Playing 2142 without DVD Drive?

[Gravis]

of 2142?

Sorry guess they dont have any for 2142... but explained earlier in this thread was a way to make a mini image

I bought 2142 through ea link, so no dvd for me

[Winter_Lion]

of 2142?

Sorry guess they dont have any for 2142... but explained earlier in this thread was a way to make a mini image

I bought 2142 through ea link, so no dvd for me

I run mine on a mini-image, but it is not as small as BF2's mini which weighed just 2.9 megs. The 2142 dvd image i made is still too big to upload or email easily at 180megs, down from 580megs from my first attempt at it.

I have been trying to make a smaller one last couple of days for Cheesy and company but I find myself doing a balancing act between read speed and error logging and final mini size I end up with. Frustrating and if I didnt know it was a needful thing, I would just let it go at 180megs.

I will soldier on and check with some Alcohol engineers to see if they can explain an easier way to trim it down. They love getting questions outside of the typical "How can I use my friend's game dvd without getting caught" ad nasuem.

Yeah.........they love gettng questions..........hehe......like they luv getting teeth pulled.......but they will help anyways. It is the lone wolf against Corporate Europe and the game giants concept that keeps em working against the tide. God bless em, a dying breed.

Winter

[ph1l0r]

You might be able to "erase" certain files in the image by putting nulls ( 00 00 00 ) instead of their real values. A zillion 00 blocks can be compressed perfectly ;-)

[Ash2Dust]

I havent seen a maxi-image either, not that I would be thrilled about having a 4+ gig image of 0's taking up space on a drive. But it would make sense for compressing for transfer. If Winter could take his semi-mini and do it, then he would be a popular guy.

[Winter_Lion]

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Backup of SecuROM 7.2 and SafeDisc 4.7 DVDs

This guide will hopefully be some help for people creating a working backup of SecuROM 7.27 and SafeDisc 4.7 protected DVDs (I don't have CDs using this protection version of SecuROM and SafeDisc but the method is the same except some settings for dumping the image). I used two different methods creating a backup:

First method running it from a virtual drive using Alcohol 120%/Alcohol 52% Free Edition, Daemon Tools, Y.A.S.U, ProtSt0p and my device manager (you'll see later what this means).

Second Method creating a physical backup using emulation in combination with Alcohol 120% and DaemonTools.

Before I start here's a list with my System, Software, Tools, Hardware and Games I used for the guide:

System:
Windows XP Professional 5.1 Service Pack 2 (Build 2600)
Processor info: Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 2.60GHz (2605MHz)
Memory Available to Windows: 1.048.052 KB

Software:
Alcohol 52% Free Edition 1.9.6 ( Build 4719) (Freeware)
Alcohol 120% 1.9.6 ( Build 4719 ) (Shareware)
(Settings are the same for both Alcohol versions while Alcohol 120% can also burn your image Alcohol 52% can just read to an image file!)
DAEMON Tools (I'll use DTools as a shortcut) 4.08HE SPTD 1.38 (Freeware)

Tools
Pr0t.St0p v1.0
Y.A.S.U 1.05
Windows Device Manager

Hardware:
NEC DVD_RW ND-3540A, Firmware Version: 1.04
TOSHIBA DVD-ROM SD-M1712, Firmware Version: J004 (reading drive)

Games (Scanned with Protection ID):
Madden NFL 07, Safedisc 4.70.000
Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell Double Agent, SecuROM 7.27.0014

First method:

Start Alcohol open the Image Making Wizard
Choose your optical drive with your DVD you want to backup
For SafeDisc protected games don't change anything in the settings
For SecuROM protected games tick Data Position Measurement, Precision: High
Click Next and choose the Image Location where you save your image
Hit Next and set your Measuring Speed for the DPM function which will just appear for the SecuROM settings not for SafeDisc settings (Alcohol support recommends Measuring Speed High for the best result using DVDs)
While you're reading the DPM don't touch your PC and close all unnecessary processes, from my own experience you'll get a better result
When the dumping process is done mount your image using DTools
Now comes the 'tricky' part, for your SecuROM protected DVDs use Y.A.S.U or ProtSt0p to hide your drives (read the readme files of each tool before using it!) before you start the game
For your SafeDisc protected DVDs (this also works for SecuROM protected games without the tools I mentioned before!) these tools didn't work so you have to disable your optical drives (CDRW, DVDRW, CDROM, DVDROM) in your device manager (you can enable them at any time when you finished playing) and then start the game

Second Method:
I used philamber's guide, except I didn't tick Skip reading errors and i just tried it with Madden NFL 07 (SafeDisc 4.7) as Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell Double Agent (SecuROM 7.27) needs a Double Layer DVD which I don't have.
Important:
The only burning application on my system was Alcohol 120%, emulation software DTools and anti-blacklisting tools were Y.A.S.U, Pr0t.St0p nothing else was installed when I wrote this guide. No CloneCD, BlindWrite, Nero, Fantom CD,... so there won't be any conflicts. When you did the same steps as I did and it's not working check for any other emulation, burning and anti-blacklist application on your system and remove it.
I didn't use Alcohol's virtual drives. By default one virtual drive is created during installation I recommend setting the Alcohol vdrives to zero for this guide Virtual Drive->Number of Virtual Drives: 0 (although DTools and Alcohol use the same vdrive technology, I used DTools).

[Winter_Lion]

With the release of v. 1.9.6.4629 of alcohol it is now possible to make RMPS emulation copies of safedisc protected dvds as well as securom protected dvds.

The method is the same (and new users should note that there are no datatypes to select when copying dvds with alcohol as they are unnecessary).

The method is simple. It is as follows:

Simply click on the image making wizard with the dvd to be copied in the drive. Check the options for "Skip read errors" and for "Data Position Measurement" and set Precision (for dpm) to "High" from the drop down box.

After you click next, a pop-up box will ask you for the dpm speed you want to use. Select "Max" and proceed from there.

Once the image is made, click on the image burning wizard and load the image you've just made from the .mds file. Click next and then select your burning speed and check the option for "Burn "RMPS" to recordable media. Then click Start to commence burning your image.

Note that the burnt dvd will require RMPS emulation to be enabled in alcohol (or Daemon Tools) emulation options for it to work.

Note also that it isn't presently possible to make a working back-up copy of a safedisc or securom protected dvd that will work without emulation because of the inability of dvd burners to write dvds in raw mode.

Note:
That last paragraph is somewhat dated as my Philips 16x Dual Layer DVD burner will write DVD's in the raw mode and there are a few others on the market as well.

Winter

[Gravis]

i still stand by the .exe's ive used one for bf2 for over a year now (because ea wanted to be dicks and not sell me just the dvd because mine got scratched) so i downloaded an image and use a no dvd crack

[Winter_Lion]

i still stand by the .exe's ive used one for bf2 for over a year now (because ea wanted to be dicks and not sell me just the dvd because mine got scratched) so i downloaded an image and use a no dvd crack

Gravis, you rebel you!

btw: We are talking about BF2142. But thanks for your opinion, nonetheless. BF2 does not need a dvd crack actually. If you have the image to install the game, then you can make a mini dvd, 2.9 megs in size that will take the place of the DVD or CD. No cracking or hacking neccesary.

Winter