Starforce discussion

[dbt1949]

I recently bought Star Rangers 2 and unbeknownst to me,until I got it,it has the latest version of Starforce on it.
Now,as most of you know I am anti Starforce. I don't preach against it,but it is a personal choice. I also have never pirated any games and have no intention to do so in the future. The reason being that an older computer of mine was "infected" by one of the earlier versions of Starforce. The DVD player has been a little "twitchy" ever since then and my burner is pretty well useless now. They both worked fine before Starforce infected m that computer. I finally removed the game and the Starforce from the PC. The DVD is still a little twitchy and the burner still doesn't work . It could have been one great big coincidence but I am skeptical of coincidences like this.
I have another 1 1/2 year old Falconware PC that has never had Starforce and I burn stuff on it all the time.
Here recently I came into some money and got another new computer that is mainly for gaming (whereas the other one is a kind of jack of all trades useage).It's a couple of months old. It has a DVD/CD burner on it with the oem Nero burning software.I've never burned anything on it.
As I was challanged in the Star Rangers 2 thread to give the new Starforce a chance (by tals if I remember right) I decided to accept the challange with my new PC.
So I installed the game and the latest Starforce protection system on it. The game works fine. I have copied some MP3s to an MP3 player and they work fine. I have played a couple of episodes of Northern Exposure on it with no problems. This morning I burned a couple of data cd's with no problem.
I haven't tried burning a dvd as I really don't have anything that needs recording to a dvd.
So in conclusion I must admit from my findings so far that the latest version of Starforce doesn't seem to have screwed up my computer. Doesn't mean I'm now a fan of Starforce and in all honesty still don't trust it and will try to avoid games using it.
It was not and is not an irrational fear as I have had problems with it in the past.But I will admit that with this verion and this computer it seems to be working okay.

[geezer]

That's been my experience as well (that is, no problems). I have no doubt that some people were negatively affected, but I have never had any issues with Starforce. FWIW< that's with a computer sample of 1, though it includes multiple iterations of starforce.

[morlac]

Couple of ?'s

Chaos League almost got me to try a Starforced game, Space Rangers WILL get me to try one. Everyone seems to think that this newer version of SF works fine with no problems. However, now that I will have it on my system I'm thinking of tryin some other games with older versions of it.(gogamer is giving away Soldiers with a 3 game purchase, Space Rangers + Chaos League expansion + something cheap). Will the older games SF try to overwrite the newer version or will it see I have SF already and do nothing? I'm still wary of the older versions obviouslly.

[Freezer-TPF-]

I am still avoiding all Starforce-burdened games, but I am glad to hear that you have had no problems with the latest version, dbt.

[Inverarity]

I'm totally against the concept of copy protection, but I find Starforce no worse in principal than something like SecureRom. I've never understood why so many people are against the "idea" of Starforce compared with other forms of copy protection, technical problems aside.

Speaking of which, I haven't had any tech problems with the version of Starforce on Space Rangers, my only Starforce game.

And I'm pretty weak-willed, so my principals of anti-copy protection take a backseat to my interest in playing (and therefore buying) games.

[magic]

Couple of ?'s

Will the older games SF try to overwrite the newer version or will it see I have SF already and do nothing? I'm still wary of the older versions obviouslly.

More than likely, no. Also, many patches released for SF protected games also update the drivers to the current spec.

[Tim Maynard]

I had CD/DVD burner issues when I loaded the demo of FIA GTR. Now that I have the full version on my system I haven't noticed any issues.

[AttAdude]

I have one SF game, that being SH3. after starting and exiting the game a few times over the course of normal play it will eventualy lock up while detectng the disk after launching the *.exe for SF. When that happens i can Ctrl alt del, that will get me my OS but will take away my CD-ROM so it costs me a reboot when this happens. Also since installing SH3 the windows burning software no longer works. Add to that the invasive copy protection and yeah i think i am going to keep away from these guys.

[Blackhawk]

I've never had StarForce on my system, even though the chances are that I will never, ever have any problems with it (the problems apply to a minority). I also believe that the company behind StarForce does a decent job of supporting their product.

