Resonance Game Technical Support

[Advgamer]

Hi,

Yesterday, I bought the Resonance adventure game from the Steam online store.

However, after I downloaded and installed the Resonance game, it always freezes and hangs up at the main title screen.

I emailed Wad Jet Eye Games - the developer of Resonance for technical support and they suggested some solutions for me such as changing the display video settings, but the suggested solutions did not work for me in solving the constant freezing and hanging up problem.

The developer at Wad Jet Eye Games advised me to ask for help here at Adventure Game Studio, because the Resonance game was built using the AGS game engine.

The developer at Wad Jet Eye Games thought the freezing and hanging up problem was mainly caused by the AGS game engine and not by the game settings itself.

I would greatly appreciate if anyone at Adventure Game Studio is able to help me to resolve this display issue that I'm currently having.

Thank you.

Best regards,
Advgamer

[Dave Gilbert]

Hi guys. I've exhausted my knowledge of AGS trying to help this customer, so I sent him here. Hopefully someone smarter than me can help him!

[Crimson Wizard]

Not that I have any guesses yet, but what are things that may cause problems at the title screen?
- Video. It was already told that user tried different video options though. Do I understand correct, that you tried setting different renderer too?
- Sound. Have you tried running with sound and music disabled (in setup)?
- File operations. From what I know AGS engine make autosave on start automatically. The engine version that is used for Resonance stores it in OS-dependent folder (e.g. Users/<Username>/Documents on Win7) and that should not cause problems... in theory.

Certain antiviruses may cause problems when running large-size executables.

Advgamer, I hope that's not too much to ask, but have you ever tried any other AGS games (including non-commercial ones)? If yes, did you ever had any similar problems with them?
By the way, what operating system do you run the game under?

[Advgamer]

Hi Crimson Wizard,

- I've tried setting different video settings, such as changing from Direct3D to DirectDraw and changing the game's resolutions to different resolution settings.

- I've not tried running with sound and music disabled (in setup). I'm going to try to run the game with the sound and music disabled (in setup).

- Are you suggesting that I disable my anti-virus? I will try disabling my anti-virus.

- I have not tried other AGS games, as Resonance is the very first AGS game that I have ever bought in my entire life.

- I'm running the game under the Windows 7 operating system.

Thank you very much for your help.

Best regards,
Advgamer

[Ali]

I'm on Win 7 and I think I had to run Resonance as an administrator, but I suspect you've already tried that.

[Advgamer]

Hi Crimson Wizard,

I have tried disabling the sound and music (in setup), but it did not work, as I still experienced the freezing and hanging up problem.

I have tried disabling my anti-virus, but it did not work either.

Hi Ali,

I have not tried running Resonance as an administrator.

How do I run Resonance as an administrator?

What are the list of steps that I have to take to run Resonance as an administrator?

Thank you for your help.

Best regards,
Advgamer

[Advgamer]

Hi Ali,

I tried running Resonance as an administrator by right-clicking on the Resonance desktop icon and then selecting "Run as administrator", but the game still froze and hang up.

I guess I have to try other solutions instead.

[Anian]

2 things that are most often and you probably tried:
So I'm guessing you tried running the game from Steam and from the folder directly? (should be something like Steam/steamapps/common/Resonance, try winsetup.exe and resonance.exe)

Also might try verifying the cache integrity? Maybe something didn't download properly. In steam go to Library, then in the list find Resonanace and right click and select Properties. A new windows opens, choose the Local files tab and then click on "Verify cache integrity" (it doesn't hurt if you also press on the "Defragment Cache" option after this) and wait till it's done (might seem like it stopped but just let it finish). If Steam then downloads something, that was probably the problem.

Also, a very farfetched idea that was probably mentioned as well - http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/forums/index.php?topic=44758.0 problem was solved via Virtualbox...I have no idea if this even remotely resembles the problem but still might be inspiration.

[Crimson Wizard]

To be honest I never used Steam, so I am unaware of any problems that may be related. Can be there's some networking going on? Just a random thought, may the game freeze because it's being blocked by firewall or something like that?

[Advgamer]

Hi Anian,

I have tried to run Resonance directly from its folder and I have also tried to verify the cache integrity, but these two methods did not solve the freezing and hanging up problem.

I have just downloaded and installed the VirtualBox software, but I do not know how to use it to run Resonance.

https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Downloads

I would be very happy if someone could tell me exactly how to use VirtualBox to run the Resonance game.

Thank you.

[Advgamer]

Hi Crimson Wizard,

I do not think that the game freeze is caused by a firewall blockage.

I emailed this guy who is able to run Resonance smoothly and he told me that he is running Resonance in Windows XP.

He said that Windows XP is the most stable platform for running both old and new adventure games.

Maybe Windows 7 is causing the game to freeze...

[HandsFree]

I can only run AGS games, made with an older AGS version, if I set my monitor to 16 bit colors. Have you tried that?

[Crimson Wizard]

Well, I have Win 7 x64 and I run Resonance without problems.

@HandsFree, Resonance is made using one of the latests versions of AGS, so I doubt that's the case. Those made on older engine, like Ben Jordan 8, for example, will require that indeed (my Windows switches to 16 bit on its own).

@Advgamer, two questions:
1. Have you tried running game in a window rather than a fullscreen?
2. Have you tried setting Compatibility mode (like compatibility with WinXP)?

Regarding VirtualBox. If you really want to use it same way as suggested in that thread Anian gave, you should first create a virtual drive using that program, then install Windows XP there (you should have WinXP ofcourse). Then install Resonance on that virtual WinXP.
Here I found some tutorial: http://www.ghacks.net/2009/06/15/installing-a-windows-xp-as-a-virtual-machine-on-virtualbox/

[Snarky]

I'm able to run Resonance on Windows 7, so there's no fundamental incompatibility between the game and the OS (though there are always variations between different computer setups). I would try some other AGS games (most are free); that would really help narrow down what the problem might be. See here for games to try. Maybe try the demos for Gemini Rue or Blackwell Deception as well, to see if it might be a problem with how Wadjet Eye distributes the games, somehow.

[Crimson Wizard]

it might be a problem with how Wadjet Eye distributes the games, somehow.

...Like their logo bears Pharaoh curse? 

[Snarky]

I was thinking more something to do with the installer, or possibly use of the Steam plugin. 

[Eric]

I too ran Resonance fine on Windows 7. I can't remember whether or not this was the case, but was there an installer with Resonance? Perhaps you have to run that as an administrator instead of/in addition to the game itself?

[Advgamer]

I tried Crimson Wizard's suggestion of running Resonance in Windowed, rather than full screen and running the game in 256 colours, and I managed to solve the freezing and hanging up problem.

However, even though I got Resonance running in Windowed format and in 256 colours, I could not hear any dialogue during the cutscenes and the colour was greatly distorted.

I found it really weird.

Now, I have another problem - no audio during cutscenes and the colour is messed up.

[Gilbert]

Also, try this fix. It may not fix your problem, but worth a try.

[Advgamer]

Hi Iceboty,

I tried your fix, but it did not work for me.

I'm considering downloading and installing and running Resonance on my second computer which is using Windows XP, instead of Windows 7.

Thank you for your help.

Best regards,
Advgamer