Test Drive & SecuROM

mortals · 22 Mar 2007 at 22:32

Ulfhedjinn said:
I'm against copy protection in general because it's unreliable and punishes people who buy games.

I agree.

I remeber when NWN2 was released loads of people couldn't run it because of SecuROM

there were loads of cd/dvd drives incompatible.
Also it seemed to effect the performance quite a lot. Someone did a test between the SecuROM version and the direct2drive(non SecuROM) version and there was 20fps difference :confused:

I wouldn't be surprised if it's the same in TDU. I also wouldn't be surprised if it's one of the causes of the game jumping every now and again

Also SecuROM seems to be against the law in france.

Darkwave · 22 Mar 2007 at 22:34

Phalanx said:
It's things like SecuROM and Starforce protection that purspone the cracking of games till after a majority of sales have been carried through.

That's wrong. Most pirate games come with apps that disable Securom and Safedisc.

They are universal with titles that use them, these measures were cracked years ago.

There's no reason to keep putting cracked security on games, it's just annoying for people who buy them.

MadMatty · 22 Mar 2007 at 22:39

HangTime said:
Optical drives have a MAX read speed of around 7.8meg/sec for CDs, and 24meg/sec for DVD. That represents the speed when reading from the optimal location on the disk; the average and minimum speeds are in fact much lower.

Compare this to an average harddrive, which can read data at well in excess of 100meg/sec in burst mode, with sustained speeds over 50meg/sec. So loading data is much faster from a hd.

Then look at the response times; a hd can respond to a request in around 10ms, whereas an optical drive which take much longer. Is that the kind of lag you want when reading from the device?

Now consider the fact that many games need to write stuff to the hd anyway; config files, log files, save games, cache files etc.

And how about patching? Much easier to patch a game on a hd than a readonly disk!

but non of this is a problem for a console is it ? games dont take forver to load or have problems streaming. nothing wrong with using hd for config/saves and patches, takes up far less space. most console games are loaded before a pc game gets past the securom check

so much for pc superiority when it has to suffer under the fragmented/virus checked harddrive when it could have an optimised streamed cd layout

Darkwave · 22 Mar 2007 at 23:01

MadMatty said:
so much for pc superiority when it has to suffer under the fragmented/virus checked harddrive

Funny, reminds me of how Oblivion had to have the button held in or something on the Xbox 360 to defrag?

Need I mention the red ring of doom?

If a PC breaks, you don't need to send it back for a refurb.

Just some food for thought, I think you're in the wrong forum.

Naffa · 22 Mar 2007 at 23:05

I think I agree with you on this one Ulf. People that aren't going to buy a game legally aren't going to buy it regardless. Sure having Starfox on a game will possibly prevent pirates from being able to play the game, but they're still not going to go out and buy it. But people that do go out have their DVD drives mangled up.

dafloppyone · 22 Mar 2007 at 23:21

.:MBK:. · 22 Mar 2007 at 23:57

never had issues with securom and generally ive never been to interested in titles with starforce on them hehe

Sem · 23 Mar 2007 at 04:29

copy protections are not for the the experienced pirate that knows about cracks and tools to get around the protection they are there to stop the average user copying the game for his mate

i hate SecuROM as much as the next guy (installing undeletable files and reg entries :mad:

) but it really isn't nearly as bad as StarForce

and you cant expect publishers to ship games without copy protection

games like Oblivion and Company of Heroes are major titles and would have sold loads anyway

Darkwave · 23 Mar 2007 at 11:16

Sem said:
copy protections are not for the the experienced pirate that knows about cracks and tools to get around the protection they are there to stop the average user copying the game for his mate

Surely pirates are much more of a "threat" to developers though.

Why punish everybody else? :confused:

Sem said:
games like Oblivion and Company of Heroes are major titles and would have sold loads anyway

That's because people will actually pay for good games, believe it or not.

That was the basis of my entire argument here.

Toyota_Mr2 · 23 Mar 2007 at 13:05

Bleh I dont like pirate games myself. I dont mine paying for my enjoyment. I wouldnt nick drinks from a pub.

However with some of the **** they have been releasing it does make you wonder.

Incidentally I got my 1st pirated game yesterday. It is Test Drive Unlimited.

Belive it or not it was unintentional. Brought of the bay @ £2.50 thinking I had a good bargain. Turns out it was a copy.

It is really really annoying. :rolleyes:

Game developers stop the anti copying protection. If I want to get a copy ill get one. 24hrs after a game is released or hell even before, there is a copy.

But they wont listen. And it will turn more people to piracy. TDU DOES work better on a "backup" than the usual disc.

Used a mates disc.

.:MBK:. · 23 Mar 2007 at 15:02

i was impatient and used the overpriced dl version....so no cd, no securom, all run straight from hdd

zytok · 23 Mar 2007 at 15:04

any stuttering on that version?

.:MBK:. · 23 Mar 2007 at 15:15

had some when i had 4x aa and hdr on, on 2x aa and no hdr at high and runs fine unless my pc is throwing a wobbly about something else

mortals · 23 Mar 2007 at 15:52

I've not really had stuttering on my system yet.

I have had the random pause thing tho, which is annoying if you're in a race and half way thru doing a corner as the car flies off as the game unpauses

I might try the nocd thing using an image of my disc as I'm getting fed up with the drive spinning up randomly. Can also test to see if this random pausing has anything to do with the random access of the disk.

zytok · 23 Mar 2007 at 16:16

mortals said:
I've not really had stuttering on my system yet.

I have had the random pause thing tho, which is annoying if you're in a race and half way thru doing a corner as the car flies off as the game unpauses

I might try the nocd thing using an image of my disc as I'm getting fed up with the drive spinning up randomly. Can also test to see if this random pausing has anything to do with the random access of the disk.

the random pause thing is what I meant. Driving down a road and suddenly, wham 2 fps and straight into the back of a bus. Common issue on 8800's. Surprised you're getting it on a Radeon.

Trust me what you proposing won't help.

mortals · 23 Mar 2007 at 16:20

zytok said:
the random pause thing is what I meant. Driving down a road and suddenly, wham 2 fps and straight into the back of a bus. Common issue on 8800's. Surprised you're getting it on a Radeon.

Trust me what you proposing won't help.

I've just tried it and so far there is no pausing when using the disk image rather than the disk.

Altho it wasn't happening that often before.

richolmes72 · 23 Mar 2007 at 18:23

I honestly don't know why companies even bother putting copy protection in, the pirates always find a way around.

Test Drive unlimited was available downloaded for the PC a week before release with bypasses for all of the copy protection.