[geeks] Q: about"The Sims" game

[David Cantrell]

On Thu, Jun 21, 2001 at 11:02:31AM +0100, Will Mc Donald wrote:
> From: "David Cantrell" <david at cantrell.org.uk>
> 
> > On Thu, Jun 21, 2001 at 09:53:08AM +0100, Will Mc Donald wrote:
> >
> > > www.gamecopyworld.com
> >
> > The cracks on there seem to be of rather dubious quality.  None of them,
> > for instance, could persuade Sim City 3000 to work under Win98 in vmware.
> 
> Really? I haven't used gamecopyworld.com for a while, just dragged it up
> from memory. It's been ages since I've used game cracks anyway, it just
> seems easier to buy them if I want them nowadays.

Oh rest assured, I did buy the game [waves disk and manual around]

> Do the cracks you've tried work OK if you just boot Windows rather than
> running on vmware?

I don't even have any FAT partitions any more, let alone bootable ones :-)
I'm not that bothered, cos I don't play games much.  But I did assume that
the cracks would work by disabling the game's testing for the 'key' CD,
but I suppose it could still be doing the probe and then the crack makes it
ignore the results.

> I've never really used vmware, I've had to help one of our dev guys out with
> some config stuff once or twice and it seems nice but I'm of the opinion
> that if you need more than one OS you're best off with multiple machines.
> Multiple boot and emulation just seems like too much of a pain in the arse.

VMware works really well for the vast majority of apps.  The only exceptions
I've found are games which require the latest and greatest DirectX drivers,
and stuff which requires a 'key' CD - like Sim City 3K and the OED.  My main
use for it is for those few Windows apps I want to use occasionally which
won't run under Wine.  Ami PRO and IE being the two main ones.  It's not
worth having another machine, or wasting a partition, for the amount of use
they get.

I'm also using it to a lesser extent to test stuff.  I run Debian Linux
on my machine, but have VMware virtual machines set up with Redhat,
FreeBSD and BeOS.  One of my long-term projects, incidentally (that's
VERY long term!) is a tool for converting a Redhat machine into a Debian
machine.  VMware is a godsend for this.  Especially the ability to undo
changes on the virtual disk.

Now if only there were a version which would run solely with a terminal,
no X (have it emulate an MDA adapter).  And a Sun version :-)

-- 
David Cantrell | david at cantrell.org.uk | http://www.cantrell.org.uk/david/

      Good advice is always certain to be ignored,
      but that's no reason not to give it            -- Agatha Christie