I received a
message that this game work fine through the first chapter, but
return to the desktop after loading of the second chapter.

Received the follow messages:
1) Works Fine
2) If the game crashes after the first chapter, get the patch. (This is actually not Win2k-specific. It might happen on Win 9x as well.)
http://www.dreamforge.com/files/sanipatch1.exe
3) Works great under W2K, even though a message appears saying it won't. Excellent game!

The gameplay itself worked okay for me, but the movies have been very choppy, and the sound cuts in and out, making it very hard to watch the story progress. Could be a DirectX issue maybe? The game is from DX 5.1 days...
Stats:
1.1 gig athlon
512 meg SDRAM
geForceFX 5600 256mb graphics
directX 9.1

Sanitarium doesn't seem to want to work under Win XP with ATI Radeons, always crashes after about 30 seconds of starting.

Does work with NVidia cards and XP though.

Sanitarium works if you run the executable in Windows 98 compatibility mode. That is the only way it works.

Sanitarium doesn't get lock under XP SP1 (Direct X 9.0b) with ATI Radeon if Write Combining is disabled. Even though hardware acceleration is set to full, Sanitarium works without lockups. Besides, it works whether you run it in Windows 95 compatiblity mode or not. To disable Write Combining open Display Properties and click Settings, Advanced, Troubleshooting.

Works Perfectly on Nvidia Geforce and XP

refuses to run in winxp sp1 dx9.0b with a radeon, even with write combining disabled, get about 30 odd seconds of gameplay then lockups and crashieness

I had loads of crashing in certain spots (mostly of the division by zero variety), and nothing I did worked. That is until I left my browser (Firefox 1.0) open while testing, and it actually worked. It must change the memory address the game is trying to access or write to which was previously causing the crashes.

got same Problem... played act1 without any trouble until I reached the locked door ... every time it crashed... until I testet it about 20 times .. finaly I was able to walk over the pumkinplant and finish the chapter.

reached act2 starting nearby this elvis guy... CRASH / CRASH /CRASH

I really dont know what I should do to get the game runing on my system ... got an Radeon 9800 PRO @ 128MB

It crashes in under 20 seconds every time I start it. I've tried copying the data folder to the hard drive, the Mozilla/AIM trick, compatability mode, and NOTHING works! ATI Radeon 9200, 128mb

Works under XP in compatibility mode for win98. Interrupt the opening cinematic and press escape while the first scene loads. In the main menu, under "Settings" set "performance" to full. Experiment with reducing "performance" bit by bit to improve graphics until the crashes return.

There is a confirmed crashing bug on scene two which is resolved by the patch. http://www.computerhope.com/download/games.htm

Sanitarium works when I run it in compatibility mode for Win98, and have Firefox running in the background. I have "Performance" set to full, and I have patched the game. Unfortuantely, after each cinematic sequence, the game crashes, and I can continue to play from my latest save only if I click past that cinematic sequence next time.

I've tried everything and still the fame crashes; I don't know what else to do... Radeon 9200 128 Mb

I can't even install the game under XP Pro (SP1). I could play the first part straight from the disc, without music & possibility to save, but at the second disc it was game over. I have an ATHLON 900 mhz, 256 mb ram, geforce2 mx 32Mb, latest drivers & direct X. I have tried all compatibility modes, but it doesn't work. I mean.. I played the first part but I can't install the game

Works with DirectX 8.1 and Radeon. Don't attempt to install higher version of DirectX. I tried 9.0c and it crashed. To downgrade DX use DirectX Happy Uninstall.

Works fairly well, I'm using DX 9c, XP and Radeon 9600.
Problem that is cropping up a bit is tha the text flashes way too fast to read at times. Like the text at the end of 2nd chapter... still have no idea what the girl said because it flashes for less than half a second no matter what I try.

But so far otherwise, it is a very interesting game!

It is caused by DircetDraw3D,you should open windows/system32, run the dxdiag.exe,turn to appearence(??), close the DirectDraw Speeder(??), then play the game, all is right
Make yourself a good playing!
PS: When the game ask you continues, click yes

Here's one way it worked for me. I installed windows 95 as a virtual machine under microsoft Virtual PC 2007. I installed sanitarium under this and disabled directdraw within this. It has worked perfectly for me, with practically no crashes at all.

Gagan

It worked! Yeepeee!!! :D

As the other users said, it's a DirectX problem and it can be fixed. I have Windows XP SP2, ATI Radeon 9250 with 128 MB RAM and I had the same problems with the image getting pixelated then the game froze.

I am here to confirm that disabling one DirectX option will make Sanitarium run stable. The explanation above is good but not properly translated. Here's my set of instructions:

1. Click Start -> Run -> type dxdiag -> press Enter.
2. DirectX Diagnostic Tool has started. Click the Display tab.
3. Click the "Disable" button next to "Direct 3D Acceleration" and click OK to disable it.

That's it! Once this is done, the game will run without freezing or looking strange. The single side-effect I noticed was the game being slow on some occasions (rarely). Everything else worked like on my old Windows 95. :)

Many thanks for the tip above.

The easiest way to get this to work on a newer machine is to use the applet The MS DirectShow SDK CPU grabber found here:
http://www.geocities.com/kulhain/

This slows down your processor, to emulate older processing speeds, I have a 2.8 Ghz and run CPU grabber at 60% this slows down enough to run the game with no errors, the patch for chapter 2 is still needed however.

Hope this helps.