Hi Nifflas!
First off: GREAT series! Loved the previous games; loved this one even more! Unfortunately, however good this game is, it doesn't hide the fact that like any other game, it has it's flaws. Luckily, those are mainly quirks that needs to be tweaked in addition to some features I personally feel are missing.
The main reason I am creating this topic, as mentioned in the title, is as following:
When I try to run it on my HP media-ultrabook that's driven by an i5 processor and Intel Extreme HD graphics, running Windows 8, all I get is 1 quarter of the screen when I run fullscreen, upper left corner that is, and all I see is the "main level-design" and some colorful, rotating squares in the background, no details and no character, and it flickers sometimes, so that I may somewhat spot where mye character is. In other words: Unplayable. I tried altering the few options you get ingame to alter the graphics, but alas no difference, even after restarting the game.
When I try it on my Alienware gaming-laptop that's driven by an i5 processor and dual HD Radeon graphics, running Windows 7, still the same; just the upper left corner of the fullscreen is visible, however on this PC, everything; the character, details and the graphics in general, appear to be normal, or to put it another way: as it should be. But running the game by "maximizing the window" is NOT an ideal way to play the game, and it annoys me as it lags and destroys the dark atmosphere of the game when you see the window borders constantly. Not ideal in any way.
Strangely, however: running it on my humble work PC which is optimized for work, a tiny Dell laptop driven by an i7 processor (fair enough) but with an even lousier integrated Intel graphics-card than my media-PC and running on Windows XP, it runs perfectly as it was originally intended...! Now THAT puzzles me. What is it that enables mye work-PC to run it when neither of my powerhorses, running many of the latest games on high settings, doesn't manage to run Knytt Underground properly?
I tried checking this forum for similar issues; some issues that were reported were similar, however I never found them to be nearly as annoying as the problems I am encountering. I tried installing the C++ SP1 x64 and the C++ x64, both redistributable, as someone suggested on some of the topics, I even tried to uninstall instead of repair, but still no change on either my media-ultrabook or my gaming-laptop. Please help. Playing it on mye tiny work-PC is not what I had in mind when I bought the game...
And lastly, the features I mentioned that I personally felt were lacking; I've discussed this back and forth with my friend who is also eagerly engaged in the Knytt series, and there were certain thing we expected from the first Knytt game you need to pay for. For instance, first and most important thing that comes to mind: controller-support. Weird actually. Clearly, this game, based on it's genre, 2D platformer, is in general played better with a controller. So why should this game be an exception?
Secondly: why isn't there an option to adjust the screen resolution ingame and other graphical tweaks? I'm certain alot of issues would've been solved individually just by adding that to the options. Also, being able to adjust the gamma would be the final touch to the graphical options.
And then there's this one last thing I miss: A questbook. Knytt Underground in all it's awesome vastness and greatness, makes it difficult to keep track of the many quests that awaits on your path to saving the world. I miss a log of some kind, so that you can keep track on the tasks that are pending, the tasks you've completed and for those quests it involves; how many items you've collected so far and how many there are left to complete that specific quest.
I'm guessing the questbook is a feature too big and too late to include, however all the other issues should be a no-brainer for a wise game developer such as yourself...
Hoping I could at least manage to run the game properly on my gaming-laptop. That would be greatly appreciated!
UPDATE: Okay, so uhm... Yeah, tried some things here... I updated the Intel Extreme HD graphics-drivers, found out it's the 4000 one I had. But that didn't do any good. Sure, it made a certain difference, but nothing to brag about, heh; instead of just "rotating squares" and no details or character and the occasional flicker that let's me see where the character is located on the screen, I now get constant dark flickers, the squares and I can see the character simultanously. So... I'm really lost here. Can someone PLEASE help me?
