I just install Sacred Gold on Windows 8 Pro x64 and it hangs on loading screen. I need to reiniciate Windows to work it again.

¿Any solution or patch?

In Windows 7 x64 it works fine.

I was able to get it to run by disabling full screen mode using Config.exe. That said, I don't think I'll be playing this game if it'll only run in a window...

same issue here, sometimes it opens fine, others not. 100% with windowed mode

i run it in windows xp compatibility on windows 8 and it runs fine, res stuck at 1024x768 but it works well

Same here - and this was my favorite game recently....
:-(

Resolution is unfortunately stuck at 1024x768 in this game and performance varies a lot, especially at zoom level 3 (outzoomed) and with a lot of enemies.

However, try these things to get it to work:
-add admin right to sacred.exe
-compatibility mode Windows XP, SP2 or SP3 (try both)
-disable desktop composition (read this should work in other older games with Win8)
-disable display scaling on high DPI settings (I've read this could help as well with Win8)

Disable VSync in on your GPU's control panel and any kind of AA.

I usually ran window mode in this game because if keep your desktop resolution weird enough but you'll have to accept the little windows in the middle (which might not be ideal, I know). I think it was something I did that made the game had a black screen but the game as a small window in the middle so I wasn't distracted by my desktop. What could help is experimenting with options like stretch to fullscreen, keep aspect ratio or no scaling. All options should be available via GPU control panel and should be forced via the GPU (it should be an option that the GPU settings overrides windows or game specific)

I still seem to be having problems with getting the game running. I ran the Config.exe and disabled full screen and anti-aliasing, used compatibility mode Windows XP (SP 2 & 3) and run as admin, disabled display scaling on high DPI settings. I couldn't find any option to disable to desktop composition.

No matter what options I select, the game seems to start in full screen and freeze at the first loading screen.

Edit: It turns out the reason why it kept going full screen was because I didn't run the config.exe as admin so it wasn't saving the settings when I ran the game as admin.

Install the game out of program files folder (as example, in c:\games\) to avoid those type of troubles. This also applies to most of the old games.

I decided the issue had:
After put on "32 Bit Color Depth" in "Config" file in game folder game is run. But it's unplayable, it's very lag, mouse cursor lags to. Steam version have same problems. My dream is that one day the developers will release HD edition.

Ascaron went bankrupt shortly after release of Sacred 2 but it's possible Deep Silver could do it. Then again, their new focus isn't exactly the niché Ascaron tried to accomplish, Sacred 3 will be very arcade-ish.

Anyway, a HD edition would be awesome. Support up to 2560x1600 resolution and increased texture quality. Some clean up with technical issues and difficulty imbalances (sometimes the game is ridiculously easy or hard)

Thanks, your solution worked fine for me. At least, I can play it quite decently.

I was able to run the game from the beginning (maybe I tried using Windows XP SP3 compatibility mode, not sure) but I had these strange graphics particles all over the screen (they could be especially seen when starting the game with Seraphim). Changing settings in game helped a bit but did not solve the issue.

How I solved it: I opened the nVidia control panel, clicked Configure 3D settings (I have different language so it may be slightly different than how I describe it) and in there I clicked "Program settings" tab, in the drop-down menu nr. 1 I chose Sacred (sacred.exe), then in nr. 2 (under the drop-down menu) I chose "High-power NVIDIA processor". Click Apply on the bottom right of the screen.

The resolution was stuck on 4:3 screens version but I can get over that.

Second option:

Run the "Config" file in Sacred folder, check "32-bit Color Depth" and "Filter Active", Apply the changes and run the game.

I finally got it working decently on Win7 64-bit by forcing it to use only one core with RadeonPro. I think you can use other programs to do something similar, or do it in the Task Manager somehow. That definitely improved the framerate, but it still drops badly in city areas. I think it has some sort of bad vsync that wants to be either 30 or 60fps. Trying to force changes either didn't work or crashed the game.

The game is unfortunately locked at 1024x768, and afaik there is no way to increase that. Note that the game assets are 2D with 3D models/characters on top of them. So to go to a higher resolution you would need to expand the field of view rather than blow up the image. Diablo II has a mod to do that, I wish Sacred did as well.

The game looks fantastic on my old CRT monitor, I feel like maybe it needs some scanlines etc. to really 'pop'. However, I can't get SweetFX or anything else to work with the game, so adding those, or some post-processing AA, is impossible as far as I can tell.

The game just seems very... "locked"... if that makes any sense. Trying to change anything externally seems to result in crashes or have no effect. I really wish GoG would take another look at updating this title for modern systems.

The resolution of textures is made for the medium zoom level, so it would be an improvement in image quality, in the furthest zoom level, even with the built in textures, if you could get a higher resolution, but you cant!

For the core affinity thing you could also use the start console command (built-in in windows). It would be even possible to put it in a batch file so that you just have to double click this. Further you could even change the link location of your standard icon.

Not sure if this applies to the GOG game or not, but I got the demo to work in fullscreen by running it under Windows 98/ME compatibility mode with no real performance issues.