I really love the Sherlock Holmes games from Frogwares but I could not get this to run on Steam. I tried all the fixes I found suggested in their forums but no luck. Any ideas or should I just buy it again someplace else?

What was the nature of the problem/what error messages were you getting? That would be helpful to know.

Post your OS as well, then we can help a bit -

Thanks. I am on Windows XP. Sorry, I thought this problem was famous.

What happens: The game starts to load and runs through the intro movie, with kids discovering the book. When it switches to the game itself, I think, where it seems like it should show Holmes and Watson at home, I see a fragmented, incomplete bunch of graphics that look like they would be furniture if the game were running properly. Eventually I get the black screen.

Steam users have reported similar problems. The suggested fixes are mostly updating and/or downgrading drivers. I tried several of the suggestions but nothing made a bit of difference.

I ran another Steam game to confirm things were working after I tweaked everything and it ran fine.

TIA

troi

Did you peruse the thread below? I recall playing the game, my copy is the DVD version not Steam, and it was very picky about the version of PhysX installed.

The Testament of Sherlock Holmes Forum

Look at post #2 for a link to the PhysX software.

Thanks, InlandAZ. The forum is one of the Steam forums I already tried. The drivers from that link did not work for me. Users of the DVD version on Amazon report mixed success, but it works for at least some of them. I will probably just buy the DVD.

Does your PC meet the minimum requirements for the game?

Minimum System Requirements:
•OS: Windows XP SP3/Windows VISTA SP2/ Windows 7
•Processor: AMD/INTEL dual-core 2 GHZ
•RAM memory: 2048 MB
•Graphics card: 256 MB 100% DirectX 9 and shaders 3.0 compatible, ATI radeon HD 2600 XT/NVIDIA Geforce 8600 GT or higher
•DVD-ROM: 2X DRIVE
•Hard disk space: 14 GB
•Sound card: DirectX 9 compatible
•Internet connection required for game activation
•Controller: Keyboard & mouse or Xbox compatible

Run DXdiag and post the contents of the Display tab as well as the Installed Memory from the System tab.

Here's how you can do that on XP - How to Run a DirectX Diagnostic on XP