So Sacred Underworld has some issues for freezes, I am not sure if it is for all people or not.

During such freeze, audio keeps playing.

These issues can be reproduced. The easiest to reproduce is to start as Daemon and be hit by some monster.

Many years ago I remember having such issues and it was caused by some missing files, e.g. some animation files for Daemon and various NPCs. I am not sure if I had to copy files from CD or found them on Internet. IIRC there were no freeze if CD was in CD-ROM.

But I might be wrong on all that, though I vaguely remember copying/replacing some missing files because they didn't have all animations.

Can anyone else confirm that such freeze happens for everyone? Havin GOG version of Sacred Underworld without having it being installed on PC before and see how it behaves on start of Underworld with Daemon being hit by monsters?

I truly miss this game, but at this point it isn't playable because I am in areas where I often encounter defected monsters, which is in Act II, and it seems to be connected with some missing files. When 2.28 was released with no-CD it wasn't enough to simply run the game without CD, you had to copy some additional files, that's IIRC, and I vaguely remember that was the reason.