Sacred 2:Installation and Activation Guide

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Minimum System Requirements:

  • Internet Connection (In order to activate the game)
  • 2.4 GHz processor
  • 1 GB RAM
  • Graphics card 256 MB, from nVidia® GeForce™ 6800 or ATI® Radeon™
  • DirectX compatible sound card
  • DVD-ROM drive
  • 20 GB free Hard Drive (HDD) space
  • Windows XP, XP64, Vista, Vista64
  • DirectX 9.0c (included with game)


Downloading:


Preparing:

  • Update Video Driver
  • Update Sound Driver
  • Turn off UAC
  • 20 GB free Hard Drive space on C:
  • Uninstall the demo so that the real game version does not become corrupted by the demo
  • Turn off Antivirus and Firewall:
This is a standard game install recommendation and in particular with Sacred 2. There have been some anti-virus software and firewalls that prevented Sacred 2 from installing properly... AVG is the worst of them.) You only need to turn them off during the install.
  • Close all non essential programs:
Do not use the computer for anything else while Sacred 2 installs. Sacred 2 is a very large game installation and because it takes a long time to install there is a risk of corruption if you try to run other programs like your browser while installing/patching.


Installing:

  • Install Sacred 2 Fallen Angel
Must be installed on your C: drive which is the default location that it will install to. It is recommended to use C: however some players have been successful using a different drive or partition. Most importantly it must have plenty of free space as when the patch tries to run it will need a lot of space for temporary files.
  • Create an Account
Start Sacred 2, click on Multiplayer and then click on "New Account"
  • Run the first patch Update 2.0.2 → Update 2.40
  • Run the second patch Update 2.40.0 → Update 2.43
Only required to convert pre-Ice & Blood characters for compatibility with the Ice and Blood installer.
  • Install Ice & Blood (This should automatically detect where to install)
  • Run the third patch Patch 2.65.1.0
  • Run the fourth patch Patch 2.65.2.0


Activation and Securom:

Important Product Activation setting changes: The Product Activation settings have been changed to 4 activations within 3 months, starting from the first activation. This means, you can activate 'Sacred 2: Fallen Angel' 4 times within 3 months and after this period, a new period with 4 activations within 3 months starts. The same activation limits apply for the add-on 'Sacred 2: Ice & Blood'.

For every box/account purchased:

  • 1 license can be used online at a time; implying you use either your PC or your notebook, but not both at the same time.
  • 2 installations of the same account can be played via LAN
  • 2 installations of the same account can be played in SP/COOP
  • You can install Sacred2 on a 1000 PC´s but playing at the same time is only possible with 2. This can be your Desktop and your notebook for example.
  • One PC component can be replaced without problems. Beyond that revoke & re-activate is the recommended procedure. Download the Revocation tool
  • For DRM issues due to failed hardware, etc. The manual page with the key serves as proof of purchase. Contact Securom
  • Internet connection is needed during installation. The Securom FAQ explains you can use a friend's PC for manual activation though.
  • You can play without the DVD. It´s not needed in the drive.
  • No private data will be transferred during the activation process. You cannot even enter critical data.
  • The activation servers will be available for the next couple of years. Should this no longer be the case, the DRM will be patched out.



Manual Activation and Vista/Windows 7

A common issue when installing the Ice and Blood expansion on top of the UK version of Sacred 2: Fallen Angel comes about after the installation and patching is done and you try to run the game. The game does not ask for your Ice and Blood serial number prior to starting the game (as it did with Fallen Angel). Instead, it starts loading and half-crashes with an error that reads:

Inputmanager: Unable to acquire devices!

The game is still running, but the utility that would normally request your serial number is hidden and inaccessible. The built in activation utility can't be Alt-Tabbed to, nor can you switch task to it. You can only kill the game from Task Manager. In such a case, a manual activation is required. After Ending Task on the game, the steps for doing a manual activation are:

  1. Make sure the game is not running on the task bar.
  2. Visit the Securom Sacred 2 FAQ
  3. Scroll down to the bottom of the page. Follow the instructions for downloading the manual activation utility.
  4. Extract and run the manual activation utility.
  5. Enter your Ice and Blood Serial number in the box provided.
  6. Specify a folder that's easy to find for where to put your activation temp files.
  7. Click the Activation button. This will generate an activation request file.
  8. Click on the link at the top of the utility which will take you to a page that will ask you to upload the activation request. Browse for the file.
  9. Enter your Ice and Blood Serial again on the web page.
  10. Enter the 4 character captcha security code displayed on the web site.
  11. Click the Get Activation button.
  12. The screen will refresh and it will say your request was successful. Click on the link and save the license file to the same location on the hard drive.
  13. Go back to the desktop activation utility and browse for the license file you just downloaded. This will import the license file into Ice and Blood.


