Authentication for older games
Posted by NCC74656@reddit | retrobattlestations | View on Reddit | 33 comments
what do you guys do for the games that require CDs to play? do you run something like power ISO on every system and emulate in the drive, do you store the iso's locally do you do a network storage?
I'm figuring out my setup for a retro lan party, I do have a dedicated Nas that will have all of my isos on it. so maybe it makes the most sense to emulate over the network?
Windows 98, millennium, XP and 2000 alongside Mac OS 9.2, 10.4, 10.5
________FRANK_______@reddit
Honestly I just burn the .iso to a CD and print a label for it. Now I have my own little bootleg copy. For some old PC games that I'm really excited for I sometimes just track down the big box on ebay. If the game I want is less then 10 bucks for a loose disc, I'll also sometimes just buy a legit copy of the disc.
NCC74656@reddit (OP)
No CD drives
________FRANK_______@reddit
Ah, I got ya. I figured since we were in the retro battle stations subreddit that your machine would probably have one if it was from that era. Well nothing wrong w/ damontools or whatever it was called for CD drive emulation.
NCC74656@reddit (OP)
I've got 30 drives, only one of them works
tomauswustrow@reddit
Gamecopyworld nocdpatch is the answer.
NCC74656@reddit (OP)
I'll check it out
SpeedBo@reddit
Use a adblocker.
NCC74656@reddit (OP)
I have whole house ad blocking through my DNS server and adblock on my router. Hopefully that's enough lol
briandemodulated@reddit
What DNS server are you running and what OS are you hosting it on?
SpeedBo@reddit
Hopefully so :) if not you'll know right away.
NCC74656@reddit (OP)
😂😂😂 now I kind of want to go to it on a DMZ Network or something just to see what it's like
SpeedBo@reddit
Be prepared for 2006 era ads that look like they would give you a virus. Definitely NSFW.
SubcommanderMarcos@reddit
Lmao I decided to turn off the adblocker in a private window just to see what it looks like and aaaahh, that took me back
Everything about it screams 2005, in its HTML table glory with the spinning EMAIL gif url, and disabling adblock brings up all the ridiculous dancing bimbo gifs, complete with an ad for a porn desktop companion. Just historic
And funnily enough, they did update it so it's got a GDPR-compliant cookie warning lmao
JukePlz@reddit
They even have trainers for Death Stranding 2, they very much keep it updated, even if the design is stuck in the cenozoic era.
bassclarinetl2@reddit
Concur, quite nsfw ads.
NCC74656@reddit (OP)
Honestly that's kind of perfect for the retro vibe
MadShadowX@reddit
That still exists?
toaddawet@reddit
Gamecopyworld. “Now there’s a name I haven’t heard in a long, long time.” They were a staple back in the day. Surprised they’re still around!
johnvosh@reddit
I use my original games disks or get them of archive.org . On occasion I will use a nocd crack or use a drive emulator.
NCC74656@reddit (OP)
I've got one functional CD drive between 15 computers 😂😂😂 I have a stack of like 30 drives but none of them work. Go figure
I can hunt around for no CD cracks, I'm sure I can find some. Just not sure about all of the games having it
Hondahobbit50@reddit
The 11$ USB drives on Amazon actually work pretty damn good for everything win 98 up.
I was looking for an external drive for my win 98 nec sub notebook but the original was unobtainable... imagine my surprise when a modern cheapo plugged right in and worked.lol
SaturnFive@reddit
I put ISOs on a FAT32 SSD connected via USB, then store any other relevant stuff with the ISO (notes, patches, keys, saved games, etc). I'd like to get an SMB setup going for systems without PCI but for now it's been super fast and reliable
NCC74656@reddit (OP)
i have a similar setup but network storage. my main NAS is 414TB and i built a secondary 4TB box for retro stuff
siliconsandwich@reddit
check pcgw because often late patches remove cd-checks.
search for game title no-cd. Often as others have posted, this will often bring you to gamecopyworld/gameburnworld. make sure you match your game version to the no-cd version (patches-scrolls.de is good for this).
If no such patch seems to exist, there will often be forum posts explaining how to achieve it.
if the game is abandonware and now on gog/steam etc, then myabandonware will often have no-cd patches listed.
sometimes you can learn how to produce a patch yourself.
As you can see, I’ll do anything to avoid drive emulation!
stromm@reddit
For the record, Abandonware is not a legal classification. There is no legal protection from claiming that.
NCC74656@reddit (OP)
Yeah I see, is there any reason for that? Does drive emulation have problems on 98 or xp? I'm trying to remember back when I was a kid and doing it, but I don't think I can remember having issues with stuff like SWAT and Star Trek Armada and such.
BTW I miss the days of downloading the cracked games, the fun music you have with it, the key generations, it was such a different time
siliconsandwich@reddit
Nothing inherently wrong with disc emulation and I will use it on occasion, but each one of my retro PCs has at least 20 games on it, and I don’t want to have to select the right ISO every time I want to play a game. Too fiddly. Not to mention my family and friends shouldn’t have to learn how to use daemon tools, when they can just click the game they want to play instead!
I’m sure it’s possible to create game shortcuts that run batch files which select and mount the correct disc image but… my way is still easier for now.
Necessary-Score-4270@reddit
NoCD patches or just use a virtual disk drive. That how we did it back in the day no need to get fancy with it.
Or you could burn a copy of the CD for each system though this don't work for all games.
rabbitjockey@reddit
I was mounting the .iso files as a virtual drive 20+ years ago, even on those hdd it made the games run faster and smoother. Plus none of the disc swapping just to play a game.
NCC74656@reddit (OP)
oh totally. none of these systems have cd drives so thats not an option anyway. i have a 24 port switch coming and then i have enough ports to get all these networked. i had to build a truenas core storage system out of spare parts so i could run legacy SMB auth and AFP access for these things as newer OS's dont support that anymore.
fun times
rabbitjockey@reddit
I think it'd make the most sense to the virtual drive on each pc and not over the network
Xiardark@reddit
Most of my cd/dvd games I have on a NAS that is isolated from the internet and runs SMB. The win98/xp pcs run daemon tools and mount over LAN.
NCC74656@reddit (OP)
ok, thats probably what i will do then. i built a second nas for this. 5th gen i5 and a couple old 2tb platters. truenas core. hopefully i have enough space