Just looked at my gears of war and the folder contained the file ReadMe Davros.txt
and it says
"Change date to june 2008 to avoid modified executable error"

I have no idea why or when I wrote that but my gears of war works

Title Update 3 fixed that at the time dunno if that's still the case though:

"In early February, an expired digital certification problem rendered the PC edition of Gears of War unplayable, and Epic has now released a patch to resolve the issue.

This update fixes an expired digital signatures issue that prevents all earlier versions of the game from launching. This is a required update. Please download and install the update before launching the game."

Which is one of the things that worries me about UWP games (or would worry me if I were ever to buy a UWP game which I won't)

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/itpro/win … s-in-windows-10

UWP apps require a certificate but certificates expire...... Only thing I've been able to find out is that supposedly this "only" affects installing the app or updating it. Supposedly it doesn't affect running the app.
If anyone uses UWP it would be interesting to see what happens when the date is changed for an installed UWP app or if you try to sideload an app with an expired cert.
You can't backup a Windows Store UWP app seperately from the OS so no way to test backup and restore with an expired cert.

As for the OP it looks like Gears of War is complaining about Alchemy....is Alchemy compatible with Gears of War?

DosFreak wrote:

Title Update 3 fixed that at the time dunno if that's still the case though: […]
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Title Update 3 fixed that at the time dunno if that's still the case though:

"In early February, an expired digital certification problem rendered the PC edition of Gears of War unplayable, and Epic has now released a patch to resolve the issue.

This update fixes an expired digital signatures issue that prevents all earlier versions of the game from launching. This is a required update. Please download and install the update before launching the game."

Which is one of the things that worries me about UWP games (or would worry me if I were ever to buy a UWP game which I won't)

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/itpro/win … s-in-windows-10

UWP apps require a certificate but certificates expire...... Only thing I've been able to find out is that supposedly this "only" affects installing the app or updating it. Supposedly it doesn't affect running the app.
If anyone uses UWP it would be interesting to see what happens when the date is changed for an installed UWP app or if you try to sideload an app with an expired cert.
You can't backup a Windows Store UWP app seperately from the OS so no way to test backup and restore with an expired cert.

As for the OP it looks like Gears of War is complaining about Alchemy....is Alchemy compatible with Gears of War?

EDIT: Did not read the fine print, it apparently isn't... well that blows but oh well. Maybe I might get XP up and running someday and try it that way with the card.

According to this page in the Wayback Machine link from Creative's site, it is:
https://web.archive.org/web/20130202071939/ht … s/AllItems.aspx

I also just tried the solution there and I still get the error.

did you try changing the date ?

This game do not need creative alchemy wrapper as this is an openal Game, by default the game use software openAL.

To force hardware mode

You will need ALCapsViewer (x86 version) https://mega.nz/#!fEUxSDpB!IN4RxoT8I_i-drwwJW … QRJ4PowJ-RBoxKA to check what "openal name" have your sound card (for hardware sound acceleration), this is dependant of the OS/Sound card combo.
Here a screenshoot for example on my system : http://imgur.com/5pew4I6
You can also check with this software the difference between generic software and other mode (EAX etc...)

Edit the file called WarEngineUserSettings.ini in \Mydocuments\My Games\Gears of War for Windows\WarGame\Config
 
Under the [ALAudio.ALAudioDevice] section you should see two entries:-
 
UseEffectsProcessing=True
DeviceName=Generic Software
 
Delete 'Generic Software' and put the devicename of your sound card.
 
example for me
DeviceName=Haut-Parleurs (Sound Blaster ZxR)
 
That's all.

This is also the same thing for Mass effect 1, which try to use Generic Hardware (which only exist on Windows XP and no more after) as open al sound card before using Generic Software, you can use the same trick to reactivate EAX 5.0 and hardware acceleration.

Choum wrote:

This game do not need creative alchemy wrapper as this is an openal Game, by default the game use software openAL. […]
Show full quote

This game do not need creative alchemy wrapper as this is an openal Game, by default the game use software openAL.

To force hardware mode

You will need ALCapsViewer (x86 version) https://mega.nz/#!fEUxSDpB!IN4RxoT8I_i-drwwJW … QRJ4PowJ-RBoxKA to check what "openal name" have your sound card (for hardware sound acceleration), this is dependant of the OS/Sound card combo.
Here a screenshoot for example on my system : http://imgur.com/5pew4I6
You can also check with this software the difference between generic software and other mode (EAX etc...)

Edit the file called WarEngineUserSettings.ini in \Mydocuments\My Games\Gears of War for Windows\WarGame\Config
 
Under the [ALAudio.ALAudioDevice] section you should see two entries:-
 
UseEffectsProcessing=True
DeviceName=Generic Software
 
Delete 'Generic Software' and put the devicename of your sound card.
 
example for me
DeviceName=Haut-Parleurs (Sound Blaster ZxR)
 
That's all.

