I am playing Lost Horizon and enjoying it but there is a glitch with it. In certain scenes, the characters stutter when they are talking and in the cut scenes the musice stutters too, if that makes any sense. It is almost as if the scene wants to stop and halts briefly but keeps going. In other words, the cut scenes don't play soomthly.

I have a new Win 7 computer with a good video card. I went into the options and turned back some of the features and thought that might work but it didn't. The other odd thing is that it seems to be an intermittent problem with the dialogue. The characters can be talking just fine and then they will start stuttering. It is brief and then they are talking in a normal manner.

I have never downloaded and played a large file game before so I am wondering if this is a common problem. It hasn't kept me from playing and enjoying the game but it has been a little bit annoying. But for $5.00, I don't want to complain too much! Just wondering if I can expect this kind of thing with the big downloads in the future.

No it's not a common problem with downloaded games in general. Downloaded games should play the same as games that came on disc. There may be something specific about this particular game that causes the problem on your computer.

Maybe someone else could post here if they're having stuttering problems with Lost Horizon -- especially if they managed to fix them.

One thing you could try is to turn off your antivirus or software firewall before playing the game. If it's doing real time scanning, it might be interfering with how smoothly the game plays.

Make sure your sound card drivers and video card drivers are up to date. If your video drivers allow you to reduce video acceleration, you could try doing that. For some reason reducing video acceleration sometimes helps with audio problems like stuttering. Unfortunately many video drivers for Windows 7 don't allow you to adjust acceleration.

I've got the same issue (also had it with The Tree of Life) - I'll take a peak later and see if I can find a tweak for it.

Thanks Jenny100 and InlandAZ,

I am glad to know that someone else has also had this problem and not just me. Not glad that you have the problem but happy to know that it isn't something weird on my computer. It is a fun game but it is a little bit annoying to have a brand new computer with a really good video card and still have these problems.

Jenny, you suggested checking my drivers but if my computer is only a few weeks old, shouldn't they be up to date? I have Norton and I am not sure how to turn off the firewall etc. but maybe that is causing the problem.

Usually the drivers that come with the computer are at least a few months old. You can check though. Try running dxdiag and see what it says for the driver date on the Display and Sound tabs.

If you take a look at the Manual that came with the game, look in your Game Directory for the Lost Horizon Manual.pdf, in Section 5, the Troubleshooting section, you will see a blurb on how to Use the Config Tool which should be found amongst the Deep Silver/Lost Horizon Folders and look for a file called Display Configuration, whether this will help your case or not is worth a try.

Good luck
RaytheBear

This seems to help a bit for me -

Once the game starts move your mouse to the bottom of the screen and select the Menu icon, from there select Options. In the graphics section, move each option to its lowest setting.

You can also try selecting the Display Configuration (under the Deep Silver program items) and manually lower the screen resolution.

Gatsbygirl,

Do you have a Norton icon in your task bar? If so, right click on it and you can then disable the virus protection and firewall for various periods of time. Don't forget to enable it again though.

To add to oldbroad's good advice, if you do that, make sure you Disconnect yourself from the Internet.

RaytheBear

When I play games, I always close out other programs. Will I be safe disabling my Norton? Do I just right click again to activate it? Right now I don't see the Norton emblem so maybe it isn't running.

I am never on the internet when I disable the antivirus. I'm assuming it is safe but you know what they say about assuming, so I'll let somebody else answer that. To enable it again, yes, you would just right click again and click enable.

If you don't have an icon in your task bar, I'm not sure how you do it and I don't know how to get it on your task bar. Somebody else did that for me or maybe it just automatically is there? Do you usually have one there and just don't see it now? Do you have an arrow button down there that is "hiding" it?

It is not advisable to turn off either your anti virus or firewall when you are connected to the net.

But when you are not connected to the internet it is safe to disable, correct?

So long as the NIC (or modem) is disabled, yes. Otherwise your PC always has open ports to receive incoming security fixes and anything else that searches for updates.

In general Web browsing is the largest threat when auto protect is disabled. But your PC is always connected to the internet.

Inland,

I have dial up internet. Is my PC still always connected to the internet then?

I've always wondered about that with high speed internet (how people disable their virus protection for installing/playing games), but I thought since I have dial up I'm okay. So, am I wrong in feeling safe?

Jackie

No. Dialup is not an "always on" connection.


You're safer, but people got viruses even back when all there was was dialup. Unless you never connect to the Internet at all, there is a risk of being infected by a virus while connected.

Thanks Jenny100. Of course I know the risks while on-line. I caught a Trojan last year even with my Norton and it cost me a lot of money!! A couple of months ago my Norton went out on me for some reason and I was terrified to go online to redownload it but of course I had to. It doesn't usually seem to interfere with my games though so I don't disable it very often.