Beyond Good & Evil on Steam, glitch city?

S

ScreamingBroccoli

2[H]4U
Joined
Aug 25, 2004
Messages
2,117
Hey guys,

I have a problem, I just bought my first download game on steam (I have previously refused to buy any game without the physical disc, and I'm starting to think I was right). I bought Beyond Good & Evil because I've heard so many good things about it, and it was only $5 on steam this week. Well, I just started playing it and it's glitchy as hell, to the point where I don't wanna play it. There are textures flickering everywhere and all kinds of crap. I have Vista 32 bit, a 9600gt w/ newest drivers so I'm pretty sure they aren't the problem. Anybody else experience this? Also, how the hell do you use a game pad with it? I can't figure out how to make my 360 pad work. I'm starting to regret this purchase, and it looks like it will be a looooooooooooong time before I buy another game off of steam (Gimme my discs damn it!)
 
Curious why you think it would be any different from a disc? The only change in experience is the installation process. Maybe the problem isn't Steam, and more so an incorrectly setup PC.
 
Have you tried reinstalling? You said this is your first game off Steam, so how do you know your client isn't corrupted if you've got nothing to compare it to?
 
First game I DLed, I have a ton of games on steam, this is just the first one I don't have the physical disc to (besided HL2:E1, cuz I had a free code w/ the 7900gt at the time).

Judging by the steam forums it's a common problem and it looks like there are some work arounds, and there is no game pad support so I have to run a program to make my game pad work.

So much for steam being so great, stream lined and easy to use.
 
I don't think that's a Steam issue, more so a game compatibility issue with Vista (now its getting attention because its readily available). Steam is just a platform for downloading games, the actual game code still belongs to the original developers.. in this case Ubisoft.

Every single one of these games was downloaded through Steam (and the ones not installed are because of recent Windows re-instal, before they were all installed), and the last issue I had was when HL2 was released and the servers were packed and no one could decrypt the game.

gameshm8.gif
 
There is some truth to that. My experience from steam has been good because they usually make sure all the games are stable in XP and Vista. Unfortunately steam doesn't do the coding for 3rd party games so all they can do is try to lean on the developers to fix the problem which is hard because its an old game and people have moved on. If you are unsatisfied I would contact steam and see if you can get a refund.
 
JohnleMVP said:
There is some truth to that. My experience from steam has been good because they usually make sure all the games are stable in XP and Vista. Unfortunately steam doesn't do the coding for 3rd party games so all they can do is try to lean on the developers to fix the problem which is hard because its an old game and people have moved on. If you are unsatisfied I would contact steam and see if you can get a refund.
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I believe this is what I'll be doing, unless it works on my thinkpad which still has XP on it. If you are gonna advertise a special deal like this, why not make sure it's not bugged out the ass first? Pretty ridiculous if you ask me, I thought the whole point of Steam was to provide a slip-streamed experience and to provide the peace of mind that this kind of issue wouldn't arise. All I have to say is that I'm disseminated with steam.
 
Developing for PC is a pretty hard Q&A process since there are so many variables when it comes to system configuration. Its entirely possible there is something unique about your system that the game doesn't vibe with. I'd guess it'll work on the XP machine, regardless, if you're unhappy I'm sure Valve will refund.
 
inotocracy said:
Developing for PC is a pretty hard Q&A process since there are so many variables when it comes to system configuration. Its entirely possible there is something unique about your system that the game doesn't vibe with. I'd guess it'll work on the XP machine, regardless, if you're unhappy I'm sure Valve will refund.
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I'm not retarded, my apartment mates are a Video Game and Design major, a Computer Science major, an IT/New Media major and I'm a Medical Informatics major (think computers/medical tech). I know all about programming and junk (personally, I hate coding).

You seem to be in the mindset that Valve/Steam can do no wrong. This is not an isolated problem, a quick google search and a look at steam's forum about the game prove that. Just a little disclaimer or something would have been nice, so I wouldn't have had to waste my money on this bugged ass game.
 
