My problem is that I play games really slowly, so it ends up sitting in my computer for months on end before I finish it. So the reimaging solution wouldn't be suitableOriginally Posted by Animeniax
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Why can't they do this shit without stuffing your computer. Is it really so hard?
If it's not Isuzu-chan Mii~
Evidently it is, as even games with the new SecuROM have been hacked, so companies will find newer and more obtrusive ways to try to protect their products from copying and illegal distribution. Unfortunately the hackers are almost always smarter (plus they don't have deadlines and less stress) than the software designers, so the ones who will pay are honest customers who just want to buy and play a game.
“For God will not permit that we shall know what is to come... those who by some sorcery or by some dream might come to pierce the veil that lies so darkly over all that is before them may serve by just that vision to cause that God should wrench the world from its heading and set it upon another course altogether and then where stands the sorcerer? Where the dreamer and his dream?”
I think this picture fits well. Anyway, I've installed The Sims 2 Bon Voyage and Spore, using no-cd cracks. A folder named SecuROM is in my registry under HKEY_CURRENT_USER/software. I guess this means I have it? I'm fairly sure I've only used the no-cd cracks to launch the games though, I guess I must have ran the original exe files once before applying the cracks, for whatever reason.
The version of SecuROM in that registry key might be from other instances of SecuROM, since it has been around a while as an anti-copying feature on CDs. The new SecuROM versions are supposed to be difficult to locate in the registry.
I'm still trying to verify if SecuROM only installs with the exe of the game, since I've read part of the app's code is saved in dll files as well. If not, then using cracked exes won't prevent SecuROM from running on your PC.
Great picture btw, describes the situation perfectly.
“For God will not permit that we shall know what is to come... those who by some sorcery or by some dream might come to pierce the veil that lies so darkly over all that is before them may serve by just that vision to cause that God should wrench the world from its heading and set it upon another course altogether and then where stands the sorcerer? Where the dreamer and his dream?”
paul.dll, the cracks also prevent it from being used, otherwise it would be impossible to run the game at all.
And Y, StarForce 3 was actually destroying legit customers pc's, it destroyed my optical drive, but with other it did even more damage, if it wasn't cracked i would've never played splinter cell chaos theory again (which i bought!).
Thankfully they stopped using that protection after awhile, I think the last big title using it was Colin Mcrae: Dirt. Though they included documentation with the game on how to remove it.
Also StarForce 3, prevented games to be played on 64bit systems, thus after it was cracked, splinter cell : ct was suddenly playable on a 64bit OS.
Where would you safely get these cracks. I really don't want to put my antivirus to the test.
By the way, this stuff about it not installing unless you run the official exe, does that mean as long as you never ran the uncracked game, uninstalling the game later will remove everything?
If it's not Isuzu-chan Mii~
Well - if you don't use uncracked game it wont install, so there is nothing to remove. Sadly i had to crack my dead space(i would bought ps3 vers but its nearly 2x more expansive than pc vers). try looking at torrent sites, reloaded, razor, avenged, hatred, hoodloom, unleashed are safe groups, watch out for skidrow - there are alot fakes. I know from expirience.
Also i prefer to play games with no-cd/no-dvd cracks because my dvd is occupied with metallica's cd(mostly "Kill 'em All") and i'm too lazy to change cds.
Number of works of fiction that made me shed at least one tear: 3Thou seeketh soul power, dost thou not?TOX: 33524385841A92B08787EEBEBA2DB51ED293C4F15A2E292F3F C92165E82388281433A77EA8FE
You still use your PC to listen to CDs? You could just rip the CDs and make mp3s and listen to those.
I got Dead Space for the Xbox360, but I didn't know the PC version has SecuROM. I got Far Cry 2 for the PC but darkshadow sent me the cracked exe so I will use that to circumvent the DRM.
“For God will not permit that we shall know what is to come... those who by some sorcery or by some dream might come to pierce the veil that lies so darkly over all that is before them may serve by just that vision to cause that God should wrench the world from its heading and set it upon another course altogether and then where stands the sorcerer? Where the dreamer and his dream?”
MP3 quality is very bad... especially on good headphones... yea i'm bit audiophile.
Number of works of fiction that made me shed at least one tear: 3Thou seeketh soul power, dost thou not?TOX: 33524385841A92B08787EEBEBA2DB51ED293C4F15A2E292F3F C92165E82388281433A77EA8FE
I've been reading around for people's opinion on Far Cry 2's DRM. It's funny how in contrast to our discussions here, a lot of people are actually bitching about the 5 installs on 3 computer thing, and how they "can't freely use their product" like they used to. The way I see it, that's the least of your problems.
What's more confusing is how some say "Far Cry 2 will use the same SecuRom that Spore used, yet you can have 5 installs and get refunded them if you uninstall."
As far as I know, that wasn't the case with Spore, correct? I guess all this is kind of irrelevant since I'm intending to crack it anyway.
Regarding that, cracks still let you play online multiplayer as long as your serial key is legal, and you get an updated crack for every update you apply, right?
/Off-topic: Far Cry 2 is getting some pretty good reviews. Most are applauding its pioneering FPSxSandbox RPG and mostly smart AI. Bad points are lack of enemy-type variations and repetitive mission select interface.
If it's not Isuzu-chan Mii~
For those of you that had accidentally installed Securom and want to remove it, this website had pretty good instruction on how to do so.
I'm happy i finally got that damn thing off my computer, most likely gonna just get crack from now on or just not buy any EA games altogether.
