Yea, is he asking something or trying to explain something?

@newgoodman: Bye, Bye!

Man, I've got a headache now from trying to read that post...

I re-read newgoodman's post to see if I could understand anything at all of it, but I swear, he talks like Yoda - in Gibberish...

pop3 censorship
 

hi all. i was browsing my pop3 folder today and discovered 2 quite interesting things (my version of pop is eu dvd):

1. file "POPData.bf" - there is a section "region" in it (default emea), maybe messing withit could help with uncensoring the game?
2. (which is more interesting) in file "Hardware.ini" there is section "UseBoneSplitting" which is "0" by default. maybe changin it to "1" would help with decapitation?

im not able to check if anything happens after messin with this 2 files because i cannot restart my comp and disable ide drives right now. could someone try it and write if it works? please... :P

Does PATA or SATA hard drive got any involvement in StarFucker things?? I got a SATA hard drive and I don't have to unplug my DVD drive, but my friends who has a PATA hard drive has to unplug his DVD drive to play the game. and why is it that NF3 owner doesn't have to unplug the drive??? could you explain it please???

try this: make an image of the game using alcohol 120% and then mount the image (if you got CD, make 3 virtual drive using alcohol, and mount all 3 images), install the game, dont type the serial yet. shut down your PC, remove your DVD/CD drive, turn on your PC, disable all alcohol virtual drive and start using daemon tools 4, make 1 DT4 drive, mount the CD play image (CD3), and type the serial but dont play the game yet. after you type the serial, shut down your PC, plug your DVD drive back to your system and start your PC, if the CD3 image is stil mounted using DT4, now you will be able to play PoP:T2T without removing your DVD drive, like I did.
hope all OK!:)

The newer versions of starforce ( 3.5 and 3.6 ) are trying to communicate directly with IDE controller and reenable the disabled optical drives and this is the reason software disable ( through device manager or SFNightmare ) don´t work for most people anymore for this new versions.It looks like the IDE controller used in nvidia chipsets is strange enough for starforce so the protection can not reenable the disabled drives and for many people having nforce motherboards software disable still works.The best situation is for nforce3 chipset where sometimes is not even necessary to disable drives.The type of your harddrive does matter but i don´t know how exactly this is involved.

I think PoPData.bf relates only to menu text - in any case, changing the region here makes no difference. There's also a region setting in the registry, which makes no difference either.

I'm fairly positive the difference is in the PoP3.exe. This file cannot be modified because of the Starforce protection. Replacing it (along with the Starforce files amir.exe and amir.dll, and the game disc) with the US version seems to be the only way to uncensor it without cracking the Starforce protection.

Of course, you don't have a US disc... and neither do I...

So I'm just waiting on a (working) US mini-image.

You built your own DVD burner? I'm impressed...

But I don't disable my DVD drive via any software or sfnightmare, I just use DT4 to mount the image. I think it has to do with what you said that the IDE controller in nforce3 is strange enough to confuse the starfoce...
anyway thanks for the info...;)

Alright... Having well and truly waited the "reasonable" length of time outlined in the forum rules (two weeks), I am officially requesting a mini-image of the US version of PoP:TTT.

As I've mentioned several times, I need it for my EU gore patch... I really, really want to slice some heads off :D.

Is it Starforce causing a lot of problems, or is it just that no one's gotten around to doing it yet? 'Cause King Kong also uses SF 3.6.10.06, and there seems to be a mini-image for that now (dunno if it actually works though...).

EDIT: Downloaded the King Kong mini-image and... it's not a mini-image, just an exe which patches the full image to make it work.

There's a No CD for UFO:Aftershock, which also uses SF 3.6.10.06, but it's for version 1.2, so it's possible copy protection was eased off in a patch due to numerous complaints (wouldn't be the first time...). Does anyone know if any games running this version of Starforce have been mini-imaged?

Censorship is one of the worst thing I know. We REALLY need a uncensor-patch for this game. Hope you'll find a way, Anti669.

@Anti669: I'm also officially informing you that noone from the professional cracker groups visits this forum so your request is just yet another shout into the wind... ;)

pop censorship... again :)
 

hi. i've checked my previous advices and i cen tell this:
as for number 1 - messin with "POPData.bf" file (changin region) does the same effect as switching the european exe (5,44mb) with us exe (5,13mb) - starforce checking succeeds but the game wont launch anyway (after starforce window nothing happens at all), so i think that u dont even have to switch european exe at all, just the starforce files.
as for number 2 - bone splitting setting makes no difference for me at all :)

and i've been thinking that maybe switchin "amir" files with starforce other versions (or same versions from games already cra... cooked) would be a good idea?

and finally - censorship in pop really sucks and im really dissapointed with ubisoft's policy (not even a single word from them in this subject). Also that's not the first time they've made their game unplayable for some gamers due to "security reasons". i still remember copyprotection problems with XIII and that they did not respond at all (i had to use a non-official patch (not a crack, a patch to 1.3version) just to run an original game on my computer. hell, 'xcuse me for this offtop :P

It's impossible to create mini-images for Starforce3, SecuROM7, and Safedisc4.6 games