Vista Games Cracked to Run on XP

Next Generation is reporting that Vista PC games have been cracked to run under XP. Hacking groups who apparently wanted to play new titles like Shadowrun and Halo 2 with driver support have taken it upon themselves to open up the playing field a bit. "The news is sure to irk Microsoft who may now face an increased delay in some consumers adopting Vista at this early stage. However, it shouldn't come as a surprise. Earlier this month Falling Leaf Systems said in a press release that it believed Microsoft was deceiving consumers by stating that the titles would only work on Vista, and announced its intentions to release compatibility software to disprove the claim. 'Microsoft has, in typical Microsoft fashion, decided to launch their forced migration onslaught in full force with the release of two games that will only run on Windows Vista,' said Falling Leaf Systems CEO Brian Thomason in the press release." Relatedly, Mitch Gitelman of the (now closed) FASA Studios has taken exception to negative reviews of Shadowrun.

Comments

Re:Nothing new under the sun

[danbert8]

This angers me as well, especially when the product box is wrong. For example, I bought a Streamzap PC remote which claimed to work with Windows XP (all versions), but somehow that didn't include XP x64 edition. I might add that Streamzap does not reply at all to support questions that involve XP x64.
 
This brings up an interesting question of if this hack works with XP x64.

Re:Way to go Falling Leaf...

[Tridus]

This wasn't Falling Leaf, it was the crack group Razor 1911.

Falling Leaf hasn't released anything.

Re:Where's The Justice Department?

[shrubya]

You ignore one small detail: Microsoft is a convicted criminal monopolist. They are not allowed to (among other things) leverage their OS dominance into coercing people or companies to buy other MS products. This example is the other way around (using DX10 games to push Vista sales) but any such behavior on Microsoft's part is questionable under their legal status.

Re:Way to go Falling Leaf...

[Anonymous Coward]

Here is a link to their... umm... press release

Re:Nothing new under the sun

[Sparr0]

OpenGL is keeping *AHEAD* of Direct3D. We had Shader Model 4.0 (Geometry Shaders, aka "DX10") months before DX10. OpenGL has SM4 on WinXP, and D3D9 doesn't. That alone should provoke developers into switching. For years the argument has been about ease of programming and integration, but now OGL has concrete feature superiority over D3D on the most prevalent gaming platform in the world.

Re:Nothing new under the sun

[mdarksbane]

Vertex shaders can't create new vertices.

With a geometry shader you can pass the video card one copy of a tree, and have the geometry shader turn it into a forest.

Re:Where's The Justice Department?

[dannannan]

I was a developer for one of the cracked games in the article. I would really have enjoyed making this game available for XP and not just Vista. Believe me, it would have taken longer to finish because the test matrix would have been so much bigger, but it's so frustrating to finish a game that none of your friends can even play because they don't have the right OS and won't be getting it anytime soon. That's the thing though, at MSFT you have to drink the koolaid.

I have a hard time believing that using these games to leverage Vista was illegal. Stupid and annoying maybe, but not illegal. Believe me, us devs who actually *cared* about the game argued against this sort of product hobbling on a regular basis. Requirements like this get thrown at you constantly. If it was actually illegal we would have played that card for sure.

Re:Nothing new under the sun

[MightyMartian]

If it's piracy to redownload songs that I own on cassette (and still have the cassette, mind you), then yes, it's piracy to download cracked and modded versions of software that you already own.

Re:Nothing new under the sun

[Anonymous Coward]

You're right, but a more common example is letting the GPU hardware tesselate a curved surface or something. Your forest example sounds more like instancing.

Re:Why not OpenGL?

[GreggBz]

There are pros and cons to both. DirectX is not a bad API, in fact, it's rather good.

I think the integration of DirectDraw, DirectSound, the input, etc.. helped. All in one is good when developing games. It allows you to focus on the game, not any technology or compatibility hurdles. Also, it's now much easier to develop in. Very easy actually. Say what you will about Microsoft, but their development tools, particularly those associated with DirectX have been very good.

Also, while Direct3d and OpenGL accomplish the same things, they are very different. OpenGL is a state machine, with a standard API. Direct3D directly bangs the hardware with a minimal driver, maintained by the manufacturer. You could argue that it's faster, in practice, sometimes it is and sometimes it is not.

OpenGL is more abstract, and has a set of functions that can be used through it's API, and it is then up to the hardware manufacturer to create a layer of communication (the driver) between the hardware and the OpenGL state machine. OpenGL drivers are more portable, but harder to make efficient. I think this is overall a little more robust. Functionality wise, they are both very close. I consider this almost irrelevant, because there are so many features in both, that game programmers have a hard time keeping up, and particularly are weary of using the bleeding edge. I've learned to program in DirectX and only a little in OpenGL. I can't say I have a clear favorite though.

Re:Way to go Falling Leaf...

[PitaBred]

Repeat after me: The GPL is not a usage license, it's a redistribution license. Completely different balls of wax. Anyway, why would a company with the legal coffers to invalidate an EULA actually go to invalidate an EULA that it doesn't read or pay attention to? No one tries to enforce it except against small-time users, so there's no reason to invalidate one. EULA's being "solid" benefits all the big players to be able to make a one-sided contract, and the little players don't have enough clout to fight it, so it's in their best interests to not challenge clickwrap usage licenses.

I could modify GPL code substantally (enough that copyright would protect my work) and yet still be under the licnese of the GPL.

You could modify the code as much as you wanted, and you could use it for whatever you wanted, but you just couldn't redistribute it unless you agreed to the GPL. The GPL only covers copies of the software you distribute, not how you modify it or use is personally.