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General discussion (archive)Release: Soulbringer(110 posts)(110 posts)
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This is my favourite topic
Posted February 16, 2012
You must succeed where the greatest of heroes has failed.

It’s been a while since there has been a new RPG on GOG.com shelves, but today we offer [url=http://www.gog.com/en/gamecard/soulbringer]Soulbringer on GOG.com for only $5.99.

Let’s conduct a little thought excercise here: If you were an average person living in the mystical world of Rathenna and your father was killed and your uncle Adrus turned out to know a lot about magic, ancient warriors, and demons, would you rather:

a) ignore your crazy uncle, live on a farm, raise a family, and live a long and boring life or,
b) learn magic, learn sword-wielding, awaken your powers inherited from your past lives, and slay ancient demons, preserving the world for all?

Those of you who decided that option “a” sounds a little too dull have a chance to jump into the fantasy world of Soulbringer, an action RPG in the spirit of other classic hack and slash games of the era.

Soulbringer is one of those “hidden gems” that we love to bring up to the surface here on GOG. It was buried in an avalanche of other fantastic cRPGs released in the year 2000 (Diablo II, Icewind Dale, and Baldur’s Gate II all came out that year!), but if it had been released in a different year, it would likely also be one of the classic RPGs we all know and love. The things that make a well-crafted piece of action fantasy gaming, like a unique combat system, well-constructed magic, a long and involving storyline, and the indefinable ‘joy factor’ are all here and make Soulbringer the perfect addition to your fantasy/RPG shelf.

Soulbringer is the kind of RPG that offers a lot of action and fun and is definitely worth buying on GOG.com for only $5.99.
Posted February 18, 2012
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SimonG: Because of the way the characters are displayed, through bitmaps, you actually get some stretching on the characters when using 16:9.
Yeah I know, but I still prefer that to the wallpaper strips down the sides.
Thanks for your help Simon.
Posted February 19, 2012
I gave in and bought the game even though it seemed to be technically annoying. Of course, the game won't even start. What kind of settings are one suppose to use? I always add admin rights to games as some have issues without it but other than that I don't know.

First, does 1920x1080 work? Second, on video. HAL, T&L HAL or "Your GPU" the right choice. All doesn't work for me. When I press play nothing happens. The speedy graphical test I can run passes though.

EDIT: Ha! I found a solution. I can't believe it. You need to add the .exe file to DEP list located in performance tab under advanced settings. The only time I ever had to use this was to play a mod called 2027 for Deus Ex. Anyone that has any issues with starting the game should try this.

EDIT2: It might have helped to install the game in C:\ as well. Old games seem to have issues with long and special symbols when it comes to the location.
Post edited February 19, 2012 by Nirth_90
Posted February 19, 2012
It seems that trhe people who've said it works haven't played more than a few minutes of it, mainly to see if it fires up or not... it's later that the problems start.

As it stands, there are too many people who have played into it who are having problems.. so it's definately broken.

For now, I'd tell people to avoid this purchase until GOG do something to address the crashing issues.
Posted February 19, 2012
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Tormentfan: It seems that trhe people who've said it works haven't played more than a few minutes of it, mainly to see if it fires up or not... it's later that the problems start.

As it stands, there are too many people who have played into it who are having problems.. so it's definately broken.

For now, I'd tell people to avoid this purchase until GOG do something to address the crashing issues.
I played about 30 minutes. How far do you need to reach to come to the crashing point?
Posted February 19, 2012
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Tormentfan: It seems that trhe people who've said it works haven't played more than a few minutes of it, mainly to see if it fires up or not... it's later that the problems start.

As it stands, there are too many people who have played into it who are having problems.. so it's definately broken.

For now, I'd tell people to avoid this purchase until GOG do something to address the crashing issues.
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Nirth_90: I played about 30 minutes. How far do you need to reach to come to the crashing point?
At least up to the temple of shadows in Ravenscar... not many people have managed to reach that. Have you been to see Elric yet?

What's your setup? Are you using the Noeax.exe?

Thx for the reply.
Post edited February 19, 2012 by Tormentfan
Posted February 20, 2012
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Nirth_90: I played about 30 minutes. How far do you need to reach to come to the crashing point?
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Tormentfan: At least up to the temple of shadows in Ravenscar... not many people have managed to reach that. Have you been to see Elric yet?

