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Quake Shareware, a CD-ROM just a little too full

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Re: Quake Shareware, a CD-ROM just a little too full

#91

Post by beloch »

mook wrote: post #81
ColdStream wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find it so funny that there are new games that are are smaller than Wing Commander 3 despite the 32 year gap. To be fair, they obviously pack their data very differently.

Meh, in the early days of DVDs I recall a game that came with uncompressed 48kHz audio. Compress it to mp3 (which the game naively accepted if you had the correct Windows filters) and it fits in a CD.

Uncompressed audio tracks may have been necessary to get acceptable performance. e.g. GTA 1 came with some PCM tracks on the CD. If you didn't like them, you could pop in a different CD and get different music on the radio in-game. Playing mp3's was, in the early to mid-90's, actually pretty intensive. There were still a decent number of 386's around that could barely run a mp3 player in a Linux console-only setup. You needed a 486 or better to even think about playing mp3's with a full graphical OS running, and probably a Pentium before you have enough CPU left over for the rest of a game.

Re: Quake Shareware, a CD-ROM just a little too full

#92

Post by jamesfinlayson »

edg5000 wrote: post #71

Am I reading this right, and was only the file header encrypted? Also, wasn't ID the company that did not use serials or other DRM? Maybe that explains their naivite, maybe they underestimated how easily games get cracked.

Not sure about the early days - I got a Quake II CD in the early 2000s that didn't need a CD key. Doom 3 and Quake 4 required CDs, at least at release, but after a little while no CD patches were released.

Re: Quake Shareware, a CD-ROM just a little too full

#93

Post by beloch »

shmoe wrote: post #75
beloch wrote: post #33

"For video game developers, the CD-ROM was an odd beast. The capacity far exceeded the quantity of assets they were able to produce. A few titles, like 7th Guest (1993) or Phantasmagoria (1995) introduced Full Motion Video (in a world where only part of the screen could be animated). " ------ The title that made me go out and buy a CD-ROM drive was "Wing Commander III", released during the holidays of 1994, a year an…

I miss the entire WC series... alot. I wish we could get something like that again today.

Chris Roberts is still doing his thing. Elite:Dangerous is still getting updates and there's also Star Citizen/Squadron 42, both of which could either turn out to be epoch-defining or fusterclucks of truly epic proportions.

Re: Quake Shareware, a CD-ROM just a little too full

#94

Post by gregsadetsky »

Surprised that it's not mentioned that the CD was also an audio CD with the Quake soundtrack..! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quake_(soundtrack)

"Originally pressed on the same disc as the game, Quake was otherwise commercially unavailable until its release on vinyl in September 2020"

Soundtrack: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zbLttdCOgCM

Re: Quake Shareware, a CD-ROM just a little too full

#95

Post by jandrese »

codebje wrote: post #64
jhy wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But it sounds like it wasn't Testdrive's fault; iD implemented it incorrectly. Their phone support weren't issuing the decrypt code, just a simple checksum: > Described as is, there is no flaw in this process. The secret seed comes from the unlock server, tied to a CHALLENGE/SERIAL that could not be reused. But the hacker team GNOMON found a way. > The QUAKE unlock program FLOW.EXE that ships on the CD is capable of…

If the phone support issued the decrypt code, you could just replay that same code for every CD stamped from the same master. If phone support issued an encrypted decrypt code that could only be used with your challenge code to decrypt the decrypt code, replay wouldn't be as trivial. Every CD is identical, so no matter how iD went about this there's only ever one decryption key (per title, I assume) and those keys mu…

There was some replay protection as described in the article, but in the end the system was flawed enough that it didn't matter.

Re: Quake Shareware, a CD-ROM just a little too full

#97

Post by jamesfinlayson »

brcmthrowaway wrote: post #69
shoo wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

there isn't a market for gamers buying games on CDs these days, so it's not really a problem that needs to be solved

Well how does Steam do DRM?

I think most (all?) Steam games link steam_api.dll (or something like that) which somehow figures out the running Steam process and thus the Steam ID, and then does a HTTP API request to check that you own the title.

Like 15 years ago Steam launched CEG (Custom Executable Generation) - I remember reading a write-up a while ago, but each user had a customer launcher generated on install I think, and I think there was an extra segment put into the .exe file and that was put to use somehow, though I don't know if CEG is still a thing.

Re: Quake Shareware, a CD-ROM just a little too full

#98

Post by select1 »

jamesfinlayson wrote: post #97
brcmthrowaway wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well how does Steam do DRM?

I think most (all?) Steam games link steam_api.dll (or something like that) which somehow figures out the running Steam process and thus the Steam ID, and then does a HTTP API request to check that you own the title. Like 15 years ago Steam launched CEG (Custom Executable Generation) - I remember reading a write-up a while ago, but each user had a customer launcher generated on install I think, and I think there was…

The ownership check you are referring to is a local check. There is another check (involving EncryptedAppTickets) which is not local, but far fewer games use that.

CEG is long dead/was broken immediately in a pragmatic, automatable way.

Re: Quake Shareware, a CD-ROM just a little too full

#100

Post by charcircuit »

merb wrote: post #89
charcircuit wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The same problem exists with PC games released on DVDs.

there isn't a market for gamers buying games on DVDs these days. BlueRay the same. Of course there are voice that do want real disks but sadly that time is over. Digital sales won.

There is, at least for collector's editions. I'll continue to support physical for as long as possible.
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