Bioshock non-gameplay discussion

**Lemur** · 09-03-2007, 06:09

And now the entire game has been cracked. From this moment on, paying customers like me are the only ones who have to endure product activation. I wish I could express my frustration level, but the gnashing of teeth can't be transmitted in ASCII text.

**TinCow** · 09-04-2007, 14:46

I will admit, it is impressive that it took a week and a half for the game to be cracked. Usually they appear on the torrent sites within 24 hours of release, sometimes even earlier. That actually concerns me a great deal. It seems that their protection method worked better than anything else that has been tried yet. That by itself may be enough to encourage companies to continue to do this kind of thing, despite the outrage from the legitimate consumers. In the long run, one game like this isn't going to cheese me off too much, but if it becomes a trend it will make me a very unhappy bovine.

**Lemur** · 09-05-2007, 02:29

I don't think it's a slippery slope fallacy to wonder about how this will play out when a majority of games require activation. Imagine, when you recycle your PC for grandma, needing to deactivate every installed game. Imagine the results of a motherboard failure. Imagine the results of a laptop theft.

That way madness lies.

**doc_bean** · 09-05-2007, 15:51

I imagine that once a security system is cracked it's easy to crack again if it's applied to antoher game.

**TinCow** · 09-06-2007, 15:08

True, but I don't think we should have to break the law in order to keep our computers running properly.

**Bijo** · 09-08-2007, 18:48

What a great thread.

I was uncertain what the fuss was about this game being so good, so praised, and such, but I have finally tried the demo and I must admit it is impressive. Unfortunately I find this demo still poor due to confusion in battles (and a bit surprising as I expected a horror game that would scare me... then again fear is emotion and you know what I think and do about that).

And reading about SecuROM, hah... My main issue with copy protection is that they possibly reduce performance and damage hardware which is reason enough for me to not even get the game.

The graphics setup detects my system and sets it to High though I lower the resolution to 1024x768 or 800x600 and while it is very much playable outside a battle the system requirements are just too high. When a battle starts aiming is rendered sluggish. Lowering the settings doesn't make much difference or when it does it is too ugly and less atmospheric. Can't they just... ah never mind.

Regarding SecuROM... it seems it is also in the World in Conflict demo and I know that performance was severely decreased compared to the beta which apparantly didn't have SecuROM (?). I was forced to lower settings dramatically. It is at least possible that SecuROM influences it in this way.

And it is possible Bioshock COULD run smoother if it didn't have SecuROM installed.

I will deinstall this Bioshock demo, and after a while deinstall the WiC demo and then remove SecuROM. Is there any good tool available for this?

**Lemur** · 09-08-2007, 19:09

Originally Posted by Bijo

I will deinstall this Bioshock demo, and after a while deinstall the WiC demo and then remove SecuROM. Is there any good tool available for this?

That would be no. There is no SecuROM removal tool. There are, however, detailed instructions on how to remove the registry entries and hidden files which you can grab from their website.

As the issue has evolved, I've gotten much less stressed about SecuROM, though, and rather more angered by "product activation." I think that's where we need to draw a line in the sand.

**Zenicetus** · 09-08-2007, 20:26

Originally Posted by Bijo

The graphics setup detects my system and sets it to High though I lower the resolution to 1024x768 or 800x600 and while it is very much playable outside a battle the system requirements are just too high. When a battle starts aiming is rendered sluggish. Lowering the settings doesn't make much difference or when it does it is too ugly and less atmospheric. Can't they just... ah never mind.

I was a little surprised at how important a smooth frame rate is, for combat in this game. There was a lot of advance hype about role-playing, storytelling, and controlling the environment. All that is in the game, but it still has some strong FPS elements. However, on reflection, System Shock 1 and 2 were hybrids like that too.

I have an older computer (Athlon 64 3800+, 2 Gigs RAM) and I started playing Bioshock with the original video card, a GeForce 6800 Ultra. The game was playable but the combat was frustrating when using guns. I was wasting a lot of ammo, and ammo isn't that plentiful if you aren't shooting well. There are ways to get through the game without focusing so much on guns and precise aiming, but it was still frustrating. So I upgraded to a new video card -- 8800 GTS, 320mb Ram, and that did the trick. Frame rates are very smooth now, even at high res (1600x1200). If you have an older computer like mine, then maybe all you need is a video card upgrade.

Regarding SecuROM... it seems it is also in the World in Conflict demo and I know that performance was severely decreased compared to the beta which apparantly didn't have SecuROM (?). I was forced to lower settings dramatically. It is at least possible that SecuROM influences it in this way.

And it is possible Bioshock COULD run smoother if it didn't have SecuROM installed.

As much as I've been bashing SecureRom in the M2TW:Kingdoms thread (mainly because CA/Sega is being silent about any removal tools), I don't think it affects the actual gameplay. I believe it only runs once at the start of the game to verify the disk, and in Bioshock's case, to check the system profile against number of allowed activations. During gameplay, it shouldn't be doing anything except taking up a tiny bit of RAM, which is probably inconsequential considering everything else the game is doing that eats RAM.

2K has said that they'll remove the activation limit for Bioshock at some point, after the initial sales period is over. I think they've also said they'll release a removal tool for SecureRom that can be used when you uninstall the game. That response from the publisher was enough for me to go ahead and buy Bioshock, but everyone will have to make up their own minds about that balance between wanting to play a hot game, and wanting security and control over your own computer.