SceneNotice Wars About SKIDROW Cracks

It’s been a while we posted a SceneNotice around here and it’s getting a little boring without all the E drama. So here’s a SceneNotice (and the response for it) that became quite popular in the last couple of days. It goes like this – veteran PC game cracking group SKIDROW is challenged by an anonymous group about the legitimacy of their cracks. The anonymous group claims that SKIDROW’s releases do not conform to scene standards. It is claimed that these pirated releases do not have the DRM software entirely removed but SKIDROW is merely using a workaround by emulating the protection mechanism (aka emu crack) – it is also claimed that some of the code in these fixes are stolen from Russian P2P releases. SKIDROW responds to these allegations and even goes ahead to provide source code snippets as proof. There is absolutely no news value in these type of posts but some of you (specially those into PC game cracking techniques) might find this an interesting read.

The initial SceneNotice titled ‘Truth.About.Skidrow.And.Their
.EmuCracks-DONOTBELIEVETHEIRLIES’ which started the flame war is quoted below:

[Begin Quote]
Dear Skidrow, i know you think all people are fullish to, believe your lies. That youre cracking all your releases by yourself, that youve never stole any piece of code from, anyone (especially russians), that all your cracks are awesome, even if they dont work the way they should..., but hey - who will care, right?
Wrong. Because there are some people in the scene who care, about quality and who stand on guard of scene rules. And what, do we see looking at your releases? WTF is that? - that only, comment that fit here.
Lets see your recent securom releases. Omg, is that firts real, securom crack from Skidrow? BEEP!!! Wrong. Its an emu-crack,witch does not fit in any scene standards and any real scene group wouldnt release that kind of crap. All your recent securom cracks starting from Gothic 4 update emulates the protection and should be nuked, because you havent cracked anything there. You know that method from russian p2p group and you are still stupid enough to claim that Reloaded used files from russian version. If you would understand what is a DFA feature in securom, you would know from where and why that files magically appeared in Reloaded crack. But there is one thing we admire in your work... We call it NFO Propaganda. The shit you write there is amazing. We know that you want people to adore you, but youve crossed the line of reasonability. You try to turn your every mistake into gamebug or some other thing, but its NEVER your fault. Guys, seriously, people laugh from your crackfixes. Another day, another crackfix from Skidrow. For love of God, learn to test your shit before releasing it. We know that things may get complicated when putting together pieces of stolen code, but still.
And last thing... have you maybe concidered to stop stealing and start making your own cracks? All your solidshield and ubidrm cracks were stolen. It was mentioned by some groups it their nfos, but noone reacted to it. You even admited that you have stolen Assassins Creed 2 code from russians and the evidence was inside your crack. Does noone see this? If they done it once they would do it again, and again, and again...
Now a message to all real sceners:
Start caring for quality of releases! Skidrow floods the scene with worthless releases with stolen cracks and nobody care. They win in charts theyre releasing for themselves and you think its normal? Wake up!
[End Quote]

SKIDROW of course responded to the claim. They did not pre a separate SceneNotice but included the response in one of their Call of Duty 4 Update patch NFOs.

[Begin Quote]
Dear Bungholes,   
First of all get some balls and post under your actual Group name if you even have one. Since you are saying we stole something, why are there no references included showing some proof? Oh wait, there isn't any proof. If the people that still care about the scene believed we messed up, then there would already be a nuke, don't you think?  Since you guys also complain about our SecuROM releases, saying we "emulate". There is something we would like to say, that you are full of shit. First of all the real "emulation" you are talking about is done by some of the other groups, because as soon you unpack the exe from SecuROM you are left with a lot of VM calls that can be either "emulated" or wrapped into the code which is way more work. So who are the bad guys now? As far we are concerned with the rules, we did nothing wrong.
In general, then emulation and protection activation will be used more often, because things gets too complex for  example: the Ubisoft DRM, Steam, Solidshield 2, SeucROM VM checks and other similar protections.
NFO Propaganda? HA HA now it's getting funny, give us a definition of what type your NFO is then?
The Truth? Please, We've heard better :) Oh and since you are saying we stole the Ubisoft DRM cracks. We are sure ypu can't show some releases that do actually work until the end of the game right? All "cracks" that were ever done, just had a Menu patch or only the initial Handshake packet, which is no big deal in finding.
So here's a little detail of the Splinter Cell method: Client sends the coordinates Y,X,Z and the Server will check by those. If the player is standing in a registered area on server, if that's the case it will send the player if he has entered the area or left it. The "Russian" cracks you say tried to emulate the stuff via a public released server code, which only leads them into sending the initial handshake, which is just a packet including the product id and product version. 
Due our good will, we decided to show a fraction of a couple of source code examples: 
Prince of Persia: http://codepad.org/FhhVs5RK
Splinter Cell Conviction: http://codepad.org/9VTM3D3.
If you still think that's stolen, let us at least know from where, if you can :) But lets be honest, you can't ever and never will. But why would you believe that? You don't even know what code looks like, even if we would hold it up right under your nose.
Since we have a guess who is responsible for the spreaded NFO, we are just going to say it once: Congratulations you just got voted for the most dumb idiots ever! And if you are so sure about all the things you said in the NFO, why can't you provide any deeper details?  Seriously if we wanted to bash someone, we would at leastprovide some details about this and that.
Over and out. 
[End Quote]

Related Articles

• Know All About Scene Rules, Standards, Nuking And Nuke Reasons
• The Game Scene Charts Issue 43 – Featuring Interview With SKIDROW

Tron Evolution Save Fix & How To Change Screen Resolution

We are a bit late in posting this but here’s our troubleshooting article for Tron Evolution. Tron Evolution is an action/adventure game based on the movie Tron Legacy. The game was released on both PC and console platforms on the 7th of December in North America. I’ve had the opportunity to play this for a couple of hours and it seemed to be a decent action game at best. It’s definitely not Game of The Year material but fans of the Tron franchise may find the experience enjoyable. Anyway this is not a game review but our routine troubleshooting article for Tron Evolution. Unlike some of our recent troubleshooting posts, this does not include a lot of fixes but addresses only two common problems with the game; how to change screen resolution and how to properly save progress with a Windows Live offline account.

How to change resolution in Tron Evolution

In case you are having trouble setting the proper resolution for your monitor, you can manually edit the configuration file and do this. A step by step tutorial can be found below:

1. Browse to folder Documents\Disney Interactive Studios\Tron Evolution\UnrealEngine3\GridGame\Config\
2. Open the file GridEngine.ini with a text editor such as Notepad. Make sure you backup this file before you do any modifications in case something goes wrong.
3. Locate the strings ResX and ResY in the config file.
4. You can put your screen resolution values next to these strings so that the game will launch the the specified resolution.
   Example - For 1440 x 900 resolution put ResX=1440 and ResY=900
5. Save and close the file. Now launch the game.

Note that setting a resolution unsupported by your monitor will cause black screens and crashes during launch.

How do I save progress in Tron Evolution?

This is one of the most frequently asked questions in our troubleshooting articles. Tron Evolution is a Games For Windows Live (GFWL) based title and you need access to a GFWL account in order to save game progress. But don’t worry,  in case you don’t have an online profile, you can still save the game using an offline account. Step by step instructions on how to do this is given below:

1. Launch the game. Open the Windows Live menu (or it will open automatically, prompting you to log in or create a new account).
2. If you are not logged into any GFWL profile continue to step 3. If you are already logged onto a profile (local or online), try launching the single player component and try to save progress. If saving and loading works fine, you obviously have no problem. If it does not work, you’ll need to sign out of the current profile before continuing to step 3 (Create profile button will only become visible when you aren’t logged in).
3. Click on ‘Create new profile’ button.
4. In the dialog box that pops up DO NOT hit continue. Hitting continue will take you to a registration page for an ONLINE profile – this is not the requirement.
5. Once in the ‘Create Gamer Profile’ window, scroll down so that you can see the bottom paragraph.
6. Look for the hyperlinked ‘created a local profile’ link in last paragraph. Clicking this will allow you to create a new offline profile.

