Vista Only Games Cracked?

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Rich Tate

Supreme [H]ardness
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Word is circulating today that the supposed Vista only titles have been successfully cracked and can be played on an XP machine.

Microsoft’s plans to lure gamers onto Vista by making certain games work only on that operating system seems to have suffered a blow. Shadowrun and Halo 2 have both already been cracked by hacking and warez groups.
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We're now ahve to hack Microsoft software (DX10) to run on a Microsoft Operating systems so that we may play Microsoft games.

No, no abuse of power from Microsoft AT ALL.
 
The two games (Halo2 and Shadowrun) aren't DX10 titles, they're DX9. So yeah, they'd have no unarbitrary reason to not run on XP. DX10 has not been hacked to work with XP. Nor will it ever be. That doesn't necessarily mean that XP won't be hacked to run DX10. I mean severely hacked to the point that it is no longer XP, but a steaming pile of shit nowhere resembling a hybrid XP/Vista OS.
 
yup both are DX9 and the only thing keeping them from XP is Microsofts crapy pay multiplayer

LISTEN MS NO ONE WANT SO PAY FOR PC MULTIPLAYER
 
Elios said:
yup both are DX9 and the only thing keeping them from XP is Microsofts crapy pay multiplayer

LISTEN MS NO ONE WANT SO PAY FOR PC MULTIPLAYER
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subscriptions8846image0sk1.gif


*cough*

P.S., those are old numbers, I would expect WoW to be in the 10 million range because of the xpac, plenty of people I know started playing again when it came out.
 
MMOs dont count becouse that has always been pay you have a persistent world and servers to maintain

FPS games have always been free multiplayer
 
ryan_975 said:
The two games (Halo2 and Shadowrun) aren't DX10 titles, they're DX9. So yeah, they'd have no unarbitrary reason to not run on XP. DX10 has not been hacked to work with XP. Nor will it ever be. That doesn't necessarily mean that XP won't be hacked to run DX10. I mean severely hacked to the point that it is no longer XP, but a steaming pile of shit nowhere resembling a hybrid XP/Vista OS.
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I would tend to agree with your DX10 asserstions as well. If someone gets it working, it won't be pretty.
 
Elios said:
MMOs dont count becouse that has always been pay you have a persistent world and servers to maintain

FPS games have always been free multiplayer
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And you don't have servers to maintain with multiplayer FPS's? There's aren't stats to keep track of on those non existant servers?
 
EVIL-SCOTSMAN said:
dunno if this will be any good but

http://www.fallingleafsystems.com/

it may be worthwhile looking into later in the future ???
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Waffles

Alky is supposed to be an OpenGL to DX10 wrapper, but it's looking more like a scam every time they hype it. Can it even run any DX10 demos yet (even just a simple shaded triangle), or does it still require users to run the demos through Visual Studio like the last time I tried it?
 
They should never have tried to restrict Halo 2 to Vista. It doesn't use DX10, so what's the point?

As for Shadowrun, I think the only thing making it a Vista game is the Live support. I'm ambivalent about Live requiring Vista. It could be that they plan to leverage the systems rating score at some point, which isn't available on XP.
 
My guess is they simply found that the games were looking for files that said the OS was vista or DX10 and then put the crack files in the install directories so when the games start it thinks its running on Vista (DX10) and fires up in DX9 mode. I dont think they hacked DX10

And as a side note its a sad day when PC's go to a pay to play service, i dont play WoW, never will....im a hard core casual gamer in that when i do play i play hard but i dont get to play that often so it makes no sense to me to pay for something i will use 2 or 3 times a week for an hour each time....:confused: :mad: :confused:
 
ryan_975 said:
The two games (Halo2 and Shadowrun) aren't DX10 titles, they're DX9. So yeah, they'd have no unarbitrary reason to not run on XP. DX10 has not been hacked to work with XP. Nor will it ever be. That doesn't necessarily mean that XP won't be hacked to run DX10. I mean severely hacked to the point that it is no longer XP, but a steaming pile of shit nowhere resembling a hybrid XP/Vista OS.
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Steaming piles and Vista :D
 
ryan_975 said:
DX10 has not been hacked to work with XP. Nor will it ever be. That doesn't necessarily mean that XP won't be hacked to run DX10. I mean severely hacked to the point that it is no longer XP, but a steaming pile of shit nowhere resembling a hybrid XP/Vista OS.
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In other words, well your words, XP will run DX10 games with DX10 effects.

