Denuvo isn't meant to be a long lived protection. It's meant only to protect for the first day of sales so it doesn't get instantly cracked. The problem is the moron developers that, DESPITE WARNINGS, use it in Unity, when Unity can't use Denuvo at all without putting it as an DLL outside of the actual executable. So in many cases it is as simple as just replacing the DLL or make the EXE ignore it (which in some cases has made Denuvo been made useless even before the game was even released).
Denuvo actively hinders game performance and will leave the game to die and be forgotten if it's not cracked before the game is left unplayable by Denuvo's servers dying.
I think you were correct, actually. Static RAM differs from regular dynamic RAM in that it it does not require any refresh cycle to retain its data, and thus does not require power to retain it either. The presence of a battery seems to indicate that they didn't spring for the significantly faster and more expensive SRAM and used cheap and slow DRAM and a cheap battery.
@@briansonof : I'm pretty sure that SRAM also requires a power source. The difference is that SRAM is much faster than DRAM and wwas used for cache memory. SRAM is not the same as EEPROM.
One thing not mentioned is that Nintendo used slow ROMS that are slower then the EPROMs or flash/sram on the market in read access speed. This could detect the game is reading from a source faster then original cartridge rom. Some games would do a timing check and display the lockout message. Btw I would mod my friends cartridges to put a write protect switch on then so his sister couldn’t delete his save games . This was done by toggling the write enable like to the save sram
@@one7decimal2eight Basically the sram chips(and eeprom chips too) will have a Write Enable pin. It's active on low, so if you pull the pin high, it's impossible to write to the chip. The pinning would be specific to the chip used, so you'd also have to look up the datasheet.
@@Hello-ih4rn Sorta how the Playstation classic requires a power mod, since Sony made the usb ports so low powered, to deter people from using fast external media?
@@one7decimal2eight Yes it was many many years ago. It is not too difficult of a mod. You look up the SRAM and there is a pin called Write Enable or (WE) in the diagram. This is typically low or grounded when the machines wants to write data to the SRAM. To make a write protect I cut that pin and connected to the common of a SPDT (Single Pole double throw) toggle switch that tied the WE line to VCC (+5V) though a 10k pull-up and disconnected it from the board. To re-enable the writing, I toggle the switch to the other position that is connected to the board where the cut WE pin originally connected. [Edit] Another mod I did was to make the N64 rumble packs self powered by tying the battery + to the VCC of the controller (also in rumble pack!) though a diode (for some current drop). It worked fine for years and didn't cook my machine. I feel that was a consipiricy to sell batteries jaja. Although with four modded this way it may draw a too much current from the controller +5V rail. Use at your own risk. Some day I should make videos someday as I never published any of my work.
I find Earthbound's anti-piracy method to be among the most clever in gaming, even to this day; Should anyone manage to get past its first lines of defense, it reels them in, increasing the difficulty and taking advantage of the "I'll give it _just_ one more try!" mentality, only to practically tear the game itself out of the player's hands right at the very end.
Over 20 years later, it is so fascinating to me to finally _understand_ why our copiers or region bypasses were seemingly randomly crapping out! Thank you for your continued efforts, behind and now in front of the camera, Lantus.
He even forgot to mention one of the things that can happen! There's also another check in there, that if failed, the entire game gets "drunk camera man syndrome", making it nauseating to look at, as well as extremely difficult
It always surprises me when I hear about how unpopular Earthbound was at launch. I guess the world wasn't ready for a RPG on the SNES that didn't take itself too seriously? Either way, awesome insight on the disk copiers! Any idea how much they would normally sell for back in the day?
MrMario2011 since it had a hefty player guide packed in, it sold for $79.99, $20 more expensive than other snes games. Customers just didn’t like it up when they could get something similar for 25% less the price
I feel bad for the people who bought earthbound and for one reason or another it got broken or they gave it away, and then they go back to play the game and realize that it's really expensive
It was hard to market, not being a high fantasy RPG, nor by the books sci-fi. The first two System Shock games suffered the same fate, as did Soma, off the top of my head. This happened to games, movies, and music (until 2005, maybe) all the time. It still happens with movies, but the industry doesn't control knowledge and hype for music and video games, like they used to.
Ahhh that was my first ever console. But I was a newb kid at the time so had no idea about that disk drive. I had to settle for Killer Instinct, Street Fighter 2, and a WWF game. Mainly I wanted it so I didn't have to go to the arcade and pay 40c to play street fighter 2 anymore.
I feel bad for any kids who, by no fault of their own, got a bootleg Earthbound cartridge. This method didn't really stop bootleggers from selling a pirated copy of the game, it just fucked with the end user..
yea but it wouldn't affect me that much. in fact i have dozens of games which i quit playing on the final boss, not because it's too hard or anything, i just feel the game's over at that point. just shoot it/solve puzzle, watch a cliche victory cutscene and that's it, game over.
@@whenyournameisduoduos1282 It is the journey that matters, my boy. Not the destination. besides, it's just a matter of depleting a slightly longer health bar while listening to variations of "die!" and "noooo!"... maybe fun for the first 10 times, later it just becomes dull.
I'm really enjoying these piracy / protection themed episodes. Love the ATX trainer, they were a big influence in the console scene in Australia at the time.
Love these videos about anti piracy on different machines. It's really interesting seeing how limited resources were used in crafty ways, some of them designed specifically to be annoying. It's great.
Puggsy on the Sega Mega Drive used a similar technique. The game used passwords instead of SRAM, so if it detected any SRAM it knew it was a copy and locked out after the first few levels. I think it's quite a nice touch that the game essentially reduced itself to a demo rather than failing to boot entirely.
In Canada in early 90s carts were 80 to 130 . disks were a couple of bucks. Most games were dumped on to 1 or 2 floppies. Most mine came from warez BBS. So games were patched some had in game trainers and cracktros. There was 1 guy used to sell a CDR with 500 games for hundred bucks. From his 1 or 2x SCSI burner. Blank CDs then were 20 bucks each
Fascinating videos, I grew up all these consoles so it fun to see the stuff that was going on behind the scenes as a kid I never had access to any of these disc copiers :)
hey man, i just wanted to thank you for your great videos! As a console portablizer/modder I learned a lot about some consoles and it's always nice to dive a little deeper. All your videos are very informative and at the same time entertaining. please keep it up!
