virtual drive

[I Hate TKpunishers]

Does anyone know how to make a virtual CD of the BF2 disc? I did this for BF42 and I was able to improve load times drastically.. I tried the same thing... using alcohol 120... for bf2, but it won't seem to work. I don't know if I haven't got the right copy protection method selected or what.. any tips? I also tried mounting using Daemon tools to no avail. I REALLY want to get this done, because I"m often one of the last people to load... ack!

Thanks...

[gungho]

Re: virtual drive

Use GameJackal (http://www.gamejackal.com/home.asp), it works OK with BF2. It also does not make an image of the entire CD, it just detects which bits are accessed during startup/play & makes an image of that. Much better, & startup time is much faster, I'm always 1st on a map & can get the vehicles 1st

p.s. Before anyone mentions piracy, GJ is NOT. The image it makes is encrypted & only runs on the PC it was made on.

*** STOP PRESS *** Its on special offer $9.95 !!!

[Talus]

Re: virtual drive

But unfortunately, GJ doesn't work on all protections schemes...I'd hate to buy a product that is not future proof.

Until then, it's Daemon Tools for me and mini-images.

[gungho]

Re: virtual drive

True, it does not work on StarForce yet & a few others, but they are working on it. Nothing can ever be called "future proof". There is a good forum for GJ, and the devs do listen.

[Talus]

Re: virtual drive

Trust me...I've been thinking about buying this application for a long time...basically since it was released.

Maybe I should start haunting the forums.

[[45th*ID]Razor]

Re: virtual drive

Alcohol 120% will work.
First is google for program called ClonyXXL. It will tell you the protection of the CD you want to make a image of.

Open Alcohol
Choose Image Wizard
Under datatype select SafeDisc 2/3
Your going to see lots of errors while it's making the image, just ignore them...the image will work fine when it's done. Just mount it to a virtual
alcohol drive and your all set..

[T-raV]

Re: virtual drive

i use dameon tools and a bf2 minimage its about 4mb so you don't have to copy a whole cd. Works great

[Ronin325]

Re: virtual drive

use alcohol 120 when you make and image be sure to use safedisk 4
here is a site to tell you what protect is used on different games

http://www.makeabackup.com/database.html

thats what i used and it works fine for me

[alwo]

Re: virtual drive

using one of those 'mini-images' won't get me perma banned by punk buster right?

[Talus]

Re: virtual drive

Nope.

I've been using mini-images since BF1942.

[alwo]

Re: virtual drive

i would like to know ea's stance on the game jackal program... since you guys use mini-images, i'm guessing ea don't care about game jackal right?

[gungho]

Re: virtual drive

I dont think EA have an opinion specifically about GameJackal, they are usually only concerned about piracy of the game, not defeating copy protection. As you suggest CD images are what should concern them, as they can be easily redistributed whereas GJ profiles cannot. There is a review on the GJ website, where Ubisoft Technical Director says virtually exactly that.