Max Payne

Max Payne

Developers
	Remedy Entertainment
Producer	3D Realms
Mac OS (Classic)	Westlake Interactive
macOS (OS X)	Westlake Interactive
Publishers
Retail (2001-2002)	Gathering of Developers
Retail (2002-Present) / Digital	Rockstar Games
OS X	MacSoft
Russia	1C-SoftClub
Brazil	GreenLeaf
Taiwan	Atari
Engines
	MAX-FX
Release dates
Windows	July 23, 2001
Mac OS (Classic)	July 16, 2002
macOS (OS X)	July 16, 2002
Reception
Metacritic	89
IGDB	74
Taxonomy
Monetization	One-time game purchase
Microtransactions	None
Modes	Singleplayer
Pacing	Real-time
Perspectives	Third-person
Controls	Direct control
Genres	Action, Shooter, TPS
Art styles	Realistic
Themes	Contemporary, Detective/mystery, North America
Series	Max Payne

Max Payne
Max Payne	2001
Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne	2003
Max Payne 3	2012
Max Payne 1&2 Remake	TBA

Max Payne is a singleplayer third-person action, shooter and TPS game in the Max Payne series.

The game has few issues running on Windows Vista and later, see Missing audio for more details.
Also to prevent the game from locking up during startup, the unofficial startup hang patch should be applied.
For users with AMD Zen 2/3-based processors, the game doesn't work by default. See JPEG errors on AMD Zen 2/3-based CPUs for a fix.

General information

Steam Community Discussions

Availability

Source	DRM	Notes	Keys	OS
Retail		SafeDisc v2 DRM
Retail		Original Polish release. Max Payne Anthology released only in Poland and Germany.
GamersGate
Green Man Gaming
Humble Store
Mac App Store
Steam
Games for Windows Marketplace (unavailable)

SafeDisc retail DRM does not work on Windows Vista and later (see above for affected versions).

Faithful higher quality icons for Max Payne and Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne can be found here.
Must have an account and be logged in to download it.

Demo

A demo is available.

Essential improvements

Patches

The latest official patch v1.05 is available here and at soggi.org. The Steam version is already patched.

Peixoto's Patch

Fixes missing audio in cutscenes and certain areas.

Forced Vsync, otherwise not possible on Windows 10, which prevents several bugs.

Forced resolution solves several artifacts on the edges of polygons and allows supersampling anti-aliasing.

Fix Packs

Complete FixPack. A patch that includes startup hang patch, ThirteenAG's Widescreen Fix, a high-res texture pack, different options for video wrappers and other fixes.

Definitive Fix. A patch that includes startup hang patch, ThirteenAG's Widescreen Fix, a D3D9 wrapper and other fixes.

Skip intro videos

Run the game with the -skipstartup parameter

Skip launcher

Run the game with the -nodialog parameter

Unlock All Difficulties Without Completing the Game

Use this to edit the registry[citation needed]

Remove broken Adaptive Difficulty

The adaptive difficulty feature in the game's standard difficulty mode ("Fugitive") is broken, and does not account for player deaths properly. This results in the difficulty escalating and then remaining on the hardest values, making certain scenarios more difficult than other difficulties. No other difficulty in-game uses adaptive difficulty.

Replace the difficulty.txt file with this one
Notes This fixes the adaptive difficulty by replacing the minimum and maximum values with the default PC values, effectively removing the adaptive difficulty.

Game data

In-game general settings.

Configuration file(s) location

System	Location
Windows	HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Remedy Entertainment\Max Payne\
Mac OS (Classic)
macOS (OS X)
Steam Play (Linux)	<SteamLibrary-folder>/steamapps/compatdata/12140/pfx/

Save game data location

System	Location
Windows	%USERPROFILE%\Documents\Max Payne Savegames\
Mac OS (Classic)	{Boot}:Documents:Max Payne Saved Games or user's Documents folder
macOS (OS X)	$HOME/Documents/Max Payne Saved Games/
Steam Play (Linux)	<SteamLibrary-folder>/steamapps/compatdata/12140/pfx/

10 save slots + 2 quicksave slots + 1 autosave slot available.