He's just discussing some of the protection methods, not how they were defeated. That different focus probably explains why. (He can't help himself: he talks about that, but it's not the focus of the video.)
Well it actually wasn’t a mistake but an oversight of the hardware or software developer to secure their game or system, now i wonder how nintendo was able to run donkeykong country 2 ,kirby’s dream course and earth baud on their snes classic mini since it is not real hardware,i wonder if they had to crack their own 3 games or somehow adjust their emulator for those games to make them work on their snes classic mini??? I ask this because those 3 mentioned games are extremly secured!!!
@@johneygd I suppose it's a question of semantics, but an oversight is arguably a mistake. If you don't see something you should have because you overlooked it ("committed an oversight") you made a mistake of omission. Since they were intending to prevent unauthorized use of their software/hardware and failed, you could say that mistakes were made. On the other hand, it's also possible to say that some methods of defeating protection are impossible to predict, therefore absolving anyone of making mistakes, since completely unforeseeable circumstances don't count as mistakes. However, I don't think that any copy protection scheme makes the methods of defeating it unpredictable, so I don't think this topic qualifies for this defense.
Thank you so much for this video! For years me and my friend would be confused when his Killer Instinct cartridge would occasionally accuse his SNES of being an illegal copying device even though it was a standard unmodded console. I now believe slightly dusty pins were triggering the protection.
What i found really funny is that those first copier units drained the power from the snes cartride itself to run it, but later revisions of the the snes reduced or blocket out that voltage pin on the cartride to render those early copier units to be useless, this would,ve surely added alot of confusion among piracy copiers haha , that’s why later copier units used their own power supply!!!
Pretty sure he has already. Can't find now but I do remember him doing a video on 3ds hacking. Maybe it got removed? Or maybe I'm thinking of someone else?
You forgot about the SA-1 chip which had the CIC included. This prevented people from just disabling the CIC in the console to be region free.Also pretty much any extra chip might be considered a kind of anti-piracy as well.
oh man, by looking at the comments, I came to the conclusion that he will need to make an extra video about the other solutions that he missed. I would still totally watch it.
The Wii U Firmware is still being updated to keep Pirates, hackers & custom Firmware at bay and ban their console for it., Current version is 5.5.3. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wii_U_system_software 3DS is the same story. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nintendo_3DS_system_software Sadly that Nintendo just won't give up and let the hackers win
@@madden8021 Nintendo's last real security update on Wii U was 5.5.2, .3 and .4 are just BS legal things. 5.5.2 came out over a year ago now, and *that* was primarily an update to shutdown Miiverse - the last security update before that was 5.5.0 in 2015. 5.5.3: yls8.mtheall.com/ninupdates/titlelist.php?date=09-03-18_08-00-36&sys=wup 5.5.4: yls8.mtheall.com/ninupdates/titlelist.php?date=06-24-19_08-00-38&sys=wup Notice how there was no change to OSv10 or the Internet Browser, which is what we'd expect for a homebrew-stopping update.
Ash Yeah, they’ve focused their efforts on the Switch (for which old BootROMs have been hacked, so all versions are “hackable” in vulnerable consoles), banning people with homebrew.
Earthbound was evil. We couldn't complete it on a European console even with the Genuine original game. FF3/6 Didn't appear to have a region check but had a timing issue ( not sure if it was intentional or not ) on pal consoles at 50Hz and in a town or dungeon you couldn't look at the menu and the ending crashed. The only good option back in those days for us in Europe was too mod our consoles to 50/60Hz with a switch ( modern flat screen TV don't seem to like the slightly off spec 60Hz signal ) or get a US/Jap Console if we had a TV that would support RGB scart and 60Hz, With US and Jap Consoles you could get a PAL booster box would make the signal Colour And 60Hz ( pal consoles outputted pal 60 and didn't require this ) but this doesn't work for every TV, though a few rare TV's would accept a raw NTSC 60Hz signal!! I personally got a US console in the end and used RGB scart back in the day.
I love these anti piracy videos! Keep it up! Its so interesting to think back at how Nintendo thought of creative ways to combat pirates, even in the 1990s
Another ace tech-dive! I really like that you actually proof using your programming skills that your theories are true. The only thing that disturbs me a bit is the amount of editing / cutting up in the parts were you film yourself taking. Why not record a piece again if you made an error or such? It would make the production quality even higher. But still, you are a legend.
Earthbound developers knew how creepy the Giygas music is, so having the game lock up and continue the music on purpose would certainly keep hackers from ever pirating again.
Wow, you just blew my mind showing an Anthrox intro screen - I knew those guys TWK, Paninaro ( looks like the original release was from TRSI, and Anthrox released the trainer ) This was my era. I ran a few BBS' in the c64 Amiga, and Console scene days. I still have a double profighter in my collection of game hardware.
Anti-piracy/anti-archiving (truly the latter), is just one of those things, like so many others, that got worse over time. Fact is, nowadays, all anti-piracy does is ensures that those that paid for the software are inundated with absolute nonsense whilst those that hack the nonsense out, use the software without issue. So, why does anti-piracy still exist? I. Have. NO. CLUE. I can only speculate, and I absolutely do not feel like speculating.
I absolutely agree here. The paying customers are treated like cattle, while the pirates are laughing at them around the forums... Pretty pathetic times...
Anti Piracy and anti archiving are entirely different though. It's archiving if you're talking about a game that's been out for a long time and is no longer available on the market. Whereas anti piracy is stopping people from trying to downloadv or get access to a recently released game. With archiving the developers aren't losing any money but with piracy they are. They're entirely different things.
I love your videos so god damn much man. I could never make sense of this shit, and I know I'm not the only one. Many people love/appreciate this. I'm a Patreon member for a reason, because you do great work. I get so happy when there's a new vid. Keep it up!!
