Ice & Blood - Can't get past main menu

[oldman 0]

Hi all,

Well I've been working most of the day trying to get this expansion running and finally got it activated. I've installed the latest patch from the Sacred 2 site and thought I was over the hump except, when I got to the main menu my mouse freezes. The pointer is locked in one spot and I can't move it therefore I can't make any selections.

This is my system:


Processor: Intel® Core™ i7 CPU 860 @ 2.80GHz (8 CPUs), ~2.8GHz
Ram: 6GB
Video Card: NVIDIA GeForce GTS 240
Operating Sysem: Windows 7

I'm a little disgusted with the lack of support from Deep Silver right now so maybe some one has run into this problem and knows if there is a fix or not?

[Schot 407]

Never fear John and welcome to FDM.

 

We've certainly seen our share of problems to do with Sacred 2. Boy have we ever! There's a few things that occur to me off the top of my head and they are to do with Physx. Though the Physx options in Sacred 2 were made specifically for Nvidia users it has also been a bane. I "think" the consensus on Physx is that it's best to turn it off even if you have a killer machine. There's a few ways to do this. The first would be to disable Physx from it's own options window. The Physx options window form what I recall is found in different locations depending on versions and whatnot. The first thing to try is to type in your Start button search field; physx. If you see NVIDIA PhysX Properties in the results list then that is what you want. Click that and then in the box that appears click the Settings Tab, then choose No Acceleration.

I've read that others have found the controls in their Windows Control Panel under the name of Aegia as well.

In the Sacred 2 Game Menu you can find an option to turn off PhysX as well and this should be turned off to improve stability. It's in the Graphics Options and is an on/off radio button.

 

Lastly, PhysX can be disabled via the optionsCustom.txt file. Give the above a try first though and if they don't work we can help you with it more.

 

P.s.

What kind of mouse are you using?

[oldman 0]

Thank you for your quick response. I disabled physX acceleration and still can't get the mouse to unfreeze at the main menu. I can't do anything with the options in the game because the mouse pointer won't move.

 

I have a Logitech marble mouse trackball which has served me well through many a game. I also tried the regular mouse that came with my Dell computer and it made no difference.

[Furian67 14]

Hang in there John, We'll figure something out for you. Once Locolagarto wakes his tired work worn body out of bed I get him tuned into this thread. He may have insight on this already, I've seen him glitch his rig up to the extreme just so he could figure out how to fix and prevent it from happening again when he was first looking at Physx. Drove me nuts but he really gets into it.

[locolagarto 15]

Ta Da!

 

Good Morning Ancaria!

 

Welcome John! Glad you came here for help. I concur with Schot, PhysX in bad,bad,bad for us Sacred players. there is a sequence of things I recommend or you may not see any difference.

 

1. Update, upgrade, or just reinstall the latest Nvidia Drivers for you computer. I recommend looking here: http://www.nvidia.com/Download/index5.aspx?lang=en-us. Holy Hanna! they are up to 197.13 which mean I need to upgrade mine as well.

 

And while your at it. since this is a brand new computer. Check Dells support site for new drivers for all your hardware. they most likely have a bios update as well. my old dell went from A02 to A07 in just a couple months. they quite often don't ship your new PC with all the latest drivers, even if they were released before it shipped.

 

2. after the reinstall, go the nvidia control panel and turn off physx acceleration before starting Sacred.

 

3. Also 1 of Schot's recommendations that I love is turn off Windows User Account Control. I have found this to really be a nag when trying to run sacred2. It is in the control panel. on Vista its under the user accounts. on Win 7 .... I think its there also but I can remember and my Win 7 machine is in Indy atm.

 

4. find the Sacred2.exe in the system folder of the .../deep silver/sacred2.../system folder. Right click and save to desktop at a shortcut. (if you haven't already) Right click on the icon and go to properties. select run as Administrator.

 

5. after all this try to run sacred2. if you lock up again, we have one last thing to try. and that is optionsCustom.txt. we need to see if your options.txt has you using hw mouse or game mouse. you definitely want to use the hw mouse.

 

We can help you to create optionsCustom.txt. and Schot is a master at this.

 

If after all this we don't get you up and running......We'll try something.!

 

Good Luck

[Schot 407]

Ah! There he is. The PhysX Mastah has spoken! Let me just take a moment to say something only slightly off topic. I'm just so glad you're here loco, lol. As Furian said, your insight is absolutely invaluable! :cheers:

 

Ok then! loco has provided you with some excellent info on minimizing the number of possible problems. I know we all hate to do it and though it may seem unrelated video drivers can wreak havoc on Sacred 2 in the most bizarre ways. So his suggestion to update is top notch advise.