This is also the same thing for Mass effect 1, which try to use Generic Hardware (which only exist on Windows XP and no more after) as open al sound card before using Generic Software, you can use the same trick to reactivate EAX 5.0 and hardware acceleration.

I just tried that and the game has no sound when I do that method.

Curious I just try myself and it work (sound seems a bit louder on menu).
This will not work with SPDIF connection.
I do not have my old X-fi here to test with it.

Can I have a screenshoot of your ALCapsViewer ?
Can you check also on both ALCapsViewer in the component tab that you have no dll difference (exept path)
There was a know issue on creative drivers for X-fi that during the installation process one of the DLL was not copy, resulting in missing hardware part, AFAIR this was for the X64 part, I don't know if creative have fix it since.

Choum wrote:

Curious I just try myself and it work (sound seems a bit louder on menu). This will not work with SPDIF connection. I do not hav […]
Show full quote

Curious I just try myself and it work (sound seems a bit louder on menu).
This will not work with SPDIF connection.
I do not have my old X-fi here to test with it.

Can I have a screenshoot of your ALCapsViewer ?
Can you check also on both ALCapsViewer in the component tab that you have no dll difference (exept path)
There was a know issue on creative drivers for X-fi that during the installation process one of the DLL was not copy, resulting in missing hardware part, AFAIR this was for the X64 part, I don't know if creative have fix it since.

Should be : DeviceName=Speakers (Creative SB X-Fi)
if you use analogic connection to your sound system.

Choum wrote:

Should be : DeviceName=Speakers (Creative SB X-Fi)
if you use analogic connection to your sound system.

What I used and I get no audio outside of the GFWL interface.

I haven't had any problems getting this game to work with my x-fi with openal. Didn't need to do the speaker stuff, works fine just by putting "SB X-Fi Audio [EC00]" as the device name. You can make sure its working in the game's log file:

Init: ALAudio device opened: SB X-Fi Audio [EC00]
Init: AL_VENDOR : Creative Labs Inc.
Init: AL_RENDERER : SB X-Fi Audio [EC00]
Init: AL_VERSION : OpenAL version 1.1
Init: AL_EXTENSIONS : EAX EAX1.0 EAX2.0 EAX3.0 EAX4.0 EAX5.0
Init: Device supports: EAX4.0
Init: Device supports: EAX-RAM
Init: Device supports: ALC_EXT_EFX
Init: Found EFX extension with 4 effect slots and 4 potential sends
Init: ...'reverb' supported
Init: ...'equalizer' supported
Init: ...'low pass filter' supported
Init: ALAudioDevice initialized.

tgod wrote:

I haven't had any problems getting this game to work with my x-fi with openal. Didn't need to do the speaker stuff, works fine j […]
Show full quote

I haven't had any problems getting this game to work with my x-fi with openal. Didn't need to do the speaker stuff, works fine just by putting "SB X-Fi Audio [EC00]" as the device name. You can make sure its working in the game's log file:

Init: ALAudio device opened: SB X-Fi Audio [EC00]
Init: AL_VENDOR : Creative Labs Inc.
Init: AL_RENDERER : SB X-Fi Audio [EC00]
Init: AL_VERSION : OpenAL version 1.1
Init: AL_EXTENSIONS : EAX EAX1.0 EAX2.0 EAX3.0 EAX4.0 EAX5.0
Init: Device supports: EAX4.0
Init: Device supports: EAX-RAM
Init: Device supports: ALC_EXT_EFX
Init: Found EFX extension with 4 effect slots and 4 potential sends
Init: ...'reverb' supported
Init: ...'equalizer' supported
Init: ...'low pass filter' supported
Init: ALAudioDevice initialized.

I got it working using the name from the 32 Bit version of the program and it worked. Sadly have to reinstall since it is not signing in with GFWL for some reason which might have happened when mucking with files to get the audio to work.

Yes the name that appears in the 32bits version of ALCapsViewer can be use for all x86-64 (32bits) programs
The name in the x64 version of ALCapsviewer only work with X64 program.
Gears of war is a 32bits program.

Choum wrote:

Yes the name that appears in the 32bits version of ALCapsViewer can be use for all x86-64 (32bits) programs
The name in the x64 version of ALCapsviewer only work with X64 program.
Gears of war is a 32bits program.

Thanks for the help, the intro sequence sounds leads better in this mode than with generic software enabled. THE JAIL CELL SOUNDS LIKE A PROPER JAIL CELL! 😜

So is your problem now fixed ?