Batman: Arkham City

USES GFWL

The sequel to Batman: Arkham Asylum (2009). It is, as its predecessor, a Games for Windows Live title. This has ramifications on how the save data should be handled.

A patch has been released in December 2011, which unfortunately failed to address all of the problems some users have been experiencing - most notably with saved games. According to this post, another patch is still in the works.

Launch Issues

During the launch week, issues were found to exist in the code-restricted content supplied with new purchases, with some customers discovering the code to be missing from their game, preventing them from obtaining the Catwoman story missions. The problem was reported by customers in Canada, in the United States and the United Kingdom. Warner Bros. issued a statement claiming that the missing codes had affected less than 0.5% of the total units sold, and provided a process for users to prove their game was purchased new in order to receive a replacement code. Upon release in the United Kingdom, a technical issue rendered the game unplayable for some players, booting them from the game with an error message that the "downloadable content is corrupt." Rocksteady European community manager Sarah Wellock claimed that the fault lay with the PlayStation Network and Xbox Live online systems. In early November, 2011, Rocksteady confirmed that it was investigating reports by numerous users that save files for the Xbox 360 version of the game were being erased without prompting, resulting in players losing their progress and being unable to complete the game. On launch, performance issues arose for the PC version when DirectX 11 features were enabled; the developer acknowledged the inconvenience and recommended to run the game with DirectX 9 while a title update was released to address this matter.

Issues & Fixes

DLC issues

If you bought the Batman Arkham City: Arkham City Skins Pack or Arkham City Challenge Map Pack through Steam and you can't access them try verifying the game cache files. In order to do that follow these steps:

• Load Steam
• From the Library section, right-click on the game and select Properties from the menu.
• Select the Local files tab and click the Verify integrity of game cache... button.
• Steam will verify the game's files - this process may take several minutes.
• Once the process is completed, the Check Window will automatically exit.

If it still doesn't work, then make sure you're using an online account in GFWL instead of an offline/local account. Be warned, if you switch from an offline account to an online account you won't be able to transfer your saves to the online account (you'll still be able to use them on the offline account, though).

If you're unable to use your DLC key in GFWL or the Marketplace (it says your code is invalid or it doesn't do anything) then go to http://marketplace.xbox.com/Shell/ChangeLocale and select the region of your GFWL account. After that, use the search bar to go to the Batman Arkham City store page and see if the DLC you want to use is there. If it isn't, you'll have to change the region of your account to US. Remember, you can only change your account's region once a year.

Low FPS

Turn off PhysX and DX11, as both of these features seem to be resource hogs. If this doesn't work don't worry, Batman: Arkham City is known for this issue. Even people with the best computer setups have this problem. To fix it downgrade DX11 to DX 9.0c. Here's a helpful video that teach how to do that.

Crash with error "xlive.dll is missing"

Install Games for Windows Live

If it still doesn't work after that, try starting "Games for Windows Marketplace" and log in. If it doesn't start, try installing Windows Live Messenger and log in and then try GFWM again. The game should now start without the xlive.dll error.

Crash Fix – For Quad Core PCs

If you’re on Quad Core, try this fix to address any crash issues:

• Start the game
• Alt+Tab Out of the game
• Open Task Manager
• Right click on BatmanAC.exe
• Choose: "Set Affinity..."
• Select core 0 and 1 only. You need to run the game on two CPU’s basically, so to avoid the crash to desktop.

Gray screen after fight with Joker

After beating Joker in the Steel Mill, you may encounter a gray screen that looks to be a cutscene that refuses to load. It tells you you can skip it by clicking the left-mouse button, but doing so will have no effect.

If you encounter this problem and you have the game on Steam, try validating your cache.

• Right click on Batman: Arkham City
• Select Properties
• Select Local Files
• Select "Check integrity of game cache files".

The process might complete too fast (less than three seconds for a game of several gigabytes). If that's the case, launch the game and load up the menu. Press Alt+F4 and GFWL will helpfully inform you that you might lose unsaved progress. Click yes to continue. Try validating your game's cache again.

If validating your cache did not work or you do not have a version of the game on Steam, delete the game's local files (Steam -> Batman: Arkham City -> Remove local files), reinstall the game and try again. Luckily your saves are stored in the Steam Cloud.

No sound or weak sound

For Windows 7 and Vista users:

First of all, update your sound card drivers. If doing that doesn’t clear up the problem, make sure you have volume set to max for Batman Arkham City in the volume mixer (click on the little speaker icon in the bottom-right of your screen in the system tray). If you’re in-game, just alt+tab out of the game and check if Batman Arkham City is set to max in the volume mixer.

Another tip you could try is to go to Control Panel > Hardware and Sound > Sound > Communications Tab then select the “Do Nothing” radio button to permanently fix this issue.

For Windows XP users:

Reduce hardware acceleration, or set your speakers to Stereo.

Graphical tweaks

Field of Vision

A simple *.ini tweak, as described here (steam forums) among other places, allows to bind a FoV value to a key. To do this:

• open the following file with notepad:

  %userprofile%\Documents\WB Games\Batman Arkham City\BmGame\Config\bminput.ini

• to bind a FoV value of 100 to the F10 key, add this line at the end of [Engine.PlayerInput]:

  Bindings=(Name="F10",Command="fov 100")

The result:

• 2012-02-27 00004.jpg

  default fov

• 2012-02-27 00002.jpg

  fov 100

Note that the game might overwrite the edited version of bminput.ini. Do not despair, keep editing it until it finally sticks.

Save Game Data

A Word of Warning

As of february 2012, there are still reports of disappearing save data. Keeping a decently recent local backup of this data could prove useful. Steam cloud is supported, but until the issue is fully resolved adding a local copy may still be the safest option.

• Save data location (steam version):

  Steam\userdata\<id>\57400\remote

Games for Windows Live

Do not forget to make a copy of the folder containing your encryption key when backing up your Batman:AC save data. Without it you won't be able to use your saves on another system.

• folder location:

  %userprofile%\AppData\Local\Microsoft\XLive

Cloud Support

Steam Cloud

As mentioned above, steam cloud stores savegame data.

More details about the save files of Batman:AC can be found here (steam forums).

System Requirements

Note: Requires log-in to Games for Windows LIVE

Useful Links

• Technical Issues section of the official forum.
• a well-written post (steam) about the way the game handles save data.
• Alternative download for the December 2011 update. NOTE: You have to extract content.xbx, Media1.cab and setup.exe in a folder, copy TitleUpdate.msi to the same folder, and then launch setup.exe.

See Also

• Batman: Arkham Asylum