 

Regarding drivers and PhysX, I have a question loco. There is that other driver that I remember posting about in other topics which is just for PhysX. Would that be needed as well? I can never be sure since I haven't crash tested Sacred 2 nearly enough to know for certain.

 

So after following loco's steps here's something that might help resolve the problem further. We're going to set up an optionsCustom.txt file so that you'll be able tweak Sacred 2 game settings. This is basically another way to choose the settings you would have access to through the game menu screen. Though the optionsCustom.txt file can do much much more than the in game menu. I'll prepare a low settings file in the hopes of at least getting you operational. Once you're up and running you can adjust the settings for better graphics if you like.

 

I'll be using the Guide to Customizing the Sacred 2 Camera View as a base for the below instructions. It's a good read and many, if not most, set their camera to the way that guide describes.

 

1. You will need to have the Windows setting on; Show all Hidden Files and Folders. To change the Hidden Files/Folder setting open any folder-->Click Alt Key-->Tools-->Folder Options-->View-->Click "Show hidden files and folders".
   
2. Go to the folder:
   (64 Bit Windows)
   C:\Users\<YOUR_USER_NAME>\AppData\Local\Ascaron Entertainment\Sacred 2
   or
   (32 Bit Windows)
   C:\Documents and Settings\<YOUR_USER_NAME>\Local Settings\Application Data\Ascaron Entertainment\Sacred 2
   
3. Delete options.txt if it is found in the folder.
   
4. Create a new text file using Notepad called optionsCustom.txt. (Easiest way to create a new Text Document is to Right Click in the folder-->New-->Text Document.)
   
5. Add the below code into the empty optionsCustom.txt file you just created and save it:
    
   

   settings.usePhysHW = 0
   render.d_patchPhysics = 0
   
   render.textureQuality = 5
   render.videos = 0
   render.weathereffects = 0
   video.detail_fx = 0
   video.detail_gfx = 0
   video.detail_grass = 500
   video.detail_grnd = 1
   video.detail_light = 33
   video.detail_physx = 0
   video.detail_shd = 0
   video.detail_tex = 1
   video.fsaa = 1
   video.fullscreen = 0
   video.hardware_mouse = 1
   video.height = 768
   video.quality = 1
   video.scaleUI = 0
   video.weather = 0
   video.width = 1024

   
    
   

6. Sometimes you need to delete the options.txt file in that same folder in order for the optionsCustom settings to take effect. A new options.txt file will be generated by the game the next time you play but with the optionsCustom settings accounted for. Keep in mind that deleting the options.txt file will mean you will need to re-enter your preferred settings in the game's menu of options such as graphics, sound and control options. You only need to delete the options.txt file when you make a change to your optionsCustom.txt file.
   

 

That's about it. The first two settings mentioned above are separate from the rest because I'm not 100% certain if they are connected to PhysX. All the same I thought it best to cancel them out to be sure. Granted those two settings are both set to 0 on my installation and the game runs very well for me. You'll notice that the Hardware Mouse option that loco mentioned is in there and is turned on. If you try the game after applying these settings and still have trouble you could re-open your optionsCustom file and change hardware_mouse to = 0 to see if that resolves the problem. As for the rest of the settings they are quality settings that are set to low quality. Oh and it's set up to play the game in a small window so you can reach your desktop easily.

 

Good luck!

[oldman 0]

Wow you guys are the greatest. That optionscustom.txt file did the trick. I did it exactly your way and it worked in a small window and the mouse was no longer frozen. Then I experimented and changed the hardware_mouse to 0 and the fullscreen back to 1 and the mouse worked and I was able to play in full screen. So I am a happy camper.

 

I really want to thank all of you for the help you rendered. It is above and beyond and greatly appreciated. It's just a shame that one has to spend hours of work to get a game ready to play.

 

Anyway I guess I needed all the updates to my video card and bios etc.

[Schot 407]

Ah that's great news John. I'm glad we were able to help. One last thing you might want to do now is to remove the settings I gave you to see if the mouse problems persist. A lot of the settings I gave you were just for troubleshooting and in general are more convenient to leave up to the in game options to take care of. If you're up for it you could rename the optionsCustom file to something like optionsCustomBACKUP.txt. then delete your options.txt file again and see what happens when you load Sacred 2.

 

Hopefully your mouse will still work but if not then you'll know for sure that one of the settings in the code I gave you is what resolved the problem.

 

 

Cheers!

