Or phone call with a picture of your disk and back of manual stating what happened and why you need another unlock/were unable to un-install.

Quote from dawesdust_12 :

Or phone call with a picture of your disk and back of manual stating what happened and why you need another unlock/were unable to un-install.

So you show them the picture over the phone then?

I really hate that "you can just call us" reasoning when it comes to DRM though. I can't call them if they go bankrupt now can I? Game developers have and will continue to go bankrupt. That doesn't mean I stop playing their games.

I meant email them the picture of manual and CD, but I think you got my general point. It is possible to get more unlocks if needed.

either way they make you jump through hoops just the play the damn game

that sort of work is something id expect from a badly done crack not from a legaly aquired copy

Seems weird that you only get a finite number of unlocks. Sure, it's not very likely that you'll have 2 HDs die on you one after the other, but I guess it could happen (like 0.01% of the time).
Definitely a bit of an oversight if they require an online registration that they can't then automatically furnish the account with more unlocks every so often (a la LFS). Unless they're just trying to encourage people to get the 360 version instead.

Chances are this decision will be changed if and when people start complaining.

Well, if anyone is looking for this game for a good price, I just bought it from Morrisons for £22. Not too bad methinks. The demo ran nicely on my rig, so I can't wait to get stuck into the full version!

Just played the first act of the full game... Looks stunning, runs great. Not as good atmosphere as I had hoped, though. It's not real scary, like. Intense, but not scary. Nowhere near FEAR in that department. The story is good, but not stunning. Maybe my expectations were just too high.

I find it good, just the total immersion factor, People do say that it's retarded with the 2 unlock system (must be uninstalled to get another unlock), but it's been replaced now with a 5by5 system (with next patch), which effectively allows 25 unlocks, with a revoke application to revoke the unlock. Retarded, but the game is good enough that I'd be willing to deal with a bit of unlock bitching to play it.

Can't get the demo to work properly. My specs:

Intel Core 2 Duo E6300 @ 2.6 ghz
Asus P5N-E SLI, nForce-650i
TwinMOS DDR2 Twister PC6400 1024MB
Gainward 8800GTS 640mb

In the first couple of tries i had, i managed to get down to the bottom of the elevator. Aprox 4-5 minutes into the game. Everything went smooth. Then suddenly the game freezes and i get the almighty blue screen of death and a restart. I then downloaded a new version from steam, and now the game freezes when the game is loading after i press "Demo". I managed to ctrl-alt-delete me out of the game this time...It kind of suck because i know i have the hardware to run it...I also have the newest nVidia drivers (the Beta ones, made specifically for Bioshock).

Any tips?

Runs awesome on my PC

AMD 64 2ghz
XFX 7900GS 256mb
1gb ram


but im also stuck! i at the point were you first enter, i think its a lift? when you have to push L to move the lever...well, i bashing away at L, and nothings happening....

@audimasta
The game needs Win Vista or XP with SP2, maybe that's the problem ? :S
@djgizmo68
Don't you have to press E there ?

The demo ran pretty fine on my pc, who would've thougt that I dare to say it's the prettiest thing (PC Game) i've seen running on my PC. I watched the plane crash scene with my mouth open, it looked so damn good. And the atmosphere is brilliant, the scripted scenes look as good a movie, can't wait for the full game to try out all the tricks wich were in the teaser movie (wich you see after completing the demo).

Cool i get around 100 FPs with my Tuned 6600GT runs on 512MB DX10 shader 4.0

and 1.8GB nice demo

Quote from audimasta :

I also have the newest nVidia drivers (the Beta ones, made specifically for Bioshock).

Any tips?

eep! I'd try uninstalling, rebooting, then re-installing the graphics drivers - if that doesn't fix it i'd be tempted to say "hardware" and try 3D Mark 06 in an hour long loop to see if it crashes then.

EDIT - Takumi, your graphics card won't run DX10, even if you've tweaked it...

