Is there any way to dump a game disc to a hard drive?

[dh2005]

Hello all,

I recently managed to get ahold of a wholly legit copy of the classic Halo: Combat Evolved for the Mac. Greatly looking forward to playing through it again, but I've become used to running my games off hard drives/SSDs, rather than optical disc; and I was wondering whether there was any way to dump the game to my drive?

Again, I stress that this disc is the genuine article; not some shady knock-off. I imagine there'll be copy protection to deal with...?

Thanks in advance,



DH.

 

[Hansr]

Generally you'd need a NO-CD patch as it's copy protected. That's a grey area which should not be discussed according to MR rules.

Be sure to pick up the UB version though: http://www.macgamestore.com/detail.php?ProductID=616

 

[dh2005]

Generally you'd need a NO-CD patch as it's copy protected. That's a grey area which should not be discussed according to MR rules.

Be sure to pick up the UB version though: http://www.macgamestore.com/detail.php?ProductID=616

Oh, okay. Sorry. Didn't mean to offend any rules.

Obviously, I could just run it off the disc. But I'd rather not.


Can I ask what the benefits are of this 'Universal Binary'? Never heard of it before.

 

[Jethryn Freyman]

You can try using Disk Utility or Toast Titanium to create a disc image which you save to your hard disk, then mount the image when you want to play. It works for most games, and it's what I do.

 

[Cougarcat]

Oh, okay. Sorry. Didn't mean to offend any rules.

Obviously, I could just run it off the disc. But I'd rather not.


Can I ask what the benefits are of this 'Universal Binary'? Never heard of it before.

The original game is PPC only. MacSoft rewrote the game for intel processors and charged $5 to upgrade. You can buy it here. (You will need your original CD key.) It costs $5, but the good news is that it no longer requires the CD once you update it to the latest version..

 

[dh2005]

The original game is PPC only. MacSoft rewrote the game for intel processors and charged $5 to upgrade. You can buy it here. (You will need your original CD key.) It costs $5, but the good news is that it no longer requires the CD once you update it to the latest version..

Oh, cool!

Thanks for that, everyone.

 

[dh2005]

As a follow-up...

... I received my second-hand copy of Halo through the post, and used the serial key to unlock the universal binary. I have since updated it to the most recent release, and I can indeed now play Halo without the disc. All this is excellent. But there are a couple of issues taking the shine off the experience.

Firstly, some of the textures are missing. Some of the models are silhouettes, and all of the water in the game is just blackness. Slightly irritating, but I can live with it.

What I can't live with is the drift on the right stick on my 360 pad. Using Colin Munro's 360 driver, with the 'dead zones' at maximum, the left stick can be calibrated perfectly; but the right stick either drifts left or right, and no amount of fiddling and faffing can rectify that.


Can anyone recommend a solution to either of these issues? Is there another driver, perhaps, that offers larger dead zones?

Thanks,



DH.

 

[Cougarcat]

Try disabling FSAA and see if that helps.

Halo is supposed to have game pad support built in, so you could try disabling your third party driver.

And, of course, contact MacSoft tech support if you haven't done so already.

 

[dh2005]

Try disabling FSAA and see if that helps.

Halo is supposed to have game pad support built in, so you could try disabling your third party driver.

And, of course, contact MacSoft tech support if you haven't done so already.

Thanks for the reply, mate.

Alas, FSAA is off already. That's not the issue.

And without the driver, Halo can't detect the pad. So that won't work either.


It's a pisser. This thing is so, so close to working perfectly. If it didn't work at all, I could at least just swear at it, and never touch it again. But because it almost works, I'm pouring all this time and effort into making it run.

 

[Cougarcat]

Gamepads are supposed to work natively with halo, so I'd email MacSoft support if you haven't already. There's also this driver which you could try.

What graphics settings are you using? Try changing your pixel shader settings.