I remember multible games on the PS1 which would really be buggy when being burned. Like Spyro 2, which will never stop loading when you enter a level gate! That are the most toxic piracy protaction!
Was it Spyro 1 or Spyro 2 where the team that finally defeated the copy prevention gave kudos to the game programmers because it was so challenging to patch?
Art Strutzenberg I thought that was Spyro 3, which also pulled the EarthBound “final boss save wipe”. In the end, they just found the “master off switch” for that copy protection, since the devs were on a strict deadline they had the anti-piracy on a compile time switch.
Very interesting, i remember having my PAL SNES, with a plug in where i put a PAL game in the back bit and USA cartridge in the top section and it let me play it. Got to play some great games that were not released in Aus
That makes me wonder: some 20 years ago I played "Secret of Evermore" (a truely great game) on snes9x for all summer holidays. I nearly made it through: close to the end you need to board some flying machine that should quickly bring you to important places on the map. After entering that flying machine I could fly around but I could never land anywhere, anymore. Back than I thought it was some bug because of the emulation, but now I wonder if it was a truely ingenious copy protection scheme. I should try to find my old backup and check that out :)
@@TsubakiOnYT sadly not yet. I currently work abroad and was not able to fly home during the last months due to COVID 19. Did you meet similar problems in the game?
Wow, I knew about the Giygas event, but that's pretty crazy to me they modified enemy AI and encounter rates if piracy was detected. Very interesting stuff.
More games have pulled similar shit like this. Batman: Arkham Asylum makes your cape stop working in crucial bits where you need it on pirated copies, making the game unplayable.
Allegedly, age and wear can actually cause original, legit Earthbound cartridges to run elements of the anti-piracy code, too, or even the whole shebang.
Thank you for sharing your in depth knowledge and wisdom on the intricacies of these older systems. Playing the games as a kid was half the fun. Getting to learn about the innards decades after the fact is easily the other half.
Another fantastic video! Always fascinated by these old protection schemes. It was particularly interesting to see you use the emulator there to re-create some of these.
Amazing video as always. I didn't know about the Anti Piracy measures in DKC. I have a Game Doctor SF7 and DKC worked without issue on it. I wonder if copiers got better firmware later in the systems life
Do you remember making a backup though or did u acquire the disk. I had a copier too pretty sure doc worked fine on mine but I got mine of a school friend in like 96 97 when he was on ps4 for like 50quid with 60 disks. A lot had trainers on crack intros so maybe you had a dodgy copy or your copier was firmware updated/newer. Wish I still had mine ended up getting put in bin when I moved out parents -sadface
@@brainbeatuk Dude, I made a back up as I was watching the video to see if it worked, I've owned DKC for years but acquired the Game Doctor SF7 for a friend only a few months ago.
@@16bitreview ah sound . I guess it's just a later copier then. The hackers are always one step ahead. They would know there code could be read in memory ect. Sorry I'm a scruffy writer lol dyspraxia mild but it's really cos I'm lazy n high
Later revisions of the MGD BIOS would incorporate anti-SRAM checks. You probably have a later revision. You could also get past all of those checks with Gold Finger codes, and of course, the mentioned IPS cracks.
This really was fascinating! About 10 years ago, before I got married, I owned a copy of Dk Country 2, so i got a rom myself and tried to play it, since I was not owning a SNES anymore. before end of first level, there was: a cut, the end was not visible. Thought, the rom was corrupted, but now I know better. Thank you very much for that explanation!
I am surprised that all the games with various extra processing chips like the DSP line, SuperFX, et cetera aren't listed as a sort of anti-piracy measure in themselves
I remember playing DSP games like mario kart on the Super Wildcard, i assume a donor DSP was added to the unit. They were designed before the FX/SA1 craze so at that time they ran anything.
Yeah, all DSP 1.0 - 2.0 was played right away with a DSP 2.0 cart in the slot of the copier. The Pro Fighter even had a cheap DSP add-on which you could buy. Super FX, SA-1, etc roms could still be perfectly dumped, so it wasn't techically a copy protection. More of a playing issue. (The Super Wild Card / DX2 copier also required a quick bridging of one of the expanded pin connectors in order to dump or play many of the expansion chip games).
@@videogameobsession So how do you play Super Mario RPG? Do you gotta buy a game that uses the SA-1 chip into the cartridge slot or could you take apart the Super Mario RPG cartridge and mod/solder the chip into the copier's main board? I'm quite curious to how you bypass it!
No, simply having a game in the copier slot wouldn't work. The DSP games work because of how they are used in conjunction with the roms. It's more of an add-on solution, where as SA-1, FX, and others are more deeply integrated with the enhancement chips. Ways to play without the original cart would include using an SD2SNES flashcart, emulator, swapping roms with a donor board.
Man, I love how you talk about such things. I never thought I could learn anything new about videogame nerdom, but you thought me a few lessons already.
Modern Vintage Gamer AFAIK, Megaman X caused random issues like missing/corrupt level segments and the game suddenly resetting (You are thrown back to the introduction level, lose all x upgrades but keep all heart and tank upgrades.) Its effective (Or paranoid) enough even some bootleg (And authentic, much rarer) copies of Megaman X (Rockman X) trips the anti piracy check.
You won't stop a hacker from hacking. Keep up with your DLC based microtransaction games. But for older games I guess it's just the sake thereof. Great vid btw!
