Starforce questions...
 

Hi all, I'm new here.

I recently picked up a copy of Loki and installed it no problems.

The game updated itself (I think, or I downloaded and installed the patch, can't remember as it was a week or two ago) to version 1.0.6.

So I tried to fire the game up today and the first thing it said was that it wanted to install some protection drivers. It doesn't say what these drivers are, only that they are used for the CD/DVD checking process. After looking into the protection FAQ that it provides, I found a link to a star-force website. I don't have any problems using the original game disks, but I will resort to using a crack if it allows me to bypass this whole starforce junk.

I've read stories about how the starforce drivers can't be removed and often times can corrupt or damage your cd/dvd drive. To be honest I don't want that to happen, and I will not install this junk on my system.

Anyone have any suggestions?

Use StarForce Protection Cleanup" at http://cdmediaworld.com/hardware/cdrom/cd_utils_8.shtml to remove the Star-Force drivers.

Anyone know if Starforce only activates the first time, and I can remove it? Or do I need starforce for as long as I play this game?

You need the SF drivers as long as the game is installed, removing them and running the game will reinstall those drivers like your message says!

If you use the crack the game will not install the Starforce drivers.

But Colin McRae Dirt 1.2 still has no crack and I bought the game and the game is now on my shelf, cause I don't want to install such drivers to play a game

Starforce won't damage your system, if it does then it's excluded from it by the EULA like most games are so you're up shit creek anyway!

Just install the game and update it, then be happy!

it'll mess with optical drives. kill them i dunno but they'll definitely mess with them

Nowadays you shouldn't bother with a game until A) they fix the major bugs present in the release in an official update and B) a working crack is made for that official update. Play with some other game until then! ;)

pretty much right on there. i do that

Thanks guys. The game looks good, so it's worth waiting for another patch/crack then. Ah well... I'll probably never play it, Hellgate: London is out soon, =D

This is not true, it killed one of my cd-drives.

if you can prove that 100% and can reproduce it then you could sue the shit out of starforce.....

forgive me, but first time poster coming out with that sort of statement really makes me suspicious that you're jumping on the bandwagon...

if it really is true then all you would have to do would be to obtain another IDENTICAL cd/dvd drive of the one it supposedly killed, install it in exactly the same place (ide channel etc..), then run a starforce game, if it kills it then you could become a very rich person.. but something tells me it wont happen...

and you're apparently from usa, a known sue happy country (amongst other things)... so what are you waiting for...

TippeX, well said... Rumors exist but none were confirmed yet. (That would've been such a scandal that everyone would've heard about it already.) Cheap PC hardware - as well as a bad batch of brand hardware - can get broken by itself, it doesn't need the help of software for that. (And, no, I'm definitely not on Starforce's side...!)

To quote a famous movie - Independence Day


"Ive been saying it for goddamn years, havent I been saying it for years?"

I always disliked the Starfarce garbage junk but I have to admit I never saw damages none of my drives

And i had severeal of my sf games installed (for long time) beforethey get crack relased and neved did that

What i disliked about that protection was the strong cd authentifcation system have for example the earlier versions used to take ages to validate the original cd and that got me infuriated

Also when I used my cd-rw cd writer to validate the original disk. Used to said to insert in other drive

One time I also had a problem with sf driver coz got messed (not the entire system but all my sf games) I didn't know why and when I wanted to play any of my sfgames i couldn't all depended from the same driver of I got sf driver from the sf site but I had to keep reinstalling everytime after closing the game and relaunch again to get them function again so I didn't had more remedy than re format and reinstall windows to get the driver work again on the sf games

Other thing I dislieliekd when the mini images didn't work, I fact they never worked for me I always had to use the original disk and the lack of cracks

But after sometime most of my sf games got no cds so I no longer needed to have the driver installed when I use them

And all games I have older sf versions (3.4,3.5).I don't know the new versions ones In fact Lot of game I have bought since like 2006/07 haven't come with this protection. It seems became less common since several publishers dropped it (Ubi was not the only one) I guess the excepcetion only was BIA and Gt legeds but are older versions too and I got them after release date

But getting the the topic I see very difficult software can damage hardware physically with the exception I don't know of the chernobyl virus created in 90's that could destroy the rom bios I have never seen that


And the DVD/CD roms drivers tends to fail a lot just with the use. People who fix computers is naturalized with that It's common I don't know the generic ones without brand are pretty bad quality fail alot , the combo drives, the classical drives that don't open and you have to use the clip in the hole to open and. The lasser just can loose force can be see in machines used in office taks that don't have any game of starforce installed ever

I had a drive that failed past year but I really can't blame starforce coz the old crap was very old (had more than 5 years) and I didn't have sf games installed when that happened

And Tippex don't take as offence but looking at you signature it seems you have afraid to the foreigners relax a bit not all foreign people is that bad you can't judge people just by the location coz none is the same as anyone just coz is from x country that just falls in stereotypes. lots even can lie in the location they write in the forums

nowadays bios destroying viruses (although technically possible) are very very rare, and very chipset/bios dependant...

cd/dvd drivers can also 'fail' due to messed up filter drivers, and sometimes using nforce chipset drivers instead of the microsoft ones etc can cause problems, its all very very hardware dependant...

if you buy a cheap cd/dvd drive, i think the rule is 'if its cheap, it will die sometime in the future' , as thats the nature of cheap hardware... you really do pay for what you get (in most cases)...

I could see how it could appear to do that. I've worked on computers where there was a filter driver that had been attached to a CD drive by Easy CD Creator and problems with the filter driver made the drive unusable (on that computer).

@Mason -> filter drivers do not PHYSICALLY kill a cd/dvd drive, the point here is some people claim starforce makes their drives 'dead' (ie: non responsive to anything.. dead as a doornail)... theres a difference between that and 'unusable', and as you work on computers, i guess you're aware of the sillyness of those claims...

@Tippex
I think what mason was actually trying to say was the drive was not actually dead it just 'appeared' that way on 'that particular' pc. ;)

yep, cos of a filter driver, which isnt really related, i wasnt attacking him per se, i was just trying to clarify the main claims from people about starforce -> 'starforce killed my cd/dvd drive/dog/cat/whatever' etc... where the killed was dead, non responsive...