Psychonauts Support FAQ

[DF Vic]

Hello, everyone! Psychonauts is a most excellent game, but sometimes excellent games have less than excellent problems, generally because computers are super compilcated and crazy! If you are affected by a less-than-excellent bug, glitch, crash or other defect, please check out this here FAQ before posting. Many users are affected by the same problems that all have easy fixes, which is what this FAQ is all about. If you have read this FAQ and still can’t find an answer for your problem, do a quick search for other threads on the topic here. If that fails, too, then please post a new thread on the problem or email us at [e-mail]!

Psychonauts is doing sometheing strange and random and glitchy and none of the specific things below help, what can I do?

Computers are fickle beasts and sometimes things go wrong, but with Psychonauts often there are a few steps you can try that solve many of the random breakages that users encounter. If you post about an issue, very likely we’ll ask you to try one or more of these things first.
* Reboot your computer. It’s a simple thing but it’s amazing how many problems this solves.
* Update your drivers, especially video card drivers. Even though Pnauts is an old game, it runs best with up to date drivers. Just don’t try to use beta drivers as they will often cause more problems than they solve.
* (Steam Only) Verify the Integrity of You Local Game Cache. You can do this by Right clicking on Psychonauts in your library, chosing Properties, Advanced, and then clicking the Verify Integrity of Local Game Cache button.
* (Windows Only) Manually run all of the installers in the redist subfolder of Psychonauts. This ensures that you have all the support libraries installed that Pnauts needs to run happily.
* Try deactivating heavy background processes like anti-virus or malware scanners. On some computers these programs are so demanding that they significantly interfere with high performance games. If this doesn’t solve your problem, though, be sure to turn your scanners back on!

Psychonauts crashes whenever I get to a certain cutscene. How do I fix that?

This issue is common amongst some computers running Windows 7. The most reliable fix is to run the game in Windows 95 compatability mode. You can do this by finding your Psychonauts exe, right clicking on it, clicking on the Compatabiltiy tab, checking “Run this program in compatability mode” and then chosing Windows 95 from the drop down box.

Psychonauts audio is super glitchy and the framerate stutters a lot. How do I make it stop sucking?

On Windows, the most frequent cause of really bad performance on Psychonauts is due to the OpenAL.dll that Pnauts uses for audio playback. The dll that ships with Pnauts is the version that’s the most stable for the most people, but for some people it results in the aforementioned stuttering and choppiness. The fix is to replace the OpenAL.dll in the Psychonauts directory with a newer version, which you can find here http://connect.creativelabs.com/openal/Downloads/Forms/AllItems.aspx.

On Mac, both problems are a byproduct of the native Mac port being pretty fresh. We expect these bugs to be addressed in the near future and patches will be automatically distributed wherever possible.

I’m on a Mac and my save games from before June 4, 2012 disappeared. How do I get them back?

When we migrated from the old, emulated Psychonauts on Mac to the new Native Mac version, the save game folder changed, too. For players with save games older than June 4, it may appear that they have been lost. But fear not, they are still there. To see them in game again simply copy your old profiles/saves from:

/Users/<username>/Library/Application Support/Steam/SteamApps/Common/Psychonauts/...

to:

/Users/<usersname>/Library/Application Support/Psychonauts/...

I’m on a Mac and some VFX seem really messed up and sometimes the audio glitches and sometimes it even crashes! What’s going on?

We recently moved to a brand new, native version of Mac for Psychonauts. This version is faster and plays on way more Macs than the previous, emulated version, but it’s also, well, very new and still has some bugs in it. The most noticable bugs are to do with VFX and audio. Our Mac programmer is fixing these issues as quickly as possible, but if you want to add your notes to the list, you can use http://support.humblebundle.com or http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2733914.

I’m playing on a computer and I wish the camera would just do what I want and be simpler and/or the Pnauts camera makes me motion sick!

Some PC folks prefer a simpler camera than the default, console style camera that Pnauts defaults to. Fortunately, you can disable the Pnaut’s camera’s brain by going into Options->Controls->Advanced and then un-checking Smart Camera. This will make the camera very simple; it will not rotate unless you tell it to (or it crashes into something).

I want to force Pnauts to use a specific language. How do I do that?

Psychonauts supports English, French, and German. Most distribution channels will provide UI for chosing this, but if you want to set it directly, it’s pretty easy. First, create an empty text file called Psychonauts.ini. In that file, put either “language english” or “language french” or “language german” (but without the quotes). Then, for Windows users, copy that file into the same folder as your Psychonauts.exe. For Mac users, you copy it inside your Psychonauts.app.

The game minimizes on startup.

Try reducing the resolution to 1280 x 768.

The camera keeps spinning when I run the game.

The control ini file can be edited manually to potentially fix this. Here is more information about how to do that:

http://steamcommunity.com/app/3830/discussions/0/864979455204750928/

[Coffee?]

are you a double fine dev?
if you are PSYCONAUTS 2!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!11

[TheMonkofDestiny]

At last! One thing I encountered (after getting the game to stop crashing constantly) that I never went to fix was the audio stuttering (I'd honestly forgotten about it and even took the time out to read the fix when I was investigating how to remedy the crashing). Though I still wished I'd taken the time to finish the game when the Christmas-specific achievements were added (back when it didn't crash on me at all) I'm otherwise glad to have finally finished the game using the compatibility mode fix suggestion from this FAQ (that I didn't fix the audio was merely my own fault but it didn't negatively impact trying to play the game nearly as badly as the crashes did).

Originally posted by ghost ninja pirate:

are you a double fine dev?
if you are PSYCONAUTS 2!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!11:Morry::Sasha::Dogen:

I think at this point it's clear the desire to do a sequel is there (as much, if not more than the want for a sequel is with the fans themselves) but the required funds to make it happen are scarce at this point.

[7evenPoint]

Wow, this is crazy timing. First off, I want to thank you for keeping this great game updated and fixing issues. (I have a mac and youguys fixed the audio problem and such)
Today I was poking around my computer and discovered that pnauts is a whopping 16gigs. 11 of that is the main app and 5 is a 'psychonauts.app-copy'. It looks like an exact copy except 'contents' are missing. Is this important or can I delete it?
Sorry, I'm ocd and don't like extraneous files on my comp.

[DF Vic]

Thanks for the support, folks. Our goal is to make sure anyone who buys a Double Fine game can fully enjoy the experience.

But, d'oh! Let me lock this thread. Please post questions to new threads and we'll respond.