Note that an offline GFWL account will not let you play online. But you should be able to play single player mode without any issues whatsoever. A YouTube video showing how to make an offline xlive account can also be found here.

This article will be updated if any new fixes are discovered. Feel free to share your experience/tips in comments section.

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NFS Hot Pursuit (2010) – Change Language, Fix Crash On Race, Windowed, Resolution

The highly anticipated Need for Speed : Hot Pursuit has finally hit the shelves. This game, which is a reboot of the 1998’s NFS 3, is the 16th installment of the long running NFS franchise which is now over 15 years old. I’ve had the opportunity to play the game for several hours and to be honest it looked good and was pretty enjoyable. Of course, this is by no means a true racing simulation – if you are looking for one go play GRID. Hot Pursuit instead is an arcade racer – its not ultra realistic but nevertheless fun to play. Anyway, before this post turns into yet another NFS review, let us tell you that this is our routine troubleshooting article for Hot Pursuit 2010. Hopefully, the tips and workarounds mentioned below will help you avert bugs, glitches, crashes and other annoyances with this new NFS title.

How to fix NFS Hot Pursuit crash to desktop (CTD) after selecting race

Judging by the number of people complaining on various gaming forums, this seems to be a fairly common problem. The game sometimes seem to crash when running on processors with 4 cores. You can try either one of the solutions mentioned below to try and fix this issue:

Set the NFS process to use only two cores

Instead of setting your computer to use two cores, you can try enforcing this restriction on NFS HP process only.

1. Start the game. Immediately start Task Manager
2. Locate the NFS hot Pursuit process in the processes list.
3. Right click the process and select ‘Set Affinity’.
4. Tick only two processor cores, preferably Processor 0 and 1. Press ok and close the dialog.
5. Switch back to the game and try selecting a race.

If this method does not work, try the solution below.

Set your computer to use only two cores

1. Run System Configuration utility. Typing msconfig in the start menu run or search box should do the trick.
2. Switch to ‘Boot’ tab.
3. Select ‘Advanced Options’
4. Set ‘Number of Processors’ to 2.
5. Restart your computer and run the game.

While the crash on race selection may get fixed, note that your computer will now only use only two processor cores instead of 4. You may want to undo the above change once you stop playing.

How to change language in NFS Hot Pursuit

1. Open Registry Editor. Type regedit in start menu run or search box.
2. Locate the following key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Electronic Arts\Need for Speed(TM) Hot Pursuit\1.0 (on 64-bit systems)
   OR
   HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Electronic Arts\Need for Speed(TM) Hot Pursuit\1.0 (on 32-bit systems)
3. Change the Language key value to ‘English’ and Locale key value to ‘en_US’.

It may be possible to switch to other languages/locales if you are using a MULTILANGUAGE release. However, I personally have not tried it.

How to manually edit NFS Hot Pursuit configuration settings

It is possible to manually edit your configuration settings files to tweak settings you can’t change in game.

1. Browse to c:\Documents And Settings\\My Documents\Criterion Games\Need for Speed(TM) Hot Pursuit\
2. Open the config.NFS11Save file with a text editor.

Most of the display options are listed under the [Display] section of above file.

How to run NFS Hot Pursuit in windowed mode

1. Open the config.NFS11Save file as stated above.
2. Browse to the [Display] section.
3. Set fullscreen=false. Save and close the file.
4. Run the game.

How to change resolution in NFS Hot Pursuit

1. Open the config.NFS11Save file as stated earlier.
2. Browse to the [Display] section.
3. Alter width and height properties to fit your desired resolution. For example, values for 800x600 resolution would be : Width=800
   Height=600
4. Save and close the file.
5. Run the game.

Note that adding a resolution unsupported by your video card/monitor would cause black screen issues when trying to launch the game.

Please keep in mind that this article is a work in progress - more fixes will be added here as and when they are discovered. Check this space for updates.

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Fix Call Of Duty : Black Ops Audio Issues, Lag, Stuttering, Slowdowns & Crash At Launch

Here we go folks – probably the most anticipated game of 2010 is finally here. Call of Duty : Black Ops is the latest installment to the long running first person shooter franchise which saw the light in 2003. Now, I read somewhere that over 5 million copies of the game were sold in North America alone, on release day itself – Black Ops is already a hit. However, that doesn’t mean it’s a perfect release – there are numerous issues present, some of the most common problems being continuous stuttering, random slowdowns and of course, audio glitches. Here’s our routine troubleshooting article for Call of Duty – Black Ops. Hopefully, this article will help you get around these annoyances and make you single player and multiplayer gaming experience better.

Stuttering, lag, slowdowns, low FPS and other performance issues

It’s no secret that Call of Duty : Black Ops suffers from serious performance issues. Unfortunately folks, there’s no magic fix like in Fallout : New Vegas to boost the FPS. However, there are some workarounds you can try, at least until an official patch is released. We can’t guarantee these fixes will increase performance for everyone, but they are well worth a shot.

Use custom configuration file to improve performance.

1. Back up your game’s configuration files which are located in \InstallPath\Call of Duty - Black Ops\players folder. config.cfg is the configuration settings file for single player mode and config_mp.cfg is for multiplayer mode.
2. Copy the configuration settings from custom cfg file located at http://pastebin.com/at8sNzkK (this was posted on NFOHump forums)
3. Replace the values in config_mp.cfg with values copied from custom file. Save and load the game.
   Note: Changes to config.cfg file reflects only in multiplayer mode. To edit settings for single player mode, edit the config.cfg file.

Upgrade to NVIDIA 260.99 Drivers

Video hardware manufacturers can do little if the fault is on the game’s side (which seems to be the case with COD : BO). However, several of our readers had E-mailed us that they got better performance when they upgraded to NVIDIA’s 260.99 WHQL drivers. You may download the driver release from this location.

Change priority of COD : BO process

Here’s a yet another workaround you can try. This involves changing priority for COD : BO Process to monimize CPU utilization issues the game seems to be having.

1. Run the game – after you get to the main menu, Open Windows Task Manager by pressing Ctrl + Alt + Del.
2. Locate the Black Ops process. Right click it and set it’s priority to High.
3. If you have Steam running, right click the Steam process and set it’s priority to Low.

Audio Issues, Game crashes to desktop (CTD) at launch, black screen or won’t start

Check the sampling rate

There can be a number of different reasons why this can happen but here’s a common fix you can try. We have mentioned this previously in troubleshooting posts for other games. Black Ops might crash if your sound card’s audio sampling rate is set to any value above 24 bit/48000 Hz range. To fix this issue, follow the steps below (applicable on Windows Vista and Windows 7 systems):

1. Open Control Panel –> Sound.
2. In the ‘Playback’ tab, select ‘Speakers’. Choose ‘Properties’.
3. In the Speaker Properties window, switch to the ‘Advanced’ tab.
4. Under the ‘Default Format’ drop down, choose 24 bit, 48000 Hz (Studio Quality) option.
5. Close all Windows by pressing Ok. Run the game.

Note that you should try this fix if you have run into audio issues including noisy sound, stuttering or lagging audio, no audio, etc. as well.

Disable SPDIF / HD Fill

1. Update your sound card with latest drivers.
2. Open your Sound Card’s control panel utility.
3. Look for any properties similar to ‘Speaker Fill’, ‘Speaker HD Fill’ or ‘SPDIF’.
4. If any of these options are enabled, disable them. Now run the game.

Please keep in mind that this article is a work in progress - more fixes will be added here as and when they are discovered. Check this space for updates.

