Which CD emulator is Best?
 

relocated to proper board now. :)

Daemons from the underworld
 

So far, Daemon tools has never let me down: it's freeware, and perfectly transparent & stealthy. One constraint though : has 2B REGULARLY updated to avert 'blacklists'.

For me, Alcohol does it all and more.
31 virtual drives leaves me spoilt for choice.

No booze
 

True Daemon tools limits the number of drives to 5, but I seldom need even > 2 virtual drives hehe... Besides I'm not sure how the presence of many virtual CDs affects system performance and stability.

Nevertheless, it would be a good idea for the Alcohol guys to release a "very lite" freeware version of their software which would in fact only comprise the 'virtual CD drive' part of it ...

Actually, Alcohol is the ONLY virtual drive I've never really tested.
But I do have it at my disposal, and "registered" version at that ;)
Could U tell me
- which of Devil tools/Booze 120% is the stealthiest, ie. prevents its detection by game protections ?
- which of the two takes up the least system resources?
- speed comparison (though I think both may be equivalent)?

I NEED to know, now that U've made me curious :mad:

Alcoholics always make the best soft!

Sure: HARD liquor -> SOFTware :D :D

Yup! Don't worry, when I will own half of the world, I will force developers and engineers to create some incredible machine that can do 1:1 copies on CD-ROMs (not CD-Rs) without software ;) !

Not so fast...
 

Huh... Machina I don't want 2 disappoint you, but if I'm not mistaken CD replicators already exist :D , they R known as "hardware CD duplicators" (btw there wuz a thread posted a few days ago in this forum, concerning these devices, by 'fumtu' I think - to this day it got no reply - sob :( ).

LOL, then why in the world were you telling me that those machines are impossible to make in the SafeDisk thread?

He who lols last...
 

counter-LOL oh yeah the good old safedisk thread...:D

Sacrebleu! I only said that it was impossible to make a replicator that reads "blindly", ie. in 100% RAW mode, which would mean without any error correction and with perfect accuracy, regardless of original CD's state (scratches, etc...).

Now hardware CD duplicators DO exist, but serious doubt is to be cast upon their efficiency. The big difference between these (expen$ive) hardware CD-writers and standard CD-burners is that the former write on blank CD-ROMs instead of CD-Rs, thus eliminating the famous ATIP prob. There is also - perhaps - the sense of self-satisfaction in having a backup pressed on a CD-ROM, (that is, with pits & lands) rather than burnt on a simple CD-R (with dark & clear areas that simulate pits & lands).

Nevertheless, as I previously said, even those devices need an internal error-correction mechanism, most probably also based on EFM modulation. Even if you own half the world ;) , true RAW reading is impossible unless you also own the entire universe, succeed in overthrowing its one Creator, and thus gain access to all Supreme Knowledge. This I've already tried - without success, so good luck... :D

But there maybe another method of reading CDs!
Maybe like a WHOLE NEW way, maybe some THICK and WIDE laser would be pointed at the CD (whole thing at once), and then copy the pits & lands etc in its...clipboard and then maybe it would PRESS that image of pits into a CD-ROM.
There is ALWAYS a way, nothing is impossible.
Maybe some chemical could do it!
Think outside the box! Outside the CD-RW
:D .

Normal/Paranormal?
 

Sure, nothing's impo$$ible if you throw in the buck$...
Once way it might be possible would be by devising a new king of hardware duplicator that still uses lasers but this time to simulate some sort of "mould effect" (since CD-ROMs use pits) to perfectly reproduce the CD...

But hey, even without considering its dirt-cheap price, my good ole' Litey has never as of yet given me anything to complain about, so I'll jus' stick to it :p - 4 now at least

U mean ASTRAL PROJECTION ? :D :D :D

StarForce 3 :D - you beat that with your Litey!

Seeing stars...
 

Starforce 3 uses a new encryption that protects not only the executable, but also non-executable files as well :mad: . Thus making a crack will be considerably harder. As for the copy-protection, I know little about it: some have claimed to have made a working image with Whisky 120% using Starforce 1/2 profile, PLUS enabling subchannel data reading AND setting data position measurement to 'high'. As for burning a workable copy which needs no emulation (ie. with Blindwrite+BWAbuilder), I know that the most recent Securom and Starforce schemes are much trickier to fool using the BW 'twinpeaks' method - the Blindwrite guys had better keep up...

I've heard that the Plextor Premium is capable of reproducing density variations on a CD-R using its onboard Gigarec feature, giving it a (temporary) headstart over other burners. But although it works with recent Securom versions (where it makes (working) backups that are almost 1:1, in fact 'damn close to the originals' according to a german forum) it has not been tested with Starforce disks, where physical characteristics are somewhat different, and much more complex.

ClonyXXL 2.0.1.3+ can detect this new protection and the Clonecd/Blindwrite/Alcohol guys are already working on a solution. It is but a question of time before this protection is officially defeated, and most probably in the immediate future. However there is a dark threat on the horizon, a looming shadow, and it has a name: Starforce 4 SE (Secret Edition). Its release date is of yet unknown...:confused: :confused:

But hey, never fear, for as I've always said,

IF IT CAN BE READ IT CAN BE BURNT

Some day, freedom and justice will prevail, and people all over the world will live in total bliss, and peace of mind, regardless of their age, caste, creed, color, or CD burner brand, making 1:1 backups of all their games :D

Re: Seeing stars...
 