I googled "game protection list" and went to the fileforum's index here.
http://fileforums.com/showthread.php?t=78998
There I found:
Title: F.E.A.R. - First Encounter Assault Recon
Developer/Publisher: Sierra
Country/Language: US/English
Media Type: 1 DVD
Copy Protection: SecuROM 7.00.00.0107
Scanned with: A-Ray Scanner v2.0.2.3
WHAT!
It's been around since 2005?
Edit: I don't think that list is right. For one, windows search didn't find paul.dll
Last edited by Buffalobiian; Wed, 10-29-2008 at 09:24 PM.
If it's not Isuzu-chan Mii~
Yeah it has been around for a while, but the earlier version weren't potential harmful to your PC. I think securom started becoming bad with the bioshock pc release, but even then it was still relatively tame compare to the newest version in spore.I googled "game protection list" and went to the fileforum's index here.
http://fileforums.com/showthread.php?t=78998
There I found:
Title: F.E.A.R. - First Encounter Assault Recon
Developer/Publisher: Sierra
Country/Language: US/English
Media Type: 1 DVD
Copy Protection: SecuROM 7.00.00.0107
Scanned with: A-Ray Scanner v2.0.2.3
WHAT!
It's been around since 2005?
Edit: I don't think that list is right. For one, windows search didn't find paul.dll
Yeah? Good news then, sort of...for me.
I ran across another thing called StarForce. I gather both starforce and securoms are rootkits?
btw, most updated list I could find of games with SecuRom:
http://reclaimyourgame.com/index.php...d=45&Itemid=11
If it's not Isuzu-chan Mii~
Both starforce and securoms are rootkits even though there some peoples that will deny it.
From what i've read, Starforce is suppose to be a lot worse than securom so i would suggest for you to avoid any game that come with it.
Yeah I don't think Starforce is used at all anymore because it was so intrusive and caused problems with other applications and bricked optical drives.
According to ds and everything I've read, the earlier versions (Bioshock, FEAR, etc) were the weaker versions of SecuROM. The notorious versions that act like rootkits are in Spore, Mass Effect, and a lot of new games like Far Cry 2.
I wonder how long before console games start using this technology, requiring you to be online to activate or run checks on the installation. It wouldn't be so bad because the OS is stripped down on consoles, but just the implementation of DRM pisses me off.
“For God will not permit that we shall know what is to come... those who by some sorcery or by some dream might come to pierce the veil that lies so darkly over all that is before them may serve by just that vision to cause that God should wrench the world from its heading and set it upon another course altogether and then where stands the sorcerer? Where the dreamer and his dream?”
This is just a really stupid way to handle piracy as a whole. It is pretty much a proven fact that DRM does not even hinder piracy since both Spore and Farcry 2 was leaked, cracked and torrented almost a week prior to their respective release dates. If anything, such a shitty protection system that cause problems for customers who bought the product will only serve to hinder sales.
The best method i've seen so far in term of preventing piracy is creating online content that is attractive enough to force peoples to buy your games. Steam, Stardock and Blizzard's Battlenet does a wonderful job in regard to that aspect, more companies need to start using those type of business model instead of relying on this DRM trash.
I don't think we have to start worrying about console DRM just yet. The whole piracy issue on the 360 is rather limited, in fact i believe the new 60 gigs 360s are not even hackable because Microsoft altered the inside.
A bunch of scary and ineffectual buzzwords. What harm does this actually do to your computer? Starforce's security risks were blown unbelievably far out of proportion (to the degree where people would post about it as though it devoured your soul on installation) and I have no reason to suspect SecuROM is any different. Copy protection that prevents you from removing it easily? Well, fucking duh.
This, however, is obviously the superior way to handle game piracy. In fact, Steam is usually easier and faster than torrenting a game.
Last edited by Y; Wed, 10-29-2008 at 11:38 PM.
What you say is mostly true, and it's easy enough to dismiss most of the concerns, but the bad guys rely on this sort of apathy and dismissal so they can do what they want, kind of like how Bush runs the country. I imagine a large part of the frustration is in principle only, and the security concerns are just tacked on to give the complaints some meat.
If you don't mind that software companies install something on your PC that you can't remove or alter even after you remove their product, then that's how you roll. It's like that uncomfortable wedgie feeling you probably still have even after taking off your super-tight wranglers.
Unfortunately not everyone is online and can download large amounts of content. With bandwidth usage-based fees coming to ISPs soon, how much more are you paying to get this online content? I currently have a copy of the Orange Box that I can't play because of network usage restrictions where I'm at. You think I'll buy another Valve game instead of just downloading a hacked copy? And how long do you think it will be before the online content is available for free via torrent?
“For God will not permit that we shall know what is to come... those who by some sorcery or by some dream might come to pierce the veil that lies so darkly over all that is before them may serve by just that vision to cause that God should wrench the world from its heading and set it upon another course altogether and then where stands the sorcerer? Where the dreamer and his dream?”
I don't think this is a bad-guy scenario. SecuROM's problems, like conflicting with Process Explorer, were largely unintentional and fixed in updated versions. I wouldn't crucify them for that any more then I'd crucify them for releasing a buggy game. You can remove SecuROM (although I believe Starforce's removal tool was poorly constructed) and since it became such a media whipping boy EA makes sure to send out fucking press releases when games use it. I don't think it's terribly onerous or harmful. I've experienced more harmful bugs in game coding then I have in copy protection, and I'm unlikely to crusade against videogames any time soon.
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