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Fix James Bond 007 Blood Stone Installer & Setup Crash, Audio Issues

Wake up folks, another Bond game is out. Personally, I’ve never been a fan of James Bond video games. But judging by the response this game has received in various gaming forums, it’s no secret that this gaming franchise has a large fan base from all corners of the world. Blood Stone is a third-person shooter with elements of hand-to-hand combat - its PC version was developed by High Moon studios. Anyways here’s our routing troubleshooting article for this game – it is a short post but hopefully you will be able to resolve those annoying crashing issues with Blood Stone, if you are having any.

Blood Stone Installer freezing and crashes to desktop

The most common problem people seem to be having with Blood Stone is the installer freezing/hanging or crashing issue. This seems to be related to DEP (Data Execution Prevention) in Windows Vista/Windows 7 based operating systems. If your installer crashes before the installation completes, try doing the following:

1. Go to Start->Run. Type cmd.exe and press enter.
2. In the command prompt, type bcdedit.exe/set nx AlwaysOff and press enter. This will turn DEP off.
3. Reboot the machine
4. Install Blood Stone

DEP is a security measure and it’s probably not the best idea to keep it disabled. Once Blood Stone installation is complete. do the following to re-enable DEP

1. Go to Start->Run. Type cmd.exe and press enter.
2. In the command prompt, type bcdedit.exe/set nx OptIn and press enter. This will turn DEP on.
3. Reboot the machine

Fix for Audio looping, crash to desktop

This is a fix that was mentioned in TorrentLeech tracker comments section. I personally never ran into this issue nor tried the fix mentioned below. Try this if you experience audio issues or random or startup CTD.

1. Set Audio Sample Rate In Windows and In-game to 16 bit,48000hz (DVD Quality)
2. Right click "Computer"
3. Click "Manage"
4. Double click "Users and Groups"
5. Click "Groups"
6. Right click "Administrators"
7. Click "Add to group..."
8. Click "Add"
9. Click "Advanced"
10. Click "Find Now"
11. Double click "Local Service"
12. Click "Ok"
13. "NT Authority\Local Service" should show up in the list now
14. Click "Ok"
15. Close Computer Management and reboot.

More fixes will be added here as and when they are discovered.

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Fallout New Vegas – Fix Crash, Freezing, FPS Improve, NPC Slowdown, Mouse & Audio

After a long wait, Fallout New Vegas has finally hit the streets. New Vegas is the latest installment to this long running RPG franchise and is without a doubt one of the most anticipated titles to be released this year. Fallout 3 in my opinion was a great game – however it had its share of technical issues, bugs and glitches which sometimes proved to be annoying. New Vegas is built on the same game engine as FO3 and seems to be an equally enjoyable gaming experience. Unfortunately, New Vegas has also inherited some of the bugs it’s predecessor had. This is not to say the game is bugged to hell, but there seem to be a lot of folks who have run into various issues including performance woes, crashes and audio issues. If you have run into problems with New Vegas, check out the list of fixes below – they will help you improve game performance, avoid crashes and in some cases, get the damn game to run :)

Fallout 3 New Vegas freezing & random freezes mid game, BSOD errors

Random freezes including BSOD errors can occur on certain multi core hardware environments due to incompatibilities with the game engine. You can try to avert these issues by limiting the game to use only two cores.

1. Open fallout.ini file in My Documents\My Games\FalloutNV with a text editor such as Notepad.
2. Look for the string bUseThreadedAI=0
3. Change it to bUseThreadedAI=1
4. Add another line beneath the above, iNumHWThreads=2
5. Save and close this file.
6. Repeat steps 2-5 for fallout_default.ini file in installation dir (default C:\Program Files (x86)\Bethesda Softworks\Fallout New Vegas)
   

Improve FPS, fix NPC slowdown, stuttering issues and increase framerate

I’ve got to say, this is an awesome fix and a godsend for those who are plagued with performance problems. Download and place the dx9.dll file as directed in instructions below and you may notice a significant performance increase with your Fallout New Vegas installation:

1. Download dx9.dll file from http://www.newvegasnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=34778
2. Place file in ../steamapps/common/fallout new vegas (or wherever your falloutNV.exe is located)
3. Restart steam and the game. Game will now use Directx 9 Render Path instead of the backward computability DX9 API with DX10

This fix was originally found here.

This is also known to resolve some crash at launch issues with Fallout New Vegas.

Fix Jerky framerate issues, low FPS in Fallout New Vegas

Sometimes, particularly if you are using low end video hardware, you might find the game to be lagging in performance with stuttering and jerky frame rates. If you encounter this issue, try setting the water multisampling setting to low. I’ve found this to be killing lower end GPU and disabling this gave a noticeable performance boost.

Fix New Vegas mouse acceleration issues

I don’t know about you but I find the sudden mouse accelration annoying as hell. I’m not sure if this is a feature or a bug but if you want to disable it, follow the steps below:

1. Open FalloutPrefs.ini located inside My Documents\My Games\FalloutNV with a text editor.
2. Find the [Controls] section in this file.
3. Add the following lines to this section: fForegroundMouseAccelBase=0
   fForegroundMouseAccelTop=0
   fForegroundMouseBase=0
   fForegroundMouseMult=0

Save and close the file (it’s assumed that this file is not read only – if it is, remove the read only attribute from file properties). Restart the game and mouse acceleration issues should hopefully be resolved. Repeat steps 1-3 for Fallout_default.ini located inside Steam\steamapps\common\fallout new vegas\ folder.

Fallout New Vegas crash after intro video

1. Download dx9.dll file from http://www.newvegasnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=34778
2. Place the file inside your game' installation directory.
3. Restart the game.

If the above still does not fix your crash and launch, try running the game in windowed mode.

Fallout 3 New Vegas crash to desktop at intro or launch, black screen issues, audio issues

Above can happen if you have FFDShow codecs installed on your machine. Fallout 3 engine seems to have incompatibilities with these and is known to cause crashes as well as audio issues. You have to either uninstall the codecs from your system or add fallout3.exe to FFDShow audio and video decoders exceptions list.

1. Launch the ffdshow video decoder configuration window. You may access this through the start menu. If you have installed any codec packs, check the start menu entries of those. If you can’t find it on the start menu, right click the ffdshow video decoder (red) icon that appears on the taskbar when a supported video file is playing, and select ‘ffdshow video decoder’ option from the menu.
   
2. Tick the ‘Dont use ffdshow in’ checkbox if not already checked
3. Press the edit button that is next to the text field. A new dialog box will pop up. Press the Add button. The ‘Add incompatible executable file’ dialog box will be displayed. Browse to the Fallout New Vegas installation directory and locate the main game exe file. Select it and press open. Close all dialog boxes currently open by pressing ok.
   (OR you can simply type falloutnv.exe at the end of the text field next to ‘Dont use ffdshow in’ checkbox)
4. Repeat steps 2-3 in ffdshow audio decoder configuration (the blue icon in taskbar) window as well. It is important that you add fallout3.exe to both ffdshow audio and video decoder’s exceptions list.

This is a bug that’s been there since Fallout 3. We posted a separate article on how to fix this issue back in 2008, which you may find here.

New Vegas audio issues, lagging, stuttering or noisy audio

First of all, try the FFDShow fix (above) if you are having issues with New Vegas audio. If the problem persists, you can try the following:

• Disable surround sound output in your computers sound properties. Try to use  Sterero speaker setup.
• Lower your sound card’s audio sampling rate to at least 48000hz (a screenshot and detailed steps on how to do this may be found in this article)
• Try running the game in Windowed Mode. Strange as it may sound, this seems to fix lagging audio for some.
• Update your sound card’s drivers.

