VOGONS


First post, by Zuon

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I can't find anything online about this bug, but this is the first time I've been able to test this game on era-appropriate hardware. This game has always ran fine on every other computer I've tested it on, but the first time I had a powerful enough GPU to run it was in 2007 with my GTX 8600GT, well past its release date. I recently got a Dell Latitude D600 with Windows 2000 installed for some native early 2000's era gaming. I don't have the spec sheet in front of me right now, but It has an Intel Pentium M processor, 256MB of RAM, and a 32MB ATI Radeon Mobility 9000. Plenty enough for Spider-Man 2002.

In fact, in game, the frame rate never dips below 30FPS at 1024x768, but there is one problem... it's impossible to play. Pressing a key on the keyboard has a LONG delay before the key registers, if it even does at all. Spidey would be standing on the top of that gargoyle statue, and I would be mashing the direction keys and space bar, but nothing would ever happen. I give up hitting buttons, and about 30 seconds later, Spidey suddenly performs 6 bunny hops, and starts walking forward on his own, splatting against the New York streets below. This massive keyboard lag isn't just present in-game either. It affects the menus. It actually took me a good 20 minutes to redefine all the controls to my liking.

Moving the mouse with the trackpad over the game's options to highlight them is delayed too - it's not just the keys themselves. The mouse never loses tracking moving around, there's just a massive delay before the game even registers its input. This does not affect any other game on this laptop. Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 4, Beyond Good and Evil, Midnight Club 2, GTA Vice City, Pac-Man World 2, and even retail Half-Life 2 in DX7 mode never drops inputs despite it nearing the limits of my laptop's capabilities.

Is this input delay a known bug in the PC release of Spider-Man The Movie? If so, is there any fix?

Reply 2 of 12, by Zuon

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Garrett W wrote:

Could be a driver issue, try finding older drivers. Also, perhaps it could be a V-Sync issue, see what happens when you force it off.

I already forced V-Sync off in the global settings, but I turned it on just as a test. No dice, it still behaves the same way.
And what drivers? Keyboard drivers? My trackpad has a driver and I installed it out of necessity. If I used the default Windows driver, the mouse would move on its own. The keyboard, however, doesn't have a specific driver for it. I don't believe.

Reply 4 of 12, by appiah4

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"Spider-Man: The Movie: The Game: The Keyboard: The Unresponsive" should have been The Title..

Retronautics: A digital gallery of my retro computers, hardware and projects.

Reply 5 of 12, by Zuon

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Garrett W wrote:

No, I meant video drivers. Try using ones from 2003 or so.

I am using the often praised Omega 2.5.76 (4.9) drivers from September 2004. I wasn't ware you could install 2019 AMD drivers on an ATI card from 2003. I know they're not official, but a lot of forum posters of the era seem to believe the Omega Drivers beat the pants off the OEM drivers.

Reply 6 of 12, by appiah4

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I gamed exclusively on ATI/AMD GPUs since 2003 and I can tell you the Omega driver hype was some dumb bullshit.

Retronautics: A digital gallery of my retro computers, hardware and projects.

Reply 7 of 12, by iraito

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I would stop using omega drivers, at the time i had a 9700 pro and i played the game (which i still have in my collection even) more or less at day one, the standard drivers are good and gave me no problems, i'm using ATi Radeon Catalyst 4.8 on one of my retro pc that has a 9800 XXL and everything works fine, maybe i will check later and test spider-man to see if all works well.

https://streamable.com/d6sqa

I tested it with usb and ps\2 keyboards on WIN xp sp 3| AMD athlon XP 2200+ |512mb ram single channel | 9800 XXL

It seems to work, try changing your gpu drivers.

uRj9ajU.pngqZbxQbV.png
If you wanna check a blue ball playing retro PC games
MIDI Devices: RA-50 (modded to MT-32) SC-55

Reply 8 of 12, by Zuon

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Installing the official 8.2 Catalyst Drivers reduced the severity of the delay, but the game is still unplayable.

