Wish to hack out code protection in a few PC games. Anyone wanna help?

[MethodGit]

Believe me, I've tried those programs. For games like Future Wars, they either provide an external loader program or they patch the original executable, none of which are useful through ScummVM. This is why I was looking for as much info on hardpatching data files as possible. Neverlock et al similarly provide only a loader for Cruise, but it's been confirmed you can patch one of the game's data files to get past the protection and it'll work under ScummVM.


See what I'm getting at?

[eLowar]

Sure. Just thought I'd mention them.

[adolescent]

Looks like there is a flag to bypass the protection in SCUMMVM but it is disabled by default. I don't have Future Wars or time to compile and test though.

engines\cine\main_loop.cpp:

       globalVars[VAR_BYPASS_PROTECTION] = 0; // set to 1 to bypass the copy protection

[jotd]

Originally Posted by MethodGit

jotd: I took your suggestion of looking at the WHDLoad slave sources but the way it's written I can't quite understand how to translate it into hex offsets. Besides, it seems slaves for all-pre-MI1 games do memory patching. MI1 source is the only one which seems to specifically reference a data file, and Loom/Maniac/Zak don't include any sources.

Surprised you managed to translate your Amiga MI2 hacking code into a match for the PC port though. The Amiga version divides the game data into several files whereas on the PC it's all in one big file. Did you have to extensively search each and every data file for a matching offset?

Most of cracks I have made use a "replay" technique: I store memory when the test is OK, and replay it by hacking the executable => no transposition to ScummVM. Used that for most of my Sierra loaders, Cruise, Zak, Indy III & IV.
Hacked Operation Stealth in a very smart way 15 years ago, so smart I don't remember why I did that and how I came to that solution (replacing a 0x60 by a 0x93 somewhere in the exe). Took me 10+ hours.
For Future Wars, the "replay" technique worked to an extent but there were problems, so I adapted a crack, and I don't know how it works but it works flawlessly even for the Interplay version using a different protection screen.

But for MI2 and Another World, I used datafile patch (not by me!), and I did that also for MI1.
To adapt the patch for PC, don't look for the offset, but for the hex string to be replaced, in the big file. It works (same for MI1).
It's ASM code for the VM and it's the same (but I don't have a clue about how it works )

bye

[MethodGit]

Originally Posted by adolescent

Looks like there is a flag to bypass the protection in SCUMMVM but it is disabled by default. I don't have Future Wars or time to compile and test though.

engines\cine\main_loop.cpp:

       globalVars[VAR_BYPASS_PROTECTION] = 0; // set to 1 to bypass the copy protection

Good find! Now I just better hope it isn't a chore to compile this baby. Cygwin and MinGW have been my sole compiling experiences to date.

[MethodGit]

Say, is there an easy way of finding all the copy protection references for each engine in the source code? I wish to see if I can kill it for the Gobliiins games also.

[adolescent]

SCUMMVM has code to bypass the protection in Gobliiins 1 and 2. It only checks the copy_protection value in the config file so make sure you have copy_protection=false set in scummvm.ini.

engines\gob\gob.cpp

	_copyProtection = ConfMan.getBool("copy_protection");

engines\gob\inter_v1.cpp

	// Skipping the copy protection screen in Gobliiins
	if (!_vm->_copyProtection && (_vm->getGameType() == kGameTypeGob1) && (offset == 3905)
			&& !scumm_stricmp(_vm->_game->_curTotFile, _vm->_startTot.c_str())) {
		debugC(2, kDebugGameFlow, "Skipping copy protection screen");
		return false;
	}
	// Skipping the copy protection screen in Gobliins 2
	if (!_vm->_copyProtection && (_vm->getGameType() == kGameTypeGob2) && (offset == 1746)
			&& !scumm_stricmp(_vm->_game->_curTotFile, "intro0.tot")) {
		debugC(2, kDebugGameFlow, "Skipping copy protection screen");
		return false;
	}

[MethodGit]

Ah, thanks for that information, adolescent!

Now if only I could get ScummVM to actually compile at all under Windows. >.< Been following the instructions on their wiki and their forum as closely as possible, but when all your efforts result in something like this...