Update your graphics drivers and DirectX

Again, this is pretty basic stuff buy many people seem to ignore this – always update your video card drivers to the latest build before running the game. Update your video card’s drivers – if latest drivers do not work, try downloading and installing latest beta drivers (do this at your own risk).

• ATI Drivers: Download the latest ATI Catalyst drivers from this link: http://game.amd.com/us-en/drivers_catalyst.aspx
• NVIDIA Drivers: Download latest official NVIDIA drivers from this link: http://www.nvidia.com/Download/index.aspx?lang=en-us
• Beta Drivers: Check here http://downloads.guru3d.com/

As for DirectX, you may download the latest monthly runtime from this location.

This article is a work in progress – it will be updated as more solutions are found.

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Fix Arcania Gothic 4 Crash At Startup & Launch, Audio Issues, Black Screen

More good games for the PC – this time the 4th installment of highly popular gaming franchise Gothic. Arcania Gothic 4 continues the storyline after Gothic 3 – the game looks better and plays a lot similar to its predecessor. While the it has not received stellar ratings from various online reviews, Gothic 4 does not appear to be a flop either. For me it looks like a loot filled game you can waste a lot of time on. Anyway here’s our mini troubleshooting article for Gothic 4 – this post tries to address some of the most common problems people seem to be experiencing with the game, such as crash to desktop (CTD) at startup, black screens and other launch errors along with audio issues.

Game crashes to desktop (CTD) at launch, black screen or won’t start

Solution 1

There can be a number of different reasons why this can happen but here’s a common fix you can try. We have mentioned this previously in troubleshooting posts for other games. This applies to Gothic 4 as well and we can confirm that some people have managed to resolve their launch errors with this method. Gothic 4 might crash if your sound card’s audio sampling rate is set to any value above 24 bit/48000 Hz range. To fix this issue, follow the steps below (applicable on Windows Vista and Windows 7 systems):

1. Open Control Panel –> Sound.
2. In the ‘Playback’ tab, select ‘Speakers’. Choose ‘Properties’.
3. In the Speaker Properties window, switch to the ‘Advanced’ tab.
4. Under the ‘Default Format’ drop down, choose 24 bit, 48000 Hz (Studio Quality) option.
5. Close all Windows by pressing Ok. Run the game.

Note that you should try this fix if you have run into audio issues including noisy sound, stuttering or lagging audio, no audio, etc. as well.

Solution 2

1. Uninstall the game
2. Manually delete the Arcania registry key located under HKCU\Software\Microsoft\DirectInput (using Registry Editor)
3. Delete the game settings folder inside your My Documents (Documents in Win 7) folder
4. Reinstall the game – it’s preffered that you try installing the game to your root directory ( Ex – X:\Gothic 4\, where X is your root drive)

Note that we cannot guarantee the above fixes will work in all CTD scenarios – however, they are worth a try. This article is a work in progress – it will be updated as more solutions are found.

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Lost Planet 2 Save Issues, Crash Fix & More (PC)

Finally, the PC version of Lost Planet 2 is here. This highly anticipated third person shooter video game from Capcom has been released on the 12th October in North America, several months after the console release. I’ve had the opportunity to play the game (single player component) for several hours and I must say the graphics look absolutely beautiful when maxed out. Gameplay however can sometimes get a bit boring and the game appears to be rather short as well. Anyways Lost Planet 2 is one of the better PC titles to be released this year and you won’t be too disappointed with it. For those who are having trouble getting the game to run, here’s our routine troubleshooting article for LP2. There are some common fixes you can try to avert save issues and crashes – this article is a work in progress and more fixes will be added later, as they are discovered.

How do I save progress in Lost Planet 2?

This is one of the most frequently asked questions in our troubleshooting articles. LP2 is a Games For Windows Live (GFWL) based title and you need access to a GFWL account in order to save game progress. But don’t worry,  in case you don’t have an online profile, you can still save the game using an offline account. Step by step instructions on how to do this is given below:

1. Launch the game. Open the Windows Live menu (or it will open automatically, prompting you to log in or create a new account).
2. If you are not logged into any GFWL profile continue to step 3. If you are already logged onto a profile (local or online), try launching the single player component and try to save progress. If saving and loading works fine, you obviously have no problem. If it does not work, you’ll need to sign out of the current profile before continuing to step 3 (Create profile button will only become visible when you aren’t logged in).
3. Click on ‘Create new profile’ button.
4. In the dialog box that pops up DO NOT hit continue. Hitting continue will take you to a registration page for an ONLINE profile – this is not the requirement.
5. Once in the ‘Create Gamer Profile’ window, scroll down so that you can see the bottom paragraph.
6. Look for the hyperlinked ‘created a local profile’ link in last paragraph. Clicking this will allow you to create a new offline profile.

Note that an offline GFWL account will not let you play online. But you should be able to play single player mode without any issues whatsoever. A YouTube video showing how to make an offline xlive account can also be found here.

Crashes and Error messages

Just like with any game, you might run into crashes and error messages caused by a number of different reasons. Here are some common fixes you can try to avert such annoyances. If you get any of those Lost Planet 2 has stopped working errors, first thing you should do is to update DirectX. I myself had the misfortune to run into one of these errors and upgrading to the latest DX version resolved the issue for me. You can download the latest DirectX monthly runtime from here. This should fix most crashes at startup and launch.

Another common error you might run into is the missing xlive.dll issue. This is mostly caused by a missing or incomplete installation of Games for Windows Live (GFWL) component. You can download the GFWL client from this location (choose Download option even if you don’t have a gamertag)

Update your graphics drivers

Always update your video card drivers to the latest build before running the game – if latest drivers do not work, try downloading and installing latest beta drivers (do this at your own risk).

• ATI Drivers: Download the latest ATI Catalyst drivers from this link: http://game.amd.com/us-en/drivers_catalyst.aspx
• NVIDIA Drivers: Download latest official NVIDIA drivers from this link: http://www.nvidia.com/Download/index.aspx?lang=en-us
• Beta Drivers: Check here http://downloads.guru3d.com/

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Pro Evolution Soccer 2011 (PES) – Change Settings, Resolution, Commentary Language & Unlock Extra Content

Well the recent influx of popular PC games does not seem to be ending anytime soon. Just after the release of FIFA 2011, here’s another highly anticipated title that sports video game fanatics will enjoy – Pro Evolution Soccer (PES) 2011 is finally here and the game was released to the public on the 30th of September in European region. PES 2011 gameplay does not need much explaining – it’s a football simulation with arcade elements mixed in. Through this article, we hope to provide some useful troubleshooting tips for the game as well as point to locations where you can download mods, add- ons, unlockers and other extra content for your PC installation of PES 2011. Please note that this article is a work in progress – it will be updated with more stuff as we discover new tips, content, etc.

Pro Evolution Soccer 2011 – How to change game settings

Like most PC games released nowadays, you can’t configure a lot of settings while in-game. This however can be done prior to launch, with the help of the settings application in PES 2011 installation directory. This utility however does not automatically pop up the first time you launch the game so many people don’t even know of it’s existence. To launch the settings utility, do the following steps:

• Navigate to PES 2011 installation folder on your hard drive (Default is C:\Program Files\KONAMI\PES 2011)
• Locate the file settings.exe and run it. You should now be able to change various game settings, including screen resolution and controller settings.

How to change commentary language in PES 2011

If you want to change PES 2011’s commentary language to something other than the default, it’s possible with commentary patches made available by PES-Patch.com. Following are some commentary patches currently available – note that these only work with the full version of the game (no Demo support). All links will take you to the download page on PES-Patches.com

• PES 2011 English Commentary Patch
• PES 2011 Portuguese Commentary Patch
• PES 2011 Spanish Commentary Patch
• PES 2011 Italian Commentary Patch
• PES 2011 Greek Commentary Patch

Installing a commentary patch is as easy as moving the extracted file into the game’s installation directory.

