No codies! Not Starforce again!

[BloodFlood]

Played your wonderful GRID demo earlier today, mouth salivating at the prospect of buying the full game now that it appears to be free of Starforce. Whilst playing the framerate suddenly dropped, so I exit the game only to find my PC turbocharged in a manor that it always does only when Starforce is installed on my system!

That meant that I had to uninstall the demo and reset my bios in order to restore the PC to its previous state.

I'm really sad and frustrated by this. I really, really want this game but not with Starforce as part of the package I'm afraid. Also, why are Starforce drivers included in the demo installation?!

[The_KELRaTH]

Looked in the registry, ran the Starforce remover and there was no mention of it.

[Jason Six]

Played your wonderful GRID demo earlier today, mouth salivating at the prospect of buying the full game now that it appears to be free of Starforce. Whilst playing the framerate suddenly dropped, so I exit the game only to find my PC turbocharged in a manor that it always does only when Starforce is installed on my system!

That meant that I had to uninstall the demo and reset my bios in order to restore the PC to its previous state.

I'm really sad and frustrated by this. I really, really want this game but not with Starforce as part of the package I'm afraid. Also, why are Starforce drivers included in the demo installation?!

So you can confirm that your PC was free of starforce before installing the demo and that the demo did, in fact, install it onto your system? I'm with you on the point of not purchasing Starforce protected products it's just that one of the Codemasters guys on the forum here confirmed that Starforce will not be used.

EDIT: Just searched through my registry, Vista's search and Device Manager under hidden non-plug and play items but didn't find anything starforce-releated.

[BloodFlood]

I can absolutely 100% confirm that I have no Starforce games nor drivers on my system. Every time I did my system would throw wobblies in exactly the same way:

TRD 2 and 3
The Suffering

To mention three games that certainly have the copy protection for certain. If this really doesn't have Starforce, which I assumed because my machine had the symptoms, what on earth else could be causing it? Securom and others don't bother my system at all. :\

[Jason Six]

What exactly were your symptoms? You mentioned your PC felt turbocharged, I'm not sure what that means; faster than usual?

[BloodFlood]

Well, the cursor blinks rapidly and if I press any key the character will appear multiple times. Also the time progresses 4-5 times as fast. After I reset the bios everything is fine.

Puzzling...

[The_KELRaTH]

I can confirm it's not using Starforce but Securom 7.01

I was trying to see if setting compatibility to XP might get the force feedback working (Vista x64) - it didn't but I did get a message from UAC to run Securom Shell Ext Installer (Sony DADC Austria AS).

Browsing the securom readme file it seems once the game is installed you don't need the CD/DVD in the drive anymore - I'm all for that :)

Here's a snipet of the readme:-

Technical Information for the PC Administrator:

The files securom_v7_01.dat and securom_v7_01.bak have been created during the installation of a SecuROM protected application.
It guarantees more user convenience because the original disc does not have to be in the local drive at all times anymore.
It is necessary for copy protected CDs, demo versions and protected software downloaded from the Internet.
The file contains your licences for all products which are SecuROM protected, therefore it will not be deleted automatically.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
PLEASE DO NOT DELETE THE FILE BECAUSE YOU MIGHT LOOSE ESSENTIAL DIGITAL RIGHTS.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The information contained in securom_v7_01.dat will not be transferred to any other computer without your permission.

This security system is connected with a MS Windows Service called "SecuROM User Access Service".
This module is started automatically when launching a protected application if the user is logged in with Windows administrator rights.
In case users do not have administrator rights we recommend to keep it running.

[BloodFlood]

False alarm. It looks like something else random happened to the PC.

Sorry Codies!