(Log taken from attempt to build NDS version through devkitARM)

MarzSyndrome@ ~/scummvm/backends/platform/ds
$ make SCUMM_BUILD=d
make[1]: Entering directory `/home/MarzSyndrome/scummvm/backends/platform/ds/arm
7'
main.o cartreset.o
cartreset.c
main.cpp
arm-eabi-g++ -MM -g -Wall -O2 -mcpu=arm7tdmi -mtune=arm7tdmi -fomit-frame-pointer -ffast-math -mthumb-interwork -I/home/MarzSyndrome/scummvm/backends/platform/ds/arm7/include -I/home/MarzSyndrome/scummvm/backends/platform/ds/arm7/build -Iquote -I/home/MarzSyndrome/scummvm/backends/platform/ds/arm7/../commoninclude -I/c/devkitPro/libnds/include -I/c/devkitPro/libnds/include/nds -I/home/MarzSyndrome/scummvm/backends/platform/ds/arm7/build -I/home/MarzSyndrome/scummvm/backends/platform/ds/arm7/source/libcartreset -DARM7 -fno-exceptions -fno-rtti -o main.d /
home/MarzSyndrome/scummvm/backends/platform/ds/arm7/source/main.cpp
In file included from c:/devkitPro/msys/home/MarzSyndrome/scummvm/backends/platform/ds/arm7/source/main.cpp:42:c:/devkitPro/msys/home/MarzSyndrome/scummvm/backends/platform/ds/arm7/../commoninclude/NDS/scummvm_ipc.h:41: error: 'TransferSoundData' does not name a type
c:/devkitPro/msys/home/MarzSyndrome/scummvm/backends/platform/ds/arm7/source/main.cpp: In function 'void InterruptVBlank()':
c:/devkitPro/msys/home/MarzSyndrome/scummvm/backends/platform/ds/arm7/source/main.cpp:505: error: 'struct sTransferSound' has no member named 'data'
c:/devkitPro/msys/home/MarzSyndrome/scummvm/backends/platform/ds/arm7/source/main.cpp:507: error: 'struct sTransferSound' has no member named 'data'
c:/devkitPro/msys/home/MarzSyndrome/scummvm/backends/platform/ds/arm7/source/main.cpp:507: error: 'struct sTransferSound' has no member named 'data'
c:/devkitPro/msys/home/MarzSyndrome/scummvm/backends/platform/ds/arm7/source/main.cpp:507: error: 'struct sTransferSound' has no member named 'data'
c:/devkitPro/msys/home/MarzSyndrome/scummvm/backends/platform/ds/arm7/source/main.cpp:507: error: 'struct sTransferSound' has no member named 'data'
c:/devkitPro/msys/home/MarzSyndrome/scummvm/backends/platform/ds/arm7/source/main.cpp:507: error: 'struct sTransferSound' has no member named 'data'
c:/devkitPro/msys/home/MarzSyndrome/scummvm/backends/platform/ds/arm7/source/main.cpp:507: error: 'struct sTransferSound' has no member named 'data'
c:/devkitPro/msys/home/MarzSyndrome/scummvm/backends/platform/ds/arm7/source/main.cpp:510: error: 'struct sTransferSound' has no member named 'data'
c:/devkitPro/msys/home/MarzSyndrome/scummvm/backends/platform/ds/arm7/source/main.cpp: In function 'int main(int, char**)':
c:/devkitPro/msys/home/MarzSyndrome/scummvm/backends/platform/ds/arm7/source/main.cpp:588: error: 'SOUND_CR' was not declared in this scope
make[2]: *** [main.o] Error 1
make[1]: *** [build] Error 2
make[1]: Leaving directory `/home/MarzSyndrome/scummvm/backends/platform/ds/arm7'
/bin/sh: svn: command not found
make[1]: Entering directory `/home/MarzSyndrome/scummvm/backends/platform/ds/arm9'
makefile:349: warning: overriding commands for target `clean'
/home/MarzSyndrome/scummvm/backends/platform/ds/../../../Makefile.common:73: warning: ignoring old commands for target `clean'
make -C ./scummvm-D -f ../makefile scummvm.nds
