The Sims 2 Bon Voyage: Is it worth having SecuROM for?

[Jenesis]

Alrighty, I admit it, I'm a Sims 2 fan. I have all the expansion packs so far but I've avoided the product-placement-happy-sellout "Stuff Packs".

Anyhow, the new expansion, Bon Voyage, looks really fun. I'd love to get it; however, it comes with SecuROM. We all know how awful this "anti-piracy" software is; which has led to many lawsuits against Sony, thousands of optical disk drives becoming inoperable and more than a few HDDs that needed reformatting. However, not everyone seems to have this problem; I can't guess at the proportions, but for some users their game, their optical drives and everything else works fine.

Is it worth having SecuROM on my machine if it means I can have Bon Voyage? Is there any way to stop SecuROM acting like a rootkit malware program?

(Note: EA say "SecuROM is not spyware, malware, or any other kind of 'ware that would extract personal information from your PC. This is a highly recommended product developed by Sony DADC." Hmm, well of course it's highly recommended, they made it.)

[technicks]

Just buy it then crack it. Then it is not illegal and you don't have to worry about it anymore.

[3991vhtes]

I downloaded my copy of it, and applied a no cd patch.

[Jenesis]

Where did you download it from?

[Black Panther]

Yay a TS2 fan like me! :)

I think you can download it (paying) from the EA Games official TS2 site.

Or... well... from a torrent..... but that'd be illegal...

However, I have Oblivion Shivering Isles expansion - that has got SecuROM, never created any problems for me...

[Jenesis]

I noticed that, I have Tomb Raider Legend, F.E.A.R., Stalker and a few other titles that use SecuROM (it did take research to find that out, they said nothing when installing...!). So hopefully TS2: BV won't mess up my PC.

[xXxJiggabobxXx]

Sims is alright for a rainy day, I actually have a legit copy (yea.. I was a noob and actually BOUGHT it), but to play a lot it's just gay after a while.

The same annoying character voices, like 6 different TV channels, and a pretty boring lifestyle for your sims.

Get home from work, toilet, eat, entertainment, maybe a quick "woo hoo" ;) then off to bed.

There's no variation in what you can do, so I find myself bored of the game pretty quick.

[JC316]

I hate securerom, but there are cracks to get around it. Hell, I HAD to crack my leagally bought copy of Splinter Cell Chao theory, just to play the damn thing.

[vaperstylz]

I love the Sims2 also,but i'm afraid that i spend more time buiding cool houses and stuff than playing with any of the sims i create.There's just so much custom content out there on the web(try Modthesims2.com).thats where the fun really is.People are doing some really righteous stuff with that game.I'm running a retail version of Bon Voyage with no ill affects,and i have checked for sony's bullcrap also,multiple ways and i 'm satisfied that my rig is still secure.Bon Voyage is great though!I love the new locales.Have fun.

[vaperstylz]

Also try "simpe" if you haven't already.It's a really cool program that lets you do pretty much anything you want to do with the game files......enjoy.

[BloodTotal]

its so funny how you have to crack things you sometimes buy, this is just promoting people to turn to torrents or to filesharing, take steam for example, if you dont have internet connection you cant play half life 2 - makes no sense. the only thing that needs improvement for filesharing is the fact that HD movies are like 7gb and that takes like almost 4 - hours to download, compared to the measly 24 minutes it would usually take for a 700meg movie.

[Widjaja]

Has anyone noticed, people are ashamed to say they play sims 2?

Quite funny.
Almost like someone coming out of the closet.

I did my stint with this game.
Created a mesh for one of the adult sites which gets downloaded a fair bit but since then I just ended up being bored with it because of the poor performance on my system.

[3991vhtes]

Where did you download it from?

I totally forgot about this thread, I got it from eMule.

[Evil_Genius]

Could SecuROM possibly be involved in some of the crashes the wife has been experiencing?

We first built her new rig with an ATI 3870 but there were several graphics glitches(missing specularity, odd stretched lighting, no television display, etc.) and rather regular crashes. I don't think she ever managed to get more than 3 hours straight without a complete BSOD. So we picked up an 8800 GTS 512 and gave it a go. While all of the graphics worked properly (specularity was back and no odd texture issues of any kind) the system became significantly less stable. She was managing a BSOD every hour and 15 minutes or less.

