SimCity: Societies Update #3

[DABhand]

Originally Posted by FM-Staalker

In addition, many of the cracking crews these days don't have the games they crack for. They just open the executes and remove the protection code. You can do that without ever opening the game up. Problem is, when something goes wrong...like this case...you don't know it until you release it and hear about it.

Impossible.

It would be like looking for the preverbial needle in the large haystack.

[0_0_7]

I installed the game on my Desktop - with both Systems just for testing.

On XP Pro SP2 = no go
On Vista 32 Bit Ultimate = runs without any problems!

By the way, the Microsoft Patch 94105 is a important patch for Vista with nVidia GPUs, so you should install it.

Greetings, 007

[TippeX]

Originally Posted by DABhand

Impossible.

It would be like looking for the preverbial needle in the large haystack.

have to agree there, to crack anything you usually need the entire package, with earlier protections all you might have needed was the exe+dll's, nowadays its still probably possible, but would require a lot of skill, which doesn't seem to be there in the scene recently...

back in the days, there were even cases where you have to play the game the whole way through to make sure you got 'everything', i doubt things changed that much...

to 'remove' the protection as stated you usually need a mini/maxi image to even get the executable to the original entrypoint (unless you had another method, and there were very few people who worked in that 'area'... )..

so, really @FM-Staalker - you dont know what you're on about ...

[FM-Staalker]

I did say I used to be in the scene, and it has been quite a while....so, having outdated knowledge doesn't mean I don't know what I am talking about. It just means that it isn't useful anymore.

But to play on your point, I have seen games out the day of retail release with the crack already on the iso. You really think they are playing through these games the whole way through in a day or so? Most of the crackers I know have full time jobs, but I guess these days it could be done by people who don't.

Still, it isn't impossible to remove protections schemes from games without ever installing it. It just takes the proper software. Sure, it doesn't work as often as the other way around, but then again many of the cracks I have seen lately would make you think this is the way they are doing it.

It depends on which protection module the game has, but that should be a given.

Either way, I don't want to argue about who does what. In fact, I am not even the OP. I just added that it wasn't working on XP2. Hopefully someone else will find a fix for xp, if not--oh well.

[DABhand]

Originally Posted by FM-Staalker

I did say I used to be in the scene, and it has been quite a while....so, having outdated knowledge doesn't mean I don't know what I am talking about. It just means that it isn't useful anymore.

But to play on your point, I have seen games out the day of retail release with the crack already on the iso. You really think they are playing through these games the whole way through in a day or so? Most of the crackers I know have full time jobs, but I guess these days it could be done by people who don't.

Still, it isn't impossible to remove protections schemes from games without ever installing it. It just takes the proper software. Sure, it doesn't work as often as the other way around, but then again many of the cracks I have seen lately would make you think this is the way they are doing it.

It depends on which protection module the game has, but that should be a given.

Either way, I don't want to argue about who does what. In fact, I am not even the OP. I just added that it wasn't working on XP2. Hopefully someone else will find a fix for xp, if not--oh well.

I'd say it only works with less than 1% of them.

You need the full game and protection available to unwrap the executable, dump it, find the oep, fix the import table etc

You cant do that with just a protected exe on its own. Sure there was unwrappers floating about but even that isnt enough. They need the media to find where the checks are etc.

Im guessing you used to be a curry and only heard stories.