News Utility breaks the shackles of SafeDisc optical disc DRM for retro gamers — SafeDiscShim restores playability for classic PC titles

[Admin]

SafeDisc DRM, a common facet of retro PC games released in the late 90s up through the end of the 2000s, has long been unsupported and dysfunctional on Windows. RibShark on Github has released SafeDiscShim, a compatibility tool for fixing these issues without circumventing the DRM protection.

Utility breaks the shackles of SafeDisc optical disc DRM for retro gamers — SafeDiscShim restores playability for classic PC titles : Read more

 

[derekullo]

"there's something to be said for the experience of actually inserting a CD"

Yes it was slow and painful especially when games started shipping on multiple CDs / DVDs.

It would be quite hilarious to have install discs for modern games like Ark: Survival Evolved coming in at 400 gigabytes.

8 dual layer blu-ray discs or 47 dual layer DVDs !

 

[Alvar "Miles" Udell]

There's also something to be said for the experience of not being able to play your game because your CD/DVD has a scratch in the wrong place and you have to resurface it.

As well as the fact that they want you to buy a digital copy of a game you already own just to play it because the DRM is borked...

 

[purpleduggy]

imagine paying for the privilege of drm.

 

[ezst036]

there's something to be said for the experience of actually inserting a CD

In the coffee cup holder?

Well. Anyways.

I am curious, now that these games have been cracked how well do they play on Linux? - the ones that haven't yet made their way as some digital download on a place like Steam.

 

[NinoPino]

In the coffee cup holder?

But with digital distribution you may pay a game that in the near future may stop working only because the software house dismiss game servers for costs or other.

Well. Anyways.

I am curious, now that these games have been cracked how well do they play on Linux? - the ones that haven't yet made their way as some digital download on a place like Steam.

From what I understand of the article, this is not a crack or a method to bypass DRM but a way to have DRM working again in modern OS.

 

[TerryLaze]

But with digital distribution you may pay a game that in the near future may stop working only because the software house dismiss game servers for costs or other.

Not ever digitally distributed game is a game as a service, all games on GoG are digital but you can download them and keep the install files and they will work...well, not forever but for as long as you can run (or emulate) a version of windows that runs them.
Also lots of steam games run from the download folder without any need for steam any internet and without any check.

 

[NinoPino]

Not ever digitally distributed game is a game as a service, all games on GoG are digital but you can download them and keep the install files and they will work...well, not forever but for as long as you can run (or emulate) a version of windows that runs them.
Also lots of steam games run from the download folder without any need for steam any internet and without any check.

Nice to know. But if you are offline those games works anyway ? There is any sort of authentication/protection or you can copy as you wish ?

 

[Sluggotg]

Nice to know. But if you are offline those games works anyway ? There is any sort of authentication/protection or you can copy as you wish ?

GOG does not have DRM. You can use their software to download and install the games, (and the extra's), It will also update the games for you. You can also just use your web browser to download/buy games.

OR

You can download all the files, (including Linux and Mac versions) and save them on your hard drive. They are just normal files that WILL NOT Ever make you do DRM checks.

I have over 2,000 games on GOG. The only thing that is not fun is if you decide to download and archive .. say... 2,000 games. That is a challenge. You can redownload your games anytime you want. I think they set it up to make it a bit really annoying if you try to download a large library like mine. If they had the option to click a button and download all your games with the extra's with one click, that would rock but I think it is a bandwidth issue. (There would be the person who would redownload all of their games many times a year.. rather than making a new archive one a year).

I only have about 230 games on Steam. (Because of the DRM on Steam). But I love Steam too.

 

[stonecarver]

This is good news. I had to do some black magic with some of my box copy CD/DVD XP days games to work on windows 10/11.

As long as you could remove the game files off the CD/DVD to a folder on your desktop than install the game from there it worked again playing those games.

And no drag and drop can't do it.

I will have to mess around with this new way of getting games to work.

 

[cryoburner]

Nice to know. But if you are offline those games works anyway ? There is any sort of authentication/protection or you can copy as you wish ?

If you are referring to the part about "Also lots of steam games run from the download folder without any need for steam any internet and without any check", that's going to be dependent on the game. If the developer/publisher of the game decided to include Steam's built-in DRM, then Steam will need to be running for the game to launch, otherwise if they chose to not utilize Steam's DRM, you will likely be able to launch the game directly from it's folder without starting Steam. They may or may not choose to utilize other DRM though. It's the same on some other services as well, like Epic Game Store, where many titles can similarly launch without the client running. It's probably more common with games from small developers and older games though, as publishers of AAA new releases tend to be more likely to use DRM.

You would have to test to see if a particular game is able to launch that way though. Or there are also some lists of games that can launch without Steam that you could reference, though they are likely missing some entries. This one for example, has different sections for games that can launch directly without any additional changes, those that simply require you to make a "steam_appid.txt" file containing the game's app ID number, and those that may require other workarounds to launch without the client running. Just hit the "Expand" link under a given category, and a long list of titles in alphabetical order pops up...

https://steam.fandom.com/wiki/List_of_DRM-free_games

 

[purpleduggy]

"there's something to be said for the experience of actually inserting a CD"

Yes it was slow and painful especially when games started shipping on multiple CDs / DVDs.

It would be quite hilarious to have install discs for modern games like Ark: Survival Evolved coming in at 400 gigabytes.

8 dual layer blu-ray discs or 47 dual layer DVDs !

how many mods are you running at 400GB?

 

[TerryLaze]

how many mods are you running at 400GB?

The game alone on steam is 282Gb ,so even that makes his point more than enough.