^ No, I'm in the mindset that its just a content delivery network, just another way to obtain the game, they didn't write the game so they aren't really the people to blame in this case. Do you go and complain to Best Buy or Gamestop because the game doesn't run properly on your machine? Sure you could return it, and I'd bet Valve will refund your money if you tried.

Of course people are going to complain on Steam's forum, half of those users probably think Valve created the game. The reality is they didn't, Ubisoft did. I'd guess there were the same amount of complaints on Ubisoft's forums as well.
 
Did you bother to actually do some research and see if there is a fix for it running on vista?

Just doing a quick google search came up with this as it seems to be a rather common issue attempting to play it on vista. Simply set the advanced settings as shown, maybe it'll work, maybe it won't.

2500062533_6b84bfd076.jpg


The 2 important items being to uncheck HW Vertex Processing and W Buffer
 
OH look, a fix:

"Artifacting and/or texture flickering - Go to the settings application in the game directory, click on the advanced settings tab and uncheck the box for HW Vertex Processing."

edit: ninja'd, although you can leave the rest as is and just uncheck HW Vertex Processing.
 
inotocracy said:
^ No, I'm in the mindset that its just a content delivery network, just another way to obtain the game, they didn't write the game so they aren't really the people to blame in this case.
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It is not just a content delivery system though. I don't care if they wrote the game or not, it's a flawed product that they are only not addressing, they are promoting through a sale. They tout their streamlined interface and game playing, retail stores do not.
 
Sorry bro, it IS just a content delivery network. Its for distributing games, thats it, and the one you got has a known bug.
 
Aluadan said:
Did you bother to actually do some research and see if there is a fix for it running on vista?

Just doing a quick google search came up with this as it seems to be a rather common issue attempting to play it on vista. Simply set the advanced settings as shown, maybe it'll work, maybe it won't.

2500062533_6b84bfd076.jpg
Click to expand...

inotocracy said:
OH look, a fix:

"Artifacting and/or texture flickering - Go to the settings application in the game directory, click on the advanced settings tab and uncheck the box for HW Vertex Processing."

edit: ninja'd, although you can leave the rest as is and just uncheck HW Vertex Processing.
Click to expand...

I already did this, it fixes some things but not others, you really think I was going to complain without googling it first? Some of the textures are fixed, but the cut scenes, which are apparently quite often and important to the game run at half speed, while the audio runs normal making it FUBAR.
 
inotocracy said:
Sorry bro, it IS just a content delivery network. Its for distributing games, thats it, and the one you got has a known bug.
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With this mentality you could rent movies from block buster or netflix that could have bad pressings or have something wrong with it, but shouldn't complain to them because they didn't make the movie...

I paid money to STEAM/Valve for a properly working game, something that was not delivered.
 
Seems like it was delivered just fine to me. Perhaps you should go to ubisoft and actually complain to them that their 5 year old game is failing to work properly on vista.
 
Aluadan said:
Seems like it was delivered just fine to me. Perhaps you should go to ubisoft and actually complain to them that their 5 year old game is failing to work properly on vista.
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So I guess if you get broken shit at walmart you never take it back to the store for a refund, you go straight to the manufacturer, or if you buy something in the supermarket that turns out to be stale you take it back to the farm. After all, stores and supermarkets are only goods delivery institutions.

Steam is the one advertising it, not Ubisoft. Steam sold it to me in it's broken state, not Ubisoft. The fact that the title is on Steam would lead me and most other people on this forum that the game works fine and some quality control and assurance has been run on it by steam. These are known problems and just a little disclaimer before I paid for it would have been nice.
 
Get a refund and delete Steam if you are so unhappy with it. I personally like Steam.
 
Looks like you bought a game that wasn't fully compatible with Vista. For 5 bucks none the less. Deal with it. You've spent more than 5 bucks in the time you've invested logging onto the forums and belly aching for the past number of posts.
 