I ruled out heat issues: First we set the rig up with almost no air flow, insuring overheating in short ordered. The crash frequency didn't increase or decrease. Then we put the system on the back patio. This is Finland and it's freakin freezing so I know it was running cool. Again no effect on the crash frequency.

Eventually I put one of my X1900 XT's into it and the rig has been rock solid ever since.

I know the 8800 and 3870 aren't on the list of supported cards. But I wonder if their problems weren't cause by this copy protection nonsense.

[Widjaja]

Could be a few things.

What are the specs of the rest of the system?

Do you have the latest chipset drivers?
Test your RAM using Memtest86+ or HCI Design Memtest and then test you CPU using Orthos.

Leave each one running for over an hour.

Start from there.

But it sounds to me like a dodgy RAM module.

[Evil_Genius]

Could be a few things.
Do you have the latest chipset drivers?
The system is utterly up to date. Mobo bios flashed to the most recent release. All drivers (graphics, chipset, and soundcard) downloaded from manufacturers website and as current as they can be. OS completely patched defraged and cleaned of unused services(bluetooth, IRDA, etc) we even turned off the printer spooler and antivirus.

Leave each one running for over an hour.
The system was burned in throughly after intial assembly.

But it sounds to me like a dodgy RAM module.
The systems worked flawless for over a week now with X1900 XT with no less than 6 hours a day of game play:eek: (yes she is an absolute addict). It ran 3D Mark06 and various other benchmarks dozens of times with both the 8800 GTS and the ATI 3870 without so much as a hick up. The only problem the rig has in either configuration is actually running The Sims 2. Which, as I mentioned, is a total non issue when the 1900 is installed.

I'm rather confused how switching out graphics cards could make a DIMM (which works perfectly doing everything but running The Sims 2) suddenly behave?

What are the specs of the rest of the system?
Well o.k. here goes nothing:

farts make smarts (www.hotness.com)
AMD Phenom 9600 Black Edition
OCZ DDR2 PC2-6400 Reaper CL4 4GB Edition (http://www.ocztechnology.com/products/memory/ocz_ddr2_pc2_6400_reaper_cl4_4gb_edition)
MSI K9A2 Platinum (http://www.msicomputer.com/product/p_spec.asp?model=K9A2_Platinum&class=mb)4:16X PCI slots, 7.1 channel audio, gigabit ethernet, SAS drive support, raid controller 0-1-0+1
Asus 3870 video card< (http://www.asus.com/products.aspx?l1=2&l2=8&l3=603&l4=0&model=1967&modelmenu=1)
Nexus Breeze 500 case (http://www.modthebox.com/review397_1.shtml)
146 GB Fujitsu 15000 RPM SAS main drive (http://www.fujitsu.com/us/services/computing/storage/hdd/enterprise/max3147-sas.html)
750 GB WD data drive (http://techreport.com/articles.x/12673)
Zalman CNPS9700 LED cooler (http://www.zalman.co.kr/ENG/product/Product_Read.asp?idx=164)
Zalman ZM-MFC1 Bay Multi-fan controller (http://www.zalman.co.kr/ENG/product/Product_Read.asp?idx=207)
Zalman ZM-2HC2 Harddrive cooler cage (http://www.zalman.co.kr/ENG/product/Product_Read.asp?idx=134)
Her old DVD-ROM and DVD-RAM

[Widjaja]

Yeah sometimes things can go weird for no reason.
I had this happen with my rig.
Somehow drivers were conflicting for no reason causing certain games to lock up.
All I did was switch around a couple of PCI cards.

Did the rig run fine with games other than the sims 2?

I'm using a 8800GT and it's running fine with Sims 2 and I'm on XP.

Also make a thread about your issue at Sims 2 Community if you haven't.

[candle_86]

yea i had to crack one of my games also, Brothers in Arms Earned in Blood. I use Daemon tools and i couldnt play the game untill i took it out, very gay indeed. Also i do not pirate, Daemon tools is used for leagal uses for me. But Secrirom better not even be in Hells Highway.