Sacred no cd v1.8.26 german - doesnt work for me

[eclipse2005]

I have the german version of sacred (v1.8.26) installed.
according to a post in this forum the czech version of the no cd-patch should work well.
this is what happens:
i can start the game without the original cd. when i come to choosing a charakter the left 3 charakters show briefly for about a second and then vanish (i can chose one by clicking on the empty space though). from this on the game runs super slow and not a single figure (not even my charakter) shows up in the game though i can move normaly.

anybody else with the same problems?

thanx in advance