What's your take on Securom?

[danceswithwands]

Sytem:  Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition V.2002 Service Pack 3, Dell Dimension DM051, Intel(R), Pentium(R) D CPU, 2.80 GHz, 2.79 GHz, 2.00 GB of RAM, RADEON X300 SE 128MB Hyper Memory  - did I forget anything

I have the original Sims2 game, ALL expansion packs, and ALL stuff packs except the new Ikea Stuff (which I am not going to buy).

I have not had any known issues with my system since installing and running these games, eps, sps.  My game runs fine, I put in the disk, it loads, I play.

It doesn't crash (since I did the patch anyways).

NOW- I am not saying that suck-u-rom is good... it just hasn't been an issue for me on this particular computer.

I am almost certain that it did however have something to do with the fatal meltdown of the older pc we had before this one.  

I've been leary of other games too because of all this "stuff" these companies are cramming down our throats...  IE- Portal/The Orange Box... heard of it?

Oh yes- we got all kinds of CRAP installed on our pc- it totally fried our other Dell... we ended up having to buy a new pc.  GRRRR

So- while I don't agree with the way this SecuRom is shoved on us by EA/Maxis.... they aren't the only ones that are sticking lots of un-wanted crud on the games we buy.

As far as "are they going to fix it?"

Don't hold your breath...

I have all the ep's... all of which had "issues" that I had to seek out hacks, mods, and fixes for.

I have all the sp's... all of which had "issues" that I had to seek out hacks, mods, and fixes for.

I am not buying the Ikea one because I'm tired of being the "test dummy".

Besides... what choice do companies have but to try to "secure" their property from theives?

It's a no-brainer... as long as people are stealing the software... there is going to be an effort to secure it.

If a few pc's die along the way... well... that's the price we all have to pay for there being bad-apples in the world I guess.

I won't be doing much whining about any of this though... because I simply cannot imagine "NOT" playing the Sims...

It's kinda like oreos and peanut m&M's...

They make me fat... I don't like being fat... but I'm not gonna stop eating them... LMAO

I feel bad for anyone whose having problems with their computers because of the SecuRom crap.  I guess I've been lucky.

(off to knock on wood...)

[CuriousSimmer]

Securom sucks and EA should be punished for screwing with us. That's my take.

[gali]

I don't have any problem with the Securom - I only have to restart my computer, after surfing, or updating something in any of my files. After that, all works fine, no crashes, no nothing.

[blueeyesangel19]

Everything was fine on my laptop i had up to free time installed on my laptop and then decided to get bon voyage, installed it and played it a couple of times. I use to always leave the disk in the tray as i didn wanna go searching for it each time. Then one day i clicked on the sims desktop icon and it said please insert disk!! it was already in so i ejected it, put it back in and tryed again...got the same message so i went to my computer icon and my cd drive had dissapeared from there! After that nothing would work so i though maybe its a driver issue took the laptop to the pc repair guy who after testing said the drive itself was broke!!(it was a dvd/RW drive) I could not believe it my laptop had to be sent off for three weeks and i also got him to wipe the drive as it was running very slow. I really believe that secuRom on bon voyage did this to my laptop i now only have up to free time installed and never leave the disk in the tray and everything seems ok but im scared to purchase any new eps or even the sims3 which is a bit sad

[AlbinoBambi]

That's not logical at all blueeyesangel, SecuRom is also on Freetime, so since you already had FT installed, there's no way SecuRom on BV could've caused your issues, because it's exactly the same as on FT.

[jamesabrown1]

I agree. The drive was probably damaged in transit. As a matter of course, more to protect the CD itself than the drive, I always remove the CD as soon as I am finished with it to protect both the CD and the drive. Sometimes I remove it as soon as the SIMS load screen starts, right after the EA screen. In any case, so far I've not had any problems with Securom on either my PC, an XP machine, or my laptop, a VISTA machine.

[jamesabrown1]

One thing I forgot. Every once in a rare while I get the please load the original disk instead of a backup message, I just remove the CD and reload it and the problem goes away, or sometimes it persists so I hold the CD by the rim and use my shirt as a buffer/cleaner and then reload the CD and it works. Sometimes we all forget that with a lot of use, the disks get dirty and need a cleaning.

[rockguitardevil]

I have all the games and never had any problems with it same with my friend who also owns all the games. I Run it on my laptop it loads at a decent rate and never crashes or slows down nor does it mess with anything else on the laptop.