An interesting tidbit: The contents of the SNES' system RAM are effectively random on boot. As a result, some of the anti-piracy test layers can output false positives, such as the reset vector test or other RAM tests that check for known 'fingerprints' left by copying devices. Some of the games that used these layers (I know of DKC2 and DKC3 specifically) also contain a separate error message that is displayed on boot first before throwing the main copyright error message, just in case the user isn't actually using a copy device. The DKC ones state: "An irregularity has been detected. Please turn the power off, wait 10 seconds, then turn the power on again." The main system RAM retains its contents for a few seconds after being powered off, so by the time the user has waited 10 seconds, the RAM checks can run again to make sure that a copy device is actually being used. How did the game know the system had been powered on again after catching a potential error the first time? That's where the "A thief!" string shown in the SRAM contents comes in. Normally, that string contains "Rareware" or a similar validation string. If that string instead contains "A thief!" in DKC2 or "(c) 1996" in DKC3 and the RAM tests fail, the anti-piracy message is shown. Pretty cool stuff. The Earthbound anti-piracy layers are just devious though. I know of a few modern games that have done similar things to would be pirates or cheaters. Side note: "An irregularity has been detected" being shown on screen with DKC3's boss battle music playing is far scarier than any other typical "an error has occurred" message anywhere else. See this video for the audio: th-cam.com/video/4gfMIvAy-bM/w-d-xo.html
I remember getting an anti copying message from Super Metroid when trying to use certain Game Genii codes on it. I was like, "WTF? I'm not trying to copy anything, I just want to have certain items early!" While I don't know much about the technical side of things, I'm assuming that the code must've messed with the ram size and caused the copy protection to kick in, given both your explanation here and what little I know about cheat devices. Well, now I finally understand what was going on.
I LOVE your channel. It's very informative and you break things down so well so that someone like me, who knows nothing about programming can easily understand and follow along.
This Anti-Piracy method is better than Denuvo
denuvo is so bad
Fawzan Fawzi Denuvo is a legitimate detriment to all actual buyers of the games it’s implemented in
Better than the Xbox 360 security at least
Denuvo isn't meant to be a long lived protection. It's meant only to protect for the first day of sales so it doesn't get instantly cracked. The problem is the moron developers that, DESPITE WARNINGS, use it in Unity, when Unity can't use Denuvo at all without putting it as an DLL outside of the actual executable. So in many cases it is as simple as just replacing the DLL or make the EXE ignore it (which in some cases has made Denuvo been made useless even before the game was even released).
Denuvo actively hinders game performance and will leave the game to die and be forgotten if it's not cracked before the game is left unplayable by Denuvo's servers dying.
The best ones are the ones that say "You can play, but you won't have fun."
So EA thinks everyone is a Pirate?
Captain Joey
My favorite one of those is spyro, game gets more and more broken the longer you play
@@Awelbeckk I can see people getting a copy to play so they get a super hard mode
worst*
@@atomicwiththreeos My personal favorite anti-piracy by far. Especially when the game erases your data at the final boss
Corrections : yes i know SRAM is Static RAM and not "Save RAM" ,i also said 'A Pirate' when it was 'A Thief'at 6:24 . #MistakesWereMade
Technically, pirates and thieves are the exact same so who gives a shit.
@@Egghead012 :
Pirates live on boats.
I think you were correct, actually. Static RAM differs from regular dynamic RAM in that it it does not require any refresh cycle to retain its data, and thus does not require power to retain it either. The presence of a battery seems to indicate that they didn't spring for the significantly faster and more expensive SRAM and used cheap and slow DRAM and a cheap battery.
@@briansonof :
I'm pretty sure that SRAM also requires a power source. The difference is that SRAM is much faster than DRAM and wwas used for cache memory.
SRAM is not the same as EEPROM.
@@Egghead012 Pirates live on boats.
One thing not mentioned is that Nintendo used slow ROMS that are slower then the EPROMs or flash/sram on the market in read access speed. This could detect the game is reading from a source faster then original cartridge rom.
Some games would do a timing check and display the lockout message.
Btw I would mod my friends cartridges to put a write protect switch on then so his sister couldn’t delete his save games . This was done by toggling the write enable like to the save sram
With great power comes great responsibility
When did you do this? Back in the day? Make a video on how you did that. Never heard of that before.
@@one7decimal2eight Basically the sram chips(and eeprom chips too) will have a Write Enable pin. It's active on low, so if you pull the pin high, it's impossible to write to the chip. The pinning would be specific to the chip used, so you'd also have to look up the datasheet.
@@Hello-ih4rn Sorta how the Playstation classic requires a power mod, since Sony made the usb ports so low powered, to deter people from using fast external media?
@@one7decimal2eight Yes it was many many years ago. It is not too difficult of a mod. You look up the SRAM and there is a pin called Write Enable or (WE) in the diagram. This is typically low or grounded when the machines wants to write data to the SRAM. To make a write protect I cut that pin and connected to the common of a SPDT (Single Pole double throw) toggle switch that tied the WE line to VCC (+5V) though a 10k pull-up and disconnected it from the board. To re-enable the writing, I toggle the switch to the other position that is connected to the board where the cut WE pin originally connected.
[Edit]
Another mod I did was to make the N64 rumble packs self powered by tying the battery + to the VCC of the controller (also in rumble pack!) though a diode (for some current drop). It worked fine for years and didn't cook my machine. I feel that was a consipiricy to sell batteries jaja. Although with four modded this way it may draw a too much current from the controller +5V rail. Use at your own risk.
Some day I should make videos someday as I never published any of my work.
Imagine the game crashes at final boss, saves gone, phone rings..
some random Nintendo employee yelling at you in Japanese :)
Lol!
Could've been the plot to an "Are you afraid of the Dark" episode.
*That's exactly why I play Earthbound on the original cartridge.*
*Nani?!*
Me: *laughs in snes mini*
DKC 2, a game about fighting an army of pirates, will flat-out call YOU a pirate if you try to play it illegally.
Very clever, Rare.
6:22 Actually, it says "A thief!"
But yeah... xD
all it needs now is this th-cam.com/video/PcTJ_pdolH8/w-d-xo.html lol
what can i say exept YARRGH HARRR HARRR
I find Earthbound's anti-piracy method to be among the most clever in gaming, even to this day; Should anyone manage to get past its first lines of defense, it reels them in, increasing the difficulty and taking advantage of the "I'll give it _just_ one more try!" mentality, only to practically tear the game itself out of the player's hands right at the very end.
Over 20 years later, it is so fascinating to me to finally _understand_ why our copiers or region bypasses were seemingly randomly crapping out! Thank you for your continued efforts, behind and now in front of the camera, Lantus.