ScreamingBroccoli said:
I already did this, it fixes some things but not others, you really think I was going to complain without googling it first? Some of the textures are fixed, but the cut scenes, which are apparently quite often and important to the game run at half speed, while the audio runs normal making it FUBAR.
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I've had all of these problems as well. BG&E is just a buggy game (particularly with Vista and with Nvidia cards). For audio/video sync problems, I had to force Vsync on in the control panel to keep it at 60 fps all the time. I've heard that it's a deeper problem (something with the game speed and the CPU), but forcing Vsync fixed it for the most part for me; hopefully it'll work for you.
 
Climber said:
Drama queen for the win.

:rolleyes:
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Sorry for being pissed off that something I bought doesn't work :confused:

I don't feel that it's right that they can just sell this shit when they know it's totally broken and I wanted other people to know this before they piss away money on it.
 
So what you're saying is, when you have a problem with a game picked up from say Wal-mart, you contact them about getting technical support on how to get it to work properly?
 
Joga said:
I've had all of these problems as well. BG&E is just a buggy game (particularly with Vista and with Nvidia cards). For audio/video sync problems, I had to force Vsync on in the control panel to keep it at 60 fps all the time. I've heard that it's a deeper problem (something with the game speed and the CPU), but forcing Vsync fixed it for the most part for me; hopefully it'll work for you.
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Hmm, thanks for the tip, I'll try that out. Maybe if I set it to use only one core that may work too. I think I had to do that with the original Painkiller.
 
Aluadan said:
So what you're saying is, when you have a problem with a game picked up from say Wal-mart, you contact them about getting technical support on how to get it to work properly?
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I said I take it back or I look online for a fix. Walmart doesn't only sell video games, it's not a specialty store. Steam is a specialy store as they only sell video games and I'd expect them to be more knowledgeable about their products than lets say, wal-mart.
 
In addition, in the Steam store it has quite specifically...

System Requirements
OS: Windows® 2000/XP (only)

Not sure why that it's Steam's fault you had issues running it on Vista.
 
ScreamingBroccoli said:
Sorry for being pissed off that something I bought doesn't work :confused:

I don't feel that it's right that they can just sell this shit when they know it's totally broken and I wanted other people to know this before they piss away money on it.
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I know it is frustrating to have a product that is buggy or doesn't work. But blaming Steam for something not their fault is a little asinine. As has been pointed out already, by you nonetheless, there were multiple threads on their forums regarding it as well as the specs for it are for XP and 2000.

If you want to buy a game from Steam or any other online merchant, do as I do and read up a little bit on it first. Then pick it up otherwise it is just a little caveat emptor
 
Climber said:
I know it is frustrating to have a product that is buggy or doesn't work. But blaming Steam for something not their fault is a little asinine. As has been pointed out already, by you nonetheless, there were multiple threads on their forums regarding it as well as the specs for it are for XP and 2000.

If you want to buy a game from Steam or any other online merchant, do as I do and read up a little bit on it first. Then pick it up otherwise it is just a little caveat emptor
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Yeah I guess it's my fault for assuming the game would work, it being advertised on the front page and all. I was under the wrong assumption that steam took care of all that stuff.

From the page where I bought it, there was nothing I saw about it being for 2k/XP only. Steam knows what operating system I use, it would have been nice if there was a pop up if the game was not compatible with my current hardware, I know game tap does that, and I've only used that for the free games. All I'm asking for is a little disclaimer at check out or something. Oh well, I'm going to stick to physical media games for the time being, because I know exactly what I'll be getting. Hopefully it works on my laptop (xp).
 
to be fair it's not really steam's fault, ubi pulled the plug on this game way too early and stiffed all the pc users, then turned around to keep selling it when they figured out how popular it was. and maybe to push the upcoming sequel, again which only exists because the studio devs did a good job, not the money grubbing publishers. valve can't do anything about it besides issue a custom patch, or not sell the game at all. and since they don't have the rights to the title all they can really do is offer it for download. ubisoft are total pieces of shit for continuing to license the game without proper patching when they know it doesn't work right, they deserve to get pirated.

if I remember right you should be able to run all the settings on max with any decent card, just try turning off/on some of the compatibility settings like vertex stream, w buffer, fast flip. I got it to run perfect on nvidia g80 and realtek hd, never had any problems with sound. try turning down directsound acceleration maybe.

