Re: Soft Denchi Runtime Program Download
Padre Harmon
Hi there,
I am having an issue trying to run the game Noble Works because it is asking me to install a program called "Soft battery runtime" and I do not know what this program is.
I am already set to japanese locale (How I installed the game) and the game is already installed and opens up to let me run it but it tells me that I need to install this program but don't know exactly what this program is for or how it is used. Any help would be appreciated. I am on Windows 10, 64-bit home.
It will be a LOT easier for you to simply download soft denchi and logging in to the DRM. It's only a one time log in, and not difficult at all. The program will just do its thing in the background, without you needing to do anything.
So, here's my issue: I've downloaded Dramatical Murder on Windows 7 a looong time ago, and everything worked fine... up until now. Now that I updated my PC to Windows 10, I went to check up all my japanese games to make sure they still worked - but when I tested DMMD, a weird japanese popup appeared. Here's the link to a screenshot.
Since I don't speak japanese I used google translate and it seems like it is saying the game needs a "software battery run-time program" to work. My first reaction was that it was some kind of malware because the game worked perfectly before, but on a second thought I haven't installed anything else since I last played the game, and I've never had any issues with it before, so that popup is very likely legit. But on a third thought, I looked up on a few online forums and didn't find anyone else having the same issue as me, and I don't know what kind of program that is as well. Tbh I wouldn't mind downloading a second program for DMMD to work again, but at least I would like to know what this "software battery run-time program" is, because honestly I have never heard of something like that - I don't want to install an unknown program on my PC.
Oh and btw, I didn't change my locale to japanese (because imo the cons outweight the pros), I use a locale emulator instead. But I doubt the problem has to do with the locale, because I've used this locale emulator to play DMMD before the w10 update and it worked fine, and it still works fine with all my other japanese games even after the update. Also, the popup text showed up in japanese, so I guess that means the emulator is doing its' job.
To be honest I have no idea what "softdenchi" is, I don't remember ever installing it, so I suppose I either didn't have it installed or it was automatically installed together with DMMD. I don't know. Either way thanks you both! I'll look it up.
Tried to install it, and it asked me for an activation key. And then a few seconds later, a second popup appeared, saying that the installation failed. It popped up right after the first one, so I didn't even have time to type anything at all. (Not that it mattered anyway, since I don't have any key.)
I tried to open the 2nd .exe (not DMMd.exe, but the cracked one) like it was advised, and it still didn't work; at first I thought the problem got solved because there was no softdenchi popup, but unfortunately it freezed in the black screen of death. And it didn't want to close no matter how much I tried to smash the close button - I had to open the task manager and force close it. Well, at least I got past the softdenchi popup, so that's something?
Silvz thanks for your advice but I still won't change my locale. There are too many drawbacks. Even though I know many people who constantly switch between locales that don't get any issues, I don't wanna risk it. This is my only PC and I know that if this one breaks I won't be able to afford a new one, and I'd rather not play a few games and have a working PC than have both no PC and no games. If I ever get a new PC, then I might turn my current one into a jp gaming pc and permanently change its' locale to japanese, but at least for now I don't plan to do that.
spademan I haven't thought of that! I'm now going to try to run it in win7 compatibility mode. If it still doesn't work, my last hope is running it in a virtual machine. But I'm a noob and never tried to install a VM before, and my PC is already pretty slow and my storage space is almost full, so perhaps it's not a very good idea.
- The games are usually provided on websites like DMM, DLSite, or similar websites as archives that need download and extraction manually, and they usually use an external license management system (e.g. soft-denchi, in which case a license key will also be provided after purchase) for DRM. Considering the form of online distribution, I don't think distribution services are related to the problem either.
Could you provide more details about the external license management system? You mentioned that the soft-Tenchi requires a license key provided after purchase; however, is it sent after you buy the game? Do you need to provide the license key when opening the visual novel?
