You Learn Something New Every Day.
 

As I am installing Quak4, a costly little game that had better deliver as promised or its going to be sent back to Amazon, I happened to click yes when I was prompted if I wanted to view the read-me file. As I read through this I came accross something that I did not know.

I did not know that there were programs out their that could "make" a CD - KEY. Isn't that like safe cracking? How do they work? I mean if the cd-key is like 16 digits long with a mix of numbers and letters, how does it "crack" the cd-key?

Do I need to worry that some spyware from some game site might infect my PC and steal my CD - Keys?

Is there any protection against such CD-Key cracking software? I want to protect my CD Key's! I paid good money for these games and I do not want them cd-key cracked!

Its no fun to buy a game just have some spyware from some shady game site spyware program STEAL your CD-Key. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif

Re: You Learn Something New Every Day.
 

Depends a bit on the specific copy-protection mechanisim involved, but yes, they can be possible.

Unless it's been coded in somewhere, the program doesn't know exactly what key it's looking for - if it did, then (for someone with enough knoweledge on the specific copy-protection mechanisim) it would be a fairly simple exercise to write something that could either alter the program to accept given key or read the key straight from the program. What's more commonly done, however, is to tell the program what a good key looks like, and then have the program compare keys every now and again against some list - other programs in the game group (for the ones where you can host your own server), those linked to the main servers (most MMORPG's), or a quiet call-home server that's not so commonly known. The comparison is usually to weed out known abused keys (those that have been used way too much - known to be compromised) and to find new keys that are being abused (e.g., three computers with the same key on at once is a pretty good indicator that something's not as desired).

A key generator, if successful, basically reverse-engineers the knoweledge of what a good key "looks like" to create keys that will look good to the program... which can also be unique (and thus not raise the alarm at the main or call-home servers).

Of course, anytime you download a key generator, you are knowingly trying out a program from an annonymous source that is already thought to compromise programs, and running it on your machine.....

Re: You Learn Something New Every Day.
 

Well I am most upset. Despite having the latest drivers for my Geforce FX5700 Ultra video card... a card mind you that cost me $200.00 a year ago, Quake 4 runs like crap.

Well I must now uninstall the game and send it back to Amazon saying that it won't work with my system despite the fact that it claims it can. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif

Re: You Learn Something New Every Day.
 

Whoever wrote that is just trying to scare you.

CD Key protection is not generally done by making a long list of valid CD keys and checking the list when you type it in. Instead, any key that passes a particular check, a simple checksum being the simplest, works. CD key generators work because somebody figured out the algorithm used to check keys for that particular program and then used that knowledge to construct an algorithm that randomly generates a key that will pass. No list of valid keys gathered by spyware is necessary for this process.

I suppose some keygens may include spyware, but I'm pretty sure most do nothing more than what they say.

Edit: Games that connect to a central company-provided server may check the CD key used against a database of CD keys actually sold, and prevent any functionality requiring that server from working if the CD key used is not in the database. They may also check for duplicate CD keys and prevent multiples of the same key from connecting at the same time. It could technically be possible for someone to have gotten your CD key by chance from a key generator and prevent you from using the server, but this is extremely unlikely, as the number of keys that pass the installation check is typically several orders of magnitude greater than the number of copies (and keys) actually sold.

Re: You Learn Something New Every Day.
 

Unfortunately, even if a video card is listed as meeting the minimum requirements, often all that means is that the game will run. Not that the game will look good or run at a decent FPS. What should be done is to state minimum requirements that would make the game run AND be playable. Say, >=15 FPS. But I suppose that would result in lost sales since people would actually know what worked and what didn't...

Then again, you have to remember that there's so many possible combinations of hardware that it's impossible to test the game on every single possibility. So even though the game might run just find on someone else's 5700, they may have different hardware than you, and some difference there may be the problem. It's really tough to say.

On a side note, if you're looking for a new card you can get a 6600GT for $200 Canadian (about $160 American), or a 6800 for a decent price, especially since the 7800GTX 512MB card came out recently. All other lesser cards will of course fall in price somewhat soon. Then again, 160 bucks isn't exactly pocket change. Suppose it depends on your financial situation.

Whew, that ended up long. Sorry.

Re: You Learn Something New Every Day.
 

A lot of software used to tell the minimum and the recomended requirements. Still the recomended was usually closer to the minimum in alot of cases. I do have a few programs that I have run succesfully with less than minimum requirements though, but that was several years ago, and I think they were more consevative in there minimum requirements then. Civ III lists a 400 MHz processor and 128 Megs of ram, but runs fine on my 350Mhz with 64 Megs. Might & Magic IX, however was barely playable and only required 64 megs of ram. I guess it depends on the game a bit as well.