Clone CD is dead unfortunately.

attack of the clones
 

Damn! Sad news indeed. If this is true, I guess the Elby clones must be focussing their efforts on the new 'CloneDVD' or something.

I'll miss the little sheep... :(

Why are they still making protections?
I mean, they know that one day its going to be cracked, and it won't be long till that day comes!
They must STOP, and just release CD-ROMs with files on them, without any prtotection!

I guess they've got nothing else 2 do - and without them, CD copying software developpers would go out of business...

There will always B CD-protections, and engineers to defeat them. 'Tis the law of the universe, the titanic battle between Good & Evil...:o

Besides, unprotected CDs wouldn't be much fun to copy hehe...:D

You are stalking me :D .

Unknown protection
 

C'mon folks
Let's not get paranoid shall we
All of us here have the same goal: WORLD DOMINATION, right? :D :D
uh wait...no, wrong subject...


Anyways here's some flash news:

I've just completed a dump...that took me almost 5 hours!!!
I used clonecd version 4.2.0.2
Protection is unknown to Clonyx
Clonecd read settings: max read speed, subchannel data & audio enabled (just in case), EFM disabled, fast error skip on 'automatic'.

Game title: 'Inquistion' - european version (from 'Wanadoo').
I dumped CD1.
CD2 is under way and seems to have the same protection, my CD reader has slowed down to a crawl...

During dump, read seems normal until progress bar reaches 97%, then read speed drops down to 0.0 Kb/s !!! :(
Looks like the CD is riddled with a new type of read errors -and a sh*tload of them :mad: :mad:
Indeed, read lasts for several hours, then at about 98% it resumes normally...

When taking a closer look at the CDs (1 or 2) I can clearly see a ring near the outer edge, about 0.5 mm thick. My first guess was a recent version of 'Ring Protech' or something, but on second thought this definitely is a new protection, for this is the first time I've encountered, or even heard of, read-errors that cause such a slowdown. Normally when reading CDs with bad sectors (safedisk, laserlok, ring protech, protectCD-VOB, etc...) my read speed never drops below 0.5 Kb/s.

Unless...perhaps there are different types of read-errors, and some can take MUCH longer to read than others :confused: :confused: - if anyone could shed some light on this matter...

Moreover if the dumps turn out to be faulty, I'll have to go over the same hassle again, nom de Dieu! :mad: :mad: :mad:

'tis the first time a CD dump has taken me THAT long. I'm off to the Net trying to look for a possible Xplanation, and see if others have had similar issues with that game, or another.

If anyone could help me with this protection, or at least give a name to this new devilry, I would be most grateful...

IceBreaker - check out a thread called *StarForce 3.xx Investigation* in PC GAMES forum of FileForums (the thread is locked though) - they already released the new SECRET StarForce 3.xx that seems will be killing the "backup" industry...

Still seeing stars
 

This must be the 'Starforce 4 SE' I mentionned 4 posts ago.

Although some have managed to making working images, and even working backups without emulation needed (!), the situation as a whole does look gloomy.

This version of Starforce seems to work at a very low, almost hardware level since it can tell the difference between real and virtual drives - the @$£¤&%# bastards... :mad: :mad:

Which means that even today's best CD emulators are not as stealthy as they should be: I hope we won't have to wait too long before the "backup" empire strikes back :D

However, the 2 CDs I wuz dealing with were NOT Starforce. After having completed the second dump (took about as long as the 1st CD) I downloaded the latest version of ClonyX (2.0.1.5) which recognized the CDs as...Ring Protech!!!
So this must be an even newer version.
They must have devised a new type of C2 read errors that gives readers an even harder time grrr...

Good news is, the burnt backups work, without any emulation needed.

Bad news is, I'm not sure how to make any 1:1 backups of such CDs in a much shorter time. Indeed I tried making another image of CD1 using CloneCD's 'Intelligent Bad Sector Scan' option, default settings (100 sectors step). True, the dump was completed quite quickly (A little over 10 mins) but when running Nero CDspeed's surface scan on the mounted image, it showed me (slightly) more read errors than on the original CD! Which meant the second image, unlike the 1st which took several hours to make, was NOT identical to the original CD-ROM. :(

So apparently, the only way to copy new Ring Protech CDs is the hard way, unless I can find a CD-reader that has VERY FAST error skip (and still does EFM encoding correctly)...

Virtual Drive is not a good solution here, I only have a 30Gb hard drive!

Which CD emulator actually works!?
I mean like a program you load into windows, which after youve copied cdrom files onto your hdd, you can then access them as if theyre being played by your cd drive.

i've looked around myself for this thing, but the ones ive tried are made by people who suck, as none damn well work when you goto use them!!!!

huh - I mean, if it dont work, then dont say it does!!!!!!

just remove the damn crap from the web an dont waste peoples time.