EDIT 2 - FTR i'd love to try this game, but the demo won't install - any screenshots please?

aarrghhh.

Man, I only made a joke. This is a sign to get the XFX 8600GTS

So far i'm REALLY impresed with the first "proper" DX10 game - it's VERY well coded and on DX10 cards it works at the same speed in DX10 as it does in DX9 even with the extra eye candy.

/me adds "8800 Ultra" to the list of kit to buy along with 3 monitors, a new wing mirror and a G15

i'm not really happy that this uses securom, i guess it will never see my harddisk
and i'm a bit surprised that nobody mentioned it so far in this thread (or i just didn't see it)

Quote from wikipedia :

Issues with SecuROM activation and copy protection

With the release of BioShock, the current retail, Direct2Drive and Steam, clients only allow for five installs (originally two), and require an internet connection in order to validate. (Due to downtime of 2K Games servers on August 23, 2007, the midnight release of BioShock in Australia was cancelled as the game would be unplayable until the servers were back up.[47]) After the two install key limit is reached, the user must manually activate the product again via telephone support. This is due to a new version of the content protection system known as SecuROM.

In response to criticisms, an employee of 2K Games responded that the solution to these limitations is to uninstall the game before one reinstall or format the harddrive. Uninstalling the game unregisters the game installation and refunds a license slot to the user. For Steam installations, clearing BioShock local content off of one of these computers frees up a license slot [48]. If an uninstall is not performed, SecuROM considers that the player is still using the game on several computers. However, it is possible to contact SecuROM (and send them a picture of the DVD and the booklet with the cd-key) in order to get a new key or deactivate old installations.[49] At first, the game could only be re-installed on the same machine 3 times, but this was later increased to 5 times after complaints from angry buyers.[48]

Installation of the demo version, like the retail version, includes SecuROM but also creates a number of registry entries which are undeletable even with full administrator rights on Windows, short of a reformat.[citation needed] These entries apparently store DRM information to prevent people from breaking the time limit or engaging in other unauthorized manipulation of the demo version of BioShock.

2k Games announced on August 23, 2007 that they had altered the activation process to permit end-users to install the game on up to five computers and increasing the re-install limit to 5 times on each computer. A tool will also be released to deactivate the product for those users who claim that uninstalling the game has not refunded their license slots.[45]

"Bioshock installs a rootkit"

1.8Gb for a 20 minute demo? Screw that, I'd rather spend the time obtaining the full game.

@pb32000
There is no rootkit being installed with the demo of Bioshock. Read the article here and you will see, that there is a misunderstanding.
IMHO the demo was worth downloading /it took me 9 hours / .

Quote from MataGyula :

@pb32000
There is no rootkit being installed with the demo of Bioshock. Read the article here and you will see, that there is a misunderstanding.
IMHO the demo was worth downloading /it took me 9 hours / .

rootkit or not something that cant be removed with normal methods is to be considered malware

For those with SM2.0b cards (X800 series etc) the SM2.0 project is really ticking along. The guys have managed to get basically all the textures showing, and now they're working on the lighting and the bump mapping. These things were present in earlier versions, so all they have to do now is put it all together. I've been approx halfway through the demo, and it's very playable. I'm quite positive that Bioshock will be able to run 100% on SM2 cards very shortly.

Progress link is here. (scroll down to the bottom of the thread and you'll see the download link - Beta 1).

Instructions as follows...

Download the file from the link in posted in the last page.
Extract the file like in the example :
E:\Games\Bioshock Demo\Builds\Release

Overwrite if it asks !

Delete the following files :
Shadercache.pcs
Shadercache.pcs10

Run the game !


Good luck

Maybe I'll try the SM2.0 mod, in my demo, just to see how it is.

Here's a screen I took from the SM2 fix by Asankel. There's also a newer version out (Fix V2) which may improve performance a bit and display more textures. It's still not perfect though...

I've managed to play all the way through the demo with this fix. Game seems ok- but as others have said, it's nothing really new in terms of gameplay.