On the other hand, I really believe that this goes a bit too far. It plants itself too deeply into a system in an area that is prone to trouble, especially if companies refuse to release patches when early versions start to conflict with future drivers and operating systems.

I see it as a can of worms - it isn't that horrible all by itself, but the methods it uses are so open to abuse by other companies with lesser standards that I simply don't want to support the technology itself. Starforce isn't that bad, but I don't want to see what happens when JoWood or Atari decides to create their own version. That isn't a slippery slope - it is simply refusing to support a technology with a high potential for abuse or misuse.

This one is a bit more of a slippery slope, fair warning - I'm also a bit unhappy with the thought of what happens if StarForce type protections become 'acceptable'. What will the 'extreme' copy protections be like at that point?

[Jeff Jones]

dbt, I'm glad to see you gave it a fair shake, and that things seem to be ok with it. Like you, I had deal-breaker problems with older versions of SF, and I avoided it for a long time. When EB had Soldiers on sale for $2.99, ($5.30 shipped!) I decided I'd give it another go, since a few here were preaching the wonders of this great game.

Last year, SF caused problems with my DVD drive, for some reason greatly reducing rip & burn speeds. It wasn't a case of paranoia, or false blame either. I could easily test this by removing SF and watch the rip & burn speeds immediately jump back up to normal. Put SF back on, and plonk, the speeds drop again.

This year, zero problems. I'm still like you dbt, not a fan, and I'd rather not see SF, but as long as it works and doesn't hose my system, I'll be ok with it. Some very mainstream games are starting to use it (Ubisoft's Chaos Theory), and a bunch of really great games (Soldiers, Space Rangers, etc) use it, so as long as it works, I'd rather just game and not worry about it.

[Cylus Maxii]

SR2 is the 1st SF game I've used. I've noticed no impacts on either my desktop or my laptop. And my laptop has Gamedrive on it. My burning speeds seem OK - but I don't burn stuff very often, so I'm sure I'd notice.

Anyway - I was avoiding SH3 because of StarForce now I'll probably go for it.

[Enough]

I've been avoiding it until recently too and broke down and got TM Sunrise and FIA. No problems noticed yet.

[Jeff Jones]

This one is a bit more of a slippery slope, fair warning - I'm also a bit unhappy with the thought of what happens if StarForce type protections become 'acceptable'. What will the 'extreme' copy protections be like at that point?

Those things should work themselves out. Major problems will result in major complaints and ... outrage!

Here's the thing about SF, and again, I don't want to sound like a fanboy, FAR from it, but I do believe it works. I look for no-cd cracks for any game I play. I've seen exactly 1 SF game cracked, truly cracked, in over a year and that was Silent Hunter 3. When that happened, I thought SF had been beaten, but I haven't seen any cracked since. And by the way, I'm not referring to those games that require you to load mini-images, and disable drives and nodes using a 3rd party util, and dance around on one leg with a coat-hanger antenna. I don't consider those cracked.

So, if it works, and very very few people have any real issues with it, then I imagine more publishers are going to consider it a success and use it.

[morlac]

So, It seems when installing a game with SF it will check for the latest version ala direct x? If thats the case it looks like I'll be placing a big order from Gogamer when I get home .

[tals]

So, It seems when installing a game with SF it will check for the latest version ala direct x? If thats the case it looks like I'll be placing a big order from Gogamer when I get home .

I don't think it does any online checking - blimey can you imagine the uproar However you can update the driver either by installing the latest version (i'm guessing SF2 has the latest) or by downloading it from the website. They appear to be backwardly compatible as Soldiers and SF2 I run together - only games in fact I am playing at the moment.

dbt - kudos for doing some further checking, I tend to treat this machine as primarily a games machine, secondary as my daughters personal cd writer (podcasts/radio shows) and thirdly as a print server.
I hate and I mean hate with a vengenance the machine doing anything out of the ordinary - literally had it in bits when BF2 was causing bluescreen issues, so far touch wood i've not experienced any issues and certainly I write so many CDs (in excess of 50 a month) i'm pretty confident i'd know I had a problem if it was effecting that. However as before I appretiate and am not taking away from the fact that some people have experienced issues - however whereas a year ago this appeared to be a large number of people now it seems to be the real minority (for attadude)

I can also understand the publishers using something like Starforce - no copy protection is perfect but in the CD validation area Starforce appears to be a good deal stronger than any of the others. Something like SR2 with its relatively low game player population could be totally destroyed by copying which unfortunately the torrents make all to easy.