Oof, that Earthbound anti-piracy is nasty.
“This” anti-piracy “stinks.”
It's like the famous Spyro anti-piracy thing.
Like your mom
He even forgot to mention one of the things that can happen! There's also another check in there, that if failed, the entire game gets "drunk camera man syndrome", making it nauseating to look at, as well as extremely difficult
@@fiend-off-the-grid like GTA4?
It always surprises me when I hear about how unpopular Earthbound was at launch. I guess the world wasn't ready for a RPG on the SNES that didn't take itself too seriously? Either way, awesome insight on the disk copiers! Any idea how much they would normally sell for back in the day?
MrMario2011 since it had a hefty player guide packed in, it sold for $79.99, $20 more expensive than other snes games. Customers just didn’t like it up when they could get something similar for 25% less the price
maybe they had a fake copy and thought the game was poorly balanced, that would be ironic
Exactly ONE group of people think Earthbound is all that: Earthbound's fanbase.
I feel bad for the people who bought earthbound and for one reason or another it got broken or they gave it away, and then they go back to play the game and realize that it's really expensive
It was hard to market, not being a high fantasy RPG, nor by the books sci-fi. The first two System Shock games suffered the same fate, as did Soma, off the top of my head. This happened to games, movies, and music (until 2005, maybe) all the time. It still happens with movies, but the industry doesn't control knowledge and hype for music and video games, like they used to.
Ahhh that was my first ever console. But I was a newb kid at the time so had no idea about that disk drive. I had to settle for Killer Instinct, Street Fighter 2, and a WWF game. Mainly I wanted it so I didn't have to go to the arcade and pay 40c to play street fighter 2 anymore.
First reply.
Gotta love how earthbound’s anti piracy screen only shows up right before the final form of the final fight
I feel bad for any kids who, by no fault of their own, got a bootleg Earthbound cartridge. This method didn't really stop bootleggers from selling a pirated copy of the game, it just fucked with the end user..
yea but it wouldn't affect me that much. in fact i have dozens of games which i quit playing on the final boss, not because it's too hard or anything, i just feel the game's over at that point. just shoot it/solve puzzle, watch a cliche victory cutscene and that's it, game over.
@@overmind06 Has to be the dumbest shit I've ever hear... Who TF gets to an end boss and considers the game done before beating it? FFS
@@whenyournameisduoduos1282 It is the journey that matters, my boy. Not the destination.
besides, it's just a matter of depleting a slightly longer health bar while listening to variations of "die!" and "noooo!"... maybe fun for the first 10 times, later it just becomes dull.
Nintendo: Pirates are just as bad as Giygas!
I'm really enjoying these piracy / protection themed episodes. Love the ATX trainer, they were a big influence in the console scene in Australia at the time.
Love these videos about anti piracy on different machines. It's really interesting seeing how limited resources were used in crafty ways, some of them designed specifically to be annoying. It's great.
Puggsy on the Sega Mega Drive used a similar technique. The game used passwords instead of SRAM, so if it detected any SRAM it knew it was a copy and locked out after the first few levels. I think it's quite a nice touch that the game essentially reduced itself to a demo rather than failing to boot entirely.
Now go and play a cartrige version of this game rather than this silly copy.
Or just disable SRAM in your emulator. Easy peasy.
Wow, I had no idea disc copiers for cartridge games existed. That's quite fascinating!
That's how we got all those old roms available online. Every console has had it's games copied and played.
I didn't knew it either
I had mgh dual copier genesis/SNES . people in warez scene knew about them
Nintendo games cost 50 or 60 dollars in the late 80s, that would be like games costing 120 dollars today. Hell yeah people were going to find a way.
In Canada in early 90s carts were 80 to 130 . disks were a couple of bucks. Most games were dumped on to 1 or 2 floppies. Most mine came from warez BBS. So games were patched some had in game trainers and cracktros. There was 1 guy used to sell a CDR with 500 games for hundred bucks. From his 1 or 2x SCSI burner. Blank CDs then were 20 bucks each
Mannnn I have no idea wtf you were talking about in half this video, but slick production, love your vids keep up the good work.
Fascinating videos, I grew up all these consoles so it fun to see the stuff that was going on behind the scenes as a kid I never had access to any of these disc copiers :)
Every single episode of this series exceeds expectations! Super informative an well made, thank you as always!
MVG & anti-piracy vid = auto like from me
MVG + anti piracy = instant sub and like + extra respect
I love videos like these - My first console was a PS1, so SNES was basically something I only experienced through emulators later in life.
Does anyone else find the anti-piracy messages that appear on copy protected games a little unsettling and creepy?
I feel like it's the same kinda thing as say emergency broadcast messages on tv, just the feeling of something unexpected and foreboding
I agree with both of you!
The Sonic CD one is quite unnerving
No. You're irrationally unnerved.
They shouldn't be any other way. You're illegally pirating something, you deserve to be scared imo
I absolutely love these episodes on anti-piracy :)
MVG your channel is like fine wine! It only gets better with age!
Loving these Anti-Piracy videos :) Keep them coming.
hey man, i just wanted to thank you for your great videos! As a console portablizer/modder I learned a lot about some consoles and it's always nice to dive a little deeper. All your videos are very informative and at the same time entertaining. please keep it up!
Well, this must be good as it doesn't say "MISTAKES WERE MADE" ;)
Mistakes were made in the writing of the video description.
He's just discussing some of the protection methods, not how they were defeated. That different focus probably explains why. (He can't help himself: he talks about that, but it's not the focus of the video.)
But the video did not start with "The original Xbox..."
Well it actually wasn’t a mistake but an oversight of the hardware or software developer to secure their game or system, now i wonder how nintendo was able to run donkeykong country 2 ,kirby’s dream course and earth baud on their snes classic mini since it is not real hardware,i wonder if they had to crack their own 3 games or somehow adjust their emulator for those games to make them work on their snes classic mini???
