Sacred 2 Demo and AlienFX Problem

I wanted to give sacred 2 a try, and decided to download a demo from here:

http://news.bigdownload.com/2008/09/29/download-sacred-2-demo/

Installation went fine and all, but upon starting up the game, AlienFX turned off on its own. Much like pressing Fn+F11, the only lighted areas that remain are the touchpad, the touch controls and the Alien head.

I tried alt tabbing back to windows, and sure enough the little alien head by the taskbar has red eyes signifying that AlienFX was disabled. I enabled AlienFX again and the lights went back on.

Went back to the game, after selecting the seraphim character and starting the game, AlienFX gets disabled again. But this time, it gets worse. The keyboard, light pipe and Alienware name began to change colors uncontrollably. It was like the m15x was doing the disco haha

I then exit the game, AlienFX gets disabled again. But this time Fn+F11 would not restore the lights. I decided to restart the computer, and upon bootup the lights went back on normally again.

I retried the demo game again and got the exact same results. What could be in that demo that causes AlienFX to go crazy? Does anyone here have the full version of Sacred 2 installed in their m15x? If so, does it also make AlienFX go nuts?

Anyways, I'm off to bed. You guys mind giving it a try and post your results? By the way, I'm using Vista Ultimate 32 Bit

 

lol, it's such a minor and odd problem... I've never even heard of any program interacting with AlienFX that wasn't designed to.

In any case, I'd like to help but I've got exams and such, I can barely afford to be on the forums... (they serve as quite the distraction from studying)...

Good luck!

... haha. so funny.

 

might be that for some reason, the game and AlienFX store similar data in your RAM, and it got mixed up somehow.

 

No problem Mystik, and yeah it sure was funny

Has anyone else tried it? or does anyone have the full version of the game installed on their m15x? Really interested to know if the same thing would happen to the full version since I'm thinking of buying it.

Thanks in advance for any help

 

Just got the full version and still AlienFX is going crazy. To make matters worse, the game itself is insanely buggy. Crashes every once in a while too. I will try and update to the new patch. A rather huge patch though 620.3 MB

Here's hoping everything turns out ok, will keep everyone updated

 

considering the game says it needs 20+gb hdd 620mb dont sound that bad
alot of stuff might need updating.
Idk if it really needs 20+gb space read it on review is it true?

 

some games really hog HDD space... GTA IV needs 18gb as well... Age of Conan needs 30Gb (!!!!)...

 

oo thats alot but i wouldnt get GTAIV based on the stuff that i read on it here.For pc that is "Epic Fail" someone said.

 

quite so. they might bring a patch someday, but as it stands, GTA IV on PCs sucks.

 

Are you on 1.0.0.22 or 1.0.0.18 version of CC ?
AlienFXController.exe installs a hook into the system which listens for message from Tray Icon to shut down the AlienFX when there is a need. This message is used internally by Command Center and it could be just coincidence that they used the same Magic Number (used by Command Center to shut down FX)

But about the Changing color it seem like the game is sending raw packets to AlienFX Virtual USB module... hmmm strange but I would like to see if they have intentionally tried to do so, specially if you are on latest version of CC

 

Wow! That is a story for PC gaming lore if I ever heard one! Sorry I cant help with your problem, but I can confirm that Sacred 2 is indeed one buggy piece of work. Watch out for high temps on this game too! Still fun though!

 

i doubt it, but that would be kinda neat. cha, any relationship between the light changes and what's happening in-game?

 

Findvikas, I'm using the newer version of Command Center. The one with Alien Sense and Touch. The moment I start the game the lights go out. They come back on ( in disco mode ) after I select my character.

You can try out the demo, I attached the link in my first post. I'm running Vista Ultimate 32 Bit if that makes a difference. Thanks for the help vikas.

 

It's not 100% consistent whizzo. Sometimes though, the colors change when enemies come at me. Sometimes when running away.

But now that you said it, seems like the colors only change when I'm actually doing something and not standing around. I'll test it out some more when I get back home from work.

Gaaahhh.. The patch I started downloading last night still ain't finished...

 

Something is fishy to me... I can smell it!
AFAIK, new CC has implemented Dell's proprietary protocol for lighting and provided an SDK for the same no wonder if they have done something fancy with it. Do you see LightsFX.dll or something similar in your game installation directory.

 

Come to think of it, there is a lil logo here in the game box saying tested on Dell.

I've checked the System folder of the game. There is a file named plugin_particleFX.dll. That's the closest thing to AlienFX I could find.

Oh and when I say the colors change, they sometimes change to colors not available on AlienFX. Something like combination colors i.e. very light orange kinda like fleshy color or even a green and white combination.

I'm sorry if it sounds dumb, but how do I take a picture of the folder and attach it here for you guys to see?

 

can you upload that DLL for me... looks we are getting closer. AlienFX infact supports RGB colors, try the Standalone ColorWheel program from my thread (in signature)

 

How can I upload this? The attach files I normally use for attaching pictures won't let me It's a 3.23 MB file

 

Ok wait... it may be a dll for 3d rendering as I got a hint from internet and many results for this dll which made it more of generic.