Re: You Learn Something New Every Day.
 

Well for example, I jsut got a new laptop about a month ago. 3mghz processor, 128mb video card, 1 gb of ram. It exceeds every single game I own but still some of tehm run slow or crash if I set the graphics setting all the way up.

Re: You Learn Something New Every Day.
 

Most of the games I've looked at list minimum and recommended - But then, I don't look at very many.

Re: You Learn Something New Every Day.
 

Minimum requirements are NOT equal to "I can run it with all the graphics settings turned up" http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif

Also, you have a laptop. This isn't a problem with most programs but games tend to be fussy about certain things often don't like laptops (ussually because they have unusual video drivers).

Re: You Learn Something New Every Day.
 

I've yet to see a game that didn't list both, and I look at a good few. Personally though, I always just look at the Recommended spec and take that as the minumum, since I've always figured that the way minimum and recommended specs get onto a box goes something like:
Devs pass minimum specs to Marketing.
Marketing cuts the specs by 25-50% and puts those down for minimum spec.
Devs find out and raise hell.
Marketing 'compromises' by adding the devs minimum spec in as the 'recommended spec.

Either way, I usually just read the review in something like PC Gamer where they tell you what spec they recommend, so you know what you need in order to run it and have it look like it does on the back of the box.

Re: You Learn Something New Every Day.
 

Personally I just give into the giant monsters like Gamespot and IGN for a couple of minutes. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Sure they rarely list niche games but for new/popular games it's rare I can't find the recommended specs on there.

Re: You Learn Something New Every Day.
 

Just bought Doom 3. It only lists Minimum specs.

Re: You Learn Something New Every Day.
 

LoL...i just got age of empires 3. I CANT PLAY it!!! it requires windows xp, i love that bloody microsoft company. Oh well i guess i can live without it.

But if u want good card get an ati 9800, its cheap 2:-)...i have 9600 xt and i can run doom3 or half life 2 w/ nothing bad, note at high setting. Friend has 512 more ram n runs at full setting.

Re: You Learn Something New Every Day.
 

I have found that in general, ATI cards are more stable and run better than NVidia cards. I'm not sure if this is true overall, but I have found this true with like eight different cards.

For example, in my old desktop, I used to have a game that should not have run on the ATI card that I had, but it would run on low settings. A few months later I got an NVidia card that more than exceeded the games requirements, but the game would only run well at low or medium settings.

Re: You Learn Something New Every Day.
 

False advertising for the sake of selling product. What's in a little white lie anyhow? RIGHT? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/mad.gif Just get used to the fact that we are all left on our own to get these products we buy, to run. I've had some games that require you to overhaul your computer to run them. It's ridiculous that you should have to go through all that to get something to run and then undo it to get back to where you started. I had an Apple (many many years ago) and they specified all hardware requirements for their systems (the original plug n play). Microsoft has failed to set down hardware requirements for it's software (like DirectX) and now we pay the price trying to get things to work on our computers.

Re: You Learn Something New Every Day.
 

Speaking of overhauling your computer to get games to run... I got Civ4 & AOE3 as early Christmas presents, and both of them required some work to get going. AOE3 wasn't too bad, I just needed to run a patch since I couldn't get passed the first mission because a bit of audio wasn't playing which was preventing the trigger for the events that let you win to go off.
Civ4 on the other hand... When I try to start it, it doesn't work, but there's a post on the forum about how to fix my particular error. First they tell you to uninstall Civ4, then uninstall your video drivers, then RE-install Civ4, install the newest video drivers and if (read: when) that doesn't work, you have to download an unpacker program and unpack one of the big artwork files (which takes about 25 min), then backup the artwork file somewhere and try again. Now, this works, but it's a PITA to have to go through all that to get a game to work. And apparently this bug only affected ATI cards. Did they not bother testing it on an ATI equipped machine? Gah!
Still, both good games once they're working.

Re: You Learn Something New Every Day.
 

From what I've heard, Quake 4 isn't very interesting anyway. That it uses the Doom 3 engine and so has impressive graphics if you run it on the latest hardware, is reported as about the only strong point.

PvK

Re: You Learn Something New Every Day.
 

There is a patch out for civ 4...1.09...I think it addresses some issues with the ATI graphics problem...

Read about it here... www.civfantics.com

Kana

Re: You Learn Something New Every Day.
 

This is why, as a rule, I never run out to get any programs right away. I wait for at least the first patch or more before I purchase. This is one reason that another post talked about Microsoft saying that the PC software sales are dying. It's not the software, but people are buying products that are faulty right out of the box and like myself wait to hear the initial reviews about the product before they purchase. Software companies need to start releasing products that are readily playable out of the box, NOT after a first or second patch fixes problems AND after a while all support for the product is pulled.