How Infinity games recognize its CDs, My research in this matter Options

[drake127]

First I have to say what games we are talking about: Baldur's Gate series, Icewind Dale series and Planescape Torment.

These games contain no CD protection within the meaning of reducing possibility of illegal copying of CDs. CDs can (in technical meaning) be copied without problem.

But when game starts it requires inserted CD. I am not sure if it should be protection or game only tries to check if there is CD in drive because possible loading files from this CD.

Game checks presence of CD in moment so it cannot check all CD content but only its part - only concrete files. And I found them. Game does not check content of these files but only their presence at least in case of BG series and PST. In Icewind Dale series content of these files is ASCII number of that CD and size of this file is 1 byte so I did not concern about it).

• Baldur's Gate: /CD1/MOVIES/MOVIES.BIF
• Baldur's Gate: Tales of the Sword Coast: /CD6/MOVIES/MOVIECD6.BIF
• Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn: /CD2/DATA/MOVHD0.BIF
• Baldur's Gate II: Throne of Bhaal: /CD5/DATA/AREA000B.BIF
• Icewind Dale: /CD2/DATA/IWDCD.2
• Icewind Dale: Heart of Winter: /CD3/DATA/IWDCD.3
• Icewind Dale II: /CD2/DATA/IWD2CD.2
• Planescape Torment (4 CD): /CD2/GENMOVA.BIF
• Planescape Torment (2 CD): /CD2/TORMENT.CD

If you decide to use this research, you will have to have full install of the game.

Legal note:
Creating CD with these files (better: with these filenames) is very easy and CD can be very small (no larger than 3.5" floppy) but in some countries it may be illegal because it bypasses CD protection (but as I said above, I am not sure if it is CD protection). So be aware of this - it can be illegal!

This post has been edited by drake127: Nov 20 2005, 11:58 AM

[Avenger_teambg]

Hmm, a universal CD with all of these files would save me a lot of CD swapping!
Btw, at least IWD2 uses some kind of copy protection.

This post has been edited by Avenger_teambg: Jul 23 2005, 06:50 PM

[Vlad]

The CD protection is inside BGMAIN.EXE. You may use NoCD.exe crack program to patch your BGMAIN.EXE if you wish. This crack is available all over the web and I can share it with you. The same is about other IE games.

This post has been edited by Vlad: Aug 15 2005, 02:02 PM

[drake127]

Hmm, a universal CD with all of these files would save me a lot of CD swapping!
Btw, at least IWD2 uses some kind of copy protection.

I have both Czech and European version of IWD II and there is no copy protection. Maybe US version is different?

About NoCD crack - I does not prefer this way because it may cause some bugs, incompatibility and instability.

[Vlasák]

I have both Czech and European version of IWD II and there is no copy protection. Maybe US version is different?

First version released in Czech is protected. Later version ("platinovka", as you know ) doesn't have the protection (it should be exe from v.201 UK).

[drake127]

I added file for 2 CD version of PST.

This post has been edited by drake127: Nov 20 2005, 11:59 AM

[Vlad]

About NoCD crack - I does not prefer this way because it may cause some bugs, incompatibility and instability.

Well, it patches several bytes inside BGMAIN.EXE related only to this issue, and I really fail to see how this patch *may cause some bugs, incompatibility and instability.*

This post has been edited by Vlad: Nov 20 2005, 12:10 PM

[drake127]

Well, it patches several bytes inside BGMAIN.EXE related only to this issue, and I really fail to see how this patch *may cause some bugs, incompatibility and instability.*

In these cases maybe not but I thought it more generally.

[ronin69hof]

About NoCD crack - I does not prefer this way because it may cause some bugs, incompatibility and instability.

Well, it patches several bytes inside BGMAIN.EXE related only to this issue, and I really fail to see how this patch *may cause some bugs, incompatibility and instability.*

I agree with Vlad, I have used the no-cd patch for years and have never had any bugs, incompatibility or instability.

ronin

[Avenger_teambg]

Well, i don't mind xp patching or such, but i don't trust a no-cd patch which comes without source.
Do you know which bytes on which offset to replace?
(just binary compare an unpatched exe to a patched one)

[Vlad]

Do you know which bytes on which offset to replace?

No, I don't know and I don't want to argue or even try to persuade someone to use this patch. From my experience and from the experience of many other gamers who have used this patch for years with different mods combinations and at different PCs with different OSs and configurations, it works like it should, no glithches, no problems. I cannot imagine now how whould I do without this patch. But you may always find better solution if you find.

[drake127]

Vlad, are we talking concretely (BG, ...) or generally, 'cause I may list many games where some versions of crack did not work properly - Warcraft III, Age of Empires II, OFP:Resistance etc. Yes, it can be (and it is) dependent on machine and my machine was many times that bad one.

Have you heard that in every exe is located (I think crc32) checksum of exe? When you patch some offset this checksum won't be longer valid and some systems do not survive it. On the other hand in many exes this checksum is set to 0x00000000 so it is disabled (?).

As I said before I prefer images as a safer solution even if it is more unhandy than working crack.

This post has been edited by drake127: Nov 23 2005, 10:06 AM

[Lord Fausto]

MMM i dont understand so much xD

but... my problem is... i have the bg tosc ... its all functional... =)...
but when i put a english ---> spanish patch... the game wants cd6 in the drive :<... (i didnt have it:p)... but if i put in baldurs.ini the cd6: c:\blablabla
The game still searching for it in E drive :S...


any sol :<?

[drake127]

(...)
but if i put in baldurs.ini the cd6: c:\blablabla
The game still searching for it in E drive :S...


any sol :<?

It won't help you. You still have to have CD6 in your drive. But if you have virtual drive (Daemon Tools) you can use iso image with some files and game will think you have CD6 in your drive.

For BG:TotSC you need this file present: /CD1/MOVIES/MOVIES.BIF

This post has been edited by drake127: Dec 27 2005, 06:19 PM