At this point, the utility will read the licence activation file you had created online and will do its thing. You should now be able to run the game without any worries.


Troubleshooting:

  • The Hardware requirements for playing Sacred 2 can be read on the SacredWiki page Game Summary
  • The Game Manual can be found @ C:\Program Files (x86)\Deep Silver\Sacred 2 - Fallen Angel\locale\en_UK\Manual.pdf
  • Make sure that you have no applications running in the background (e.g. anti-virus software). These applications should be deactivated. (Quoted from the Sacred 2 Readme file)



Antivirus:

  • AVG and Kapersky are known to cause problems with Sacred 2 and prevent it from running properly.
  • When playing games antivirus should absolutely be turned off. They are renowned for creating all kinds of problems with games most of which lag. This is of my own personal opinion... ~Schot


Firewall:

Sacred 2 will need to be given permission to access the internet or home network. After installing Sacred 2 check Windows Firewall, and other firewalls you may have installed, to see if it has been added to the list of exceptions. Sometimes games will only be given permission when first starting the game in which case a popup would appear asking if you would like to allow the program to access the internet. Choose "Yes" and "Always". In general you should refer to your Firewall Software's Help files to find out how to allow a program to connect to the internet. Each program is different as well as every version of a product.

See PortForward.com for help with your router configuration and how to open ports. See; Understanding Windows Firewall

ZoneAlarm:

ZoneAlarm - How to Allow Programs to Go on the Internet

  • Double-click on the ZoneAlarm system tray icon or open the program through its desktop or start menu shortcut.
  • Click on the "Program Control" section and look through the list of programs displayed until you find the one that you want to allow to access the Internet.
  • Click the red "X" next to the program name, select the "Allow" option and then close the ZoneAlarm window. The setting is immediately applied and the application is allowed through ZoneAlarm.


Norton Symantec:

  • Open Norton 360
  • Click Settings
  • Click Firewall Protection
  • Under Program Rules tab
  • change the access of your programs to allow.


Windows 7:

  • Turn off UAC
  • Make sure your windows user account has Administrator privileges
  • Run Sacred 2 as Administrator
  • This fix should work for owners of Sacred 2 under Windows 7, regardless of the version you have (Steam, Impulse, Stand alone or whatever). Source<--
  • Create a shortcut to the Sacred 2 executable. You'll find it in the game directory, in another directory called 'system'. For me, it is: D:GamesSteamSteamAppsCommonSacred 2SystemSacred2.exe
  • Put the shortcut on your desktop, or somewhere handy.
  • Right click the shortcut and select properties
  • Click the Shortcut tab
  • In the Target field, you need to add the following: -skipopenal -nocpubinding. The contents of my Target field look like this:
"D:\Games\Steam\SteamApps\common\sacred 2\system\sacred2.exe" -skipopenal -nocpubinding
  • Click Apply and Click OK.
  • Double click the shortcut and play Sacred 2!


Further Info about -skipopenal:

openal - skiponpenal effectively disables openal api technology for sound and audio. nocpubinding - It's a popular feature that many have claimed improves their gameplay. It prevents games from using only one CPU and thus allowing game processing to float between multiple cores.


Vista:

  • Turn off UAC
  • Make sure your windows user account has Administrator privileges
  • Run Sacred 2 as Administrator


Video:


Audio:

  • Creative Audio Drivers
  • Creative Sound Blaster Audigy and earlier audio cards are not compatible with Sacred 2.

The default onboard sound should be used in this case by right clicking on your volume icon(on your windows taskbar) then left click Playback devices --> Right click "Speakers - Realtek High Definition Audio" --> Left click "Set as default device." --> Press OK. Or use the skipopenal solution mentioned above.



PhysX:

  • PhysX drivers might need to be installed manually. Try the following driver if experiencing lag. --> NVIDIA PhysX System Software 9.10.0129
  • In order to deactivate PhysX; open the Nvidia PhysX menu in the system control center of Windows(Control Panel), click on Settings and on "No acceleration". Then go into the Sacred 2 game options and disable PhysX in the Graphics Options window in game.
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