This is inevitable due to market forces and user demand, there is no technical reason it can not be done, it is merely software. In fact, DX9 (DirectX 9.0L) can be shown to run the Aero Glass interface, which is one of the significant changes in the video driver architecture. Once that hurdle is overcome for XP, the rest is no more complicated than any other driver suite.

http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=35140

Additionally and beneficially, with multi-core GPU/CPU combos machine virtualization allows for the ability to run both XP and whatever other software might be required to get DX10 games to work (well) on the system. 'Nor will it ever be' seems to be a premature assertion.
 
Lamont Cranston said:
And as a side note its a sad day when PC's go to a pay to play service, i dont play WoW, never will....im a hard core casual gamer in that when i do play i play hard but i dont get to play that often so it makes no sense to me to pay for something i will use 2 or 3 times a week for an hour each time....:confused: :mad: :confused:
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I have no problem paying $12/month for 12 hours of entertainment. Still a hell of a lot cheaper then most things, including most games.
 
Wingnut420 said:
In fact, DX9 (DirectX 9.0L) can be shown to run the Aero Glass interface, which is one of the significant changes in the video driver architecture.
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Aero requires a VDDM compliant driver, which is the video driver architecture change from XP to Vista. And it's not amazing that DX9L can run the Aero interface since Aero only requires SM2 hardware. :p
 
Ryan's right. DX10 wasn't hacked to work on XP. I'm not exactly sure what they did, but I know that they modified some .dll's to bypass the need for DX10.

The need for DX10 in those two games were totally arbitrary and it was just Microsoft trying to push Vista/Live onto PC gamers. I would suspect that true DX10 games will not be so easy to get working on XP. I can only expect that the community as a whole will come up with a work around and not just by one pirate group.
 
Wingnut420 said:
In other words, well your words, XP will run DX10 games with DX10 effects.

This is inevitable due to market forces and user demand, there is no technical reason it can not be done, it is merely software. In fact, DX9 (DirectX 9.0L) can be shown to run the Aero Glass interface, which is one of the significant changes in the video driver architecture. Once that hurdle is overcome for XP, the rest is no more complicated than any other driver suite.

http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=35140

Additionally and beneficially, with multi-core GPU/CPU combos machine virtualization allows for the ability to run both XP and whatever other software might be required to get DX10 games to work (well) on the system. 'Nor will it ever be' seems to be a premature assertion.
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The problem is the change to DirectX (or actually D3D) were more than just in the DX API, it goes much deeper, into the kernel itself. The entire driver model for Vista is changed. I'm not saying that XP won't be able to run DX10 games through hacking and cracking, but it will be ugly. So even if XP is hacked to run DX10 games, there will a lot of missing features due to the nature of closed sources and reverse engineering.

Even if you go the wrapper route, I can only imagine the perfomance hit it would take to have to intercept every API call and translate it into a DX9 or OGL call. And what about the new DX10 features that don't have a compatible DX9 or OGL alternative? There goes a lot more lines of code into emulating the effect the game wants. So it going to be done, but like I said it'll be ugly.
 
messerchmidt said:
its about time someone did it...
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Nobody did anything. At least nothing spectacular. The two games mentioned are DX9 games. And I believe not any part of them were DX9. Microsoft just put some check code in to keep it from running on anything with a kernel version less than 6.0. Change that one little check and BAM, you have a Vista DX9 games running on XP. Mind you I definately simplified the matter, but the point is valid..
 
Lamont Cranston said:
but can it be played online with 360 gamers?
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Halo 2 can't be activated on XP according to the article on Ars so no multi-player on XP. I'm not sure about Shadowrun, but it's probably the same way if it uses Live.
 
microshaft is trying so hard to make people buy vista. but no one wants that shit.

maybe if crytek sold out to microshaft for $100 million and made crysis dx10 only...........
 
I have Vista. i have H2 and Shadowrun. While I agree that there was really no reason that H2 should be Vista only, Shadowrun uses the GFWL to matchmake btw PC and 360, GFWL being Vista only, I believe like someone meantioned above, so they can leverage the system experience rating system to simplify software purchases.
Imagine not having to know every stat of your computer, just a single number. "Ah, Shadowrun is a 5.0 game. My system is only 4.0. I need to upgrade!" (Or not purchase the game).

But I think the whole Vista only tactic is a good thing re: GFWL. Imagine a Steam (which I hate) like service by the same people who made XBL? I guarantee that eventually PC's will have the same capabilities as XBL members, in terms of DL'ing games, TV, etc...
And if they have to anchor it to a particular OS to guarantee security and prevent piracy, then cool. They are also doing it to get us used to the idea that some games will work in XP(dx9) and some will not (dx10, when they really start to release them).

These attempts to get Vista only games to run in XP will be shortlived and pointless. I really don't think there is a large enough crowd out there who want to play H2 on the PC. Compared to other FPS's of it's time (HL2 for example which came out 1 week later) it's not THAT good. Period...
 
