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

Nothing new under the sun

[seanadams.com]

I once bought a set of OrCad software for $13K, but even after several calls to tech support I could not get the parallel-port security dongles to work properly. I even got a replacement set of dongles from them and it still didn't work reliably. So I downloaded a crack for it, and then everything was fine.

When you have to download a pirated version just to use the software you've legitimately paid for because of artificial limitations like this, it doesn't exactly install a lot of goodwill in the customer. I never purchased anything from Cadence again, and don't intend to.

If enough of us refuse to buy software, music, or movies from companies that deliberately frustrate their paying customers, then they will either change their strategy or they will deservedly go out of business.

Re:Nothing new under the sun

[morgan_greywolf]

If enough of us refuse to buy software, music, or movies from companies that deliberately frustrate their paying customers, then they will either change their strategy or they will deservedly go out of business. Well, this doesn't really apply in markets where there is a monopolist running things. MSFT can do things like this and get away with it precisely because they own more than 90% of the desktop OS market. Your only other choice is to run an alternative platform, like Mac OS X or Linux, neither of which are particularly good platforms from a gamer's perspective.

IOW, the fact that Microsoft gets away with 'forced upgrades' and the like is all the proof you need that they should have been broken up following the DOJ anti-trust trial, per the orders of Judge Jackson.

Re:Nothing new under the sun

[teflaime]

Max OS X and Linux would be fine platforms for gaming if 1) they wrote more games for them and 2) OpenGL were to keep pace with whatever DirectX is supposed to be offering...my disclaimer here is that I don't know if OpenGL is keeping pace or not. I was told at a con by a game developer that he didn't think OpenGL was keeping pace and thats why he didn't like programming for Macs. I hate programming, so I haven't bothered to learn if this is really true, or just lazy programmer FUD to hide their laziness.

Re:Nothing new under the sun

[MightyMartian]

My feeling is that where requiring an upgrade of the operating system is nothing more than if(version="VISTA","Welcome","You're FUcked") then the companies should be charged with false advertising and fined millions.

Re:Nothing new under the sun

[mpe]

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.

Why could you not return it for a refund?

Re:Nothing new under the sun

[rhombic]

It is piracy to hoist the Jolly Roger, run out the long 9's, and shipjack another vessel on the high seas for fun and profit. Downloading songs for which you already own the cassette would only be copyright infringement, and then only if a songs owner could convince a judge & jury to come down on you for doing so, as it hasn't been tested in the courts yet.

So no, I wouldn't say that it's clearly piracy to download a modded version of software for which you have a valid license, particularly if you did so for compatibility purposes only, were only using the exact version of the software for which you're licensed, and could document trying to get the vendor to help out & their failure to make a good-faith effort to fix your problem. Would such a defense hold up in court? Dunno, probably not, but no sane vendor would go after you in such a situation, it's not a guaranteed win for them & would be a PR disaster. Wink wink nudge nudge say no more, right?

Re:Nothing new under the sun

[MS-06FZ]

My feeling is that where requiring an upgrade of the operating system is nothing more than if(version="VISTA","Welcome","You're FUcked") then the companies should be charged with false advertising and fined millions. Here's the trick, though...

Saying a piece of software "works" under certain conditions isn't just a statement of technical possibility, it's a statement of confidence in that scenario. As in, how thoroughly was that combination of software tested.

The software companies aren't obligated to broaden their testing platform, or to allow people to run their software on platforms they didn't test for. (Regardless of disclaimers, doing things like that would cost them money, in the form of tech support calls asking how to get it working. The situation sucks from a user standpoint but it's not totally unreasonable...)

Where's The Justice Department?

[bc90021]

Doesn't falsely indicating that games only run on their new OS violate the terms of their agreement with the DOJ?

Console Emulators

[Joebert]

I can play games from every videogame console I've ever had on a PC through emulation, why wouldn't I be able to play a game that runs on the same hardware ?

this is trivial

[Kuciwalker]

All you do is remove the OS check in the exe. It's no more difficult than a no-cd. And because of that, it won't be possible for any DX10-only games.

(And as I understand it, you can't just port DX10 to XP - its functionality requires the new display driver model in Vista.)

