F.E.A.R. No DVD .exe and MP problems

[Lazaredz]

First the disclaimer:

Stealing is wrong. Go buy this great game that the good people at Monolith deserved to be compensated for. These same guys/gals have made GREAT games over the past few years (AvP, NOLF, etc) and in MY opinion FEAR has the possability to put them on the map with the likes of ID and Valve.

Anywho, I have been using DEViANCE No CD patches for years for all my gaming needs without a problem. However with the one delivered for FEAR I seem to be having issues with MP (SP works just fine). When attempting to connect to SOME servers, I get an "Invalid Game Data" error OR FEAR just dumps to windows with a "send this to M$" tag. When I replace the No DVD .exe with the regular one again and go RIGHT BACK to the same server (without a computer reboot) I can get in.

Can anyone help me out with this?

Thx

P.S. I have no intention of making this a pirate/anti fixed .exe/use the product as perscribed discussion. Save it for your own thread, as my concience is VERY clear.

 

[Lonyo]

Have you got FEAR patched? (I assume so), in which case the cracked .exe may not be totally right for the patched version of FEAR, unless you have a 1.01 or whatever version # it is crack.

 

[gorcorps]

Ha! That's because FEAR uses a newer copy protection that apparently does what it's supposed to! Just give the Deviance guys some time, I'm sure it's their patch that doesn't work flawlessly quite yet and they'll fix whatever is wrong.

 

[Ike0069]

It's been harder to find no-cd/dvd patched that actually work recently, so I've started using Alcohol 120%. Problem is that some of the newer games don't like emulators, so you have to find a fix for that.
I was able to find a fix for FEAR, so I'm using Alcohol to mount it and it works great. Maybe you can try that.

 

[Malak]

Originally posted by: Lazaredz
Go buy this great game that the good people at Monolith deserved to be compensated for. These same guys/gals have made GREAT games over the past few years (AvP, NOLF, etc) and in MY opinion FEAR has the possability to put them on the map with the likes of ID and Valve.

Monolith was great even before Valve showed up, and Valve could never be as good. Valve is a terrible company. ID has had very few good games, they should stick to engine making instead of game making. Even then, I wouldn't use an ID engine. There has been only one Lith game I didn't like, although it was very popular for most.

 

[sep]

I image everything so I don't need the originals disks. I think FEAR, think that's the game, that doesn't like emulaters installed. I had to install a program called...SR7 something like that. It basically hides the emulated drives, but you can still access them. Found it...
http://club.cdfreaks.com/showthread.php?t=152680

 

[Seeruk]

You know its funny that implementation of copy protection has actually increased the use of cracks. Many people in the office/friends/etc had never even heard of a crack until copy protection came standard a few years ago. Now everyone I know (even those that arent very IT literate) download a crack as soon as they buy a game as they hate switching CD's all the time to play different games.

I would say it was tactically the most stupid thing to have happened as all it has done has delayed the time till a new game can be played illegally by one day, whilst introducing millions of previously 'warez-unaware' people to the whole pirating scene!

 

[Modeps]

Malak, As far as I know, the only game Monolith put out prior to Valve (Half Life) hit was Blood 1. It was a fun game, but I believe it used the Duke3d engine. I dont think they were great before Valve was.

In my opinion, Valve is one of the few developers to do things properly (Blizzard is another). Instead of releasing some half-assed beta game and patching it later, they wait till things are as good as they can get them before releasing.

And your comment about id having very few great games? Please. They pretty much invented the FPS as we know it today and their early games and engines drove that.

Monolith puts out some good stuff, dont get me wrong... I really liked the AvP and NOLF games (even with their faults), but FEAR is really their first huge game on the same impact level of Half Life and Doom.

 

[MmmSkyscraper]

Originally posted by: Modeps
In my opinion, Valve is one of the few developers to do things properly (Blizzard is another). Instead of releasing some half-assed beta game and patching it later, they wait till things are as good as they can get them before releasing.

Doesn't say much for Valve then, their stuff is buggy as hell. Viz the lift that can crush you to death in HL1, the citadel ledge you may not be able to jump over in HL2, the floating models in Lost Coast, the crates that rotate instead of sitting on the floor if you move them in HL1:S. It's scary.

Very playable games but Valve have serious QA issues, just like Dice/EA with the abortion that is BF2.

 

[PingSpike]

Originally posted by: Modeps
In my opinion, Valve is one of the few developers to do things properly (Blizzard is another). Instead of releasing some half-assed beta game and patching it later, they wait till things are as good as they can get them before releasing.

I have to disagree there. If they did covertly fix that stuttering issue, it took them at least six months. And while I appreciate their weekly patches, it would be nice if they did some internal testing on them before release, since they often break as much as they fix.

And since the source engine only got an anticheat mechanism a few months ago, when the game came out almost a year ago I'd hardly consider the title finished before at release.

Valve is an alright company, and I do think they are trying. I just think they took on to much inhouse.

I wouldn't say they were anywhere near the level of EA's trash though. I mean, they aren't that bad.

 

[Parkre]

I bought the DVD editors edition. The game worked the first time I installed it, after that it would just kick me back to windows (or give an M$ error). It was time for me to do a fresh install of windows anyway (yes, that time of the month, hehe). I installed it and it worked the first time only again. I tried everything from their tech help webpage. chckdisk, changing the .exe file for securom updates, uninstalling ACEMega Codec pack, everything(including every crack i could download). After about 10 hours of screwing around, I gave and starting playing BF2. Couple of the guys I was talking to said that if they were running xfire, weird errors would happen (wouldn't play, sounds were messed up or off with the rest of the video by30 seconds, stuttering) But if they exited out of xfire, everything worked fine for me, EVERYTHING.