Patches, Mods, Unlockers and Extra Content Mods for PES 2011

You can download a ton of add-ons, extra content and unlockers for PES 2011 through PES-Patch.com. It’s a 3rd party release blog which indexes some cool mods for the game, along with installation instructions. Some of the notable releases include:

• Extra-Content Unlocker 1.0.1.0 by 222
• PES 2011 Stadium Pack by anhtaidatquang (adds 11 new stadiums)
• PES 2011 – Camera Settings v1.2 by MxSoniC
• PESEdit 2011 Patch 0.1

And there are tons more of these. You can browse the entire collection by visiting http://www.pes-patch.com. Keep in mind that all of these are user made mods for the game – use them at your own risk.

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FIFA 11 – How To Change Settings, Keyboard Configuration, Controller Issues & More

We’re probably a little late on this one but here goes. It’s been a few days since FIFA 11 has been released and from the amount of E-mails we’ve received over the past couples of days two things are clear; 1. FIFA 11 is a very popular game. 2. A lot of PC users seem to be pissed off about the keyboard control scheme (or how controls are mapped). This 19th installment in EA’s popular football video game is considered to be a major release for the PC as gamers now get to enjoy the same next generation graphics engine used in XBOX and PS3 versions of the game. Anyways here’s a mini troubleshooting article for FIFA 11- this post mainly addresses console woes and settings issues a number of folks seem to be experiencing.

How do I change game settings?

Although you might not see it at first, FIFA 11 includes a separate configuration utility application through which you can change display settings, video resolution, map keyboard keys, controller and audio settings. This can be accessed from the start menu (Games –> FIFA11-> Game Settings) – in case you didn’t get the start menu entry, follow the steps below to launch the configuration utility.

1. Navigate to FIFA 11 installation directory on your hard disk.
2. Go inside the ‘Game’ folder.
3. Find and run the file fifaconfig.exe

Cannot run FIFA 11 configuration/settings application

If you followed the steps above and the configuration utility did not launch (or gave an error), it could be something to do with not having the proper version of Microsoft .NET framework installed. FIFA 11 requires Microsoft .NET framework 3.5 – you can download this (free) from this location. Note that having a higher version installed (ex. v4.0) does not solve this issue.

How do I change keyboard key bindings in FIFA 11?

This is perhaps the most asked question related to this game. Although the PC version of FIFA 2011 is ‘allegedly’ optimized for the PC, it’s keyboard control scheme is mapped based on the XBOX360 gamepad. That is, a keyboard key is mapped for each function available in a X360 gamepad. Refer to screenshot below for more information:

You can change the key bindings by running the configuration utility (fifaconfig.exe – see above) and switching to the In-Game Keyboard tab. This is obviously a very user-unfriendly approach and some people might not be aware what exactly those XBOX360 buttons do.  Here are some of the common functions served by X360 buttons:

• A - Lob, Cross, Sliding tackle
• S - Pass. Standing Tackle
• D – Shot
• W - Switch player, Trigger Run
• E – Sprint
• X - Throw ball
• C - Stop the ball, Pace control

Above was based on this EA forum entry.

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Fix Dead Rising 2 Crash, Sound, Save & Controller Issues, Missing DDL Error & More

This is again a busy time for PC gamers – there are several popular titles out at once and TBH they all look pretty good. Dead Rising 2 is one of those highly anticipated titles of the year and it’s due to hit the shelves on 28th of September in North American markets. The game reminds me a lot of Devil May Cry and fans of the action, survival horror genre should enjoy this title from Capcom. As usual, here’s our troubleshooting article for Dead Rising 2 – this post aims to provide help with most common annoyances and issues people seem to be having with the game. I haven’t run into any major showstopper bugs with the legit version of Dead Rising 2 but some of the pirated copies floating around in file sharing networks seem to be somewhat buggy. Note that this article is a work in progress – we will be adding new fixes/solutions as they are discovered.

Missing msvcr100.dll file error

One of the most common errors users seem to be running into with Dead Rising 2 is the missing msvcr100.dll file error. Fortunately, this is easily fixed:

1. Download and install the Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable package from here.
2. Try running the game now. If the error is fixed, your problem is obviously solved. Else continue to step 3.
3. Download the msvcr100.dll file from this location (choose the free download option).
4. Extract and copy the file into your System32 directory. This is usually C:\Windows\System32
5. Run the game.

Game crashes to desktop (CTD) at launch, black screen or won’t start

There can be a number of different reasons why this can happen but here’s a fix for a common culprit with almost all recently released Capcom games. Dead Rising 2 might crash if your sound card’s audio sampling rate is set to any value above 24 bit/48000 Hz range. To fix this issue, follow the steps below (applicable on Windows Vista and Windows 7 systems):

1. Open Control Panel –> Sound.
2. In the ‘Playback’ tab, select ‘Speakers’. Choose ‘Properties’.
3. In the Speaker Properties window, switch to the ‘Advanced’ tab.
4. Under the ‘Default Format’ drop down, choose 24 bit, 48000 Hz (Studio Quality) option.
5. Close all Windows by pressing Ok. Run the game.

Note that you should try this fix if you have run into audio issues including noisy sound, stuttering or lagging audio, no audio, etc. as well.

Unable to save progress in Dead Rising 2

Dead Rising 2 is a Games For Windows Live (GFWL) based game. Saving in such games is usually handled by the xlive system. However, some pirated copies of the game that are floating around have the Windows Live component partially disabled or modified in a bid to circumvent the copy protection mechanism. If you are using a pirated version of Dead Rising 2 and have run into a save issue, this is the likely cause – there is no possible fix unless whatever release group who leaked the game comes up with a fixed version.

Another reason why game progress is not being saved could be because you are not logged into Games For Windows Live account. If you don’t have an online account, follow the step by step instructions here on how to create an offline account and continue playing (same fix for F1 2010 applies here - refer to the first section ‘How do I save progress’).

Dead Rising 2 won’t detect my game controller

Controller issues including the 3rd party controller not being detected by the game can also be related to  xlive modification. For example if you are using a pirated version of Dead Rising 2 and trying to use a wireless XBOX 360 controller, chances are that it won’t work. Controller detection is handled by the GFWL component and as mentioned earlier in some pirated versions of DR2 this appears to be disabled. If this is the case, you might try your luck with Xpadder but I can’t confirm it really works or not.

Fix Civilization 5 Crash, Black Screen, Freezes, Skip Intro, Windowed Mode, AA & Save Issues

Civilization 5 is probably the most anticipated strategy game of this year. Judging by comments on various gaming forums, latest installment of this popular franchise is already a hit among the gamer community. Civ 5 features a brand new game engine, challenging multi tiered artificial intelligence (AI) and of course, the same addictive gameplay. Needless to say the game has a lot of depth to it and you can pretty much waste hours and hours going at it. Anyway, this article isn’t another game review. This is our routine troubleshooting article for Civilization 5 – here you will find fixes, workarounds and solutions for the most common problems associated with the PC version of Civ 5. Of course, we can’t guarantee this’ll fix all of your problems, but some of the fixes mentioned might actually work :p

How to manually tweak Civilization 5 settings by editing configuration files

Before we move onto other fixes, I think it’s best to know how to edit Civilization 5 configuration files manually – most of the other fixes involve changing values in these files.

1. Navigate to the Civilization 5 game settings location. This is usually Documents\My Games\Sid Meier’s Civilization 5\
2. In this folder you will see various files ending with .ini extension. Open any one of these files with a text editor such as Notepad and you are good to go. Some of the files you may find inside include:
   Usersettings.ini – holds user preferences
   GraphicsSettingsDX9.ini – graphics settings for DirectX 9 mode
   GraphicsSettingsDX11.ini – graphics settings for DirectX 10/11 modes
   Config.ini – general game preferences

It’s always recommended that you backup the original file before making modifications, in case anything goes wrong.