/bin/sh: svn: command not found
make[2]: Entering directory `/home/MarzSyndrome/scummvm/backends/platform/ds/arm9/scummvm-D'
../makefile:349: warning: overriding commands for target `clean'
/home/MarzSyndrome/scummvm/backends/platform/ds/../../../Makefile.common:73: warning: ignoring old commands for target `clean'
icons.raw
keyboard.raw
keyboard_pal.raw
default_font.bin
8x8font_tga.raw
arm-eabi-as -mcpu=arm9tdmi -mthumb-interwork /home/MarzSyndrome/scummvm/backends/platform/ds/arm9/source/blitters_arm.s -o /home/MarzSyndrome/scummvm/backends/platform/ds/arm9/source/blitters_arm.o
mkdir -p /home/MarzSyndrome/scummvm/backends/platform/ds/arm9/source/.depsarm-eabi-g++ -Wp,-MMD,"/home/MarzSyndrome/scummvm/backends/platform/ds/arm9/source/.deps/cdaudio.d",-MQ,"/home/MarzSyndrome/scummvm/backends/platform/ds/arm9/source/cdaudio.o",-MP  -Os -mthumb -Wno-multichar -Wall -Wno-multichar -mcpu=arm9tdmi -mtune=arm9tdmi -mcpu=arm9tdmi -mtune=arm9tdmi -fomit-frame-pointer -mthumb-interwork -DUSE_ARM_COSTUME_ASM=1 -Wno-non-virtual-dtor -Wno-unknown-pragmas -Wno-reorder -fno-exceptions -fno-rtti -mthumb-interwork -ffunction-sections -fdata-sections -fno-strict-aliasing -DSCUMMVM_SVN_REVISION=\"\" -DDS_NON_SCUMM_BUILD-DDS_BUILD_D -D__DS__ -DNDS -DARM9 -DNONSTANDARD_PORT -DDISABLE_FANCY_THEMES -DVECTOR_RENDERER_FORMAT=1555 -DDISABLE_DOSBOX_OPL -DDISABLE_DEFAULT_SAVEFILEMANAGER -DARM -DREDUCE_MEMORY_USAGE -DENABLE_AGI=STATIC_PLUGIN -DENABLE_CINE=STATIC_PLUGIN -DENABLE_GOB=STATIC_PLUGIN -DDISABLE_SCALERS -I/home/MarzSyndrome/scummvm/backends/platform/ds/arm9/scummvm-D -I/home/MarzSyndrome/scummvm/backends/platform/ds/../../.. -I/home/MarzSyndrome/scummvm/backends/platform/ds/../../../engines -I/home/MarzSyndrome/scummvm/backends/platform/ds/arm9/data -I/home/MarzSyndrome/scummvm/backends/platform/ds/arm9/../commoninclude -I/home/MarzSyndrome/scummvm/backends/platform/ds/arm9/source -I/home/MarzSyndrome/scummvm/backends/platform/ds/arm9/source/mad -I/home/MarzSyndrome/scummvm/backends/platform/ds/arm9/source/libcartreset -I/c/devkitPro/libnds/include -include /home/MarzSyndrome/scummvm/backends/platform/ds/../../../common/scummsys.h -c /home/MarzSyndrome/scummvm/backends/platform/ds/arm9/source/cdaudio.cpp -o /home/MarzSyndrome/scummvm/backends/platform/ds/arm9/source/cdaudio.o
In file included from c:/devkitPro/msys/home/MarzSyndrome/scummvm/backends/platform/ds/arm9/source/dsmain.h:28,
                 from c:/devkitPro/msys/home/MarzSyndrome/scummvm/backends/platform/ds/arm9/source/cdaudio.cpp:26:
c:/devkitPro/msys/home/MarzSyndrome/scummvm/backends/platform/ds/arm9/../commoninclude/NDS/scummvm_ipc.h:41: error: 'TransferSoundData' does not name a type
make[2]: *** [/home/MarzSyndrome/scummvm/backends/platform/ds/arm9/source/cdaudio.o] Error 1
make[2]: Leaving directory `/home/MarzSyndrome/scummvm/backends/platform/ds/arm9/scummvm-D'
make[1]: *** [ndsall] Error 2
make[1]: Leaving directory `/home/MarzSyndrome/scummvm/backends/platform/ds/arm9'
make: *** [all] Error 2

MarzSyndrome@ ~/scummvm/backends/platform/ds
$

It just hurts my poor brain! Compiling builds is not one of my strongest points and I just wish they didn't cause too much hassle. Any had better luck than moi in this sort of department?