You mentioned that you need to add more archives that need to be downloaded from different websites. Does this mean that you are using game mods (additional content besides the game's default version and DLCs)? If you have game mods installed in your system, could you try launching the visual novels vanilla version (no mods)?
As for the license, this is the official website of the software I mentioned (website in Japanese), and this is a tutorial from DLSite (English) on how to use it. The license key is indeed sent after I buy the game, and the game's executables communicate with the locally installed software so that I am prompted to enter the key at the first launch. I believe it's an online activation process since at times I see network-related errors (timeout etc.).
The way it works is similar to Steam, where games distributed require a login even if the game's main executable is directly started. But in this case "Steam" is replaced by another software that's independent of the game's distribution platform.
The archives I mentioned aren't additional archives or mods. Instead, they're the games themselves distributed in the form of an archive. I indeed tried both unofficially patched Simplified Chinese versions and vanilla versions on some titles, both exhibit the same behavior.
When I open the executable of the game, it communicates with the software, which is installed independently of the game and requires me to input the license key if it doesn't find one already available in the software. The behavior of the game is similar to those distributed on Steam, for example. If I open the game's main executable (that I purchased and downloaded using Steam) without Steam logged in and running in the background, it instead opens Steam and requires a login to an account that had purchased the game.
Regarding the archives, visual novels (or their Internet download versions, if a CD version exists) don't usually require installation. They are usually provided as archives, and "installing" just involves extracting the archive. I didn't intend to express that there are additional archives (DLCs, mods, such). I apologize if my wording was confusing, as English is not my native language.
As for the archives, visual novels don't usually require installation. They are usually provided as archives (or CDs for package versions, but that's a different story and I don't have much experience with them), and "installing" is simply extracting the archive. I didn't intend to express that there are additional archives like DLCs, mods, and such.
I apologize if my wording was confusing, as English is not my native language.
I don't know if it's due to a link to DLSite, but this reply disappears every time after I refresh my browser. I'll instead quote the main part of the soft-denchi tutorial on DLSite here as an example, in case my expression is still somewhat misleading:
Thank you for the inforamtion provided. We're stepping into this conversation to inform you that if the older products running on DX9 have a limited or niche market, it's unlikely that our driver debug team will prioritize fixing bugs related to them.
I acknowledge that the problem will likely not be prioritized. It's totally fine if it's not prioritized or even not investigated (as the market is indeed a niche market outside Japan and due to NSFW content issues), but I do hope it gets fixed at some point.
First, I'll have to correct one of my mistakes made previously. Piano no Mori no Mankai no **bleep**a doesn't actually use Kirikiri. It instead uses an engine that I haven't seen before. According to hardware requirements, it requires support for DirectX 8.1 instead of DirectX 9. It's probably the same driver issue that caused both problems though, as in my tests the title exhibits exactly the same behavior as the other one, Chiisana Kanojo no Sayokyoku, which uses Kirikiri and DirectX 9.
Unfortunately, I can't find a product that both exhibits the problem and can be obtained through Steam. I can only provide the trial versions of the two titles I mentioned in my first post. And since the download links to one of them are mostly dead, and the other one is on DLSite, a link to which can't be posted on this forum. I believe the proper way to provide them is through a file hosting service. Here's the OneDrive link to the trial versions of the two titles:
The locale of the computer needs to be set to Japanese for the games to run properly (and even to get the extracted files to have correct filenames, probably due to text encoding differences). They do not contain DRM and they don't require licenses.
The two titles contain NSFW content (it's hard to find one without them), but only later into the game's plots. I don't know if progressing through the game is required, since the problem happens even at title screen. If the title screen or the very beginning of the game's content is enough for debugging, then they're probably fine.
Besides, I've tested a few other titles myself. It seems that Kirikiri / KAG underwent some updates during the years (but it keeps using DirectX 9), and newer titles (ATRI -My Dear Moments- and GINKA, for example), despite not having the option to change between render modes, run without problems. I can't find much information about the engine itself, though.
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