Civilization 5 crashes to desktop (CTD) after or before the intro movie

On certain video hardware configurations and resolutions, the game might crash to desktop just after or before the intro movie is played. You can try disabling the intro movie and see if this fixes the problem.

1. Open the usersettings.ini file with a text editor.
2. Look for the string SkipIntroVideo – the current value should be 0.
3. Change the SkipIntroVideo value to 1. This will disable the intro movie.

The game crashes when trying to run in full screen mode

Civilization 5 might crash upon launch if the game is configured to run in full screen mode – I haven’t found why this happens but I’ve got a hunch it’s related to default resolution. Anyways you can try running the game in windowed mode as a workaround:

1. Open the GraphicsSettingsDX9.ini file (or GraphicsSettingsDX11.ini file, based on whatever DirectX version of the game you are running) with a text editor.
2. Look for the string fullscreen. The current value should be 1. Change this to 0.
3. Navigate to the cache folder. Delete all *.db files inside the folder.
4. Run the game – it should now start in windowed mode and hopefully the startup crash should be gone.

Civilization 5 black screen upon launch or out of range error

Black screen errors that don’t give any sort of feedback are some of the most annoying issues you can have with a game. If you are having such problems with Civ 5, it could very well be because your monitor or video card is incompatible with the screen resolution autodetected by the game. To see if this really is the case, you can try running the game in a lower, widely supported resolution and try increasing it if the fix works:

1. Open the corresponding GraphicsSettingsDX9/DX11.ini file with a text editor. Look for the strings WindowResX and WindowResY.
2. If you want the game to run in 1024x768 resolution, change these values so that they read
   WindowResX = 1024 
   WindowResY = 768

Crashes due to DirectX incompatibilities

Before you try anything, run the following two installers to ensure that your installed DirectX version and Visual C++ runtime libraries are up to date.

1. Navigate to your Civ 5 installation directory – default is C:\Program files\Steam\Steamapps\Common\sid meier's civilization v\
2. Run \Steamapps\Common\sid meier's civilization v\VCRedist\vcredist_x86.exe to update VC++ libraries.
3. Run \Steamapps\Common\sid meier's civilization v\DirectX\DXSetup.exe to update DirectX

You may also download the latest DirectX monthly runtime from here.

Civilization 5 supports multiple DirectX versions including DX9, DX10 and DX11. You can run the game even in DX11 provided that your operating system and video hardware supports this newer DX version. Windows XP supports DX9, Windows Vista supports DX9, DX10 and Windows 7 supports all three. However, just because your current operating system supports DX11 does not mean you can run the game on the this mode – your video hardware needs to be compatible too. For example, you might run into issues if you try to run the game on DX11 and on a non fully DX11 compatible hardware such as Geforce 8800, Geforce 8600 etc. The game might start up but corrupted textures, sudden stuttering, freezes, random lags might be clues to DirectX incompatibilities. If you encounter any crashes or any other odd behavior, be sure to check if the problem exists in a different DirectX mode.

How to enable Anti Aliasing in Civilisation 5 DirectX 10 and DirectX 11 modes

1. Open GraphicsSettingsDX11.ini with a text editor
2. Look for the string AllowLeaderAA string.
3. Change the value to 0.

Unable to save game progress to hard drive

If you are having trouble saving your progress in Civilization 5, it could be due to a improperly set save folder location.

1. Open Config.ini file with a text editor.
2. Look for the FileName string in [Game] section.
3. If this appears blank, set a proper saved games directory – default is C:\Users\USERNAME\Documents\My Games\Sid Meier’s Civilization 5\Saves\
4. Save and close the file. Run the game.

Update your graphics drivers

This is pretty basic stuff buy many people seem to ignore this – always update your video card drivers to the latest build before running the game. Update your video card’s drivers – if latest drivers do not work, try downloading and installing latest beta drivers (do this at your own risk).

• ATI Drivers: Download the latest ATI Catalyst drivers from this link: http://game.amd.com/us-en/drivers_catalyst.aspx
• NVIDIA Drivers: Download latest official NVIDIA drivers from this link: http://www.nvidia.com/Download/index.aspx?lang=en-us
• Beta Drivers: Check here http://downloads.guru3d.com/

This article is a work in progress. It will be updated as new fixes are discovered – feel free to share your experience in comments. If you liked this article:

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F1 2010 – How To Fix Save Issues, Fullscreen Display Problems, Crashes & More (PC)

Another high profile video game hits the PC and here comes our routine troubleshooting and help article for F1 2010. F1 2010 is the latest racing game from the veteran developer Codemasters and it was released to the public on the 22nd, in North American markets. As the title of the game suggests, it’s based on the 2010 season of the Formula One motor racing series. I have had the opportunity to play the game for quite some time and I found the experience to be enjoyable. I wouldn’t call it a hard core F1 simulation since there are a lot of arcade elements but it’s definitely a fun game to play. Either was this troubleshooting article should hopefully help you avert some of the most common issues with the game, namely display and save issues.

How do I save progress in F1 2010?

This is one of the most frequently asked questions in our troubleshooting articles. F1 2010 is a Games For Windows Live (GFWL) based title and you need access to a GFWL account in order to save game progress. But don’t worry,  in case you don’t have an online profile, you can still save the game using an offline account. Step by step instructions on how to do this is given below:

1. Launch the game. Open the Windows Live menu (or it will open automatically, prompting you to log in or create a new account).
2. If you are not logged into any GFWL profile continue to step 3. If you are already logged onto a profile (local or online), try launching the single player component and try to save progress. If saving and loading works fine, you obviously have no problem. If it does not work, you’ll need to sign out of the current profile before continuing to step 3 (Create profile button will only become visible when you aren’t logged in).
3. Click on ‘Create new profile’ button.
4. In the dialog box that pops up DO NOT hit continue. Hitting continue will take you to a registration page for an ONLINE profile – this is not the requirement.
5. Once in the ‘Create Gamer Profile’ window, scroll down so that you can see the bottom paragraph.
6. Look for the hyperlinked ‘created a local profile’ link in last paragraph. Clicking this will allow you to create a new offline profile.

Note that an offline GFWL account will not let you play online. But you should be able to play single player mode without any issues whatsoever.

F1 2010 does not run in full screen after ALT + TAB

This seems to be another common issue with F1 2010. If you for any reason ALT + TABBED out of the game (and many of us do this), you might find the game no longer starts in full screen mode – it will always run in a maximized windowed mode. Not only does this ruin the gameplay experience but it might even lead to crashes or black screens when trying to start a race.  The solution however is very simple. When this happens, all you have to do is to press ALT + ENTER to re enter full screen mode (this is a standard windows keyboard shortcut).

Avoid crash in race mode by forcing the game to run in DirectX 9 (UPDATED)

In certain computer hardware configurations (including on certain multi core processors), the game might crash when trying to start a race or during your first race. The crash may be due to a number of reasons but here are a few things that might help avert it

1. Install everything found in the ‘redist’ folder in the game’s installation DVD. These are support runtime components that are required for Formula One 2010 to run properly.

Force the game to run in DirectX 9 mode:

1. Navigate to the My Documents -> My Games -> Formula One –> Hardwaresettings folder.
2. Open the hardware_settings_config.xml file with a text editor.
3. Look for the string inside the file. Change this line so that it reads
4. This will now force your game to run in DX9 mode.

As of right now I haven’t heard about any other showstopper bugs with F1 2010 apart from those mentioned above. I will update the post if new issues/fixes are discovered. Feel free to share your experiences in comments.