I ask this because those 3 mentioned games are extremly secured!!!
@@johneygd I suppose it's a question of semantics, but an oversight is arguably a mistake. If you don't see something you should have because you overlooked it ("committed an oversight") you made a mistake of omission. Since they were intending to prevent unauthorized use of their software/hardware and failed, you could say that mistakes were made.
On the other hand, it's also possible to say that some methods of defeating protection are impossible to predict, therefore absolving anyone of making mistakes, since completely unforeseeable circumstances don't count as mistakes. However, I don't think that any copy protection scheme makes the methods of defeating it unpredictable, so I don't think this topic qualifies for this defense.
You do the best documentaries for the modding community. You truly are a legend !
"It took over 20 years to be cracked"
*Laughs in Pegasus*
I just love MVG's videos summarizing how consoles from when I was growing up were hacked. You gain so much respect for the hackers.
Great work as always. Love your videos, mate.
Thank you so much for this video! For years me and my friend would be confused when his Killer Instinct cartridge would occasionally accuse his SNES of being an illegal copying device even though it was a standard unmodded console. I now believe slightly dusty pins were triggering the protection.
The copiers were only wide spread in asia, importing things to the us was much harder then.
What i found really funny is that those first copier units drained the power from the snes cartride itself to run it, but later revisions of the the snes reduced or blocket out that voltage pin on the cartride to render those early copier units to be useless, this would,ve surely added alot of confusion among piracy copiers haha , that’s why later copier units used their own power supply!!!
I saw a couple second hand for £300-400 back in the snes heyday. Not affordable by any means.
Is it you lik sang is it me.
I have no idea with all the technical jargon but I really appreciate all the research and the information that you provided.
4:05 SRAM stands for Static random access memory
I'm a recent subscriber, and you've quickly become my favorite channel. Thanks, and keep up the great work!
Please do something like the 3DS hacking scene or anti piracy!
Nintendo will attack
Hacking scene
They would have to be bitchute exclusive
id love to see that too cause the 3ds had some interesting ways of being cracked and patched as well
Pretty sure he has already. Can't find now but I do remember him doing a video on 3ds hacking. Maybe it got removed? Or maybe I'm thinking of someone else?
As a 90's kid, I literally only knew one person that had one of these SNES copying things.
Did know about earthbound not with DKC.
Thanks for sharing another great video !
+1 for being able to compile c++ code mate - nicely done
You forgot about the SA-1 chip which had the CIC included. This prevented people from just disabling the CIC in the console to be region free.Also pretty much any extra chip might be considered a kind of anti-piracy as well.
oh man, by looking at the comments, I came to the conclusion that he will need to make an extra video about the other solutions that he missed.
I would still totally watch it.
In the last weeks, the videos you been putting out has captured my attention almost every time! Nicely done MVG
Please do one on Wii and Wii U and on how their security failed 😀
wait, the wii had security?
I believe the video got censored by Nintendo and he had to take it off, but I'm pretty sure he already covered the subject
The Wii U Firmware is still being updated to keep Pirates, hackers & custom Firmware at bay and ban their console for it., Current version is 5.5.3. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wii_U_system_software
3DS is the same story. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nintendo_3DS_system_software
Sadly that Nintendo just won't give up and let the hackers win
@@madden8021 Nintendo's last real security update on Wii U was 5.5.2, .3 and .4 are just BS legal things. 5.5.2 came out over a year ago now, and *that* was primarily an update to shutdown Miiverse - the last security update before that was 5.5.0 in 2015.
5.5.3: yls8.mtheall.com/ninupdates/titlelist.php?date=09-03-18_08-00-36&sys=wup
5.5.4: yls8.mtheall.com/ninupdates/titlelist.php?date=06-24-19_08-00-38&sys=wup
Notice how there was no change to OSv10 or the Internet Browser, which is what we'd expect for a homebrew-stopping update.
Ash Yeah, they’ve focused their efforts on the Switch (for which old BootROMs have been hacked, so all versions are “hackable” in vulnerable consoles), banning people with homebrew.
Your videos recently came across my feed and I can't get enough. Keep up the great work.
Earthbound was evil. We couldn't complete it on a European console even with the Genuine original game.
FF3/6 Didn't appear to have a region check but had a timing issue ( not sure if it was intentional or not ) on pal consoles at 50Hz and in a town or dungeon you couldn't look at the menu and the ending crashed.
The only good option back in those days for us in Europe was too mod our consoles to 50/60Hz with a switch ( modern flat screen TV don't seem to like the slightly off spec 60Hz signal ) or get a US/Jap Console if we had a TV that would support RGB scart and 60Hz, With US and Jap Consoles you could get a PAL booster box would make the signal Colour And 60Hz ( pal consoles outputted pal 60 and didn't require this ) but this doesn't work for every TV, though a few rare TV's would accept a raw NTSC 60Hz signal!! I personally got a US console in the end and used RGB scart back in the day.
That's what you get for being a pc region majority users since the 80's
I love these anti piracy videos! Keep it up! Its so interesting to think back at how Nintendo thought of creative ways to combat pirates, even in the 1990s
Its crazy that Nintendo managed to have better anti-piracy measures than most DRM services these days have. Great video as always, MVG!
Another ace tech-dive! I really like that you actually proof using your programming skills that your theories are true.
The only thing that disturbs me a bit is the amount of editing / cutting up in the parts were you film yourself taking. Why not record a piece again if you made an error or such? It would make the production quality even higher.
But still, you are a legend.
Earthbound developers knew how creepy the Giygas music is, so having the game lock up and continue the music on purpose would certainly keep hackers from ever pirating again.
This channel has been constant for YEARS
Love your anti-piracy videos, keep up the good work!
Wow, you just blew my mind showing an Anthrox intro screen - I knew those guys TWK, Paninaro ( looks like the original release was from TRSI, and Anthrox released the trainer ) This was my era. I ran a few BBS' in the c64 Amiga, and Console scene days. I still have a double profighter in my collection of game hardware.