What's your setup? Are you using the Noeax.exe?

Thx for the reply.
No, not yet. I use the soulbringer.exe. Those VC exe just activate a service that doesn't do anything for me.
Posted February 20, 2012
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Tormentfan: At least up to the temple of shadows in Ravenscar... not many people have managed to reach that. Have you been to see Elric yet?

What's your setup? Are you using the Noeax.exe?

Thx for the reply.
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Nirth_90: No, not yet. I use the soulbringer.exe. Those VC exe just activate a service that doesn't do anything for me.
Soulbringer.exe is only the splash menu, when you hit play it executes one of two .exe files either SoulbringerVC.exe or SoulbringerVCNoeax.exe, depending on your setup. Soulbringer.exe isn't actually required to play the game as you can run either of the other exe files by themselves. The VCNoeax.exe is for vista and Win7 when MS started to emulate all of the sound (Alchemy, openAl, etc) to comply with HDCP in the OS (they don't want us ripping of HD audio as well as HD video.. although I've never noticed any difference between HD audio and non HD) and the VC.exe is for systems such as XP and below that can actually use EAX based soundcards directly instead of emulating it...(or at least that's the reasoning behind eax not being supported in Vista and Win7 to the best of my knowledge).. So you will actually be using either of the exe files I mentioned.
Posted February 20, 2012
I do call the exe as a service when I alt-tabbed out of the game. It said something about "..noeax.exe" as I use realtek onboard soundcard with a pair of headphones that doesn't support EAX and I haven't used Alchemy for the this specific game yet.

Does the game have less issues with EAX on or off?
Posted February 20, 2012
I could be wrong but I think EAX doesn't work on Windows 7 anyway?

EAX always was something that caused problem in other games as well. I suggest using the noeax.exe.

Perhaps it's that service you were talking about.
Posted February 20, 2012
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Nirth_90: I played about 30 minutes. How far do you need to reach to come to the crashing point?
I got 2 hours out of it before it crashed, but I wasn't very far into the game.
Posted February 20, 2012
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Nirth_90: I do call the exe as a service when I alt-tabbed out of the game. It said something about "..noeax.exe" as I use realtek onboard soundcard with a pair of headphones that doesn't support EAX and I haven't used Alchemy for the this specific game yet.

Does the game have less issues with EAX on or off?
Yeah, so it's VCNoeax.exe that's being called. As for eax issues, no idea, haven't come across anyone using VC.exe yet
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Patryn: I could be wrong but I think EAX doesn't work on Windows 7 anyway?

EAX always was something that caused problem in other games as well. I suggest using the noeax.exe.

Perhaps it's that service you were talking about.
No you're right, as I said, Vista and Win7 did away with Eax support... Strange, I always felt EAX was preferable on my old Xp system, I guess it boils down to soundcard and drivers.. like everything else :/

As for the game, you don't get a choice which exe to run, the game chooses for you based on your system. VC.exe won't run on a non-Eax system. Says "EAX.dll is missing", and if you manually instert it you just get fatal errors.
Post edited February 20, 2012 by Tormentfan
Posted February 20, 2012
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Tormentfan: Soulbringer.exe is only the splash menu, when you hit play it executes one of two .exe files either SoulbringerVC.exe or SoulbringerVCNoeax.exe, depending on your setup. Soulbringer.exe isn't actually required to play the game as you can run either of the other exe files by themselves. The VCNoeax.exe is for vista and Win7 when MS started to emulate all of the sound (Alchemy, openAl, etc) to comply with HDCP in the OS (they don't want us ripping of HD audio as well as HD video.. although I've never noticed any difference between HD audio and non HD) and the VC.exe is for systems such as XP and below that can actually use EAX based soundcards directly instead of emulating it...(or at least that's the reasoning behind eax not being supported in Vista and Win7 to the best of my knowledge).. So you will actually be using either of the exe files I mentioned.
Actually, if you own a SoundBlaster Audigy-series or higher sound card, you can download a nice, official program from Creative's website (www.creative.com) called Creative ALchemy. This program allows you to insert special DirectSound drivers which cause many older EAX-based applications to use OpenAL, thus allowing them to run under Vista and Windows 7. I've used it quite a lot before, and it rarely fails.