Tals

p.s amusing thread re some guy cracking it - read it before it gets deleted
Avault Forum

[morlac]

No, you misunderstood me . What I meant by checking for latest version is: It would check your machine locally to see if A: you already had starforce and B: that it was up to date enough to run the game you are trying to install. This is how directX works. So If I install SR 2 with the latest version of starforce and then go install Chaos League with an older version it wont overide/screw up the newer version already on the system. The idea of 2 hardware level drivers trying to do the same thing makes me shudder.

[tals]

No, you misunderstood me . What I meant by checking for latest version is: It would check your machine locally to see if A: you already had starforce and B: that it was up to date enough to run the game you are trying to install. This is how directX works. So If I install SR 2 with the latest version of starforce and then go install Chaos League with an older version it wont overide/screw up the newer version already on the system. The idea of 2 hardware level drivers trying to do the same thing makes me shudder.

Ahh ok

If someone can advise what the device driver is called I will check and let you know the version on mine and whether it has 4 iterations as that is how many SF games I have at least. I'm pretty confident there will only be one and i'd expect that to be the latest version.

Tals

[morlac]

Thanks Tals! I'm expecting the same thing but since I'll be breaking my anti-SF stance in style and installing SR2, Chaos League, and Soldiers I would like to make sure

[Jeff Jones]

Thanks Tals! I'm expecting the same thing but since I'll be breaking my anti-SF stance in style and installing SR2, Chaos League, and Soldiers I would like to make sure

Any suspicions, and you can just go get the latest SF update from their site, and have it handy. After you install an older game, just run the update, and voila, you're dead certain you have the latest.

[tals]

Click the picture to get full screen.



Have to say in the non-plug and play drivers where it is located Starforce is possibly the neatest - some fairly horrible (name wise) looking stuff in there.

Tals

[morlac]

Click the picture to get full screen.



Have to say in the non-plug and play drivers where it is located Starforce is possibly the neatest - some fairly horrible (name wise) looking stuff in there.

Tals

LOL, I can't read that even enlarged but I was able to make out 6 SF entries, which seems like alot if it's just one version but what the hell do I know. I'm still going for it though, I actully dreamed about Space Rangers last night after reading the mega thread on it....sad.

[killbot737]

Starforce can suck my salty chocolate balls.

<begin exaggeration>
Your kid wants the brand new Kanka candy. You buy it, your kid dies.
Kanka Co. claims no responsibility for your child's death.
You find out later that Kanka bought some wrappers from Slugmorph Co.
Slugmorph Co. also claims no responsibility for your kid's death.
It turns out that there are people who have had their kids die due to Kanka Co.'s candy, but then many more people report deaths from other unrelated companies.
Through further investigation it ends up that Slugmorph Co. is the cause of all these deaths. None of the seemingly direct cause companies were forthcoming, but the evidence points directly to Slugmorph as an unnamed common element and the true cause of all the deaths.
<end exaggeration>

Starforce cost me a CD burner. I'm not the only victim. In my estimation they owe me at least $250.

"It doesn't do that anymore" is not a satisfactory answer, nor is it any sort of resolution to my very real loss of time and materials (no matter what tals might think)

[morlac]

WOW $250 for a CD burner? You should be pissed at whoever sold you that as well as the Slughmorph CO.

[killbot737]

WOW $250 for a CD burner? You should be pissed at whoever sold you that as well as the Slughmorph CO.

$75 for the drive (at the time) plus ~5 hours of "What the Fuck?" time? It's sad you don't value your leisure time.

ed - and I'm not even using "professional" tech fees for my per hour fees.

[tals]

WOW $250 for a CD burner? You should be pissed at whoever sold you that as well as the Slughmorph CO.

