So... After some encouragement and a 50% Off Sale on Steam, I decided to buy the game Beyond Good & Evil for 5 bucks. Those of you know I'm not a fan of Ubi Sucks Soft, and that's primarily been the reason I never bought it when it came out. Of course, when it came out, Uru Live was still fresh on my mind and I didn't want ANYTHING to do with Ubi Soft. Still, I really don't want to see their name pasted all over the games I play. I remove their logo videos whenever I can... Anyway. I bought Beyond Good & Evil and in a stretch of boredom lastnight, I decided to play it. Boy, was that a mistake.

Let's start at the top, shall we?

I installed it a couple days ago, so I went in and started the game from Steam. It chewed on a few things and prepared the files for a good 5 minutes like Steam usually does when you run a game for the first time (I need a faster computer) and then... "Beyond Good & Evil not properly installed. Please install Beyond Good & Evil." Er, what now? It's not installed? Steam says it's finished downloading... I mean, it takes a while to get a program fully installed, but once it is, Steam is usually right when it says it is. I immediately took to Google and the SteamPowered forums. I found a thread in no time, which makes it seem that this is a very common error. After some theories that it might be copy protection or unverified game files, someone came on and nailed it: It wasn't creating the necessary registry settings. Apparently, it manages to create the entry on Windows XP systems, but not on Vista systems... Which is obviously what's the matter, but is absolutely rediculous for any application to do that. I've never once had a problem with old software not being able to create registry entries. I've even installed (and successfully ran) both Myst for Windows 95 and realMYST with no effort. (Which leads me to say that if you DO have a problem running either one, then YOU are doing something wrong, not Vista.) Both naturally create registry entries and they both naturally work. Why Beyond Good & Evil manages to utterly fail in this simple act, we'll never know... Wait! I know: It's by Ubi Soft! By the way, here's the registry walkthrough, just in case the forum goes down, for some reason, in the future and the link breaks and this post becomes pointless. (Cleaned up a little by myself, though.):

I had this problem when I tried to run SettingsApplication (Steam\steamapps\common\beyond good and evil) before running the actual game (on XP). After I ran the game once I was able to use SettingsApplication and successfully play the game. I think it might have something to do with the registry and the way BG&E might try to create a registry item that it can make on XP but not on Vista. Could you guys check if you have a registry item after running the game once? It should be in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Ubisoft\Beyond Good & Evil If not, make those directories in regedit and then add a REG_SZ called Install Path with the following value: c:\program files\steam\steamapps\common\beyond good and evil (change the directory to apply to your situation). Easier way to do the above:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Ubisoft\Beyond Good & Evil]
"Install Path"="c:\\program files\\steam\\steamapps\\common\\beyond good and evil"

Copy and paste the text above, change the install path to your situation, save file as .reg and double click on the .reg after saving. That should create it for you. Hopefully that's the only problem.

Alright, so after I actually hacked the thing to run the way it should from the get-go, I managed to get the game started. There I am, navigating the main menu... I hit New Game and a cutscene starts. Normal right? WRONG! The cutscene is over in about 5 seconds and is on to the next scene... And the next scene... And the next scene... And the sound is still merrily playing the audio from the FIRST scene. What on earth? Audio desync in a GAME? I don't believe I've ever had that happen before... Video files to watch in VLC? Yes. Games? No. Well, it turns out, according to this thread on SteamPowered and this thread on Ubi Soft, that it has to do with modern computer processors adjusting their clockrates on the fly. Basically, in layman's terms, they actually slow down and speed up in order to save power when programs aren't using all the strength available. Apparently, BG&E for Windows was a port from the console version, which was designed for older processors that don't adjust their speed. When they ported it to a PC game back then, computer processors were the same way... But now with an increased usage of laptops, which adjust their speed dynamically, and the Core 2 processors that ALSO dynamically adjust their speed, a critical bug has surfaced. When you start the game, the processor is mostly idle and in low-power mode... Meaning that it's actually running slow, too, but you just don't notice. When the processor gets a work load, it asks for more electricity and the clock speed ramps up and everything goes faster. This is what breaks BG&E. When the game starts, it manages to (foolishly) lock itself to the current clock speed of the processor before a load is applied. Then, when the game actually starts throwing the processor things to do, the processor speeds up and the video, which is locked to slower clock, is suddenly extremely fast. It's like... Recording the footage on a slow record setting, and then playing it back at normal speed.

To be perfectly honest, the last game I played that linked itself to the processor in such a way? An ancient ASCII graphics game called Kingdom of Kroz. Think of it like a Rogue clone that's actually FUN, and a ZZT that you can't actually create maps for. Awesome game... But, like I said, has been impossible to play on computers sporting the 486 and up since it ties itself into the processor so tightly. You'd have to install a DOS emulator that emulates a slower processor... They exist, but it's too much work for Kroz. (Especially when you can't even find Kroz anymore.) But why, after all this time, BG&E is stupid enough to pull this trick again is beyond me... To me, there's simply no excuse for a blunder like this, as other games from the Windows 95 work JUST FINE. I don't know anything about programming games, but it's obvious that people have been able to cope with the evolving processor enough to compensate for stuff like this for a long time already... And then BAM! BG&E doesn't and now we have to work around it because Ubi Soft is much, much too lazy to actually fix their own problems.

