You Learn Something New Every Day.

[Atrocities]

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.

You
may hear of so-called "CD Key generators" being available for illicit download
on the Internet. They do not work as advertised, and often attempt to steal
legitimate keys off your machine, reveal personal information or install
viruses, worms and/or trojan horses on your machine. Do not download and/or use
them under any circumstances.

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.

[Jack Simth]

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.....

[Atrocities]

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.

[douglas]

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.

[Renegade 13]

Atrocities said:
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.

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.

[Wolfman77]

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.

[kerensky]

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.

[narf poit chez BOOM]

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

[Phoenix-D]

kerensky said:
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.

Minimum requirements are NOT equal to "I can run it with all the graphics settings turned up"

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).

[AgentZero]

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.