DTM / Toca 2 - Some confusion

[dabbelju]

Hi folks,

DTM2 is pulling my hair out. Here is my story:
I have three machines available, office pc, games pc and a laptop. DTM runs on all three of them with the original disk (after uninstalling daemon etc..). However, trying to get rid of the disc check my success is limited.

NCRYSO: Have replaced the exe, reset the drivers, even used the sf removal tool. NCRYSO hangs when I press "start game". The last info on screen is "writing serial (refer to NFO)". Happens on the games pc and the laptop. It used to work two or three times on the office pc, but the graphics card in that machine is ***, so I did not really continue in that direction. Meanwhile NCRYSO stopped to work on the office pc, too, don't ask me why.

Star****: Works only on the laptop where the only optical drive is on the second ide channel. The other machines have optical drives on primary. Disconnecting helps. However, working means that I can start the game and am usually able to start a race (sometimes the game freezes with the track loading screen on display). Sometimes I can play for 5 minutes, sometimes for an hour, but after that time the frame rate goes down to 1-2fps. Task manager tells me stur****.exe is eating 80-90% cpu time. At that point I have to restart the machine, quitting the game alone will not help. I have used sf 0.81 in the beginning and upgraded to sf 0.83. With 0.83 I can play longer, but the issue is not solved


I have tried various combinations of dtm 1.0, 1.2, ncryso and sf 0.81, 0.82 on the different machines.

Questions:

1. Is there any solution for the "writing game serial" hangs?
2. Is there any solution for the sf cpu hunger?
3. What sf version is in place? Some people say *.49, others say *.63. I have tried both.
4. Is there any auto-via-internet-update in sf? Sometimes the results of my attempts were not reproducable, e.g. that NCRYSO stopped to work on the office machine
5. Does it make a difference which mini-image to use? I know how to adapt the sku setting in the registry, but maybe star****.exe's cpu hunger is related to an incorrect image?
6. What is the deal with the serials? My understanding is that the serial is related to the disc series you have. Some people do not seem to need a serial at all.

Any answers are greatly appreciated.


Yours,
Dabbelju

[Joe Forster/STA]

Hi dabbelju,

What's NCRYSO? Is it some copy protection-related software that was included on your original DTM 2 DVD?

Joe

[The-S-Owl]

NCRYSO is a crackers group. They made a 'crack' for DTM2, but it is nothing more than a self-extracting package of Starf*ck 0.77, a mini-image and a homemade launcher.

Daemon Tools 3.47 + Starf*ck 0.82 (with option Starforce 3.4.49.XXX) is the best working combination for me.

The Daemon Tools / Alcohol virtual drives blacklist was introduced after SF 3.4.49, and DTM2 has SF 3.3.3x, hence no need to choose the 3.4.63 option.

[dede]

Also, hi poeple, i tested this game with some dvd protection contournement methodes so i have tested the NCRYSO loader & the star"fock" solution all work proper if you have 2 hd on ide1 & cd dvd on ide2 so hide ide 2 with this previous enumerated tools and play work long time & without slow run or bugs very good solution to play without DVD. It seame that your problem is a graphique card or driver compatibility issue or not enough memory or defekt memory chip.
Plz for more help, give a corect description from your hardware:
Exemple:
CPU: amd athlon 2400+
Mother board chipset via kt6 msi
1024 MB DDR 400 KINGSTON
graphique card NVidia A6600 GT latest 77.81 driver
HDD 0 Master 80 G 7200 rpm IDE1
HDD 1 Slave 80 G 7200 rpm IDE1
CDROM PLEXTOR 52X24X52 IDE2
DVD Burner EMPREX 8x IDE2
WIN XP SP1 last critical updates
DX9C

At later byyye

[dabbelju]

Hi,

this is certainly not a hardware prob as it happens on all three machines, and their hardware is pretty different. Also, I do not have any other probs with them. It may be something I have installed on all machines, but right now that is nothing but a guess. That is why I posted so many questions to narrow the prob down. The hint about ncryso being just an old version of starf*** was good as I do not have to bother about that any more.

CU

[dede]

it is hardware, driver & mini image corect serial problem,(not your original dvd serial) each mini image have a personal serial so the german have a german serial the uk a uk serial & a uk or german mini image can not work on a euro dvd version.

1. Is there any solution for the "writing game serial" hangs?
Yes as exemple, have a german original game installed, have a german mini image on demon tools, have the corect serial for this mini image.
(The NCRYSO i mean, is for GERMAN version so you need the corect serial for this German M.IMAGE they NCRYSO mount on demon with hes launcher)
OR FOR NCRYSO go to you rd2 regkey and change the next line from UK or US or EUR To:GER
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Codemasters\Race Driver 2]
"SKU"="GER"

2. Is there any solution for the sf cpu hunger?
YES corect serial etc... same as previous.

3. What sf version is in place? Some people say *.49, others say *.63. I have tried both.
If you use STARF0CK no importance i have played on different machines with update 1.2 without any prob, he can a maximum can already a minimum so set it to *.63. I have 5 computers and all in same categorie as previous post description.

