game worked perfectly for me without any issues... until The Mansion level. It also worked fine at first, but in some cases going to different floor crashes the game to desktop.

First was when I had found two items from the study and went to the second floor, it constantly crashed there. But then I tried enabling these compatibility options:

- compatibility mode: Windows 95
- Disable visual themes / desktop composition / display scaling
- and keeping the admin flag enabled too

it worked and I got to second floor. Not sure if it really was those settings, or if I just got lucky by trying enough many times. Not sure either why it would crash there, there was nothing special when arriving to the second floor, no movie or anything.

But quite soon after that when I got to the attic and found a quest item I am supposed to bring downstairs to someone, trying to get from the attic back to the second floor now constantly crashes the game.

Maybe I'll try to reboot the computer so that it is in a pristine state, and maybe still fiddle with the compatibility settings. Too bad, the game worked great this far, and suddenly it started behaving badly.

EDIT: And now I got past that crashing part by running sntrm.exe directly (not the shortcut with GOG launcher), without any compatibility flags (even without the admin flag). Sure I now got the rainbow color problem (which I presume the GOG launcher fixes in Windows 7; not needed in Windows 8.x I presume as it doesn't have the same color problem), but at least I could get back to the 2nd floor from the attic and save the game there.

So, yeah, now the game suddenly turned into a quite finicky beast, but at least so far I've found some workaround for each crash. I hope to get out of the Mansion level, and hopefully the game runs fine afterwards, like it did all the way up to here. Odd.

90% of the time the game ran sweet on T400 (Win7 64bit), except:

The Mansion
- Sometimes crashing the game when moving to a different floor.

The Aztec Village
- Here it kept crashing at a couple of places, like after finding the daughter, and when the rite was going to be performed.

I got by the other crashes by either changing the compatibility settings and retrying, and/or running the game through the sntrm.exe directly; except the rite crash. I didn't find a way around it. Once I got a bit past it by loading an earlier save game and I saw the rite, but then the game crashed right after that anyway.

Anyway, after that I installed the game on another Win7/64bit PC and moved the save games there, and there I had no crashing problems whatsoever with the rest of the game. I have no idea why the game works so differently on different Win7 machines.

On the latter machine, there was still some kind of glitch. When moving around the character (especially the Aztec god), he kept doing moonwalking every now and then, ie. moving "backwards", and occasionally his image was teleported to the side. Also, sometimes moving him around with the mouse felt somehow very clumsy, not always going where I wanted him to go. I don't recall seeing similar movement problems on the other PC, where it kept crashing more.

So what can I say? A bit different experiences from two different Win7/64bit PCs, and a bit different problems on each. Seems like a finicky game, but at least I was able to play it through. The first PC had ATI/AMD graphics, the latter NVidia, in case it matters.

I tried to play the game but the mouse was so seriously slow that it was impossible to play. I'm using Win 7 Ultimate 64

So if you are having issues from buying this on the resent 2014 sale. This is what I used to fix it.

First create a new shortcut (you may be able to use the goglauncher one but I have not tried),

Add to the target -window -e . This must be on the outside of the " .
see image

This may be all that you need to do but I would also check the compatibility page and make sure that Win 98 is checked and that you have run in admin.
see image

With these I have found no issues so far ,smooth playback on cut scenes, and the loading that I was getting prior is non existent.

I hope this helps these rest of you.

Please revisit your testing for Win7 64-bit on the Aztec level (Chapter 8). I'm using the following settings and I am blocked by very frequent (i.e., almost 100%) crashes when transitioning out of a cut scene:
* Target = "sntrm.exe -e"
* Shortcut compatibility settings = WinXP SP2 + 256 colors + Run as Admin + Disable visual themes
* Added to Sanitarium registry... Flags = 00 08 00 00 and ID = 14 c9 86 35 and Name = Sntrm.exe
-- this is to fix the "rainbow of colors" glitch mentioned by others that have to use sntrm.exe to play the game

Other things I've tried:
* Running "GOGLauncher.exe GOGSANITARIUM -e" : returns "sntrm.exe cannot be started"
* Adding -window tag
* Reinstalling game with elevated permissions
* Launching with "Screen resolution" desktop setting running in the background
* Running with Win95 and Win98 compatibility settings

The latest crash happens when I exit the puzzle for the water temple entrance. Olmec says, "By the Gods...?" and then I get "sntrm.exe stopped working". This previously happened just after returning the daughter to her father, as well, but I managed to reload enough times to get past it.

At this point, I'm ready to put my adventure on hold until this is fixed, as the game is currently not playable. I got very far using these settings (before configuration, I was crashing on Chapter 2 at the start of hide and seek), but none of that was with the GOGLauncher. I've been using sntrm.exe directly from the beginning, per other forum advice.

Happy to elaborate more or try anything suggested. Otherwise, I'd love to know when these stability issues could be addressed. I realize that the game works great for some, and I'm truly happy for them.

Thanks in advance!

I do not know about that crash but the -e needs to be out of the " see my image above.

Thanks for taking a look. I formatted it that way for the sake of the post (actual command line has it outside the " as recommended). The -e works correctly in my game: speeds up performance considerably. With or without it, though, still can't get past the crashes in Chapter 8.

I noticed that by playing after 23:00 pm or 00:00 pm afterwards my crashes stopped. Playing at daylight i kept crashing in almost 1-5 minutes. I changed manually windows clock settings to 00:00 pm, tried some test and no crashes at all. Still need to try this with more longer playtests, but looks promising :)

Using run in admin, windows 98 compatibility, desktop and display setting.
OS Windows 7 64bit

Jade Empire has a memory leak/stuttering issue that I recall disappeared if you rebooted, it might have to do with the time clock for some reason.

Keep posting your updates! :)

I'm about to give up, this game is unplayable in these conditions :-/

I did almost everything : changing the name of the shortcut to sntrm.exe, running in Windows 98 compatibility mode, leave the "change resolution screen" open so that I avoid the color glitch...and it still crashes.

Sometimes it's "automatically" fixed (I guess) by relaunching the game, sometimes not.

In my case, I'm stuck in the chapter 3 with the fountain puzzle, I solve it and...return to Windows (7 by the way).

Well, the clock-fix didn't work anymore on chapter 8, "Lost Village" Need to quicksave often, that's only way i can make process.

Again Steam-users get a better product:
http://steamcommunity.com/games/284050/announcements/detail/207490619422574347
:(

No point in buying older games here on GOG(!) anymore.

Disproportionate reaction. Also, judging by the comments in the link you provided the game is still unstable on many user systems on Steam.