How DO you fix this problem, anyway? Well, it's "simple", so the threads say. You run a processor intensive application on low priority in the background so that your processor is always going to register full speed, but not allot so much time to the intensive application that it detracts from the game's performance. Did you get that? Yeah... Probably not. That's my point. If you have to do this to play a bargain bin game, not even the price of 5 bucks is going to be worth it, because the majority of people aren't going to understand how to get around all the MAJOR flaws in this game that Ubi Soft should fix, but won't. However, if you visit the link to the second thread I linked up there? (Or here, if you're too lazy to find it again, hah!) They offer a download for an interesting little program that will do all that automatically... It'll launch itself as a low-priority program that's designed to make the processor run 100%, then start BG&E and hopefully, but not always, make the video sync with the audio. But see, I don't have a multiple core processor... If you DO, then you'll need to follow extra instructions that consist of doing all this PLUS tabbing out of the game after it's started and using the Task Manager to manually set the game to use one core of the processor... It's called setting the Affinity. Here's a quick how-to for those of you with a Core 2 Duo or Quad:

After about an hour of twiddling bits, I've finally got mine working on Vista x64, dual core.

1) I downloaded and am using the "Full Processing.exe" program found here. (You stick it in your BGE folder in steamapps\common, and run it instead of BGE.exe.)

2) I forced V-sync on for BGE.exe in Nvidia Control Panel.

3) My Compatibilty Settings are as follows:
[_] Triple Buffering
[X] SSE
[_] HW Vertex Processing
[X] Multi vertex stream
[X] Mipmapping
[_] W Buffer
[_] Fastflip
[X] Autogen Mipmap

4) I turned my power options to "High Performance" mode in Power Settings (but I don't think that this did a whole lot.)

5) Once Beyond Good and Evil is running, I Alt-Tab out, open Task Manager, and turn off Core 1 in Affinity Settings.

After taking these steps, everything runs smooth; video is sync'd, and there's no flickering/artifacts. Hope this works for other people.

By the way, I mirrored that "Full Processing" program they keep referring to, once again in case the original link location goes down and we're all stuck with nothing. Here's the link to Full Processing.exe, and here's the link to Full Processing.jar. JAR is for Java, and if you don't know what that is, then go ahead and get the EXE version instead... They both do the same thing. Put either one in the folder with the BGE.exe file or it won't work.

Also, notice the compatibility settings? Triple Buffering and SSE and all that? That's not Windows Compatibility, that's something in BG&E's own configuration program. You'll have to go wherever the BGE.exe file is again and run SettingsApplication.exe and use the Advanced Tab to set all those. I took the initiative to set compatibility before playing again, so I can't vouch for any texture malfunctions if you play with default settings, but I can tell you that there are no texture problems after doing that. I would recommend changing the settings, too... But if you want to try without, then the worst that'll happen is that you have to quit and change them afterwards.

Isn't this just... Amazing? This isn't limited to just the Steam version, either. It's the PC copy, period. I just happened to be using Steam. Now, the registry might seem to be related to Steam, but the fact that it works in XP and not Vista seems to indicate that it's BG&E itself once again. Steam can install all kinds of other third party programs just fine... I had BioShock (which also has terrible bugs of its own that makes it unplayable on my system) and AudioSurf and Defcon and Darwinia... They all worked fine. If Steam was having trouble making registry entries, then nothing would work. No. Steam is just the distribution center. Any problems with a program that isn't made by Valve is strictly the fault of that third party. In this case, it's Ubi Soft... I'm seriously ticked off that all this is happening and they're just sitting in their little cubicles churning out the latest re-re-rehash of Prince of Persia, Far Cry and Rainbow Six. And people wonder why I don't like Ubi Soft? It's not JUST for Uru, even though that is a major, major contributor... It's because they're just a BAD PUBLISHER. Period. BG&E is the perfect example. At least the games that EA charges for actually start, eh?

Now, what do I think of BG&E after it actually started running like something resembling a game? It's pretty darned fun, actually... I don't really go for the whole hovercraft combat scenes, since I'm bad at racing and thus even worse at shooting WHILE racing, but the whole taking pictures of animals to make money thing? That's FUN! I'll be walking along through a mine, minding my own business and BAM! A nasty creature leaps out at me and tries to maul my face off and I'm going: "WAIT! STOP MOVING! Someone hold him still so I can get a picture!" And this entire time, the monster's gnawing my leg off or something... Yeah, pretty neat, actually! Even got 3000 credits for snapping a picture of a boss monster, haha. I'm only just an hour or so through the story and I've already got something like 15,000 credits after 3 rolls of film. As for combat? Eh. Reminds me of Twilight Princess or Starfox Adventures, where you kinda swing things in the general direction of the monster and your character does the rest. I mean, that's all well and good and fits well with the theme of the game, but I much prefer strategic realtime combat... Sniping from a distance or lobbing a grenade over a wall. Gears of War kinda stuff. But still, it's pretty fun. Not too complicated, so you don't spend all your time figuring out combos for that one way to kill something. As for story? Well... Haven't really got into any story, so I can't judge, yet. So far, though, it at least hasn't actively chased me away from playing like other games have... Which have been, coincidentally, Ubi Soft titles.

However, based purely on the technical problems with modern computers? I don't know if I can recommend actually purchasing this game... Unless you're prepared to work and cheat your way through things that should have been patched a LONG time ago. I feel cheated, to be honest, because nobody warned me about these problems to begin with. These aren't things you could even think of happening on games today. Not booting up because the registry didn't get changed? Video unwatchable because its linked to the clock speed so tightly? These are blunders you'd expect from games over 10 years ago... Blunders that won't get fixed.