Built Ons and anti-piracy issues

I don’t know if this is the right forum for this, or even if you can help me with this,so moderators, please feel free to punt this to another forum if necessary…

So I just received my new S96J on Thursday from GenTechPC. Everything seems to be in perfect order. The only question I have, especially for those of you with Asus BuiltOns, is have you had problems with anti-piracy programs on games not recognizing your optical drive?

So specifically, I have a “8 x DVD-RW Dual Layer Super Multi8 x DVD-RW Dual Layer Super Multi” not sure what brand it is. And when I try to play my Civ4 game, I can install just fine, but when I try to play it mysteriously can’t see the disc in the drive. I’ve done some research on the Civ4 forums, and it seems that there is a conflict with their anti-piracy crap. I had to install this horribly shady hack, SafeDisc 4 Hider, (I feel so dirty just having it on my computer) in order to get the game to work. I haven’t done anything funky to the computer yet; Civ4 was one of the first programs I even tried to install after avast (anti-virus) and OpenOffice.

Is there something about my drive that is causing the anti-piracy software to freak out? Am I missing some security software or drive identification thing (I have no idea what I’m talking about, just trying to see why Fireaxis thinks I’m a criminal even though I paid for the damn game.)

I guess I can keep using the hack, but I’d like to fix the problem if I can… Any thoughts or advice would be appreciated.

Thanks!

ps. It won’t recognize my Xbox 360 controller in the USB port either, even though everyone else in the world seems to get it to work plug’n’play, but that’s a different issue.

 

THere is no such thing as anti piracy precation on pcs. If you have a burned game you can install fine. But the game will know its not the original cd and not allow you to launch. You need to download the No Cd crack/Patch for that specific game. do a google search for Civ4 no cd crack. but remember be careful who you download the crack from lots of viruses in them sometimes. thats why i get my stuff from news groups and IRC.

 

I think he's saying it's the original game disk that's not working, which makes it all the more interesting.

Maybe there's some driver update or something to that extent? I'm grasping for something here...

 

Yeah, I know that the anti-piracy thing is on the disc itself (which I bought, with money, from a store), but for whatever reason the disc thinks that it's not a legal copy, or that something about the setup of my system makes it think that I want to create illegal copies. (which seems a bit paranoid, but that's neither here nor there.) And I've been able to dupe it by using the SafeDisc 4 Hider program.

I'm just asking if other folks with BTO machines have had similar issues, and/or know if there's a switch or something that needs to be set to make SafeDisc more comfortable with my system.

Undertow, so you're saying the drivers for my DVD-WR might need updating (even though it's brand new)?

 

I has nothing to do with your hardare. Its either the disk is damaged if its the original. or something software wise on your pc its comflicting with or is corrupt.I think he means firmware. but if its installing the game from the cdrom i doubt thats the issue.

 

I was able to install and play it on my old computer, so it seems to be something different with my current set up, not the disc itself. I was also able to install and play Railroad Tycoon 3 on my S96J with no issues. So that's why I'm thinking there's a conflict with the anti-piracy on Civ4 and my new system.

 

Yup - but I'm just guessing...

Have you tried cleaning the disk? That's the most likely culprit that I"ve seen in the past, but it sounds like you've done research and it's a known issue w/ digital rights.

 

SafeDisk is nefarious for not working well with newer hardware. I suggest making a mini-disk. It's more elegant than the no-cd cracks and safedisk hiders.

 

So I did a little more research and found out more than I really wanted to know about anti-anti-piracy.

What I was really looking for was a compiled list of programs/optical drives that are incompatible with SafeDisc 4, just to be sure that was my problem. I know the companies wouldnt have one, but I thought a forum or a usegroup out there would have done it. It turns out that it's probably not worth anyone's time to do that when there are cracks and other tools to work around the problem that are much faster and more effective.

Oh well. I guess I'm a hack.

Now I'm depressed.

 

You guys keep saying "he" and "his", Do you guys think there's any chance that "justagurl" might be a female??? Just a thought

Companies these days are going overboard with all the encryption and security they build into these games, Movies and Programs in my opinion...I totally understand why, but It's insane when It starts to interfere with a legitimate paying customers user experience...It almost encourages these paying customers to seek out pirated copies and fixs in the future.

I think It's totally insane that I can't enjoy certain movies, cd's and games, that I bought and paid for without jumping through hoops, searching for fixs/cracks and alternate players or having to verify the content online before I can watch, play, or listen to it etc...It never seems to go smoothly and takes away from the reason I paid for it in the first place, which would be to enjoy the content anyway I so choose without hassle or headaches. And It's only going to get worse, making it tens times more efficient and appealing to find these things from "alternative" sources. That's my small rant...