[lylo]

How many of you have used illegal NO-CD cracks to play your legally owned games without running the risks of running your game discs?

I imagine theres a few of you, well earlier on today I came across a programme which aims to resolve those issues legally, and well, it does a bloody good job of it.

Game Jackal basically reads information from the discs of the games you own (only original games will work here), and stores it in small profiles on your computer, these profiles I imagine store data relating to the disc and to the .exe of that game. You launch these profiles like you would normally use your games and voila, you'll never need a disc for that game again.

I legally own GTA: San Andreas, but my disc has a dangerous crack going right through the middle of the disc, almost to the outside of it. Remarkably the disc still works but I refuse to use it, and avoid using it when possible to avoid it snapping completely whilst spinning in my drive. Because of this I had to resort to using a no disc crack to play the game. With the 1.01 patch however, I couldn't upgrade to that because there were no available cracks for it!

I tried this out earlier (theres a 7 day trial of it), it was simply a matter of using a wizard to create a profile, it quickly takes a small chunk of data from your original disc and then youre done. I created my profile and updated San Andreas using the patch. Lone behold, I was able to load the game up with no problem whatsoever, my game is patched and fully working.

The programme is brilliant in the fact that its a genuine step forward towards illegal measures of playing games without the use of discs. The profiles themselves are brilliant in the fact that every single one is unique, each profile created has embedded registration details relative to that particular user, so they can't be shared online between pirates. If you do resort to using no-disc cracks despite legally owning games, I highly recommend this.

The website is currently offering this at a special price of $9 (£7) too, so please, snap it up while you can, it is worth it.

[phkninja]

i found that thsi program doesnt always work. I installed it about 6 months ago, and when i couldnt get my games to work uninstalled it. Im thinking of using gamejack, as I had this working before and dont mind having to make a cd image (the new version allows images to mount on daemon tools). This way I can put my originals away safely so they wont get scratched.

[XtremeMaC]

well there is something much much better than this tool
its called alcohol 120%.http://www.alcohol-soft.com/ $49.91
just make an image of your game and store it either to your hdd or a new cd/dvd..

this way u won't have to use any cracks and your original disc.

why pay for this program when it doesn't work? instead buy something usefull!! yes its 5x cheaper but as said it probably doesn't work.

[lylo]

I don't quite think you're getting me here.

This programme eliminates the need for using backup discs, iso's or cracks of any kind. You're talking about using images to play your games? Most games these days (GTA SA is a perfect example of this) use protection not only to prevent copied discs being used, but to also detect the use of virtual drives which use iso's and they will prevent you from loading the game!

The only way around this is to use illegal cracks/dodgy code from dodgy sites that for all you know could destroy your computer!

All this programme does is read once the startup of your game using your original disc, and stores that data in a profile, it kinda captures the startup data from your disc. Once you have that profile, you simply use that over and over again to load your game. It eliminates the need for risky cracks, saves you filling up hundreds of MB's with ISO's and best of all: Its LEGAL!

And it works. Trust me lol. I would never come on to any site and recommend bad software!

This post has been edited by lylo: 09 November 2005 - 01:35 AM

[XtremeMaC]

yes u're right it was late at night when i read your post so i was reading quickly anyways
I do have san andreas and made an image of it with alcohol and its working perfectly! no cracks no nothing. just mount the iso. http://forum.alcohol...showtopic=19664

i'll test jackal in a moment, if it really works its good.

but jackal seems to be at the edge being legal.

Quote

Enterprise features
Automatic distribution of game profiles to client machines.
Remote game activation (and deactivation).
Monitoring of game licenses and ensuring the number of licenses held is not exceeded.
Dynamic distribution of "cd-key" (either via a registry change or file update).
Remote termination of a Game on a specific client.
Physical CD drive blocking.
No virtual drives required.
Game Jackal runs silently on client machines as a Windows service providing greater compatibility with cybercafé launching software such as Smartlaunch and CybercafePro.

this does sound to me like its the ultimate "no cd crack" crack software.
instead of going straight it goes around the problem..

[phkninja]

Gamejack does the same kind of thing as gamejackal but with an image file. As i said i couldnt get gamejackal working properly but never heard of a problem with gamejack. Gamejack will copy the entire disk, and when it is mounted it acts exactly like the real disk. Unlike alcahol 120% it copies the disk AS IS and that includes the protection sectors. I have never heard anyone complain that gamejack didnt work (when used properly of course)

[lylo]

Thats fair enough phkninja, but you're still having to create huge images of games here, with most games now on DVD's thats going to put a dent in your storage space very quickly. For the most part with Game Jackal, the profiles it creates using the discs startup data will be less than 10mb.