$75 for the drive (at the time) plus ~5 hours of "What the Fuck?" time? It's sad you don't value your leisure time.

ed - and I'm not even using "professional" tech fees for my per hour fees.

How do you know Starforce broke the drive or did it break after you installed starforce and you did 2+2=

Tals

[tals]

p.s amusing thread re some guy cracking it - read it before it gets deleted

Avault

Has developed to a case in point for Starforce - its crackable but its not like the usual game which literally are a case of just downloading them.

Tals

[Jeff V]

Thanks dbt, I'll add Space Rangers 2 to my "enemies of the people" list.

I have no idea if the Starfuck is more recent or not, but the last game I had to install with it, Cossacks 2, hosed my system good. Half way through the install, it started prompting for non-sensical disk numbers and refused to read the next disk in the install. My LG CD-ROM drive stopped reading data properly until I uninstalled it after the work was done. I had to reinstall using my DVD drive. FWIW, my DVD drive (NEC-2510a) is explicitly listed as "incompatible" with another Starfuck game, Silent Hunter 3.

In the case of Cossacks 2, I was paid enough to tolerate being violated by this invasive piece of shit. I would never, ever pay to be virtually sodomized in this manner. A game with Starforce might as well not exist in my world.

[tals]

The software moved on - but I think that point has been made a number of times.

Tals

[Huw the Poo]

My DVD ROM drive (not even a burner) worked flawlessly until I installed Silent Hunter 3. Now my PC fails to detect the drive approximately 50% of the time, forcing me to continually restart until it's detected and I can play the game I fucking paid for.

That's all I need to know about Starforce. I won't be buying another game infected by it.

[tals]

My DVD ROM drive (not even a burner) worked flawlessly until I installed Silent Hunter 3. Now my PC fails to detect the drive approximately 50% of the time, forcing me to continually restart until it's detected and I can play the game I fucking paid for.

That's all I need to know about Starforce. I won't be buying another game infected by it.

With a lack of information i'm just going to say what I would have done.

In the above scenario:

1. I'd have updated the game - the basic version had an earlier version of SF that I understand the patched didn't

2. I'd have updated the starforce driver - its known that they do provide updates which improve them.

3. I'd have uninstalled Starforce - checked the devices to make sure the rubbish was off my system. See if it still has the issue if so take starforce out of the argument and look more at the drive if not go onto 4.

4. I'd uninstall the game/starforce contact the support give them a few weeks for a valid answer and if none ebay it for pretty much what I pay for.

Tals

[Huw the Poo]

1. Well, yes, I always patch my games whenever I can.

2. I didn't know SF provided separate patches for their software and I bet I was far from the only one, too. I don't really see why I'd have to do it either. People who don't read message boards like these wouldn't even know SF exists, let alone the fact that you can update it.

3. With a less apparent cause for the problem I would have done something like this, but it's way too much of a coincidence. I've got some decent use out of my drive and would have noticed if it had already been happening, but it wasn't until I installed SH3. Add to that the known fact that SF disrupts exactly this kind of hardware, and I don't think I can be blamed for adding 2 and 2 and coming up with what I believe to be 4.

4. Well, SH3 is a phenomenal game and I want to keep it. As for contacting SF support...well, all I did was install a game. I didn't piss about with anything. If they can offer some sort of solution, no matter what it is it will be beyond what I really should have to do to play a game.

I appreciate the help Tals, I really do, but I'm just trying to make a point: SF is a load of arse (and coincidentally, a pain in the arse). It makes playing a game that I went out and bought way too much hassle and is hideously unfair to people who do not pirate games.

This kind of shit makes the temptation to pirate very strong, and that's another reason to hate SF.

[tals]

. Well, SH3 is a phenomenal game and I want to keep it. As for contacting SF support...well, all I did was install a game. I didn't piss about with anything. If they can offer some sort of solution, no matter what it is it will be beyond what I really should have to do to play a game.

Sorry I should have made myself clear i'd have gone to the SH3 support - StarForce (In SH3) is their responsibility imho. Certainly worth updating Starforce if you still are using the game - someone else in here should have a link, if not I can hunt it up - I think JeffJ indicated their was an updater which checks you have the latest version.

