How to fix Prototype sound issues, crashes, display problems and more

Yesterday we reported about how Prototype (PC) was leaked online. I managed to get hold of a copy of the game and from my experience it was good game overall. The gameplay was extremely fun with lots of cool abilities, blood, gore and violence :P. However I believe the graphics could have been a little better. Most of the building and city textures look dated but model detail was pretty good. Anyway the aim of this article is to discuss various problems that might arise with Prototype and to discuss possible solutions and fixes for any such issues.

Note that this article is a work in progress. More issues/fixes will be added as we get further information.

Audio issues in cutscenes, stuttering/too fast audio playback or low volume level (quite audio)

Although Prototype is a relatively bug free port, some users have apparently run into audio problems with the game. These include stuttering or skipping audio, audio being played too fast (at high speed), or really low volume levels. I too experienced the weird cutscenes audio and small noise/stuttering and it was a good old fix that worked for Call of Duty 5 that finally saved the day.

  1. Go to your sound card’s control panel.
  2. Locate the option that allows you change the default audio format for the card.
  3. Set the default format to 24-bits, 48000Hz or less (if it doesn't work with 48000Hz, try 24 bits, 44100Hz)

 
Image: How the default format selection looks in RealTek HD Audio manager

If you set your sound card’s audio format to anything higher than 24 Bits, 48000 Hz, you may experience audio issues with Prototype. Note that this is not an in-game setting. This setting should be changed from your audio card’s control panel (Realtek HD Audio Manager, etc). If you cannot find the option in your sound card software you can try the generic fix below:

  1. Right click volume control on system tray and choose Playback devices.
  2. Choose the your default playback deveice and click properties.
  3. Go to the advanced tab. The default audio format should be selectable from there.

As for the low volume level, I haven’t quite figure out a way around it yet. However you can play around with your speaker configuration (change it to 5.1, 7.1) and see if it makes a difference. You can of course try turning up the volume on your speakers.

How do i change the screen resolution of Prototype? My screen resolution is not supported.

Instead of making available all resolutions to all users, Prototype devs have decided to enable certain resolutions only for video cards with high memory. This in my opinion was a bad choice. Anyways only the following screen resolutions are available if your video card has less than 512MB of video memory.

  • 640 x 480
  • 800 x 480
  • 800 x 600
  • 1024 x 768
  • 1152 x 720
  • 1152 x 864
  • 1280 x 720
  • 1280 x 800

The following resolutions (plus all of the above) are available for video cards with 512MB or more video memory.

  • 1280 x 1024
  • 1440 x 900
  • 1600 x 1200
  • 1680 x 1050
  • 1920 x 1080
  • 1920 x 1200
  • 2048 x 1152
  • 2048 x 1536
  • 2560 x 1600

Usually it’s possible to manually edit game configuration files and force resolutions that are unavailable by default. However Prototype’s config files seems to be encoded and I haven’t figured out a way to edit them yet. ill update if I come across anything new.

Prototype installer takes a long time to complete or hangs at installation

Some users have reported Prototype installer taking an abnormally large amount of time to complete or sometimes hang or crash at installation. I never experienced this myself but here are a few fixes you can try (on Windows 7 64-bit) if you encounter similar problems:

  • Windows 7 Installer crashes – Fix
    OR
  • Go to control Panel and click on "Local Security Setting" click on "Software Restriction Policies" in the right hand column double click on "enforcement" under this topic "Apply software restriction policies to the following user make sure you click on "to all users except local administrators"

My rig exceeds all requirements but gameplay performance is slow or game crashes to desktop, etc

I’ve seen people experience crashes or slowdowns with the game even if their computers exceed minimum system requirements. Usually, such random crashes and slowdowns are pretty hard to troubleshoot. But if you use a NVIDIA video card, I suggest you try playing the game with v186.08 beta drivers (download). Also note that prototype might display the frame rate incorrectly (the game says your FPS is 10-12 while the actual gameplay is smooth). If this is the case, just ignore it.

  1. Update DirectX – If you are using Windows XP, please update to the latest DirectX monthly runtime. This will get rid of all the ‘missing dll file’ errors and will reduce the possibility of in game crashes. Latest monthly runtime can be found here.
  2. Update Video card drivers – Both NVIDIA and ATI have recent video drivers out – you should always try updating to the latest official driver version available for your hardware for best performance. If anything goes wrong, the option to rollback to previous release is always there.
    ATI Drivers: Download the latest ATI Catalyst drivers from this link: http://game.amd.com/us-en/drivers_catalyst.aspx
    NVIDIA Drivers: Download latest official NVIDIA drivers from this link: http://www.nvidia.com/Download/index.aspx?lang=en-us
    For Beta ATI/NVIDIA drivers for Windows 7, XP and Vista, check out this page: http://downloads.guru3d.com/
  3. Update sound card and motherboard drivers - Click Here to download 3DP Chip for Windows Vista/XP – This program will automatically detect your hardware (video card, sound card and motherboard) and find available driver updates.

How do i run Prototype in windowed mode?

Bad news is you can’t. Following is mentioned on the game Readme file - Windowed mode is not a supported feature of Prototype™ as you may get unexpected results.


If you liked this article, don’t forget to subscribe to our RSS feed. Also don’t forget to check our private trackers section which includes up to date information about private torrent trackers and open signups.