another thing you should also know is that you may or may not run into a couple of game breaking bugs later on in the game, somewhere around the middle. I don't want to spoil anything but there are a couple of scenes where they screwed up the scripting port to pc and some things that are supposed to happen don't, where you can't continue. you have like a 50% chance of running into one or all of them, I got one. then you have to go to the game forums where you can get a user made program that edits your files so you can finish the game. look for something named "bgaefix", it will add certain items to your inventory that were supposed to be given to you in the game.

blame ubi for this, from what I saw like half the players ran into this crap and couldn't even finish the game. they put out a half-assed 1.01 patch that didn't even work for most people, luckily somebody figured out a way to fix it. other than those I got through the game with no other bugs.
 
thanks, I'll look out for that.

I'm not blaming steam for the fact that the game is bugged, I'm just pissed that they didn't give a head's up or anything.
 
mas said:
to be fair it's not really steam's fault, ubi pulled the plug on this game way too early and stiffed all the pc users, then turned around to keep selling it when they figured out how popular it was. and maybe to push the upcoming sequel, again which only exists because the studio devs did a good job, not the money grubbing publishers. valve can't do anything about it besides issue a custom patch, or not sell the game at all. and since they don't have the rights to the title all they can really do is offer it for download. ubisoft are total pieces of shit for continuing to license the game without proper patching when they know it doesn't work right, they deserve to get pirated.

if I remember right you should be able to run all the settings on max with any decent card, just try turning off/on some of the compatibility settings like vertex stream, w buffer, fast flip. I got it to run perfect on nvidia g80 and realtek hd, never had any problems with sound. try turning down directsound acceleration maybe.

another thing you should also know is that you may or may not run into a couple of game breaking bugs later on in the game, somewhere around the middle. I don't want to spoil anything but there are a couple of scenes where they screwed up the scripting port to pc and some things that are supposed to happen don't, where you can't continue. you have like a 50% chance of running into one or all of them, I got one. then you have to go to the game forums where you can get a user made program that edits your files so you can finish the game. look for something named "bgaefix", it will add certain items to your inventory that were supposed to be given to you in the game.

blame ubi for this, from what I saw like half the players ran into this crap and couldn't even finish the game. they put out a half-assed 1.01 patch that didn't even work for most people, luckily somebody figured out a way to fix it. other than those I got through the game with no other bugs.
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That was very informational. Thank you. I bought this game a few days ago and didn't try it out until reading this thread. I ran through the same issues as the OP. It didn't seem bad at first, but I seemed to see more and more corrupted textures as the game went on. After about 15 minutes of suffering, I found the first save point. Went back to windows and turned off that vertex stream and the game seems to work perfectly now. Then again, I haven't gotten to the point of the game which is broken yet, so I'm just going to cross my fingers.
 
ScreamingBroccoli said:
UPDATE:

Game is FUBAR on XP too, I'm gonna see if they give me my money back.
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Pfft.
Good luck.


FWIW, the game is best played on a console... no compatability issues. Granted, you're sacrificing the resolution and higher resolution textures but... the game is just very wonky on the PC (as you've noticed), and you'll be picking the lesser evil, so to speak.
 
The18thLetter said:
Pfft.
Good luck.


FWIW, the game is best played on a console... no compatability issues. Granted, you're sacrificing the resolution and higher resolution textures but... the game is just very wonky on the PC (as you've noticed), and you'll be picking the lesser evil, so to speak.
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Yeah, I'm not gonna hold my breath :rolleyes:

But I tried all the different configs, and all the suggestions in this thread, they helped but it's still not very playable. I can't get the cut scene's audio to match up and the game just feels sluggish and when I run around certain areas it seems to stutter. All I have to say is HUGE disappointment.
 
It is $5. Do not let it ruin your week. I just spent $5 at 7-11 for some breakfast. Read the forums before buying and blame microsoft, creative and ea for gas prices too.

Too bad really. That was a cool looking game on XP. I really dug the world setting of it. Trippy with good sounds.
 
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