Anti-piracy/anti-archiving (truly the latter), is just one of those things, like so many others, that got worse over time. Fact is, nowadays, all anti-piracy does is ensures that those that paid for the software are inundated with absolute nonsense whilst those that hack the nonsense out, use the software without issue.
So, why does anti-piracy still exist? I. Have. NO. CLUE. I can only speculate, and I absolutely do not feel like speculating.
I absolutely agree here. The paying customers are treated like cattle, while the pirates are laughing at them around the forums...
Pretty pathetic times...
Ok salty pirate
Anti Piracy and anti archiving are entirely different though. It's archiving if you're talking about a game that's been out for a long time and is no longer available on the market. Whereas anti piracy is stopping people from trying to downloadv or get access to a recently released game. With archiving the developers aren't losing any money but with piracy they are. They're entirely different things.
@@ragreenburg does GBA and NdS count as archive software now? I wanna play them
@@AhnafAbdullah It does because no one is making money off of it aside from the people on eBay selling it. Go for it, fam.
I love your videos so god damn much man. I could never make sense of this shit, and I know I'm not the only one. Many people love/appreciate this. I'm a Patreon member for a reason, because you do great work. I get so happy when there's a new vid. Keep it up!!
I remember multible games on the PS1 which would really be buggy when being burned. Like Spyro 2, which will never stop loading when you enter a level gate! That are the most toxic piracy protaction!
Was it Spyro 1 or Spyro 2 where the team that finally defeated the copy prevention gave kudos to the game programmers because it was so challenging to patch?
Art Strutzenberg I thought that was Spyro 3, which also pulled the EarthBound “final boss save wipe”. In the end, they just found the “master off switch” for that copy protection, since the devs were on a strict deadline they had the anti-piracy on a compile time switch.
Really interesting video. Love the cat and mouse aspect of companies and hackers trying to keep up with each other.
Very interesting, i remember having my PAL SNES, with a plug in where i put a PAL game in the back bit and USA cartridge in the top section and it let me play it. Got to play some great games that were not released in Aus
Your videos are always worth waiting for. It's been a long time since I've felt that way towards a youtube video
That makes me wonder: some 20 years ago I played "Secret of Evermore" (a truely great game) on snes9x for all summer holidays. I nearly made it through: close to the end you need to board some flying machine that should quickly bring you to important places on the map.
After entering that flying machine I could fly around but I could never land anywhere, anymore. Back than I thought it was some bug because of the emulation, but now I wonder if it was a truely ingenious copy protection scheme. I should try to find my old backup and check that out :)
@@TsubakiOnYT sadly not yet. I currently work abroad and was not able to fly home during the last months due to COVID 19. Did you meet similar problems in the game?
I love these videos. I wish they were longer. It's so interesting learning about all the different protection methods and how they were beaten!
Wow, I knew about the Giygas event, but that's pretty crazy to me they modified enemy AI and encounter rates if piracy was detected. Very interesting stuff.
More games have pulled similar shit like this. Batman: Arkham Asylum makes your cape stop working in crucial bits where you need it on pirated copies, making the game unplayable.
Allegedly, age and wear can actually cause original, legit Earthbound cartridges to run elements of the anti-piracy code, too, or even the whole shebang.
Thank you for sharing your in depth knowledge and wisdom on the intricacies of these older systems. Playing the games as a kid was half the fun. Getting to learn about the innards decades after the fact is easily the other half.
9:35
That's scarily similar to the Spyro 3 Anti-Piracy method.
Master Matthew I believe Spyro 3 was somewhat inspired by EarthBound in that regard.
You have some of the most interesting videos on TH-cam. Please keep them coming!
My Pro Action Replay routinely triggered these messages for DKC. Also caused crazy stuff to happen in Mega Man 7!
C'mon Saitama, this needed a "MISTAKES WERE MADE" (by the pirates). Awesome video as always, kudos. You're the best.
“Save RAM” is a misnomer.
It’s technically “Static RAM”.
No SNES game employing SRAM uses less than 16kbit, so DKC is not 8kbit.
Another fantastic video! Always fascinated by these old protection schemes. It was particularly interesting to see you use the emulator there to re-create some of these.
Ah, another MVG video. Perfect. Time to grab a beer and sausages and relax.
I really enjoy these DRM based videos. Thanks for doing them!
Amazing video as always. I didn't know about the Anti Piracy measures in DKC. I have a Game Doctor SF7 and DKC worked without issue on it. I wonder if copiers got better firmware later in the systems life
Do you remember making a backup though or did u acquire the disk. I had a copier too pretty sure doc worked fine on mine but I got mine of a school friend in like 96 97 when he was on ps4 for like 50quid with 60 disks. A lot had trainers on crack intros so maybe you had a dodgy copy or your copier was firmware updated/newer. Wish I still had mine ended up getting put in bin when I moved out parents -sadface
@@brainbeatuk Dude, I made a back up as I was watching the video to see if it worked, I've owned DKC for years but acquired the Game Doctor SF7 for a friend only a few months ago.
@@16bitreview ah sound . I guess it's just a later copier then. The hackers are always one step ahead. They would know there code could be read in memory ect. Sorry I'm a scruffy writer lol dyspraxia mild but it's really cos I'm lazy n high
@@brainbeatuk no issues.
Later revisions of the MGD BIOS would incorporate anti-SRAM checks. You probably have a later revision. You could also get past all of those checks with Gold Finger codes, and of course, the mentioned IPS cracks.
This really was fascinating! About 10 years ago, before I got married, I owned a copy of Dk Country 2, so i got a rom myself and tried to play it, since I was not owning a SNES anymore. before end of first level, there was: a cut, the end was not visible. Thought, the rom was corrupted, but now I know better. Thank you very much for that explanation!
I am surprised that all the games with various extra processing chips like the DSP line, SuperFX, et cetera aren't listed as a sort of anti-piracy measure in themselves
I remember playing DSP games like mario kart on the Super Wildcard, i assume a donor DSP was added to the unit. They were designed before the FX/SA1 craze so at that time they ran anything.