I'd agree it is rubbish - that said likelihood is you wouldn't be able to pirate a Starforce game - that's the whole point

Tals

[Huw the Poo]

It's kind of an interesting point really. What if every publisher switched to SF, but SF managed to beat pirates once and for all? Would it be worth it? It's more difficult to say yes to that than it really ought to be, isn't it?

[Blackhawk]

It's kind of an interesting point really. What if every publisher switched to SF, but SF managed to beat pirates once and for all? Would it be worth it? It's more difficult to say yes to that than it really ought to be, isn't it?

Yeah, it is difficult to say 'yes' because I feel the answer is 'no'. There are too many 'if's in that statement. If every company switched to Starforce, it wouldn't beat pirates - it would just slow them down and likely decrease their numbers. It would, at the same time, increase support costs and give PC gaming a reputation as being more trouble than it is worth - something that has already driven lots of people away from the hobby.

Reward the legitimate customers, don't punish the whole customer base hoping that the pirates will get the worst of it.

[Huw the Poo]

If every company switched to Starforce, it wouldn't beat pirates - it would just slow them down and likely decrease their numbers.

I think you misread my post.

[Kobra]

Man, I guess I did good then. I think me and Tals were the only Pro-Starforce people on these forums for ages! We kept talking up Starforce games, and how Starforce works, and I guess it paid off.

Seriously, the reality is, so many GREAT games have SF now, you'd be a dork to avoid them, and would miss the best games in the last 2 years.

As long as it keeps the profits fed into the game companies and developers, I think it is a good thing, and so far, SF seems to be the only CP that actually works. They've been trying to break the latest SF for nearly a year and have failed - and it IS in high profile games now - so what's the excuse of the crackers? Starforce will become even more popular soon given some statistics i've seen about how it can affect profits in a positive manner on games and which means more money for patches and game development.

[JayG]

Well I happen to think that Starforce proves my point that piracy isn't the bugbear the industry makes it out to be. Splinter Cell 3 as far as I know is uncopyable, and sold next to nothing on PC. Microsoft games like Halo are easily copyable on PC, and are in the top 10 for months. Doesn't matter to me, as the only games I'm playing at the moment EQ2 and HL2 don't have protection. And doesn't the CoC prevent people on OO being called dickheads, especially looking at the source.

[Kobra]

Halo fanbase = millions and millions, Splinter Cell = perhaps 500k. Give that, Chaos Theory sold more copies than all other Splinters combined according to a friend at UBI. Which is why all future UBI products will have Starforce now. Also, piracy can devastate a product with a small userbase, something people seem to not factor when comparing it to million selling titles.

Another fact most people seem to ignore is that gamers that read these forums are approximately 0.00001% of the gaming population, almost no gamer even knows what Starforce is, let alone CARES.. I had a lan session at my house last night with 12 heavy gamers. I loaded up Soldiers and everyone was going insane about how great it was, and I said "Well it has Starforce.". Out of the 12 there, none of them ever heard of it..

So what say you?

[Lee]

Man, I guess I did good then. I think me and Tals were the only Pro-Starforce people on these forums for ages! We kept talking up Starforce games, and how Starforce works, and I guess it paid off.

I was fighting the Starforce battle before you even registered here.

I just got to the point where I didn't care anymore. I don't like Starforce, and I can understand people avoiding it, but it didn't hurt my systems and I thought claims were a bit exaggerated. The reason I was vocal to begin with is because a game couldn't be discussed on this forum without it turning into a Starforce debate. Looks like that isn't the case anymore.

[Huw the Poo]

I just got to the point where I didn't care anymore. I don't like Starforce, and I can understand people avoiding it, but it didn't hurt my systems and I thought claims were a bit exaggerated.

Lee, I would urge you to be cautious. I used to say that exact same thing - on this exact same board, no less - until one of the SF-infected games I bought finally started screwing with my system.

Even though you haven't had any problems yet, I would still advise you not to buy any new SF-infected games unless you absolutely just have to have them.