A decent alternative one could Google is Creative ALchemy Universal, which does the same thing as the official application described above, but doesn't require a Creative sound card in order to work. However, this means you'll end up utilizing OpenAL software rendering, which is far less compatible than using a real Creative sound card.
Posted February 20, 2012
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Tormentfan: Soulbringer.exe is only the splash menu, when you hit play it executes one of two .exe files either SoulbringerVC.exe or SoulbringerVCNoeax.exe, depending on your setup. Soulbringer.exe isn't actually required to play the game as you can run either of the other exe files by themselves. The VCNoeax.exe is for vista and Win7 when MS started to emulate all of the sound (Alchemy, openAl, etc) to comply with HDCP in the OS (they don't want us ripping of HD audio as well as HD video.. although I've never noticed any difference between HD audio and non HD) and the VC.exe is for systems such as XP and below that can actually use EAX based soundcards directly instead of emulating it...(or at least that's the reasoning behind eax not being supported in Vista and Win7 to the best of my knowledge).. So you will actually be using either of the exe files I mentioned.
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Expack: Actually, if you own a SoundBlaster Audigy-series or higher sound card, you can download a nice, official program from Creative's website (www.creative.com) called Creative ALchemy. This program allows you to insert special DirectSound drivers which cause many older EAX-based applications to use OpenAL, thus allowing them to run under Vista and Windows 7. I've used it quite a lot before, and it rarely fails.

A decent alternative one could Google is Creative ALchemy Universal, which does the same thing as the official application described above, but doesn't require a Creative sound card in order to work. However, this means you'll end up utilizing OpenAL software rendering, which is far less compatible than using a real Creative sound card.
Like the guy you quoted mentioned about it and I think I read it as well, Alchemy emulate it, not make it work directly but yes, it sure works most of the the time for me as well even with unusual, old games.

I've been playing with headphones lately so I haven't used EAX at all in a while.
Posted February 20, 2012
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Tormentfan: Soulbringer.exe is only the splash menu, when you hit play it executes one of two .exe files either SoulbringerVC.exe or SoulbringerVCNoeax.exe, depending on your setup. Soulbringer.exe isn't actually required to play the game as you can run either of the other exe files by themselves. The VCNoeax.exe is for vista and Win7 when MS started to emulate all of the sound (Alchemy, openAl, etc) to comply with HDCP in the OS (they don't want us ripping of HD audio as well as HD video.. although I've never noticed any difference between HD audio and non HD) and the VC.exe is for systems such as XP and below that can actually use EAX based soundcards directly instead of emulating it...(or at least that's the reasoning behind eax not being supported in Vista and Win7 to the best of my knowledge).. So you will actually be using either of the exe files I mentioned.
avatar
Expack: Actually, if you own a SoundBlaster Audigy-series or higher sound card, you can download a nice, official program from Creative's website (www.creative.com) called Creative ALchemy. This program allows you to insert special DirectSound drivers which cause many older EAX-based applications to use OpenAL, thus allowing them to run under Vista and Windows 7. I've used it quite a lot before, and it rarely fails.

A decent alternative one could Google is Creative ALchemy Universal, which does the same thing as the official application described above, but doesn't require a Creative sound card in order to work. However, this means you'll end up utilizing OpenAL software rendering, which is far less compatible than using a real Creative sound card.
In the post you quoted I'd already said that newer OS's emulate the sound now also I specifically mentioned Alchemy and openAl..but it doesn't use the Eax.dll which is necessary to run VC.exe.

Thank you, but you are just telling me what I had already written.
Post edited February 20, 2012 by Tormentfan
Posted February 20, 2012
Actually, in order to have that eax.dll file, you just need to install a support application called Eax Unified.

Most older games used to install Eax Unified right after game installation. I don't know if gog includes it in the installer, but you can check the game's image file which has the extension .gog in this case.

Or you could also install Eax Unified from another game and it should work with Alchemy, and respectively Soulbringer.

Anyway this just relates to the Eax discussion,and I am afraid it won't solve the crashing problems that people are having. To tell you the truth, I am also a creative user and have found out in time that disabling eax in those older games solves a lot of problems, including crashing, sound distortions, missing sound, etc. I haven't tested gog's version or, for that matter, Soulbringer, but I bet it would be more stable with eax turned off.
Post edited February 20, 2012 by yavornn
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This is my favourite topic
Community
General discussion (archive)Release: Soulbringer(110 posts)(110 posts)
(110 posts)