Starforce Frontline

[chaosuser]

@reknaw72 I got X3 to run with sfcure that cant be Starforce 3.7

[Novecento]

Improvements

New protection against emulators and filters, including anti-filter protection for IDE, USB and IEEE1394. For 2000, Windows XP 32/64-bit, Windows Server 2003 32/64-bit. (There is no protection against emulators under Windows 9x and NT)


yeah well too bad dt 4 will NOT support 98 anymore!!!
wonder why ? no i mean really ??? is it a technicall matter which i could understand or simply a decision based on the O/S's age and or restrictions ??? that tell's me it's time to go back to 98 and try some of the stuff!!!!! which i will do soon!!!!!

and what would happen if one tried to install/run dt 4 under 98se ??? would it perform an O/S check abd refuse to run because of the o/s or it wouldn't actually work ? i know that older windows may use different types of the core files like vxd's instead of "whatever" they use in xp but i know that they could have KEPT support for 98!!!

to me that statement from starforce themselvs just proves that there is a major FLAW with the way starforce works under 98, and i am sure it's not because of them not trying to block emulators in 98...
so there's something to think about!!!!!

win98 is almost 8 years old and who ever still uses it might aswell use an older version of Daemon Tools since modern games with modern copy protections don't work under win98 anyway. think about it.

[dm_gammer]

Its 4 games protected by starfoce 3.7.
Russian release:
The fall (cd, dvd), latest bild from 19/10/2005
Theseus (cd)
Metro 2 (dvd)
Cold war (dvd)
But:
Tha fall cd, theseus, metro 2 run from mini-image.
And only The fall dvd, cold war dvd not run, becouse sfcure and usb trick don't work.

[,jACkdA\W]

Win98 is not supported anymore because they'd have to almost (re)write one extra-special version 4 for it - different architecture, in comparison to NT5 severely reduced functionality etc. etc. ... and all of that for an OS no longer supported by the makers themselves? Nah... quite understandable i'd say... and it's not a 'major FLAW' that StarForce capability under 9x is reduced as well - they're not alone with it. Some possibilities for emulation-detection will just not be present, as well as some for emulation.

[crazy-daddy]

I can confirm X3 to work with SFCure, although it took me some time to get it working. SFNightmare isn't enough for X3, it needs unplugging AND SFNightmare in the order "Node, CD, Node, Sec Master/Slave" at least it does for me. Don't ask me why, but any alterations made to this order lead to the game not starting. However unfortunately X3 doesn't run too well on my system (P4 3,4 GHz GF 6600GT) it's quite laggy :-/

[Nikos]

However unfortunately X3 doesn't run too well on my system (P4 3,4 GHz GF 6600GT) it's quite laggy :-/

(I'm getting off-topic here.) Your system is really fast, it should run well. But you didn't mention how much RAM you have. I guess you have 1GB or less? Such a PC with 2GB of RAM could really fly. The 6600GT *is* fast!

[reknaw72]

I can confirm X3 to work with SFCure, although it took me some time to get it working. SFNightmare isn't enough for X3, it needs unplugging AND SFNightmare in the order "Node, CD, Node, Sec Master/Slave" at least it does for me. Don't ask me why, but any alterations made to this order lead to the game not starting. However unfortunately X3 doesn't run too well on my system (P4 3,4 GHz GF 6600GT) it's quite laggy :-/

Have got X3 working with SFCure. What a pain. SFNightmare bluescreens when disabling drives so I have to manually disable them in bios and not run SFNightmare at all. X3 kind of runs not too bad on my pc (P4 2.4, GF4 Ti4200 128mb, 1gb DDR333). Can be a bit laggy is some fights and busy sectors.

[al1uk]

SF Nightmare messed up my PC twice. CPU 100% usage, bluescreens and reboots. Had to reinstall to fix it. I think SF Nightmare messes about with .sys files, although I dunno why it messes up some ppls and not others.

[Nikos]

SF Nightmare messed up my PC twice. CPU 100% usage, bluescreens and reboots.

It can take up to a minute for SFN to apply the setting once you click a button.

Also, it might not like 64-bit Windows.

[al1uk]

It can take up to a minute for SFN to apply the setting once you click a button.

Also, it might not like 64-bit Windows.

I used to click the next button after "processing" has disappeared from the title, also I don't use 64-bit, I dunno why theres a fuss about it.

[karnizero]

hi everyone ,

I'm new on the forum, I'm looking a way to get rid of sf protection... any help will be greatly appreciated...

I use win xp sp2 and haven't been able to run x3 reunion with sfn or anything... so I have some questions...

disabling the ide channels in bios can help? (I got sata HD only) I think that way I do not need to use sfn...

can I use alcohol 120% or dt 3.47 ??? perhaps one of them can make it better than the other... what emulation options do I have to enable??? (I have enabled ALL of them)

do I need sfcure?

I got a athlon64 3200, do I have to use sfcure_x64 instead?

until now I tried but couldn't make them work: scct, ufo aftershock, suffering ties that bind, cold war and x3 reunion... the list is increasing too much!!!

thank you very much for your help :wink:

[AnalCobra]

To break the sf protection you'll need sfcure, use the sfcure_x64 this version is for 32 and 64 bit. SP2 is required.

can I use alcohol 120% or dt 3.47 ??? perhaps one of them can make it better than the other... what emulation options do I have to enable??? (I have enabled ALL of them)

So for some games it works for me with DT only and for some games with Alcohol.
Here some instructions:

I've done it with SFCure on GT Legends 8) (SF3.6) and SCCT (SF3.4) like this:
1.Install SFCure driver (!setup.bat)
2.Mount it with Alc or DT with rmps emu
3.Install Game
4.After installation launch sfdrup.exe to update StarForce3 drivers and reboot the box
5.Start SFCure driver (!start.bat)
6.Use SF Nightmare, Select in this order "Disable node" , "Disable CD" , "Disable node" , and the IDE channel you use for real CD/DVD units (Pr. Slave , Sc. Master o Sc. Slave ) , depending on how your IDE units are connected, on GT Legends i put the optical drive out of my notebook, and i've clicked on disable node, too (important) !
7. Launch the Game and enjoy!
If it doesn't work you can use virtual cd hide or if you've mounted the image with DT, try Alcohol!

So for SF > 3.4 you'll need to disconnect your drives this doesn't work anymore with sfn.

[al1uk]

I noticed one thing today, if i disable my drives in BIOS, they still show up in Windows. My BIOS has options: Auto, CD-ROM, Not Installed, and something else I can't remember. I have SCCT installed, could Starforce be playing up??

[Underheaven]

...

Depending on the version of Starforce, it can send commands to re-enable your drives (despite all BIOS settings). That's why unplugging the power cable is better. I'm not sure how SCCT behaves.

[newfieboy21]

X3 Finally working (But not for 4 Hours)

Well Folks,

I just got X3 working, and I tell you, its a fairly simple process. First I downloaded a good working copy of SFCURE, with the included sfcure_x64 (since i got an AMD64). It took a while to find the sfcure (the correct one with x64), but I found it with a simple search on shareaza (no other search/download engine found it for me). So here I will step put it out to you step by step.

Step 1: Unplug all power to your Optical Drives
Step 2: Install the sfcure01.reg file (!setup) from within the sfcure_x64 folder.
Step 3: Restart
Step 4: Start the program SFASFB program and make sure the SFASFB is running.
Step 5: Use Starforce Nightmare to "DISABLE NODE"
Step 6: Mount X3 image with Alcohol (enable all emulation, except for advanced emulation)
Step 7: Install game
Step 8: RUN