[roger9]

Hi rockguitardevil-- it would help other people if you would tell us about your machine, the CPU, RAM & video card & size of hard drive when you have no problems so people buying a new machine would have some idea of what to buy when they are upgrading. roger9.

[Zelia Theb]

Would anyone be able to tell me if this issue is SecuRom related?  I don't remember when this started (as in, with what EP or stuff pack), but I do know that I noticed the problem first while playing the Sims 2.

It's not huge, just annoying.

Now and then, my computer starts up as if it is trying to run a disc (not sure which drive, I have both a CD and DVD drive).  It makes a lot of noise for a few minutes, then quiets down.  At first I was thinking that maybe my computer was getting overheated from playing Sims, and it was just the fan going (even though it really does sound like a disc drive).  But I try to keep my computer in a cooler area with circulation, and I don't leave it on for days and days (I know some people do that; I don't).

It mainly does this when I am playing the Sims (about every 20-30mins when the game is running).  It will continue to do it after I get out of the game.  It won't do it if I haven't played the game in a while (though once in a great great while it will do it, which is why I wasn't certain if it was related to heat and the fan).  But I am more sure that it sounds like one of my disc drives.

Other than that, I don't really have a problem burning anything (I don't have anything fancy, ACID music works okay, WMP works good).  It just irks me that when I put in a CD to burn (for a data CD), it opens up another program (that came with my computer) as a default program now to burn, which it never did before.

I have yet to install FT and AL (Just got them semi-free from trading stuff in at GameStop).  I wanted to do some research on SecuRom first.  Are these problems random, or do you have to have certain system specs to encounter them?

Also, is anyone aware if ACID music, Sonar, or Reason (all music programs) are affected any way by the addition or removal of SecuRom?

Thanks in advance!

[Tenshii~Akari]

I don't think it's SecuRom on that part.  If that happens, Zelia, you should delete the following files, then restart it to see if the game comes up:

Groups.cache
Accessory.cache
cigen.package
ContentRegistry

These are four files in the game that can be easily corrupted, and regenerate after the game runs/closes out.  

[Zelia Theb]

Thanks Tenshii~Akari, I'll try that out!

[roger9]

to Zelia Theb:  My CD drive does what you describe during the Sims2 game after I loaded Bon Voyage. Previously I had everything except stuff pacs up to Seasons & I had no problems. Now, while playing the game, if I take pics & go to 'Storytelling' to label the pics, the SecuROM program thinks I'm stealing something & starts rattling the CD drive.  If I forget to take the BV CD out of the drive at the end of my game play, sometime the SecuROM program starts up if I'm downloading Sims stuff from the net.  Occasionally, the drive goes crazy when I doing things totally unrelated to the Sims. It's the SecuROM program attached to Bon Voyage & everything since then.  I'm sure of it now.  It has nothing to do w. heat or fans.  I have a brand new Quad4 CPU, tons of hard drive space & 2 gigs of RAM.  Recently, I've been experiencing many lock-ups & crashes that I never had w. Seasons.
to Tenshii Akari:  I tried deleteing the Accessory.cache & Groups.cache a couple of times lately before I read your post-- got the info from SimWatch-- & it certainly helps.  I also removed the file 'ContentRegistry' but that one does not regenerate in my game.  Those 3 files are tagged onto the File 'The Sims 2' without a sub-folder.  But-- where or where is 'cigen.package' ?  Thanks for Reading this. Roger9.

[Tenshii~Akari]

The cigen.package would be in the same place as the other files.  That's your Bodyshop's thumbnails cache, which despite it being reserved mainly for that program, can still prevent your game from running if it corrupts.  If it's not there, then it wasn't created/respawned.  The next time you ever decide to run Bodyshop, it'll create that file.  

As for the ContentRegistry not restoring itself... not sure why it isn't, but it should.  It probably does when you open your Buy/Build mode catalogs.  :dontknow:

[PixieDust]

I’m running Windows XP with service pack 2, Athlon AMD processor and  ATI Radon 9250 game card. I normally just leave the disc in the drive.

I have all eps up to Apartment Life and FT, GL, H&M stuff packs. I’ve been running BV for months now and the only problem I’ve had was the dreaded blue screen which I fixed by downsizing my downloads folder.  I just put FT on and have only had hack related issues. I can still burn discs, I use Windows Media Player. I’ve never had a problem with freeze ups or task manager. I do have occasional modem issues, but that has nothing to do with SecuRom it started long before I put BV on.