Tenchu... a PSX hit, a future PC release, and game that is not worried with teenagers and their CD-Recorders...

Most patches are a need to solve software problems, but others represent extras, such as the many Total Annihilation and Warzone 2100 releases. These examples are the brightest side of the patch scene... the other side is a secret war between developers and crackers.

The September 1999 edition of the UK's PC-FORMAT magazine, published a reader's letter, complaining about a game that he couldn't run on his PC, because it was always asking to "insert the original CDROM", which he was already inserting :) After complaining @ where he bought the game, the reader got another copy of it, in replacement of the original, which reportedly had "bad sectors". Unfortunately for the buyer, this did not solve his problem, and he still cannot play Hidden and Dangerous [H&D] - precisely the game this site has been talking about, lately.

After contacting everyone he could, the frustrated buyer, ended up with a final reply, stating that he should replace his CDROM drive... Why H&D posed a problem, that none other game did?- Because of its copy protection...

Of course H&D was not a first. Another very recent example of the damage that CDROM protections can bring to genuine buyers, is The Need for Speed - High Stakes. NFSHS refuses to run on most systems with more than one CDROM drive... that is a terrible example of lack of testing.

In both cases, crackers always found a way the copy protection mechanism, releasing executables that modify the original .EXE or entirely replace it. Sometimes, the CDROM protection is harder to break, mostly due to the more closed nature of the hardware. The PC is a very open system, but consoles are very closed, and they are easier to protect.

V-RALLY 2, for the Playstation [PSX] is a good example of the efficacy of some CDROM protections, and Final Fantasy 8 should not be playable at all in modified PSXs. How?

Most PSXs are modified, by the use of a so called "mod chip", which is an integrated circuit that keeps sending all the possible regional IDs to the central processor, all the time. On a "regular" PSX, the software sometimes checks for a regional ID on the original CDROM; this ID is present @ a CDROM position that none recorder can have access to, meaning that duplicates of PSXs titles, never have IDs, so that when the software tries to read such data, it will not be able to complete the instruction...

By using a "mod chip", when a game tries to read an ID, it will always succeed, as ALL the possible IDs are ALWAYS being sent! The PSX will believe that you are playing an original CDROM, whereas you are not.

Some titles now investigate not only how many IDs are being sent, but also how many times they are being sent... so they can detect a modified PSX! FF8 will not play in a modified PSX, even if you own the original!, because even owning the original, by using a "mod chip", the game will always receive more IDs than expected.

So, developers are having more trouble, protecting their software. The truth is, that some PC patches bring better CDROM protection...

But there is another question: do developers really want their software piracy-proof? No, they don't. Why - read on my next update on this feature :)