I've recently been thinking of buying GT Legends soon and I know it has SF protection, I'm just wondering if it is at all possible to remove Starforce without hindering the game itself?

Quote from Xaid0n :

I've recently been thinking of buying GT Legends soon and I know it has SF protection, I'm just wondering if it is at all possible to remove Starforce without hindering the game itself?

only if you go through Intarweb hell,if you know what I mean*cough*getting ahold of the starf*** utility*cough*

Had GTL and GTR installed since the year dot, no problem with Starforce, IMO all this Starforce BS about problems, is just buff and flustered.

My mates, sons, 2nd uncle removed's CD drive stopped working after installing starforce...............must be true........

yeah i've had GTL and GTR installed on my machines for a few years too and never had a problem

The Starforce loading procedure is the only thing that ever brought my old PC to freeze completely in 4 years of use. And no, you can't remove it, only emulate it, which doesn't really change anything.

Starforce also caused me reboot after reboot, X3 was the culprit.

Quote from thisnameistaken :

How would you like it if I came 'round there and unplugged your computer every so often while you were using it?

I downloaded the GTL demo, installed it, tried to start it and my PC rebooted. "That was odd" I thought, ran scandisk and so on, tried to run GTL again and my PC rebooted again. Apparently StarForce just loves doing that.

Disabling antivirus software did help to that, but guess am I going to use such software that requires me to compromise MY security? Hell no, deleted that quite swiftly. Don't know if same thing is with Race demo too, but uninstall and delete was fate of that one too.

i seen the starforce removal tool on the starforces website never tried it cuse i never needed to

Someone from starforce was quoted saying that they would never allow the software on their computer, and recommended another method of copy protection. That says A LOT about the software, imho.

Well If im not mistaken doesnt the demo come with SF? ive seen it in the files and so far ive been able to use GTL demo no problem, but i tried installing GTL on my friends comp (higher spec pc with better security) and his system just rebooted everytime, so I'm guessing i could run GTL without having these problems.

You can't "remove" Starforce and have GTL working. Star[copulate] and other tools can emulate/bypass Starforce's checks so that you can run a copy from a non-original (bootleg, backup; call it what you will) source, they will not remove Starforce. Starforce removers just remove any reference to Starforce from your system, much like system cleaners, If you installed GTL and then ran a Starforce remover the game would not work.

Can anyone confirm or deny that Xpand Rally and RACE that are availble through Steam come with Starforce or not ?

Race doesn't use Starforce.

I don't think any game purchased via Steam has any use for Starforce?

Quote from Bean0 :

Can anyone confirm or deny that Xpand Rally and RACE that are availble through Steam come with Starforce or not ?

Games over steam use valves anti-copyright protection, which basically means you can't run the game unless you have it paid for in your steam account, not 100% secure, but means no starforce.

I've found that Starforce is pretty easy to defeat. I bought Silent Hunter III a while back and installed it as usual. I couldn't play it though, because my DVD drive wasn't compatible with Starforce. I bought a new drive (good excuse to buy a DVD-RW ) but found a way of removing SF.

I found that SHIII didn't install SF until you first run the game. Install game, install latest patch, run no-DVD crack and you're Starforce free

I would like to point out that, although I had to visit some...erm...'questionable' sites to find the no-DVD crack, I legally own all my software. No-CD/DVD cracks are just a convenience, and there was no way I was going to allow Starforce to remain on my PC.

Quote from StewartFisher :

I found that SHIII didn't install SF until you first run the game. Install game, install latest patch, run no-DVD crack and you're Starforce free

I did the same thing when I got 1nsane from Coddies last year, my disk bork so they gave me a DL link for the ISO, but it had SF, I installed 1nsane, then applied the 1nsane Patch 2, which had the No-CD in it, no SF for me.

Quote from StewartFisher :

I've found that Starforce is pretty easy to defeat. I bought Silent Hunter III a while back and installed it as usual. I couldn't play it though, because my DVD drive wasn't compatible with Starforce. I bought a new drive (good excuse to buy a DVD-RW ) but found a way of removing SF.

I found that SHIII didn't install SF until you first run the game. Install game, install latest patch, run no-DVD crack and you're Starforce free

I would like to point out that, although I had to visit some...erm...'questionable' sites to find the no-DVD crack, I legally own all my software. No-CD/DVD cracks are just a convenience, and there was no way I was going to allow Starforce to remain on my PC.

Accoring to this I assume that SH3 doesn't use StarForce, or it uses VERY old SF version like 1.x. Why? Because PE-Container of every EXE protected by SF is encrypted, which means undisassemblable(huh, spelling course). When making a crack, you must disassemble or decompile source. SF successfully prevents you doing this because of EXE encryption. So how was that no-DVD crack made?

This won't work on any newer games protected by SF. When SF RMPS check(that crappy window sying "Whait while SF checks CD") passes, it decrypts EXE PE and launches application. SF also controls all disk I/O operations of the EXE which uses SF API to access CD-ROM and so. So if you uninstall SF, you can't play protected game because it's not able to read from CD and so.

Quote from MadCatX :

Accoring to this I assume that SH3 doesn't use StarForce, or it uses VERY old SF version like 1.x. Why? Because PE-Container of every EXE protected by SF is encrypted, which means undisassemblable(huh, spelling course). When making a crack, you must disassemble or decompile source. SF successfully prevents you doing this because of EXE encryption. So how was that no-DVD crack made?

I have no idea how the crack was made. http://www.boycottstarforce.net lists SH3 as having Starforce v3.4.71.19, so it doesn't look like it's an old version. The game was released in March 2005.

Quote :

This won't work on any newer games protected by SF. When SF RMPS check(that crappy window sying "Whait while SF checks CD") passes, it decrypts EXE PE and launches application. SF also controls all disk I/O operations of the EXE which uses SF API to access CD-ROM and so. So if you uninstall SF, you can't play protected game because it's not able to read from CD and so.

I guess they un-encrypted the EXE then, because I don't get any message about 'checking CD'. I used to get it before I patched the game, but not anymore.

Only reasonable way how to "decrypt" EXE is to use EXE from demo version which is sometimes unprotected, because I don't believe that there are some crackers having home-made TRANSLTR for hacking protected EXEs

Maybe the patch on SH3 contians SF no more(maybe devs realized how p*ssed their customers are)... that would answer the question.

Quote from Bean0 :

Starforce also caused me reboot after reboot, X3 was the culprit.

The latest patch for X3 Reunion completely REMOVES all Starforce rubbish from the game, (as well as giving you lots of extra stuff) so you dont even need the disk in the drive anymore...and no more SF drivers either...

Wonder if the guys who published it know something we dont??

I've honestly never had issues with starforce, I used to have personal issues with it, but now that I've used it, I don't find it to bother me.

Starforce ate my baby.

Gunn, you never had a baby.

Quote from dawesdust_12 :

Gunn, you never had a baby.

I could show you pictures, but that is just a bit too wierd.

Pictures of starforce eating a baby...