Mafia 2 - Fix Crash, Low FPS, Black Screen, Clothes & Particle Fix, Control, Authentication Issues

Mafia 2, the game we have all been waiting for 10 long years, is finally here. PC version is due to be released on the 24th in North America, 26th in Australia and 27th in PAL region. A demo was made available several weeks prior to the official release of the game so avid gamers could try it out before buying. If you thought the demo was good, just wait till you see the real thing. While Mafia 2 is not a perfect game, it’s a clearly one of the best PC games to be released this year. Anyways this post is not yet another Mafia 2 review – objective of this article is to provide some useful troubleshooting tips so that you can get the best of this game without annoyances. We have also included some guidelines on how to improve Mafia 2 performance, in case you have run into slow frame rate issues.

Download and install the latest PhysX system software & DirectX

First things first. Mafia 2 is a heavily PhysX dependent game. If you have a PhysX supported graphics card, having the latest version of NVIDIA PhysX System Software installed is an absolute necessity. Currently, the latest stable version of PSS is v9.10.0513. If you look closely at release notes for this build, it actually has one entry titled “Bug fixes for Mafia 2”. So yeah, you’d want to download and install it prior to running Mafia 2. You can download PhysX System Software separately from this location (Note that the latest Geforce driver release 258.96 includes an older version of PhysX – v9.10.0513 does not come bundled with these drivers).

You will also want to upgrade your current DirectX installation to the latest monthly build. You can download the latest monthly runtime from here. For further optimizations, do everything mentioned in ‘The Essentials’ section in this article.

Improve Mafia 2 performance with the APEX clothes fix

Some of you with even mid-high range video hardware might find slowness, stuttering and other framerate related issues while playing Mafia 2. Thankfully, there is one simple fix you can try to get a massive framerate boost without losing too much visual quality. The game uses dynamic clothing (realistic clothing simulation) not only for the main character but for all NPCs as well. This is a very CPU and GPU intensive task and can take up quite a lot of resources. You can safely disable dynamic clothing for NPCs and keep it on for the main character only – this should greatly improve frame rate. Step by step instructions on how to apply the clothes fix may be found below:

1. Navigate to your Mafia 2 installation directory.
2. Navigate to Edit/APEX/CLOTH directory. Make a full backup for CLOTH folder before you start modifying its contents.
3. Inside the CLOTH directory, delete all files except - those starting with VITO, and the two files m2skeleton and ClothRemapTable.

This will leave dynamic clothing on for the main character and revert to static clothing for NPCs.

Improve Mafia 2 performance by removing particle effects

You can remove particle effects in a similar manner. While this too will improve Mafia 2 performance, the loss of visual quality will be more noticeable than the clothes fix.

1. Navigate to your Mafia 2 installation directory.
2. Navigate to Edit/APEX/Effects directory. Make a full backup for Effects folder before you start modifying its contents.
3. Remove the Effects directory. This will disable all particle effects in game, including bullet damage, smoke and will lower the quality of explosions as well.

Note: The performances fixes above were based on a similar solution devised for Mafia 2 Demo. For a detailed account on how this works, refer to this article.

Random crashes, black screen errors, authentication issues, controls getting inverted & more

I have seen folks reporting a lot of problems with the game on several gaming forums. These include random crashes, black screen errors, authentication error messages, control issues and so on. Upon further investigation, it was revealed that most of those had problems with the game were playing Mafia 2 copies leaked online with either beta or incomplete cracks. There are about 10 different modified executable for the game out there and some of these are very badly done. If you are using a pirated version of Mafia 2, you may experience one or more of the following issues :

• Random crashes to desktop on certain chapters. For example, you might experiences crashing in chapter 3 or chapter 7, sometimes when trying to enter vehicles.
• Health (or energy) drops to 0 in certain chapters
• Movement issues and controls getting inverted
• Error message : Authentication failed - game experience will be negatively affected

Only way past these barriers is to either buy the game or switch to a better pirated copy :D (and please do not post links to torrents or cracks here – this is not a warez blog). Personally, I recommend buying the game as the developers clearly deserve the credit.

Note that if you switch between different copies of the game (different pirated copies or later switch to a legitimate copy after using a pirated version), you might have to create a new game. Quoted from NFO of one of the releases out there:

If you have used any of these hacked demo cracks out there, then make sure you start a new game, as your old saves will make the game crash. The main reason: it wont work is because those "cracks" are modified demo exes.

More fixes will be added as they are discovered. This article is a work in progress.

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Kane And Lynch 2 Dog Days – Crash At Launch, No Sound, Shaky Camera & Blur Fix, Change Language & More

Once again a busy time for PC gaming has arrived with several highly anticipated titles due to be released soon. Among them is Kane and Lynch 2 : Dog Days, the sequel to Kane and Lynch : Dead Men which was released back in 2007. As expected, lots of folks seem to be interested in buying (and of course, downloading) the game despite some scathing reviews by several gaming news sites (for example Eurogamer gave it 4 points out of 10). Either way here’s our regular troubleshooting article for Kane and Lynch 2. We hope to address common issues players from around the globe seem to be having with the game and provide as many solutions as possible for these annoyances. Note that this article is a work in progress – more fixes will be added as they are discovered.

Crash at startup, black screen, game does nothing when the exe is doubled clicked & sound issues

This could happen for a number of reasons but let’s start with a common, likely cause. The game might crash if your system does not have OpenAL runtime libraries installed. Kayne and Lynch 2 installer should have installed these files by default but there have been cases where it doesn’t. To be sure, manually run the OpenAL installer which may be found at resources\redist\openal\oalinst.exe. Just to be on the safe side we recommend you execute everything inside the \resources\redist folder inside the DVD. If this still did not resolve the problem, download openAL32.dll file from here and place it inside your System32 directory.

If it still didn’t resolve your issue - you may also try this fix mentioned in Steam forums. It supposedly works for the demo and should work the same for full version as well.

Additionally, we strongly recommend you install the latest DirectX monthly runtime (which you can get from here). Proper installation of OpenAL coupled with the latest version of DirectX should get rid of most sound issues as well.

Pink and purple lines, graphical glitches, bad lighting, etc

Some of you might be wondering why you get pink lines and other graphical glitches in certain areas of the game (especially where there are lights). You’d be surprised to hear that this is intentional, although it probably didn’t turn out exactly as the developers thought. For the most part game is viewed as seen through a low quality video camera. You may try disabling fullscreen effects and run the game to see if it improves things. To disable fullscreen effects, run kl.exe with -setup command line option.

Spinning and shaking camera, mouse and aiming issues

Again, these effects are intentional. However sometimes the effect can be a pain in the ass and you might want to disable the shaking camera and mouse (I personally found it to cause me headaches). Thankfully, you CAN disable these effects, if you know where to look that is. The option to disable these ‘effects’ (steadycam) is not in either the game or video menu. It’s in the controls menu – look under there and you’d find it instantly :p

What’s with the blur and pixelisation effect? Is this game censored?

You may have noticed the mosaic and blur effect when you shoot someone. It’s as if the game does not want you to see blood and gore. No your version of the game is not censored – this is again an ‘effect’ which the developers intentionally put there to enhance the atmospheric feeling in the game. Unfortunately, there is currently no way to remove the filter.

How to change Kane and Lynch 2 Language

If your copy of the game is multilanguage, you can change the in game language by editing the Language.txt file with a text editor. Most versions are MULTI 5 and come with English (ENG), French (FRA), Spanish (SPA), Italian (ITA) and German (GER) languages by default. Play with Language.txt and you should be able to change the spoken and text language in game easily.

Glitch in the first chase 

There is a common glitch in the first chase event of the game. The helper arrow will point to a guy who does nothing – you cannot kill him and he’ll just stay there.  I’ve seen people report the same issue with the XBOX360 version of the game as well. However you can walk past him and continue although the scripted event does not occur.