DirectX 9 Only

[IndieKid]

The hacks from the article only work because these games still support DirectX 9 and DirectX 9 is available under XP. I'm guessing it will be an entirely different challenge to get DirectX 10 running under XP, which will obviously be required when games no longer support DirectX 9.
Admittedly, it will be a while before we see games that are DirectX10-only, but I doubt Microsoft will be getting too worried yet.

Test case done

[Bullfish]

All they now have to do is wait for some good games to come out for vista and they are all set to run them on XP. Really Halo 2 is a how many years old xbox game? And Shadowrun benefits from being vista-only how?

Good for the hackers. There is no compelling reason to move to vista from an existing set-up, and neither of these games would compel anyone either. Stupid that you have to go to these lengths to run software. Stupid that MS would not catch on to the notion that it takes more than gloss like aero to get people to upgrade.

Why do we put up with this?

[TheWoozle]

I don't think that these cracks are helping...if anything, they are enabling people to go ahead and buy a product that is intentionally broken.

If there was a carmaker that wired a lock on the gas cap that would only open when it read a coded pulse from gas pumps at Exxon stations, the carmaker would go out of business quickly.

Yet, when it comes to software, instead of people refusing to do business with a company like Microsoft they just buy the software anyway if they can get around the restrictions.

Consumers need to grow a pair if they want things to change.

Re:Way to go Falling Leaf...

[Drachemorder]

If you don't want to respect their license, that's fine, but then you shouldn't expect them to respect the GPL either.

There's an inherent difference here. Microsoft's licenses try to restrict you from doing things you would otherwise have the right to do. The GPL gives you rights to do things that you would not otherwise have. If you don't want to respect the GPL, that's fine, but you'd essentially be a software pirate if you distribute GPL software in violation of its terms. On the flip side, if you violate some of Microsoft's license terms, you might not have done anything illegal at all (running Vista in a VM, for instance). So I really do see a huge difference between the two licensing models, and therefore a difference between the nature of respect for them.

It's a question of intent.

[A_Non_Moose]

or possibly lack thereof.

IIRC, NT4 maxed out at DX3 and "could not go any higher" according to the wisdom at the time, but it
was possible to graft DX5 onto it and it worked quite well as I recall.

Look at games such as "Slave Zero" (picture Carmageddon, only giant robot instead of a car) that were
so tied to Win98's directX calls that it usually did not function under other WinOS's.
Some enterprising hacker replaced the 98 DX calls with more generic functions and it worked great.

Vista exclusive games (DX10 Only) will be out sooner or later, and I'm sure that eventually it will overcome
the 5+ year's momentum that XP has, but I think it'll be very slow going.

The intent of game makers is to sell games, and locking out 90% of thier target markets is suicide.
(DX8/9 compatability at the very least will be around for a while, I'd think.)

Same with Microsoft, its intent is to sell Vista anyway it can, but unlike games you want/don't have, you
are likely running a WinOS of some stripe (gaming requirement, almost). The lack of want/need of a new
os, lack of games that won't run on XP (yet), resistance to change and XP "just working" (for the most part)
and/or just the way you like it setup makes for some heavy resistance.

The realy trick/story will be DX10 working under XP, or, DX10 game that have been changed like Slave Zero
to work under DX9 with few, if any problems.

Just Goes to Show

[Nom du Keyboard]

All this just goes to show that there really is nothing special about Vista, and the only reason to upgrade to it are artificial barriers created to try and force you that way. Your software is fully capable of running just fine on XP into the foreseeable future, but Microsoft wants your money, and Hollywood wants you forced into the worst DRM infested system yet foisted on us.

Re:Vista is dying

[Control-Z]

Doesn't matter if Vista is "dying" or not, try to go buy a new computer without Vista. Vista will gradually be adopted as people upgrade their spyware and virus infested machines.

Re:Bah

[Laur]

What this means is that it will always be slower than DX10 on Vista...Another problem is the increased overhead, so you'll need to spend much more on hardware to get a similar experience that a slower system gets in Vista.

You make this assertion with absolutely no proof to back it up. If you haven't noticed, generally speaking Vista is noticeably slower than XP at doing the same tasks (surely you've heard of the differences in their hardware requirements?). Therefore, it is by no means certain that XP + some performance overhead will be slower than Vista with it's already increased performance overhead.

and that it will be dependent on the quality of OpenGL drivers on WinXP.

