DPM extraction: specify number of sectors

[Reef]

I think it would great if there was an option to only extract DPM from a certain amount of sectors. SecuROM only needs DPM from the first 150.000 sectors of a disc to authenticate, so why would anyone need DPM for the whole disc?
Since DPM extraction usually is a time consuming thing, it would greatly reduce the time needed to create images for SecuROM protected titles.

All the above applies only for DPM extraction ofcourse, not the image creation. So it will still create a full image, only the DPM will be smaller.

[DevX]

Ok, we'll consider this option.

[Jito463]

I foresee one potential problem with this. If they implement this feature, and people start ripping a smaller DPM, then SecuROM could just change the copy protection to require more, or other parts of, the DPM structure. Making the aforementioned images useless if the copy protection gets updated on them.

For older games that are no longer being updated, this wouldn't hurt. But for newer games, I wonder how long it would last before you'd have to remake the image again.

[Terramex]

I wouldn't consider this a problem. If they'd really adjust their protection system the community would be informed in hours and next DT Pro release would definitely take this in account and simply remove the option to define DPM zone (or some choice of full/short DPM).

[Reef]

That's why it should be an option, just disable it to extract full DPM.
I think SecuROM can not change this on titles that already exist, cause the pressed discs only seem to contain DPM on the first 150k sectors. They can't change existing discs, so if they ever want to change something it can only be done on new releases.

[Jito463]

Perhaps I misunderstood, then. I was under the impression that the DPM extraction was over the full surface of the disc, but that authentication only required a portion of that (per your post), not that the DPM itself was only a small portion of the disc.

[Reef]

Just look at any .mds file from a SecuROM protected game (using mds viewer or BWA Builder), you'll see that only about the first 140-150k sectors contain DPM info.

Here's an image of DPM data from 4 different SecuROM protected games (Crysis, R6 Vegas, C&C3 and Dark Messiah):



You can clearly see the irregularities end at about 140-150k sectors for all these games. Sometimes it even works to use DPM data from one game and insert it into the mds from another game to pass SecuROM authentication

[Copytrooper]

Just because the first section contains "visible ups'n'downs" in the curve, it does not necessarily mean that it is not checked, nor that it couldn't be checked. There are enough protections working on DPM data without these ups'n'downs.
Quite funny that the "DPM injection" works though.