4. Is there any auto-via-internet-update in sf? Sometimes the results of my attempts were not reproducable, e.g. that NCRYSO stopped to work on the office machine
Yes but i have loosing the link, go to CMR 2005 THREAD you can found STARFORCE driver update for NERO 6.6 codec compatibility issues

5. Does it make a difference which mini-image to use? I know how to adapt the sku setting in the registry, but maybe star****.exe's cpu hunger is related to an incorrect image?
YES star****.exe's cpu hunger is related to an incorrect image OR SERIAL for this m.image.

6. What is the deal with the serials? My understanding is that the serial is related to the disc series you have. Some people do not seem to need a serial at all.
NO the serial is related to the MINI IMAGE series THAT you have.

SORRY for bad english i am french.

[dabbelju]

dede,

thank you very much for your input. I have some follow-up questions though

Originally Posted by dede

1. Is there any solution for the "writing game serial" hangs?
Yes as exemple, have a german original game installed, have a german mini image on demon tools, have the corect serial for this mini image.
(The NCRYSO i mean, is for GERMAN version so you need the corect serial for this German M.IMAGE they NCRYSO mount on demon with hes launcher)
OR FOR NCRYSO go to you rd2 regkey and change the next line from UK or US or EUR To:GER
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Codemasters\Race Driver 2]
"SKU"="GER"

My understanding was that the ncryso patch unpacks its own image and tries to update the registry with the correct key (which fails/hangs for me).
BTW I have installed from the German original

Originally Posted by dede

2. Is there any solution for the sf cpu hunger?
YES corect serial etc... same as previous.

I have some problems identifying which serial belongs to which image as they do not seem to come in packages. I tried a few images with a few serials. My impression was that I can not start the game if the serial is incorrect. Do you say that the game might start with a "half-correct" serial, but then run into the cpu usage problem? How can I tell if the serial matches the image?

Again, thanks a lot for your help so far

CU

[dede]

i don't have write game start with half wrong serial the game start only with corect serial from mini image! the game start with any starforce version params in starf0ck tool that is what i have writed.

And for my own save i have writted in a text file for the NCRYSO LAUNCHER the follow lines (i have euro version of game)

This launcher mount a German MINI IMAGE on DEMON TOOLS, hide the IDE 2, and write a corect serial to registry.

Now my game is French (Euro) i need use the incluedet [*only in my folder lol]) "DTM.crack.reg"

*create a new text file with notepad open it and write the follow lines on it (without the =========) :
================================================== =======
REGEDIT4

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Codemasters\Race Driver 2]
"SKU"="GER"

================================================== =======
Save the file as : DTM.crack.reg and execute with duble clic, clic, accept, ok, or yes, or amen.


HOW to use it:

install Daemon tools 3.47

Install GAME, Installation complete!

Update the game to version 1.2,

Rename rd2.exe from main directory of toc 2 "rd2_new.exe" without" " " "

Copy(CRACKFIX) RD2.EXE from NCRYSO in main directory.

create a new shortcut for RD2.EXE

Use the created REGCRACKKEY "DTM.crack.reg"

launch RD2.EXE'S shortcut to play.

BUT ALL THIS HAVE ALREADY be writted on previous thread of toca rd2 if it don't work you have a other hardware or driver issue problem computer to slow wrong ddr parmetres or so many things are possible surch a computer with corect capacitys AMD 2400 with 128 mb video card and 512 ddr speicher ist in ordnung . unmöglish das de des ding nit zum lauffen bringst. Vielen dank für die blumen vielen dank vie lieb von diiiiiier.

Sorry for bad english i am french.

[dabbelju]

OK, but then we are back at square one. As I said, I can use DTM with my original disc just fine, so no hardware/driver prob here. I can also start the game with starf***, but after some time I run into the "starf* eats my cpu" prob. And no, I have no idea why. After your post I thought it was related to some "wrong" image being used, but if you say the game does not start with the wrong image/serial/sku setting, it can not be that. It starts. It just starts to suck after a while, too. This can of course be a driver prob, but not related to the game, it must be related to starf***. And I do not know what the machines have in common except that they have XP. One is even on SP1.
But vielen Dank für die Blumen, too, Tom. Or Jerry? And merci bien, of course.

CU

[dede]

Possible to many softwares run in same time and suck all your memory have you updated the game to version1.2 ?
Starforces driver updates are here:
http://www.star-force.com/support/sfdrvup.zip

but i don't know if the link work is a old link.

Starfock is not the soft they suck all your ressources because after load all things, hide ide2, and launched the game, starfock have no more activities, if you use demon tool's change for alcohol and make a test. Ihave encounter some probs with demon because they have make a unproper installation, reinstall it and retest, Attention, if you would uninstall demon tools, & if you have unblacklisted with starfock, restore the blacklist before uninstall otherwise this will give a big sh*t and you can not reinstall it on bus d347 so use manual installation with bus d348. Or add more memory chips to the computer and make some test's. Sorry but a can't no more for you, if i don't have a description from hardware that you use. bye.