SecuROM causing major trouble!

I have been having trouble with starting NWN2. Its a hit and miss affair but since NWN2 is pretty stable for me i never start it more than once each play time.

Entering NWN2.com to try to trouble shoot this irritating behaviour i went to technical forum and tried to read.

http://nwn2forums.bioware.com/forums…6980&forum=116

One can critizise the game all one wants for lacking in feature or poorly optimized. But seeing all posters battling with the same thing that i do because of SecuROM is, well annoying.

I have never thought of downloading a NO CD crack for a game that i own, but now i really thinking of looking in our swedish "pride and joy" - sweet irony - website to find the files I need.

Whats really troublesome is that no DEVS or official do answer the complaints, and reading what users experience with the SecuROM support i feel sad.

I just want to "make a thread" for this and to cause a "stirr" on more sites, then perhaps Obisidan, or Atari, cares to atleast comment on the problem, or admit it IS a problem.

I did not post on NWN2 cause that demands me to register. I don't see the point in registering to post one time, and i know a lot of people trying to fix there computer instead of entering NWN2 forum and read.

So, this is not ment to be a flame thread about copy protection or soo, but my point is too folds. (But if you think it is, i understand that, because, perhaps it is!)

Do you have trouble getting NWN2 start from the Launcher and it hangs?
Have you thought its error with graphics, sound or something else? Perhaps its not.

And

Just to point out the worst thing with copyprotection. The denial of that problems that exist with such systems don't ever stop pirates for enjoing their game.

For what its worth i really like how FSX make my experience hassle free. Okay, the activation bit will be annoying sometimes in the future, but i can play the game - I understand the need but as some gamedeveloper did with an analysis. How many consumer do we scare to NOT buy our game in contrast how much money do we earn in having such a system in place. (Was it Stardock?).

Anyhow. I just want this to get some attention here at the watch. I think if the publisher / developer don't act. Than its up to us to spread the word.

Spread the word

I did my part!

Thanks for the info - it is often hard to keep up with the official forums because of the sheer volume of posts!

Quite often it is actually a conflict that can cause copy protection to hang. For instance:

VPN1 Secu Remote and Starforce do not work together properly although both run fine seperately.

ABC torrent and the gothic 2 NOTR protection do not work. Shutting down ABC causes it to run fine.

It might be worth you digging around and seeing if something you are running is causing the problem. It could be something as simple as catalyst control center or some other small program getting a lock on a resource needed by the protection.

I'm not saying this is the problem but it might be worth looking at.

Thanks for the tips! Bjorn. Never really experienced problems with any copyprotections before, and never really forced to be this frustrated either. Will look into it some more..

It seems like it is my DVD-reader thats more problematic than my DVD-RW. Well, my view off starforce complainer did a different turn. I now feel their pain!

It won't start at all from my reader, but from my DVD-rw its a one start and then reboot and start. Why life isn't exciting enough?

The Devs don't usually have anything to do with copyprotection, unless they are independents, it would be Atari whom needs to respond to you and others.

I personally have no problem getting nocd files for games I buy.
Publishers have no right to tell me how I have to use my purchased software.

Thanks for the info.

As Acleacius said, I have no problem getting a no DVD/CD patch for a game I own. I hate having to change out cds every time I want to play a different game.

There is an awesome site out there to pick up the no CD patches but I dunno if I can say it here.

No-CD patches are one of those gray areas … as someone who has been primarily a laptop gamer for over a decade now, I have had notebooks without optical drives which basically forced me into finding no-cd patches. Now that I am using a MacBook Pro for much of my Windows gaming, I hate that the PrntScr is mapped to fn-Eject … fortunately right now both Anno 1701 and NWN2 have remappable screenshot keys

pox67, please don't post the location of nocd patches here. Feel free to PM details to people who ask, but we prefer not to annoy any of the publishers we deal with, thanks!!

… but it would be great if you could annoy them enough to admit there is a problem!

I know they are patching furiously … it must be extra-frustrating when aside from your own issues, your customers are having problems because of a third-party program forced on you by the publisher …

mmmm…. Dark Messiah also uses securROM. Do you have that game? It has never caused any problems for me.

Originally Posted by JDR13
mmmm…. Dark Messiah also uses securROM. Do you have that game? It has never caused any problems for me.

Probably - like most of life - the problems are in the interactions, not the singular behavior.

Don't have Dark Messiah and don't ever gonna buy that. Don't know why but since buying Halflife 2 and have to stop playing after about 10 mins because of nausea i won't dare to buy another source engine game. The slower paced Vampire wasn't any problem. (Half life 2 is the only game ever that make me feel physical sick… ).

Anyhow. Have never had any problem with another game which utilize SecuROM. Reading the thread they are mentioning a new version of SecuROM introduced by NWN2. But, i take that with a grain of salt since nobody officially ever bother to comment.

The latest game i have that uses SecuROM would be GTR2. Which works flawlessly. (Only reason I think it using SecuROM is because of the looading disc thingie is the same with the two games… )

NWN2 is the only game causing me headache. Before that the only game I ever came in contact with through a friend was Battlefield2. Otherwise i have seldom have problem with copyprotections. But now when i have that i have revisit my old view of the problem.

… yes, how easy to change direction when the winds start blowing against you.

The NoCD patch I downloaded ended up slowing the game massively. Once that was removed it was a lot better. Another NoCD requires the user to disconnect your IDE drives which is plum retarded. But these weren't for patch 1.02.

Bio had the clout to force Atari's hand on it to be removed but not only do I not thing Obsidian has the clout, I don't get the impression they were as interested.

There's a petition going on to have SecureROM removed and Maximus at the Vault is linking to it:

http://nwvault.ign.com/fullstory.php?id=23279

I've already had at least one issue with SecureROM losing my disk and forcing me to reboot on NWN2 (a common occurrence on NWN1). At this point I just want to be able to copy the game for a player disk. NWN1 once used to crack because of SecureROM.

The major hassle I have with SecuROM right now is that I am forced to seek out the disk everytime I just need to go into the game and check something, or test my own maps with the toolset.

Lucky Day, I haven't used the NoCD patch yet as I was hoping a version for 1.02 would come out. I doubt we will see one until after the 1.03 patch as that is likely to be big and break the NoCD any way.

At the moment it isn't to much of a problem as NWN2 is all I am playing so it can stay in the DVD drive and my wife can use the CD drive for playing music. That can't go on forever though.

Most games use SecuROM. Are you SURE you are not Starforce infected??? That's a classic syndrome…

Originally Posted by ToddMcF2002
Most games use SecuROM. Are you SURE you are not Starforce infected??? That's a classic syndrome…

My assumption is that it is something in the pairing of NWN2 and SecuROM … and perhaps interacting with other common stuff.

Maybe. On the other hand its so mainstream and Atari has been using it for so long I find it odd.

Pretty sure NWN2 has a new version of secuROM so maybe something in the new version conflicts with something particular to your setup - either hardware or software. This type of issue is always extremely hard to resolve and often the only way you'll get it working is by pure luck, maybe try "renting" a friends computer for a week or so to play it?