Yeah, all DSP 1.0 - 2.0 was played right away with a DSP 2.0 cart in the slot of the copier. The Pro Fighter even had a cheap DSP add-on which you could buy.
Super FX, SA-1, etc roms could still be perfectly dumped, so it wasn't techically a copy protection. More of a playing issue. (The Super Wild Card / DX2 copier also required a quick bridging of one of the expanded pin connectors in order to dump or play many of the expansion chip games).
@@videogameobsession So how do you play Super Mario RPG? Do you gotta buy a game that uses the SA-1 chip into the cartridge slot or could you take apart the Super Mario RPG cartridge and mod/solder the chip into the copier's main board?
I'm quite curious to how you bypass it!
No, simply having a game in the copier slot wouldn't work. The DSP games work because of how they are used in conjunction with the roms. It's more of an add-on solution, where as SA-1, FX, and others are more deeply integrated with the enhancement chips.
Ways to play without the original cart would include using an SD2SNES flashcart, emulator, swapping roms with a donor board.
I'm new to the channel. But the guy who creates the videos always brings out such great videos, I always end up binging his videos.
Surely the fact the games were on a Cartridge and most people didn't have a cartridge duplicator to hand was most of the anti piracy they needed lol
Having a classy physical cartridge also gives value to the product.
Man, I love how you talk about such things. I never thought I could learn anything new about videogame nerdom, but you thought me a few lessons already.
You should look at the Capcom anti-piracy measures in Mega Man X and Mega Man 7! (Also Demon's Crest and others)
I've got curious about it, how is it? thanks
Demons Crest used the SRAM method like DKC, but i think it made the enemies invincible. I'll check into Mega Man X though!
Modern Vintage Gamer AFAIK, Megaman X caused random issues like missing/corrupt level segments and the game suddenly resetting (You are thrown back to the introduction level, lose all x upgrades but keep all heart and tank upgrades.)
Its effective (Or paranoid) enough even some bootleg (And authentic, much rarer) copies of Megaman X (Rockman X) trips the anti piracy check.
Strider VM ...and old versions of ZSNES used to trigger some of the sneaky copy protection issues.
Awesome in depth video with great examples! Thanks!
No other company is as paranoid about piracy as Nintendo.
You won't stop a hacker from hacking. Keep up with your DLC based microtransaction games. But for older games I guess it's just the sake thereof. Great vid btw!
In the N64 video there will be featured any SGI workstation?
LOVE the high quality of video. Very informative for the DRM on the SNES. Keep up the great work bud!
An interesting tidbit: The contents of the SNES' system RAM are effectively random on boot. As a result, some of the anti-piracy test layers can output false positives, such as the reset vector test or other RAM tests that check for known 'fingerprints' left by copying devices. Some of the games that used these layers (I know of DKC2 and DKC3 specifically) also contain a separate error message that is displayed on boot first before throwing the main copyright error message, just in case the user isn't actually using a copy device. The DKC ones state:
"An irregularity has been detected.
Please turn the power off, wait 10 seconds, then turn the power on again."
The main system RAM retains its contents for a few seconds after being powered off, so by the time the user has waited 10 seconds, the RAM checks can run again to make sure that a copy device is actually being used. How did the game know the system had been powered on again after catching a potential error the first time? That's where the "A thief!" string shown in the SRAM contents comes in. Normally, that string contains "Rareware" or a similar validation string. If that string instead contains "A thief!" in DKC2 or "(c) 1996" in DKC3 and the RAM tests fail, the anti-piracy message is shown.
Pretty cool stuff. The Earthbound anti-piracy layers are just devious though. I know of a few modern games that have done similar things to would be pirates or cheaters.
Side note: "An irregularity has been detected" being shown on screen with DKC3's boss battle music playing is far scarier than any other typical "an error has occurred" message anywhere else. See this video for the audio: th-cam.com/video/4gfMIvAy-bM/w-d-xo.html
One time, I powered on my Super Nintendo as a kid with DKC2 and that message came on... it freaked me out!! This maybe explains why it came up.
This is incredibly interesting. Thank you for producing these videos.
I remember getting an anti copying message from Super Metroid when trying to use certain Game Genii codes on it. I was like, "WTF? I'm not trying to copy anything, I just want to have certain items early!" While I don't know much about the technical side of things, I'm assuming that the code must've messed with the ram size and caused the copy protection to kick in, given both your explanation here and what little I know about cheat devices. Well, now I finally understand what was going on.
2:59 literally gave me chills. I haven't heard the KI theme in some time. Played hundreds of hours in the arcade and then back at home.
I wish both my SNES didn't die so i could still play with them.
Thank God i got a mini snes but it isn't the same thing
Best intro music ever from a youtuber.
The SNES had region locking on the CIC? I thought they just used those plastic tabs on the cart slot.
It was mostly an issue for European owners since they couldn't play games from both Japan & North America
I LOVE your channel. It's very informative and you break things down so well so that someone like me, who knows nothing about programming can easily understand and follow along.
Sometimes you can use cheat devices to trigger these anti-piracy messages
I'm really enjoying learning about all these anti piracy techniques. Great videos!
Now, we need earthbound hard mod and speedrun
And possibly the one that game won't crash and save delete
I hope someone does a run of that
I love this serie and your videos in general so much. Thanks for everything !
SRAM : Static Random Access Memory
I think you mean SPAM. Rookie mistake but its alright
@@adambaker4745 How is that spam?
Love the Rare T-shirt! Didn't know about the crazy copy protection in Earthbound. That's some next-level trolling by the developers.
Best anti piracy ever is in game dev tycoon if you pirate the game it plays normally at first then in the game everyone starts to pirate your game
Nintendo: We own Rare!
Microsoft: *Hold my beer*
And Microsoft offered a better deal. Nintendo didn't try to keep them.
Here we go again! Great series, very informative!
Somehow I misread the thumbnail as "SNES Aint Pricey"
So you're dyslexic.
I mean, you're not wrong, you can get an SNES console for 40-50 bucks!
It's a good start of the day when MVG uploads!