It's times like these that I really hate microsoft. I like my xp machine. There's nothing wrong with it. Don't make things so they're not reverse compatible @##holes.
 
I guarantee that eventually PC's will have the same capabilities as XBL members, in terms of DL'ing games, TV, etc...
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We already do. So why are we going to pay an extra 50 bucks a year for it? My internet, electric and upgrade costs are enough as it is.
 
wtiger said:
It's times like these that I really hate microsoft. I like my xp machine. There's nothing wrong with it. Don't make things so they're not reverse compatible @##holes.
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Yeah, damn them for releasing and support an operating system for the past 6 years and then come out with a new version. It's absolutely ludicrous they wouldn't continue to provide software that they've spent millions of dollars on developing the past few years to users who haven't give them a dime since before then. :rolleyes:
 
I've heard about this crack. It works perfectly i heard also. It bypasses the check for vista and stuff. Microsoft is making people resort to pirate programmers to make their games work under windows xp. They should just give up and let everyone play the way they want their games to be played :)
 
Oooska said:
Yeah, damn them for releasing and support an operating system for the past 6 years and then come out with a new version. It's absolutely ludicrous they wouldn't continue to provide software that they've spent millions of dollars on developing the past few years to users who haven't give them a dime since before then. :rolleyes:
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Gosh,.now that you put it that way. I guess I'll run out and buy myself copy of Vista today. I want to make sure I'm a good Vista lemming too...
 
ryan_975 said:
And you don't have servers to maintain with multiplayer FPS's? There's aren't stats to keep track of on those non existant servers?
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Keeping track of stats and persistent worlds are two completely different things. A stat server is far less demanding than even a popular website, as all it really does is keep a database of statistics and provide the information on demand. Depending on how large the database is and how many concurrent users are connecting to it, I would imagine they don't even require a complicated server cluster to operate. More than likely publishers are able to maintain statistic databases for multiple games on a single server cluster.

A persistent world on the other hand has to not only use many server boxes for a single realm, but in addition it has to perform massive amounts of real time calculations with the servers software. This produces a significantly higher demand than simply communicating static player statistics to multiple clients. I'm not saying that there isn't some cost involved with a stat server for FPS style games, but it isn't anywhere near that of a persistent world.

Not to mention the fact that a persistent world also has to continually evolve. MMORPG developers are expected to produce new content on a regular basis, through either monthly or bi-monthly patching. This kind of thing makes operating costs skyrocket, and one of the main reasons for having to pay a monthly fee to play the game. Other online, non persistent games on the other hand usually do not offer new content for free on a regular basis, and simply patch the core game a few times (to fix things which were broken at launch) and then release an expansion later on at cost.

The bottom line is that unlike MMOGs, the majority of the processing power needed to operate the game online is done by the consumer, through either utilizing their own hardware to host the server, or paying a 3rd party to host their own dedicated servers. Why the hell should I pay the publisher even more money when I'm doing most of the work after I already purchased the game itself for full price? :mad:
 
I think I'll quote John Carmack of ID software here.
There were some clear wins going from Windows 95 to Windows XP for games, but there really aren’t any for Vista. They’re artificially doing that by tying DX10 so close it, which is really nothing about the OS. It’s a hardware-interface spec. It’s an artificial thing that they’re doing there. They’re really grasping at straws for reasons to upgrade the operating system. I suspect I could run XP for a great many more years without having a problem with it.
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http://www.gameinformer.com/News/Story/200701/N07.0109.1737.15034.htm?Page=2

So yeah they could have easily implement DX10 within XP without Aero. All they would need would be new DX10 capable drivers from the IHVs. The new display driver model in Vista is only necessary because of Aero. In Vista with Aero the display driver has to perform arbitration between the needs of the OS interface(Aero), that of other applications requiring 3d acceleration. Please let me know if I'm wrong here, I'm sure you will.:)
 
I just thought I'd ask the question what do you think would happen if Ubuntu Linix guys implementing Beryl by default, and then required all display driver manufacturers to write new drivers. Then to top it all off they got exclusivity contracts for some popular games and made them Ubuntu only. My point being that its only due to Microsoft's pull in the market that they can try to force this on users to play the games they want to play. This is probably the reason that a commercial entities shouldn't be in control of hardware interface API's.
 
Oooska said:
Yeah, damn them for releasing and support an operating system for the past 6 years and then come out with a new version. It's absolutely ludicrous they wouldn't continue to provide software that they've spent millions of dollars on developing the past few years to users who haven't give them a dime since before then. :rolleyes:
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Tell me how many things that run on XP won't run on Windows 2000?

Not very many.
 
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