[albator]

lylo, on Nov 9 2005, 01:34 AM, said:

The only way around this is to use illegal cracks/dodgy code from dodgy sites that for all you know could destroy your computer!

No, that not true The presence of Daemont tools can be cloak. The only copy protection that need some hard workaround is StarForce 3. Securom 7, safedisc are easy to bypass.

GTA: San Andreas use Securom 7, so you dont need to buy any software to make it work without the original DVD.

An by the way using no cd is in no way illegal.

This post has been edited by albator: 10 November 2005 - 04:37 PM

[Mr_Mo]

albator, on Nov 10 2005, 04:34 PM, said:

An by the way using no cd is in no way illegal.

Tha depends on the country you live in. In Denmark it is illegal.

[dcyphure]

i prefer gamedrive, it has the highest compatibility with games and burns to hard drive alot faster than alcohol does for me, i mean alot faster

[lylo]

I still don't understand whats not computing here, I'm talking about not using cd-images that with today's DVD's, are gonna be absolutely huge. Yet you're still convinced on using these and filling up your HD-Space in no time.

Just check out the trial of this programme and see how more convenient it can be to having isos and extra virtual drives to mount them on.

And it can't surely be me who has problems with GTA:SA and Alcohol, if I tried using an image of the original disc on a virtual drive the game wouldn't load up with the error stating that a virtual drive was detected, asking me to disable it before continuing it.

Oh, and before I forget, in an upcoming version of GameJackal, Starforce games will be supported

This post has been edited by lylo: 10 November 2005 - 07:15 PM

[ripken204]

game jackal is crap. you need to buy it unless u can find a crack for it which i couldnt find. and it barely works with any of my games.

[dcyphure]

lylo, on Nov 10 2005, 06:47 PM, said:

I still don't understand whats not computing here, I'm talking about not using cd-images that with today's DVD's, are gonna be absolutely huge. Yet you're still convinced on using these and filling up your HD-Space in no time.

Just check out the trial of this programme and see how more convenient it can be to having isos and extra virtual drives to mount them on.

And it can't surely be me who has problems with GTA:SA and Alcohol, if I tried using an image of the original disc on a virtual drive the game wouldn't load up with the error stating that a virtual drive was detected, asking me to disable it before continuing it.

Oh, and before I forget, in an upcoming version of GameJackal, Starforce games will be supported

yes we hear you, ive known about it for a long time...its crap cuz i have games it wont work with and latest v2 is no exception no matter how long i profile a game for it, i own several including that and alchohol120 and for myself i prefer gamedrive 10...dont take it personally.

so are you like some kind of wierd gamejackal fanboy or are do you work in advertising for them? i mean your first post was fine, let ppl know how well you like it but dont preach about it, not everyone has only games it will work with.

[lylo]

I'm bigging it up so much because I believe its a product in time will become essential. Using Alcohol or Daemon Tools is fine don't get me wrong because I've used them myself for so long, but they ARE inconvenient when you think about how many games some people might have to create images for, which in itself can be time consuming to get it right.

This product on the other hand is constantly being worked on, the team behind it are very responsive when it comes to technical help, if you've ever had problems with it you shouldve checked out the forums where you will get answers.

I feel strongly that in time this product will get so much better (for me its already been worth the purchase, and its under a tenner, nothing expensive about that!).

I aint no fanboy (despite loving it lol) and I certainly don't work for them, but if I find good software that works brilliantly for me, I pass it on and recommend it to others, I'm like this with everything.

[dcyphure]

like i said, the first post was fine on its own, make a review with links but its only an opinion and not everyone will agree with you just like you probably dont agree with me, if one works for me and all my games, i use it, i'd recommend it for trying but wouldnt try to force it. game jackal is very nice, its quick n stuff but i have a few games i play that wont work and another prog does, so not a tough choice for some like me

imaging is only done once, if anyone is in too big a hurry to image a game then likely you might want to loosen up your schedule a bit
gj takes seconds but also takes just as long to start a game with it
lots of cons and pros with all of them but would hardly consider any essential cuz
these progs are for us lazy people and i'm one of them but switching cd's and taking proper care of them isnt hard and i could live without any of them if i had to since ive done so since the sega cd days.
whats also not essential is how most progs like this get abused by everyone borrowing someone elses game and playing it without cd and ever buying it.