Re: Final Fantasy 7 Rld.dll Failed To Load
Leana Eckes
At the time of writing, it's officially the 10th anniversary of the much-anticipated return of TRON. TRON: Legacy, the sequel to the original 1982 film, was only a modest hit at the box office in 2010, but it certainly wasn't for lack of trying. Disney put their entire marketing machine to work to celebrate TRON's return, with cross-promotions ranging from Coca-cola to electric razors (yes, really). A handful of videogames were also produced, spanning the range of available platforms at the time.
The main entry, TRON: Evolution, was a direct prequel to the film, and its plot even receives a direct reference near the movie's climax. Beyond that, it greatly fleshes out the central conflict and the techno-philosophical concepts that drive it. Perhaps it was one step too nerdy for mainstream success, but the game remains an integral part of the TRON franchise nonetheless. It's also historically significant in a cultural sense due to its emphasis on parkour--all the rage for 2010. From a technological standpoint, TRON: Evolution is notable for its effective portrayal of the iconic TRON: Legacy aesthetic in Unreal Engine 3, using a clever combination of baked and real-time reflections. Modern techniques such as SSR or RTX were not in use at the time, and would not have run well on Xbox 360 or PlayStation 3, yet TRON: Evolution's reflections are arguably superior to screen-space implementations even today.
Unfortunately, on PC, the game was loaded with middleware that fell out of favor only a handful of years after its release. Microsoft dropped support for SecuROM in Windows 10, and Disney let their license for the DRM scheme expire, preventing new installations from activating. Microsoft also deprecated Games for Windows LIVE, which TRON: Evolution uses for its multiplayer, achievements, and profile management. Worse still, NVIDIA broke compatibility with older versions of the PhysX engine used by many Unreal Engine 3 games, meaning your GPU will almost certainly reject the game outright.
Patching TRON: Evolution to run on modern Windows requires a combination of different files, which may vary based on which version of Windows you're running. If you're just getting started and don't know which files you need, download a complete archive of them all, here [mirror]. Otherwise, proceed to a more detailed explanation of each, plus individual download links, below.
Getting past DRM is one of the biggest hurdles when setting up TRON: Evolution, but fortunately, alternative methods exist which still work on Windows 10 and 11. For historical purposes, the official offline activation steps are included below. However, unless Disney miraculously works out a deal with SecuROM, the official method will no longer work. To solve SecuROM issues, see the third-party methods portion of this guide.
Upon failing, SecuROM will display a different menu with the option to Activate Manually. Choose it, then paste your CD key into the serial box. Also go to the TRON: Evolution offline activation webpage and paste your CD key in the serial box there. Highlight and copy the Unlock Request Code from the activation window and paste it into the activation webpage Unlock Request Code box.
With the initial setup complete, the game will crash. Maybe you'll see the splash screen for a few seconds, or maybe you'll get a whole lotta nothin'. Either way, it is now finished installing and configuring any runtimes and middleware. The most important in this case is NVIDIA PhysX, which is the cause behind the crash. The game ships with an obsolete version that no longer works on modern hardware, but thankfully, NVIDIA was kind enough to create a legacy package to fix that.
After a reboot, run TRON: Evolution again, and this time, it should launch successfully. If not, grab an offline installer and install it now. Then launch the game and enjoy the intro sequence and title screen!
If you don't wish to login, or the servers go offline someday, scroll down to the bottom of the license agreement screen and click the text link to create a local GFWL profile instead. Otherwise, enter your Microsoft account credentials (the same you use to login to Windows itself) and your profile will begin downloading.
If you are using the included version of GFWL, this will most likely fail. But fear not: GFWL will prompt you that an update was found and needs to be applied. Accept and wait momentarily while the update is installed in-game. You'll receive a pop-up warning you that you must return to the title screen, but what it won't explain is that you really have to quit the game entirely. So, close the GFWL overlay and enter the game in offline mode, then choose Quit to Desktop. Upon exiting, a GFWL update window and firewall exception request will appear. Accept the exemption while waiting for the update to complete. When both are finished, run TRON: Evolution again. This time, you can login to your account, and your profile will be downloaded successfully.
Low-res got you down? While you'll probably be happy to see the game boot at all by this point, there's a good chance you'll notice that it doesn't look as sharp as it could. By default, it will run at 1280x720, and the in-game settings menu only goes up to 1600x900. What gives?