Save game cloud syncing

System	Native	Notes
OneDrive		Requires enabling backup of the Documents folder in OneDrive on all computers.
Steam Cloud

Video

Launcher general settings.

Launcher advanced settings.

In-game video settings.

Graphics feature	State	WSGF	Notes
Widescreen resolution			Stretched by default. Use ThirteenAG's fix.
Multi-monitor			Stretched by default. Use ThirteenAG's fix.
Ultra-widescreen			Stretched by default. Use ThirteenAG's fix.
4K Ultra HD			Stretched by default. Use ThirteenAG's fix.
Field of view (FOV)		See Field of view (FOV).
Windowed		Toggle with Alt+↵ Enter or use the -window parameter.
Borderless fullscreen windowed		See Borderless fullscreen windowed.
Anisotropic filtering (AF)		Anisotropic filtering mode option only.
Anti-aliasing (AA)		Up to 8x MSAA.
Vertical sync (Vsync)		Double and triple buffering are available. If using Windows 10, see Vertical sync (Vsync).
60 FPS
120+ FPS		High frame rate breaks physics. See Game breaking bugs at high frame rate. The game seems to be completable when capped at 144 FPS.
High dynamic range display (HDR)		See the glossary page for potential alternatives.

Field of view (FOV)

Set FOV with widescreen fix[citation needed]
Install ThirteenAG's fix. Edit MaxPayne.WidescreenFix.ini. Set FOVFactor to the desired value (capped at around 1.43). Notes It might turn nightmare levels unplayable, since these sections of the game already alter the camera FOV.

Borderless fullscreen windowed

Force borderless fullscreen[citation needed]
Install ThirteenAG's fix. Go to <path-to-game> and create a file called wndmode.ini.

Vertical sync (Vsync)

The built-in Vsync requires workarounds to function on modern operating systems (Windows 10 and later).

Use Widescreen Fix
Download ThirteenAG's fix. Copy all contents to <path-to-game>. Open <path-to-game>\scripts\global.ini. Change UseD3D8to9=0 to UseD3D8to9=1.

Use d3d8to9
Download d3d8to9. Copy d3d8.dll to <path-to-game>.

Use dgVoodoo 2

Input

In-game key map settings.

In-game mouse settings.

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

Controller types

Audio

In-game audio settings.

Audio feature	State	Notes
Separate volume controls		Music & Effects.
Surround sound		Up to 7.0 output with DirectSound3D restoration software.
Subtitles		Comic pages only.
Closed captions
Mute on focus lost
Royalty free audio

Localizations

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

Language	UI	Audio	Sub	Notes
English
Traditional Chinese
Czech				Fan translation, download.
French
German				Fan translation, download.
Italian
Japanese				Ported from mobile version and converted with the sound patch, download.
Polish				Retail only. Patch for digital release here.
Brazilian Portuguese				Retail only. Patch for digital release here.
Russian				Retail only. Patch for digital release here.
Slovak				Fan translation, download.
Slovenian				Fan translation, download.
Spanish				Retail only. Patch for digital release here.
Turkish				Fan translation, download.

Issues unresolved

Missing intro video (Proton/Linux)

With Proton 5.13-6 and newer, the intro video before the main menu plays audio only. It can be skipped by adding -skipstartup to the launch options.

With Proton 5.0-10 and older, the intro video before the main menu is skipped entirely, even if the -skipstartup parameter is not used.

Issues fixed

Corrupted files in the French version (Steam)

The French version of Max Payne, on Steam, has corrupted files. Error message: "Invalid Data Read from R_memory File("part1_level1b)".
Reports indicate issues with the following files: x_level1.ras, x_level2.ras and x_level3.ras.

Replace files
Download the files from here. Copy and paste the files to <path-to-game>.