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Blazblue Calamity Trigger – How To Fix Offline Save Game Issues & Change Resolution (PC)

Blazblue Calamity Trigger has finally arrived for the PC. Although this fighting game (which is of the same genre as Street Fighter 4), was released for the consoles several months ago, the street date of the PC version was delayed by several weeks and was scheduled for sometime around the 20th of August. Despite the delays, the PC port is finally here and judging by the response we have received so far, some folks have already got their hands on a copy (not that this is not the arcade version of the game which leaked earlier this year). So here’s our routine troubleshooting article for Blazblue Calamity Trigger. This article tries to address two of the most common issues people seem to be having with the game – issues when saving single player progress and inability to change screen resolution.

How to save progress in Blazblue Calamity Trigger

Judging by comments left in several gaming forums, many people seem to have run into the issue of not being able to save progress in single player portion of the game. The solution for most of these cases is rather simple and we’ve discussed it numerous times before. BCT is a Games For Windows Live (GFWL) supported game – to save progress, you need to be logged into a GFWL account. If you don’t have an online account, don’t worry - you can always create an offline local profile and continue playing. Step by steps to create an offline profile in GFWL based games can be found below – these should work for all GFWL 3.1 based games.

1. Launch the game. Open the Windows Live menu (or it will open automatically, prompting you to log in or create a new account).
2. If you are not logged into any GFWL profile continue to step 3. If you are already logged onto a profile (local or online), try launching the single player component and try to save progress. If saving and loading works fine, you obviously have no problem. If it does not work, you’ll need to sign out of the current profile before continuing to step 3 (Create profile button will only become visible when you aren’t logged in).
3. Click on ‘Create new profile’ button.
4. In the dialog box that pops up DO NOT hit continue. Hitting continue will take you to a registration page for an ONLINE profile – this is not the requirement.
5. Once in the ‘Create Gamer Profile’ window, scroll down so that you can see the bottom paragraph.
6. Look for the hyperlinked ‘created a local profile’ link in last paragraph. Clicking this will allow you to create a new offline profile.

Offline account will not let you play online. For those who are interested in online play and who already have a GFWEL online account, keep in mind that Blazblue Calamity Trigger is compatible with any Games For Windows Live key. You can insert any key from your old GFWL based games (Bioshock 2, Street Fighter 4, Fallout 3 GOTY Edition, The Club, etc) can play BCT online legitimately.

How to change screen resolution in Blazblue Calamity Trigger

In game options in BCT may not display all the screen resolutions and your favorite res can be missing from the list (I’ve seen folks running into problems when trying to lower the resolution). If this is the case, you can manually edit display settings configuration file to force the game run in your preferred resolution.

1. Navigate to  C:\Users\USERNAME\Documents\ARC SYSTEM WORKS\BLAZBLUE-CT\Config\ folder.
2. Open the file DisplaySettings.cfg with a text editor.
3. You should be able to edit the entries to set your proffered resolution. Please make sure to use an standard resolution which is supported by your monitor – entering unsupported resolutions can result in black screen errors upon game launch.

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Mafia 2 Demo Trainer With Unlimited Time Hack Released By ModMyWhat

You hear about game trainers being released for full games but you don’t often see them being developed for game demos. This is not a bad thing really - If you are a video game developer and if a trainer of a hack appeared online for your latest demo, that usually means the full game is going to be a hit on the targeted platform. It’s just been a day since a try-out version of highly anticipated Mafia 2 was released by 2K Games and the modding community has already stepped up and released the first trainer for the game. While Mafia 2 demo (which is being made available over Steam) features a functional, playable version of the game , it has restrictions such as time limitation, reduced missions and inaccessible areas. The trainer removes some of these obstacles, giving players more time to check out the demo.

The trainer released by ModMyWhat (MWW), a modding news site and a community, offers over 10 options. This includes unlimited ammo, infinite money, ability to enable or disable police and most importantly, the ability to remove the timer countdown. It also adds an interesting ‘waterhover’ option which if enabled will allow vehicles to float over water. Note that some of these functions seem to be buggy and will sometimes crash the game. However, in general it works fine and does not seem to have any major issues.

[Click Here] to visit trainer homepage – contains a description and links for the Mafia 2 Demo trainer.

No matter how many kick ass trainers are released, keep in mind that this is still a demo. It offers only a fraction of the content the full game has to offer and should only be used to ‘try before buy’. Speaking of buying, Mafia 2 seems to be a title well worth spending the money on. If you are thinking of pirating this, I suggest you try to buy it since Mafia 2 has some PC gamer friendly developers behind it who really deserve the appreciation.

Pirates Break StarCraft 2 Protection To Enable Offline Skirmish Mode

As we mentioned in a previous post, StarCraft 2 : Wings of Liberty is one of the most anticipated PC games of this year. According to various reviews floating around the net and from my own experience after playing the game for several hours, it looks like Blizzard had delivered yet another great Real Time Strategy (RTS) title. No matter how great the game was, it did not escape the eyes of pirates – SC2 was leaked on scene topsites and various file sharing sites on the street date itself (the game did ship with anti piracy measures including online activation and authentication over Battle.Net). Single player campaign was working on most cracked versions of the game but offline skirmish mode was broken in all of the early releases. Now, several days later, one of the oldest groups in the gaming scene have stepped up to release a SC2 version that has the single player component including skirmish fully working.

So far, many different leaked versions of SC2 have made their way onto file sharing networks across the world. Initially, a CloneDVD leaked on a well known pirate tracker – this was an untouched image of the original game and did not include any modified files. CloneDVD was probably the source for cracked releases that appeared next –first of which pre’d by group LIBERTY and then another by RELOADED. LIBERTY’s version did not actually circumvent the copy protection in the game. It appeared to use a built in function in the Starcraft 2 patching framework to launch the game, bypassing the authentication screen. This however lead to some issues and in some cases broke the game. RELOADED’s release on the other hand was better. It had the SP campaign working but still, skirmish play was broken. A method to unlock & enable skirmish mode on RELOADED release was posted on a leading warez forum but this included renaming game files and modifying registry entries.

Pirates however did not have to worry about skirmish issues for long – yesterday Razor1911 pre’d yet another version of SC2 which according to the group had skirmish fully working. Quoted below are PROPER notes from NFO:

StarCraft.II.Wings.of.Liberty-RELOADED left single-player 'skirmish' mode completely uncracked and had some wholly uncalled-for patching to the original game files (much like the web 'crack' having been around for some time) thereby modifying in-game menus. We felt this game deserves a proper release, so here's ours which:

• enables you to play all single-player missions including AI ('skirmish') ones
• does NOT alter ANY of the original game files
• will (most likely) work for future game updates
• lets you use your legally bought game key at any time
• contains a nifty 'keytro' (keygen/cracktro mix) for your enjoyment.

The release seemingly works but some people are apparently having problems with the keytro. Due to the method it uses for patching game data, lots of anti virus software are detecting it as a virus (false positive if you got the file from a reliable source). If it keeps crashing you may have to run it in a sandboxed environment such as by using Sandboxie software. Some folks also seem to get the error message “Offline Play Authorization Required – To enable offline play connect to Battle.net …..” when trying to launch a game after patching.

On a side note, no crack out there will allow you to play online multiplayer over Battle.net. It requires an original StarCraft 2 key and you’ll have to buy the game to get one. Speaking of buying, this game is well worth the money – there’s tons of stuff to do in the purchased version (achievements, unlockables, multiplayer features) and if you are an RTS fan, we recommend buying the game over pirating it any day.

P.S. - You may download the StarCraft 2 cracktro from Razor1911 Demo Division homepage located at http://www.razor1911.com/demo
Note: This does not include any cracked/modified StarCraft 2 executable files (and it’s not the keytro). It’s just an animation which introduces the release which in scene language is called a cracktro.

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