I have been reading several of the discussions regarding successfully downloading the patches to keep the game from bogging down. There have been some discussions about whether or not the computer was compatible or similar ideas. I am having the same trouble with a laptop I have had for some time. I had to re-image my computer, which included Chessmaster 10, (worked perfect until re-image.) After re-installing, I get the king.exe using up too much memory, the game stalls, the timer doesn't work properly and eventually freezes up. I have downloaded the patches, and two worked, but the 1.02 download does not load with the same unknown version error message. I love to play, but I am unable to at this time. Any help?

The patches must be installed in consecutive order -- 1.01, 1.02, and then 1.03.

You can find all the patches here:

Chessmaster 10th Edition Downloads

If you've already installed 1.03, then the only way to resolve things is to uninstall Chessmaster, re-install it, and then apply the patches consecutively.

thank you, I'll try it now.

It seems to have worked. I am able to play once again without all the delays. Thank you very much for that tip. Do you have any tips on how to beat Chessmaster?

I'm afraid I can't be of any help in beating Chessmaster, as I haven't been able to do it myself...

If you haven't worked through the tutorials, I would highly recommend them. They're very helpful.

I have recently updated through the windows update tool. Prior to this update I have not had and bogging of the Chesmaster X. I have reloaded Chessmaster with the three update patches in order. The performance is improved but still wil get crashes and temporary freezes. I have read many post here recently trying to sort out what the problem is and how to correct it. I was thinking to may upgrade to Chessmaster 11, but read post that the problem has persisted when other users upgraded to CM 11. Could any of the updates through the windows update site have caused the problem. The updates I installed from windows were:

Windows Service Pack 3

Creative - Sound - Creative Game Port

Dell Inc. - Other Hardware - Dell 1905FP (Analog)

Creative - Sound - Creative Audigy Audio Processor (WDM)

Thank you for any help to fix this. I enjoy chessmaster and would love to continue using it but getting very frustrated with the crashes.

Allen

I haven't heard of any problems with the drivers you've mentioned, so I think you're in the clear as far as that is concerned.

Here's some other things to consider:

• It is NOT recommended to install Chessmaster in the root (C:\) or Windows folder.
  
• Make sure you have at least 30 MB of free space on your hard drive. This is because swap files are used for the audio.
  

You might also want to try the following:

• Run as few other programs as possible while you are running Chessmaster.
  
• Use as few child windows as possible. Some of these windows (most notably Chess Coach, Mentor Lines, Thinking Lines and Visual Thinking) can take up a decent amount of CPU time due to either their visual updates or because they might cause a mentor engine instance to be launched.
  
• Do not activate the Blunder Alert feature in the Training Mode. This feature will also launch a mentor engine instance to watch your game.
  
• Do not switch to other game modes, or access other game features or dialogs while running a game, and try to avoid adjusting game settings (such as the players or the time control) in the middle of a game. Some of these features/dialogs will actually restart any chess engines that may be associated with the current game, causing any memory that these engines has allocated (used to "look ahead," among other things) to be destroyed. This, of course, will lower the quality of play.
  
• In the "Piece Movement" tab of the Sound dialog, select "No Sounds." This will prevent the program from taking up a significant portion of time queuing up and playing piece movement sounds.
  
• Be wary when modifying the default engine values in the Engine Settings window. The default values are: Win98,Me,XP - Engine 1, Blunder 2; Win 2000 - Engine 1; Blunder 1
  

Hope this helps!