Max Payne

Max Payne
Max Payne	2001
Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne	2003
Max Payne 3	2012

Key points

Requires an unofficial patch to fix a missing audio issue on Windows Vista and later.

General information

Remedy's Forums for game

Max Payne Wiki

Steam Community Discussions

Steam Users' Forums for game series

Availability[edit]

Source	DRM	Notes	Keys	OS
Retail		DRM: SafeDisc 2 disc check.
Amazon.com
Gamesplanet
Green Man Gaming
Humble Store
Steam

Demo

Essential improvements[edit]

Patches[edit]

Patch 1.05 is the latest official patch for the game.

The Steam version is already patched.

Skip intro videos[edit]

Launch the game with the -skipstartup parameter^{[citation needed]}

Game data[edit]

In-game general settings.

Configuration file(s) location[edit]

System	Location
Windows	HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Remedy Entertainment\Max Payne\
Mac OS
macOS (OS X)

Save game data location[edit]

System	Location
Windows	%USERPROFILE%\Documents\Max Payne Savegames\
Mac OS
macOS (OS X)

ThirteenAG's fix includes an .asi file, which forces the game to use save games from <path-to-game>\savegames\

Save game cloud syncing[edit]

System	Native	Notes
Steam Cloud

Video settings[edit]

Launcher general settings.

Launcher advanced settings.

In-game video settings.

Can only be changed in the launcher.

Graphics option	WSGF	Notes
Widescreen resolution		Use ThirteenAG's fix.
Multi-monitor		Stretched.
Field of view (FOV)	Use ThirteenAG's fix.
Windowed	Toggle with `Alt`+`↵ Enter` or use the `-window` parameter.
Borderless fullscreen windowed	Forcing it causes glitches.
Anisotropic filtering (AF)	Can be improved by forcing 16x in the graphics card control panel.
Anti-aliasing (AA)	Up to 8x MSAA.
Vertical sync (Vsync)	Always enabled. Can be forced off through video driver control panel
60 FPS
120+ FPS

Input settings[edit]

In-game key map settings.

In-game mouse settings.

Keyboard and mouse	Native	Notes
Remapping
Mouse acceleration
Mouse sensitivity
Mouse input in menus
Mouse Y-axis inversion
Controller
Controller support

Audio settings[edit]

In-game audio settings.

Audio options	Native	Notes
Separate volume controls
Surround sound
Subtitles
Closed captions
Mute on focus lost		Can be adjusted in Widescreen fix .ini^[1]

Localizations

Some regions only have certain languages available. All audio languages can be downloaded from here.

Language	UI	Audio	CC	Notes
English
French
German
Italian
Polish
Portuguese
Russian
Spanish
Turkish				A Turkish fan patch is available here.

Issues unresolved[edit]

Corrupted files in the French version[edit]

The French Steam version of Max Payne has corrupted files, with the error message Invalid Data Read from R_memory File("part1_level1b"). Reports indicate issues with the files x_level1.ras, x_level2.ras, and x_level3.ras.^[2]^[3]

Issues fixed[edit]

Missing audio[edit]

Use an unofficial patch^[4]

Download the unofficial patch.
Extract the contents to the installation folder.
Run MaxBatch.bat
Follow the on-screen instructions.

The launcher does not start[edit]

Run the game in compatibility mode for Windows 98 / Me^{[citation needed]}

Game crashes or videos fail to load[edit]

Run the game in compatibility mode for Windows XP^{[citation needed]}

Error: setFullscreen - creating the device failed: E_FAIL[edit]

Use ThirteenAG's fix^{[citation needed]}

Exception in engineInit: Unable to load save game "Files"[edit]

Reinstall the game on the C:\ drive^{[citation needed]}

Exception in startupInit: Directory \data not found[edit]

Move the game to a folder without spaces^{[citation needed]}

Reinstall the game to a folder without spaces in the folder path (e.g. C:\Games\MaxPayne).

(Steam) Move the game to a folder without spaces^{[citation needed]}

Set anti-aliasing to 0, if doing this does not work, please follow the following steps:
If using Steam, set up a new Steam library folder without spaces in the folder path (e.g. C:\Steam).
Remove the game and install it to the new Steam library folder.
Go to that folder and go into SteamApps\common.
Rename the Max Payne folder to MaxPayne.
Go back to the SteamApps folder and open appmanifest_12140.acf with a text editor.
- If Windows Notepad can't read it, use another text editor like Notepad++.
Change the line "installdir" "Max Payne" to "installdir" "MaxPayne"
Restart Steam.
If needed, run the game in compatibility mode for Windows 98 / Me.

Game won't launch on AMD graphics cards, still shows up in task manager[edit]