These are provided by the card manufacturers, and from what I know are excellent.

Then there's the question if OpenGL even has anything comparable to geometry shaders yet

They do.

Even if you wanted to solve this by throwing more powerful hardware in your rig, it would only be possible for a year or so, as NVIDIA/AMD will not be interested in providing driver support for XP in future GPUs.

XP has been around for six years, and has a massive installed base. Furthermore, the shift to Vista is not happening at all quickly. XP support will be around for a good long while. From what I've heard, Vista is the one with driver issues.

Re:Why not OpenGL?

[Targon]

There is a large difference between supporting an API and having it accelerated by the hardware. This is a big reason why Intel GPUs have been shown to be so bad when it comes to games. Without hardware acceleration, the drivers need to do more to allow the API to talk to the video card(s). At this point, I am not sure how much acceleration there is for OpenGL on the video cards produced by AMD/ATI and NVIDIA.

This issue is why there is a lot of confusion on the part of many people out there. They install DirectX 9 for example, but their video card only handles DirectX 8 in hardware. They don't understand that to get decent performance, you need the video card to be able to handle DirectX 9 in hardware to get the performance and in many cases the features that games have to offer today.

As for why companies went with DirectX, from what I have read, when DirectX first came out, Windows itself was a HORRIBLE platform for games. At that point, you had the option to write DOS apps(and support the video cards yourself, needing different drivers for each one), or you could go for a native Windows application, where DirectX was a HUGE improvement in many ways. As time went on, and Windows native applications became more and more appropriate, programming for Windows performance was more important.

Once a company was working with DirectX, future projects went DirectX as well, just because the API was known. Even when OpenGL started to catch on, for a Windows-only application, why go OpenGL at that point? Linux wasn't really on the radar, and MacOS had more issues than just the graphics API as a reason not to be concerned with the Mac environment.

As a side effect of this, ATI had never come up with a great OpenGL driver for their cards, and there was never much pressure to do so for most of the user base(CAD and a handful of other applications the only exception). So, if your ATI users will encounter lower performance, and there is no serious benefit to making your application multi-platform, then why NOT go DirectX?

To make an application that is multi-platform, aside from the graphics angle, the company needs to consider the following question: Will the number of sales from each additional platform compensate for the additional development costs for that platform?

Linux users, due to the free nature of the operating system, tend to look for other free applications. Paying money for an application would be seen as unusual, and is even frowned on by those who are into the whole "Open Source" movement. This implies that even if there were 10,000,000 Linux users out there(not installed machines worth), there might be only 10,000 of them who might BUY a game. Not everyone enjoys the same types of games, so you now have the problem of how many copies will be sold. This is why the emulators you see for Linux and MacOS have gained the popularity they have, because unless your application is a high end/expensive application, there is very little to be gained from making a multi-platform application. $60/copy just won't cover the cost of development of new ports.

Re:No Online Play

[Reapman]

You mean the 7 year old system that until less then a year ago was their newest version of this product line? The one ours and some other straggling companies are just now switching to (literaly)? Obviously this is a gaming related thing but just saying that they should'nt be suprised that even home users still haven't all made the switch yet. Really, if you have a 1 year old computer that runs great, and you want to play one of these games, your adding $100+ to the cost for really no good reason other then to drive their bottom line. Not illegal, but sure as hell not nice.

If we were talking Windows 2000 or 98 I would see your point, but we ain't, so I don't.

DirectX 9 uniformity?

[DragonHawk]

That is is DirectX's advantage: if the system supports "DirectX 9," you know that exactly all of the features of Direct3D 9 are supported.

Hmmm, one of the features I saw touted for DirectX 10 was that it is a single, uniform, all-or-nothing platform. Microsoft's ad copy said that DirectX 9 has something called "capability bits", or "cap bits". Games were supposed to check the cap bits to find out what DX9 features a system supported. That would seem to indicate that DX9 wasn't a uniform platform, no? And so while that might mean DX10 has an advantage, it would seem to make that argument invalid about past DirectX releases, yes?