Let me try reducing the in-game resolution next...
640x480 Low Settings - Input lag reduced slightly, but still unplayable.
640x480 Low Settings with an external keyboard (Dynex DX-WKBDSL) - Lag is reduced even more than just with the resolution change, but it is still not yet playable. Peter has been running into the corner of two walls for the past 3 minutes with nothing being pressed down.
Camera movement with internal touchpad seems to be unaffected and works as normal. Only player movement with keyboard presses are showing this extreme delay.

Edit: I attempted to change the keyboard drivers to something other than the default Microsoft 101 key driver. This didn't change a thing.

Reply 9 of 12, by iraito

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Try a gamepad and try it with the keyboard disabled, isn't the 8.2 a little too new ? usually with the 9000 series i never go over 4.0\5.0

uRj9ajU.pngqZbxQbV.png
If you wanna check a blue ball playing retro PC games
MIDI Devices: RA-50 (modded to MT-32) SC-55

Reply 10 of 12, by Zuon

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iraito wrote:

Try a gamepad and try it with the keyboard disabled, isn't the 8.2 a little too new ? usually with the 9000 series i never go over 4.0\5.0

I tried the 4.8 drivers first, but this is the Radeon Mobility 9000 - aka, the laptop one. The 4.8 drivers I found didn't work with it. I'm scrounging the internet now for some older ones for my specific card.

Edit: So I decided to try something else on a whim. FRAPS launches at start up on my machine. I don't record with it but I like having an FPS counter.
I decided to close FRAPS before launching Spider-Man. Input lag is GREATLY reduced. It's still very fiddly and has a tendency to stick, but at least now, Spidey is SOMETIMES stopping and starting when I want him too. It's still not playable, because the stuck controls are still spontaneous and get you killed through no fault of your own, but at least it's progress.

Graphics settings do not affect the responsiveness at all. From 640x480 16 bit LOW to 1024x768 32 bit HIGH, the controls/lack of controls are identical no matter what.

Reply 11 of 12, by iraito

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Zuon wrote:
I tried the 4.8 drivers first, but this is the Radeon Mobility 9000 - aka, the laptop one. The 4.8 drivers I found didn't work w […]
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iraito wrote:

Try a gamepad and try it with the keyboard disabled, isn't the 8.2 a little too new ? usually with the 9000 series i never go over 4.0\5.0

I tried the 4.8 drivers first, but this is the Radeon Mobility 9000 - aka, the laptop one. The 4.8 drivers I found didn't work with it. I'm scrounging the internet now for some older ones for my specific card.

Edit: So I decided to try something else on a whim. FRAPS launches at start up on my machine. I don't record with it but I like having an FPS counter.
I decided to close FRAPS before launching Spider-Man. Input lag is GREATLY reduced. It's still very fiddly and has a tendency to stick, but at least now, Spidey is SOMETIMES stopping and starting when I want him too. It's still not playable, because the stuck controls are still spontaneous and get you killed through no fault of your own, but at least it's progress.

Graphics settings do not affect the responsiveness at all. From 640x480 16 bit LOW to 1024x768 32 bit HIGH, the controls/lack of controls are identical no matter what.

It sounds like a software is messing with the game, did you install all the extra stuff that usually comes with laptops ? (overlays, touchpad setups etc.) try killing extra background processes and test the game.

uRj9ajU.pngqZbxQbV.png
If you wanna check a blue ball playing retro PC games
MIDI Devices: RA-50 (modded to MT-32) SC-55

Reply 12 of 12, by Zuon

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Actually, it's pretty barebones. I made sure to only install the graphics and audio drivers, touchpad drivers (cursor loses tracking without it) and Intel Speedstep (It increases performance in a lot of games)

Other than that, all I have is 7zip and FRAPS. 7zip causes no issues, and I've disabled FRAPS from booting at startup after realizing what happened last time I tested.