Cliff notes:

EXIT XFIRE PRIOR TO PLAYING FEAR!!!!

 

[Hav0k99]

what is the deal with just having your DVD in the drive?!?!?!?! why bother with the hassles of cracks?

 

[JustAnAverageGuy]

You'd be better off making a mini-image and using Daemon Tools.

That's how I do BF2, FarCry, and a few others.

 

[gorcorps]

Originally posted by: JustAnAverageGuy
You'd be better off making a mini-image and using Daemon Tools.

That's how I do BF2, FarCry, and a few others.

doesn't work I've tried... It's not securom4 like those games so the mini image won't work

 

[hans030390]

Why do you need a no-cd patch? Do you not own the game or are you just too lazy to put the cd in?

 

[Modeps]

Originally posted by: hans030390
Why do you need a no-cd patch? Do you not own the game or are you just too lazy to put the cd in?

Many people hate disc swapping.

 

[rahzel]

Originally posted by: Hav0k99
what is the deal with just having your DVD in the drive?!?!?!?! why bother with the hassles of cracks?

im using the crack too but i havent even played MP yet.. works fine with SP.

anyway, i myself dont like to keep the disc in there at all times (when im not playing) and its kind of annoying to have to keep putting the disc back in the drive to play. i think its stupid that they make you have the CD/DVD in the drive. HL2 was like that, but now you dont need the disc in the drive to play. Hope valve or monolith or whoever decides to do the same in their next patch.

 

[Ike0069]

Originally posted by: gorcorps

Originally posted by: JustAnAverageGuy
You'd be better off making a mini-image and using Daemon Tools.

That's how I do BF2, FarCry, and a few others.

doesn't work I've tried... It's not securom4 like those games so the mini image won't work

It's securom 7, and there is a stop patch for this, just google for it. It works perfect for me with my Alcohol clone.

 

[HumblePie]

You could just do what Deviance does and do it on your own. Use Olly debugger/disassembler. Load the game into memory, unpack it and capture it to a new executable. Rerun the unpacked executable. Go through the assembly code, find the offending parts that do checks and NOP them out. Re assemble the executable and viola!!!

Oh yah, takes some assembly programming knowledge to do this type of thing. You could try the cheap way out with Disam32proc but you would have to know the packing algorthim used. Capturing with Olly is a bit easier as you step through and if you can recognize the procedure that unpacks the executable in memory and then capture it. This way you don't need to know the algorithm used


Or... you can wait for someone else to do it for you, but what kinda geek would that make you?

 

[sep]

Originally posted by: HumblePie
You could just do what Deviance does and do it on your own. Use Olly debugger/disassembler. Load the game into memory, unpack it and capture it to a new executable. Rerun the unpacked executable. Go through the assembly code, find the offending parts that do checks and NOP them out. Re assemble the executable and viola!!!

Oh yah, takes some assembly programming knowledge to do this type of thing. You could try the cheap way out with Disam32proc but you would have to know the packing algorthim used. Capturing with Olly is a bit easier as you step through and if you can recognize the procedure that unpacks the executable in memory and then capture it. This way you don't need to know the algorithm used


Or... you can wait for someone else to do it for you, but what kinda geek would that make you?

Okay, time to add another language under my belt! Wonder If I can get a book "learn assembly programming" in a weekend

I'm a geek with only 3 pens and pencils in my pocket. This would take a geek with 7 or more I'll wait!

-JC

 

[0roo0roo]

god i hate cd checks. happy valve didn't do that with cs/halflife 2

 

[40Hands]

CD/DVD swapping sucks.

 

[Lazaredz]

Originally posted by: hans030390
Why do you need a no-cd patch? Do you not own the game or are you just too lazy to put the cd in?

Err .. see first post :roll:

Anywho, since I am not even a 2 pen geek, I'm definatley going to have to wait for someone else to do it. Wasn't complaining about anybody's work, just that I was having problems with it and wondered if it was just me. Since the new patch is out, I'm sure there will be an update at the usual places soon enough.

While on the subject though, anyone get the pre-order unlock thing to work?

 

[gorcorps]

Originally posted by: Lazaredz

Originally posted by: hans030390
Why do you need a no-cd patch? Do you not own the game or are you just too lazy to put the cd in?

Err .. see first post :roll:

Anywho, since I am not even a 2 pen geek, I'm definatley going to have to wait for someone else to do it. Wasn't complaining about anybody's work, just that I was having problems with it and wondered if it was just me. Since the new patch is out, I'm sure there will be an update at the usual places soon enough.

While on the subject though, anyone get the pre-order unlock thing to work?

No, seeing as how gamestop is full of a bunch of bastards and never sent me the beta disc.

 

[RKS]

Originally posted by: hans030390
Why do you need a no-cd patch? Do you not own the game or are you just too lazy to put the cd in?

even with the FEAR dvd in the drive I was still getting authentication errors until I got the nocd/dvd .exe. Now I don't have to worry about errors and restarting the game 20 times to get it to work or even looking for the disc.

BTW the new FEAR patch 1.02 seems to be very buggy. I like the game but 2 patches within a few weeks of release seems to indicate a rush to market, especially when the patches cause more problems then resolutions.