Installer fails on Windows 7 64-bit and later (Retail)

Default installer on disc root is 16-bit.

Run setup.exe located in the Disk1 folder instead
Notes If the "insufficient memory" message pops up, click Yes.

Missing audio

Use DirectSound3D restoration software[citation needed]
Notes In case of missing audio when using dgVoodoo with the above solutions, use version 2.72 or older. For newer versions, run the game as administrator.

Use unofficial patch
Download the unofficial patch. Extract the contents to <path-to-game>. Run MaxBatch.bat. Follow the on-screen instructions. Notes Relies on automatic recompression of audio files without quality loss to another format.

The launcher does not start

Set the compatibility mode to Windows 98 / Me

JPEG errors on AMD Zen 2/3-based CPUs

Use a fixed rlmfc.dll
Download this file. Extract it to <path-to-game> and overwrite rlmfc.dll. Notes Instructions to apply the fix manually here.

Game crashes or videos fail to load

Set the compatibility mode to Windows 98 / Me[citation needed]

Error: setFullscreen - creating the device failed: E_FAIL

Use ThirteenAG's fix[citation needed]

Exception in engineInit: Unable to load saved game "Files"

Reinstall the game on the Local Disk (C:)[citation needed]

Exception in startupInit: Directory \data not found

Reinstall the game without specifying spaces in the folder path (e.g. C:\Games\MaxPayne)[citation needed]

Disable anti-aliasing

Reinstall the game (Steam)

Set up a new Steam library folder without spaces in the folder path (e.g. C:\Steam). Reinstall the game to the new Steam library folder. Go to that folder and then to SteamApps\common\. Rename the Max Payne folder to MaxPayne. Go back to the SteamApps folder and open appmanifest_12140.acf with any text editor. Change the line "installdir" "Max Payne" to "installdir" "MaxPayne". Restart Steam. If needed, set the compatibility mode to Windows 98 / Me.

Game won't launch, shows up in task manager, white screen

Use the unofficial Startup hang patch[citation needed]

Set the compatibility mode to Windows 98 / Me[citation needed]

Skip the intro or delete it in the game folder[citation needed]

Force CPU affinity to one core[citation needed]

Roll back AMD Catalyst drivers to v12.6 from here[citation needed]

Random freezes

It occurs when too many sound effects are played at once and the IndirectSound wrapper is used to fix the missing audio issue.

Replace IndirectSound with DSOAL
Notes If DSOAL does not function, apply the registry changes listed here.

Game breaking bugs at high frame rate

Shootdodge and jump distance are shortened, which makes certain areas incompletable.

The game's built-in Vsync does not work on Windows 10 and later. This requires a fix.

Both Nvidia and AMD control panels cannot cap the frame rate, unless you use a wrapper or 3rd party software.

Use one of the Vsync fixes and set the refresh rate to 144 Hz or lower

Cap the frame rate to 144 FPS or lower[citation needed]

Visible polygon seams

On Windows 10, there are a lot of visible polygon seams when both Hardware T&L and anti-aliasing are enabled.

Disable anti-aliasing in the game launcher and force it through the GPU control panel[citation needed]

Use dgVoodoo 2[citation needed]

Reshade/SweetFX doesn't work

This problem occurs when using ThirteenAG's Widescreen Patch.

Edit INI file[citation needed]
Open <path-to-game>\scripts\global.ini. Change UseD3D8to9=0 to UseD3D8to9=1. Install ReShade or SweetFX as DirectX 9.

Delete dinput8.dll or rename it to d3d8.dll[citation needed]

Proton version-specific issues (Linux)

Reduced color depth

Color banding may occur with Proton 6.3-8.

Use d3d8to9[citation needed]
Download d3d8to9. Copy d3d8.dll to <path-to-game>. Run the game with the environment variable WINEDLLOVERRIDES set to "d3d8=n,b". In the game properties on Steam, go to the General tab and add WINEDLLOVERRIDES="d3d8=n,b" %command% in the launch options field.

