HPL1/Troubleshooting

Please keep in mind that these games are VERY old (2007/2008) and official support has long since ceased, if you need help with the games please refer to the FAQ below. Don't expect them to work error free under anything higher than Windows Vista either.

Before troubleshooting

Make sure you meet the minimum requirements and that all of your drivers are up-to-date.

MINIMUM SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS
Windows XP/2000 or Vista
(Windows 95/NT not supported)
1.5 Ghz CPU
512 Mb RAM
1GB Disk Space
CD-ROM
ATI Radeon 8500/NVidia GeForce3 Ti
(Geforce 4MX not supported)
Keyboard and mouse

Main game issues

The game will not start, what is happening?

1. Check that you meet the minimum requirements.
2. Make sure that you have the latest drivers for your graphics card.

The graphics have strange artefacts or look weird in some other way.

1. Make sure that you have the latest drivers for your graphics card.
2. If you have an ATI card try turning off the A.I. optimisation option in Catalyst Center.
3. If you have StarDock WindowBlinds 5 installed, try turning it off.

Why is there no audio?

1. Make sure you have the latest drivers for your soundcard.
2. Try resetting the audio settings in the control panel.
3. Check and make sure your speakers are turned on.

The game is very slow. How can I make it faster?

1. Choose a lower resolution in graphics.
2. Try choosing a lower shader quality in graphics.
3. Turn off post effects in graphics/advanced.
4. Turn off shadows in graphics/advanced.
5. Make sure you have the latest drivers for your graphics card!

None of these answers help me!

Go to http://support.frictionalgames.com to get more information, but please keep in mind that offical support has long since ceased for these products.

Modding

Viewers not scaling

The HPL1 viewer windows cannot be scaled with the mouse. When you first run one of the viewers HPL Helper will create a little file in your Penumbra root directory called viewer_settings.cfg the file is in the XML format.
You edit this file to change how the viewers behave. For example, you can change whether or not they will start in fullscreen or a certain resolution and whether or not the viewers framerate should synchronize to your monitor's refresh rate.

Changing the settings affects the following programs:

• HudObjectEditor
• ModelViewer
• ParticleViewer
• SceneViewer

Game not executing scripts

If you start the game with your custom map and script and nothing happens then you most likely have one too many errors in your script file that prevents it from being executed. Check the hpl.log file in your Penumbra root directory to see what errors are causing this fuss.

Custom assets crash the Model Viewer

1. You most likely forgot to assign a proper material to the model or didn't create a Material (*.mat) file with the accompanying texture.
2. The Entity (*.ent) file used lacks a collider. All entities must have a body of some kind in order to function in-game.
3. You're most likely trying to use a modern version of either Maya, 3D Studio or Blender. Unfortunately no modern alternative seems to work as the game uses a very old Collada specification for its models.
4. You didn't specify the file path for your model. Use the HPL Helper program to define the paths and write them to the resources.cfg file.

libtheora.dll was not found

In the highly unlikely event that you have an old retail copy of Penumbra: Overture, you will receive this error message if you try to use the HPL1 viewers. Download the latest update patch here to fix this.