[Win 7] Psychonauts Doesn't Launch

[krispykremeguy42]

Hello,

I've played through Psychonauts once on this computer, but it's been a few years. I wanted to play through it again, but whenever I try to launch it, it doesn't actually launch. My steam picture thing has a green ring around it and it says that I'm playing Psychonauts, but it doesn't actually go. I can also only exit when I kill the process manually. It doesn't show up in the task bar, so I don't think it's minimizing on startup as much as it is not starting up.

I did manage to play it earlier today, but I was in offline mode. I had also fiddled around with setting the priorities on the Psychonauts process to "above normal," but when I elevated the process after coming back online, it still wouldn't launch.

I'm running 64-bit Windows 7, and I followed the recommended steps of verifying my local game files & rebooting. I browsed the first few pages of these forums, but I didn't see anything. Also, is there any log file I should look at?

Thanks!

[ultramage]

I started playing yesterday. The game has startup and crash issues. On every odd startup, the exe just hangs without creating a window, so I kill it through task manager. Then I start the game again, and it runs fine for about 30 minutes, then crashes during an area transition. Next time I run it I have to do the task manager kill thing again. I went through this loop about 6 times yesterday, but the game is interesting so I can live with it.

EDIT: actually, it does launch, after a 30+ second timeout or something.

[krispykremeguy42]

Ah. I had wondered if it was just having a long startup time, so I let it sit for ~20 min while I watched TV. It still didn't start up. =(

[krispykremeguy42]

UPDATE: It seems that being disconnected from the internet is what does it. Offline mode doesn't cut it (but since I'm also trying to get the trading cards & achievements, that's no real loss for me). I'll just disable my wireless, start the game, then reconnect.

[F-ZeroRacer_07]

So I just go offline to avoid crashes. I thought compatibility mode would've done the trick, but nope.

Update: No wait. Setting the compatibility to "Windows 95" actually does the trick.

[76561198050929976]

im on windows 8.1 and have had zero issues getting this to work.
windows 8 you have impressed me yet again.

[krispykremeguy42]

Hey, running it in Windows 95 compatibility mode worked for me too! Thanks! Unfortunately, I just finished playing through it again last night. At least the fix will work for the next time I play through it.

[Misha!]

so there is no way to fix this? Cause im having the same problem

[krispykremeguy42]

Running it in Windows 95 compatibility mode fixed it for me. However, I'm now running Windows 10, and it seems like it works without any issues.

If you don't know how to set it to run in compatibility mode, here are the steps:
1. Find your Psychonauts exe (should be in your steam folder, under steamapps/common/Pschyonauts/Psychonauts.exe)
2. Right-click it and select "Properties."
3. Under the Compatibility tab, check the Compatibility Mode box, and select the version from the dropdown menu (Windows 95). (You may need admin privileges, especially if changing the launch option for all users.)

From then, you should be able to launch it normally (either through a shortcut or through Steam).