Can you use Rapidshare or something similar.. I know they are slow. or zip n mail me. Let me know and I can PM you my mail

 

Can I just use WinRAR to zip it and send it to your email? Sorry if I'm not really familiar in sending these types of files

 

Let me try this, hope it works. Oh and it's a 180 kb file, dunno where I saw that 3Mb file a while ago

EDIT: Weee it worked

 

There, these are ll the .dll files under the system folder for Sacred 2

 

I am gonna try downloading the demo and give it a shot. That dll looks more of generic and does work related to 3d stuff... looks like particle engine.

 

Oh my goodness.. I finally got the download to complete. I downloaded the US version of the patch, and as luck would have it, my version is the UK/international version haha

Off to download again

Oh and thanks vikas for all the help. By the way, the demo version is for the US version, if that makes a difference

 

i'll give the demo a shot too. will report back.

 

okay, been toying around with the demo for a bit now, and i can say there's a definite connection between the AlienFX "activity" and what's happening in-game.

AlienFX stays off (except alienheads and touch controls) until certain "trigger events" happen. so far, i'm fairly sure these events include getting special messages ("I should talk to the village elder" was accompanied by green flash) and (probably) getting hit in battle (however, once it flashed red, and once blue, so there might be different effects for the amount of damage done?).

i'm sure there are more, but it's a bit hard sometimes to correctly determine what causes what, because AlienFX is a bit slow sometimes.

 

Give me a direct link to demo... I want to download it right away.

 

Check the first post vikas, I posted the link to the demo there

 

Oops thanks

 

Not a problem vikas finally finished downloading the patches. I'm currently updating to the latest patch. Will let everyone know how it turns out when I test it later

Edit: The patch did address issues with crashing, but ALienFX still goes haywire during gameplay though..

 

Told you...

Source: http://www.driverheaven.net/gamingreviews.php?reviewid=586

 

So the question is when will Alienware have the smooth changing of colors. Like XPS does?

 

I see, so that's the reason why. Any idea on how to turn this feature off vikas?

It was funny at first, but is seriously getting annoying now haha

 

Not yet installed it but lets see if I can find a way out

 

Thanks a lot man

I've also emailed Alienware Tech Support about it. Here's hoping they take a look into it. The actual concept of it working with AlienFX is actually pretty good. If only they could pull if off efficiently

Guys, you could try out the demo if you want to see your AlienFX do the disco haha

 

I give up the idea of having a WinAMP plugin for AlienFX just because of this reason. Its SLLOOOOWWWWW

 

By slow, do you mean the response time of AlienFX vikas?

 

yeah, just imagine you want to have a plugin which change the colors randomly on music beats and it takes 1 second to change the color and require to go black/off before switching color... yuck... I better not have that addin.

 

I see what you mean vikas.

Try out the demo, you'll see that the colors change almost instantly. Sad to say though that they're mixed colors and non controllable

 

nice find vikas. this is pretty neat, i'm wondering if it'll show up in other games too.

 

Yeah whizzo, it would be great if they could implement that properly in this game and other games in the future

 

might fail due to the shortcomings of AlienFX though.

 

I know, just hope there was an option to disable the game from affecting AlienFX. It's really getting annoying now...

 

Just received this reply from Alienware Tech Support.

Dear Mr. *********,

Thank you for contacting Alienware.

We are downloading the demo to test it with one of our systems at our facilities.

We have confirmed that the game has the capability of changing and creating light FX; however, it has not been validated on Alienware's systems yet. We are currently working on it.

I will have further information later on. I suggest that you contact me back in a couple of days to verify if I have further updates about this issue.

I appreciate the information provided and your patience regarding this matter.

Please do not hesitate to contact Alienware at 0800 279 9751 if you have any questions or concerns. Our office hours are from 8:00 A.M. to 8:00 P.M. (GMT) on weekdays and from 9:00 A.M. to 3:00 P.M. on Saturdays.


Will keep you guys updated regarding this

 

Here is the second message I received from Alienware

Dear Mr. *********,

Thank you for your reply.

We have confirmed that it is a feature of the game that is currently supported on DELL systems, but it has to be validated on Alienware systems yet.

Alienware has not validated or configured any settings to work with the game.

We are continuing our research to either find a way to disable the option or to have it configured with our system.

As soon as I have further information, I will let you know.

Please do not hesitate to contact Alienware at 0800 279 9751 if you have any questions or concerns. Our office hours are from 8:00 A.M. to 8:00 P.M. (GMT) on weekdays and from 9:00 A.M. to 3:00 P.M. on Saturdays.

 

haha interesting, you'd think Dell would tell AW if a company started taking advantage of the special hardware in their products.

 

Haha yeah found that amusing too whizzo

I also posted this in the sacred 2 forums. A dev replied saying that they will put a feature to enable/disable lightfx in the future. Sure hope they do it sooner.

Oh and has our resident expert findvikas tried out the demo yet?

 

Nope... its still just sitting in my USB, not getting time to install it.