Use ThirteenAG's Widescreen Fix[citation needed]
Download ThirteenAG's fix. Copy all contents to <path-to-game>. Open <path-to-game>\scripts\global.ini. Change UseD3D8to9=0 to UseD3D8to9=1. Run the game with the environment variable WINEDLLOVERRIDES set to "d3d8=n,b". In the game properties on Steam, go to the General tab and add WINEDLLOVERRIDES="d3d8=n,b" %command% in the launch options field.

Use a different Proton version[citation needed]
In the game properties on Steam, go to Compatibility. Enable Force the use of a specific Steam Play compatibility tool. Select Proton 5.13-6 or older, or Proton 7.0-6 or newer, from the drop-down menu.

Bugged weapon scrolling

Switching weapons with mouse wheel is bugged under Proton 7.0-6.

Use a different Proton version[citation needed]
In the game properties on Steam, go to Compatibility. Enable Force the use of a specific Steam Play compatibility tool. Select Proton 6.3-8 or older, or Proton 8.0-5 or newer, from the drop-down menu.

VR support

3D modes	State	Notes
vorpX		G3D Requires D3D8to9 wrapper, see vorpx forum profile introduction.

Devices
Novint Falcon

Other information

API

Technical specs	Supported	Notes
Direct3D	8
DirectDraw		DirectDraw for the intro video only. Everything else uses Direct3D 8.
OpenGL	1.2	Mac OS only.
Shader Model support	1.1

Executable	PPC	16-bit	32-bit	64-bit	ARM	Notes
Windows
macOS (OS X)						PowerPC applies for retail version only. ARM aplies for Mac App Store version only.
Mac OS (Classic)

Middleware

No middleware information; you can edit this page to add it.

Console commands

See this article.

Command line arguments

See command line arguments on how to use the following options.

Parameter	Description
-screenshot	Enables taking screenshots with F10. They are saved to <path-to-game>\screenshots.
-nodialog	Skips the setup dialog when loading the game. Previously set options are used.
-skipstartup	Skips the startup video.
-disable3dpreloads	If the system runs out of texture memory while loading a level, this option may prevent the game from crashing.
-window	Runs the game in windowed mode, at the resolution selected from the setup dialog. Not all 3D accelerators support running in windowed mode.
-novidmemcheck	Disables the video memory check at startup.
-developer	Enables developer mode, including the console (toggled with F12).
-developerkeys	Enables special developer keys. Requires developer mode. Using developer keys can break the game flow.
-showprogress	Shows extended loading information. Requires developer mode.
-profile	Enables in-game profiler. Toggle profile with F11, and see console aliases for profiling options.

Mods

• Max Payne Remastered - HD upscale pack using ESRGAN.
• Enemies and Items HD - Upscales the textures of character models and items to HD.
• Marcomix's Real Weapons - Replaces weapon textures with HD counterparts based on their real life equivelants and changes their stats.
• Max Payne: Echo of the Past - Restores cut content.

System requirements

Windows

Mac OS (Classic)

macOS (OS X)

Windows
	Minimum	Recommended
Operating system (OS)	95, 98, ME, 2000
Processor (CPU)	450 MHz	700 MHz
System memory (RAM)	96 MB	128 MB
Hard disk drive (HDD)
Video card (GPU)	16 MB of VRAM DirectX 8.0 compatible	32 MB of VRAM
Sound (audio device)	DirectSound compatible

Mac OS
	Minimum	Recommended
Operating system (OS)	9.1	9.2.2
Processor (CPU)	PowerPC G3 400 MHz
System memory (RAM)	128 MB
Hard disk drive (HDD)	900 MB
Video card (GPU)	OpenGL compatible 16 MB of VRAM

macOS (OS X)
	Minimum
Operating system (OS)	10.2
Processor (CPU)	PowerPC G3 400 MHz
System memory (RAM)	128 MB
Hard disk drive (HDD)	900 MB
Video card (GPU)	OpenGL compatible 16 MB of VRAM