[locolagarto 15]

Ah that's great news John. I'm glad we were able to help. One last thing you might want to do now is to remove the settings I gave you to see if the mouse problems persist. A lot of the settings I gave you were just for troubleshooting and in general are more convenient to leave up to the in game options to take care of. If you're up for it you could rename the optionsCustom file to something like optionsCustomBACKUP.txt. then delete your options.txt file again and see what happens when you load Sacred 2.

 

Hopefully your mouse will still work but if not then you'll know for sure that one of the settings in the code I gave you is what resolved the problem.

 

 

Cheers!

Excellent I am so glad that worked for you !

[tulshulty 24]

Hello I am having the same trouble. I dind't know if I should start a new thread or post here. I was just given the sacred 2 game without the exspansion. When load it the first time it is fine till get to the main minu. Then the mouse pointer is frozen. I have a few questions.

 

• You will need to have the Windows setting on; Show all Hidden Files and Folders. To change the Hidden Files/Folder setting open any folder-->Click Alt Key-->Tools-->Folder Options-->View-->Click "Show hidden files and folders".
• Go to the folder:
  (64 Bit Windows)
  C:\Users\<YOUR_USER_NAME>\AppData\Local\Ascaron Entertainment\Sacred 2
  or
  (32 Bit Windows)
  C:\Documents and Settings\<YOUR_USER_NAME>\Local Settings\Application Data\Ascaron Entertainment\Sacred 2
• Delete options.txt if it is found in the folder.
• Create a new text file using Notepad called optionsCustom.txt. (Easiest way to create a new Text Document is to Right Click in the folder-->New-->Text Document.)
• Add the below code into the empty optionsCustom.txt file you just created and save it:
  
  settings.usePhysHW = 0render.d_patchPhysics = 0render.textureQuality = 5render.videos = 0render.weathereffects = 0video.detail_fx = 0video.detail_gfx = 0video.detail_grass = 500video.detail_grnd = 1video.detail_light = 33video.detail_physx = 0video.detail_shd = 0video.detail_tex = 1video.fsaa = 1video.fullscreen = 0video.hardware_mouse = 1video.height = 768video.quality = 1video.scaleUI = 0video.weather = 0video.width = 1024
• Sometimes you need to delete the options.txt file in that same folder in order for the optionsCustom settings to take effect. A new options.txt file will be generated by the game the next time you play but with the optionsCustom settings accounted for. Keep in mind that deleting the options.txt file will mean you will need to re-enter your preferred settings in the game's menu of options such as graphics, sound and control options. You only need to delete the options.txt file when you make a change to your optionsCustom.txt file.

That's about it. The first two settings mentioned above are separate from the rest because I'm not 100% certain if they are connected to PhysX. All the same I thought it best to cancel them out to be sure. Granted those two settings are both set to 0 on my installation and the game runs very well for me. You'll notice that the Hardware Mouse option that loco mentioned is in there and is turned on. If you try the game after applying these settings and still have trouble you could re-open your optionsCustom file and change hardware_mouse to = 0 to see if that resolves the problem. As for the rest of the settings they are quality settings that are set to low quality. Oh and it's set up to play the game in a small window so you can reach your desktop easily.

 

1. Will this work for the sacred 2 without the exspansion?

 

2. I would have tried it anyway but there was no options.txt in the sacred 2 file to delete. Should I just put the customoptions.txt on there anway?

 

windows 7

 

Processor AMD A4-5300 APU with Radeon HD Graphics, 3400 Mhz, 1 Core(s), 2 Logical Processor(s)

Graphics Card Manufacturer Powered by AMD

Graphics Chipset ASUS HD7750 Series

Device ID 683F

Vendor 1002

Subsystem ID 0427

Subsystem Vendor ID 1043

Graphics Bus Capability PCI Express 2.0

Maximum Bus Setting PCI Express 2.0 x16

BIOS Version 015.014.000.004

BIOS Part Number 113-AD41300-103

BIOS Date 2012/03/28

Memory Size 1024 MB

Memory Type GDDR5

Core Clock in MHz 820 MHz

Memory Clock in MHz 1150 MHz

Total Memory Bandwidth in GByte/s 73.6 GByte/s

16 gb memory

Thanks for any help

 

[tulshulty 24]

I got it to work. Foud out my problem was in windows 7 font settings

 

Right click on the desktop.

Choose Screen Resolution.

In the Screen Resolution window, click "Make text and other items larger or smaller".

In the Display window, choose Medium - 125%.

My settings was on 150%

I started the game mouse worked fine.

I unchecked hardware mouse then closed game and reset my display to 150% "to hard to see things on desktop when set at 125%

Started game and works great now.