Hello everyone here's a long post about Steam,
It's been quite a busy night/day. I woke up at around 5PM (after going to bed at 1PM) to some people having some issues with Super Meat Boy. This was expected, and I expected today to be a sort of hellish day. So let me just cut to the chase.
The Steam Update is uploading as I write this post, it should go live sometime later in the day after it gets pushed to the production servers. This build addresses the following issues:
- CRASH ON STARTUP Several Users reported crashes on Startup. An early version of the Steam Install Script got uploaded by me that didn't fully run DirectX, also I'm not sure I had all the proper prerequisites packed in the build. Either way, I have packed in everything that should be needed for DX, as well as updated the install script. Those who have already installed the game, I'm not sure this will help you...but if you are experiencing crashes on load after you have downloaded the update. Simply Click Here and run the DirectX Web Installer.
- CRASHING DURING GAMPLAY AFTER ABOUT 3 LEVELS There was an error where save games weren't saving, mainly because a folder was missing in the installer, not sure why it got made on some builds and not others, but it was the problem. This would cause grabbing bandage girl to crash at random times as well as initial runs of the game to crash. Those of you that had problems with the game starting even after the install of DirectX, this could have been your problem. This issue has been (As long as the update makes the folder) resolved.
- STUCK RESOLUTIONS / INVALID MONITOR INPUT Users would get stuck in resolutions that their monitors would not display. Not sure what is causing this because I look at what the monitor can display, but either way I made a work around. Users can now force resolution and window settings to get the game to a working state where they can adjust them further. The commands are as follows:
-fullscreen force full screen mode
-windowed force windowed mode
-640x480 force 640 x 480 resolution
-800x600 force 800 x 600 resolution
-1024x768 force 1024 x 768 resolution
With windowed and fullscreen options, the game will default to the last res that was tried, valid or no..so if you are having problems I recommend following the steps below to fix it. (I'm sure the majority of you know how to do this, but for those that don't see below).
Go to Library, then Right Click on Super Meat Boy and go to Properties
Click on Set Launch Options
Fill in the options starting with dashes and separated by spaces in the text field
-NO BROWNIE OR DR FETUS BOSSES I'm a moron and forgot to upload the boss files for Dr. Fetus and Brownie. Players would play their stages and see no bosses. I uploaded them now, they are in.
-MENU CRASHES There were some menu bugs, mainly with the pause menu and the character select menu in game. These have been fixed
PERFORMANCE ISSUES
We have scaled the textures best we can. There are 3 modes available to the command line. The gamedoes a miniprofile thing that determines what resolution and texture detail you should be running at...but sometimes this can be wrong. To help adjust performance issues you have 3 options:
-highdetail Highest detail
-meddetail Medium detail
-lowdetail Lowest detail
-lowdetail runs fine on a netbook. I have an Asus Aspire One. 1.6Ghz Intel Atom, 1GB Ram, Integrated Intel GMA 950 inside. If I switch on low detail, the game maintains a 50-60fps for most levels. It is very playable with extremely small load times. My computer here, with an NVidia 260, Q6600 Quad Core, 6GB Ram runs the game at like 400FPS Un-VSynced. So that's basically you're range. Those are the two computers I had available during development, so they represent high end and low end.
Speaking of VSync, the game needs to be V Synced. I can't stress this enough. If you are experiencing Cutscenes running fast, or Meatboy freaking out while standing still, just switch on VSync and you'll be fine. This is something we cannot fix since Graphics Drivers can choose to ignore developer settings. I tried artifically limiting the framerate today and honestly I didn't like how it looked. It wasn't as smooth as VSynced (obviously) so...just VSync it.
If your game is running slow or you are having slow load times, just do lowdetail and a lower resolution and you'll be fine. If my little Aspire One running XP can do it, we can all do it
FOR TOMORROW
We didn't get the Non-Xbox 360 controller support in tonight because there were more pressing issues. It's next on my list though. I recently rewrote all of the input stuff (right around the time XBLA came out) and Direct Input got neglected. Sorry about that, but we will be supporting Direct Input controllers very very soon.
Mr. Minecraft crashes the game when chosen from the Character Select Menu. You can select him from the character select in game though.
There are various bugs with the new characters (VVVVVV, Naija, etc). These will all be addressed in the next update.
Game still crashes on Exit, this doesn't affect anything, won't corrupt a save, but yes, is annoying. Since it didn't break the gameplay of the game, I didn't address it this evening.
FINAL NOTES
Thanks to all the fans that sent us emails, Ed and I answered as many as I could (I did about 300 I think) and then got to work. I read every single one and if Ed or I don't respond, it doesn't mean we didn't see it. Doing two launches within a month is tough especially when your team consists of two people. I understand the frustration a lot of you are feeling but all I can ask is please be patient. Ed and I have been up all night trying to push a patch out that fixes issues that are preventing our fans from playing the game. Just bare with us, we're committed to getting it right. PC is not an afterthought, it was just developed on mine and Eds machines, I'm sure if we lived with all of you, all of your machines would run the game as well as ours. We'll all get there soon, I promise.
Love,
Tommy