Fortunately, this is Unreal Engine 3, and setting a custom resolution is simple. Exit the game and open your file manager. Navigate to your ..\Documents\Disney Interactive Studios\Tron Evolution\UnrealEngine3\GridGame\Config folder and edit GridEngine.ini in your favorite text editor. Search for the settings ResX and ResY and change them to your desired screen resolution.
Impressively, the game scales almost perfectly to 4K and beyond. Only loading screen text and enemy health bars will appear smaller than they should--all other UI elements display at the correct scale.
Interested in multiplayer? A free DLC map pack was released as a day-one download, containing Codestream Nexus, User's Palace, and a Sam Flynn skin. This DLC has been collected by the community in a simple installer. You can download a backup I created here. Simply run the setup and you're good to go! The DLC applies to both physical and digital distributions.
And... that's it! You're done. Enjoy the game! Or keep looking through the config--Unreal Engine is a gold mine for INI editing deep divers. See what other parameters you can find to customize your experience!
If you're still having issues at this point, your best bet is to track down the game's log files and try pinpointing the issue for yourself. Navigate to your ..\Documents\Disney Interactive Studios\Tron Evolution\UnrealEngine3\GridGame\Logs folder and you'll find a collection of text files detailing any problems you may have encountered. Launch.log should be particularly insightful here, as it always contains the latest issues.
At first glance, this statement seems quite ironic! But look a little closer and the solution is quite simple: TRON: Evolution requires a mouse to be connected to your PC to launch! In 2010, it was simply assumed you wouldn't have a touchscreen PC of all things. Sure enough, upon connecting a Bluetooth mouse, the game booted up without a hitch!
While connecting a mouse is simple enough, it's worth noting that for tablets and handheld gaming PCs without traditional input methods, a dummy mouse driver will do the job without any dangling peripherals.
For the most part, TRON: Evolution handles high-res displays just fine. However, if you are running at a lower resolution than your native display, you may find that "fullscreen" gives you a small window instead. This is an error in Windows display scaling and can be fixed by disabling it and letting the application take over scaling duties instead.
Because Windows 10 technically removed support for SecuROM, you may receive errors regarding SecDrv.sys in your Windows Event Log or elsewhere. While the errors should be benign and asymptomatic for most users, you can solve them by removing SecuROM from your system after the installation is complete. (You will need to use the Reloaded Patch below as a substitute.)
CurrentControlSet is symbolically linked to ControlSet001, so deleting the SecDrv folder from the latter will also delete it from the former. Export the folder first as a backup (good practice for any RegEdit modifications) and then remove it. Next, navigate to C:\Windows\SysWOW64\drivers and delete the file SECDRV.SYS (or move it to a backup location to be safe).
Some issues might not always be so obvious, but fortunately, this is an Unreal Engine 3 game. There's tons of information available straight from the source and third-party forums around the web. Chances are you'll be able to identify the problem and fix it in no time.
When a product has been completely abandoned by its creators, there exists a fine line between piracy and preservation. While I firmly believe in owning legitimate licenses of software, there may be times when obtaining one is impossible, and/or times when legitimate users must resort to unauthorized means to continue using software they already own.
I would highly encourage TRON: Evolution players to follow the above guide first, but in the event SecuROM activation fails or shuts down for good, alternatives do exist to get into the game. These methods will break DRM, but considering Disney itself no longer owns a license to the DRM... well, let's just say it's a gray area.
If the official SecuROM "offline" activation is shut down for good, a tool exists which can generate unlock codes for you directly on your PC (you know, actually offline). The 80_PA utility uses the same algorithm and behaviors as the real SecuROM activation service, so the results are indistinguishable from the real thing, as far as your PC is concerned.
Important Notice: Some antivirus software may detect 80_PA as ransomware or a trojan. I have personally verified these are false positives, and are triggered because the utility has the ability to make changes to the Windows registry. Ironically, it only uses it to identify and remove invasive registry entries by SecuROM itself. (Insert "DRM is malware" meme here.) Many other antivirus applications detect that 80_PA is clean. That being said, I cannot guarantee 80_PA is safe to use. Proceed with caution, and use at your own risk! To safeguard your PC, you may wish to run 80_PA in a virtual machine or with 'sandboxing' software such as Sandboxie.
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