I'll first start off with a disclaimer that all hard copies I own are 100% Legitimate copies brought at retail, and this may come under copyright infringement since it circumvents copy protection in a sense, but all my research comes up with it's a grey area depending on local laws.
I'm modding my case and along with the fact that my optical drive is now on it's last legs, plus digital distribution and such the venerable optical drive is on it's way out.
But the caveat is that half my games are still physical copies which require the disc inserted to play the game, I've discovered a few programs (Magic Disc etc etc) that allow you to "mount" an ISO to play games/run programs.
But i'd rather if possible to be able to do this through Steam rather than another third party app on top of another third party app.
All tips tricks and solutions most welcome
Kind regards
p5ych00n5
*MODS, if this is in the wrong forum, I apologise*
In a sense, a few of my games are not installed via Steam but I've added them through the "add a non Steam game" option to my Library, so when I click the play button instead of having to insert the disc it launches straight off the ISO.
if the game doesn't have a no cd patch obviously your only option is to use an image mounter. unless the game is asking for a file like "somthing.bin" in which case you could possibly copy the files on the iso to a folder or the root directory of a usb stick.
also optical drives are nowhere near their end. it's only standard dvd thats dieing. optical disk is by far the cheapest storage format for files. 16+gb flashdrives are around $10 but a pack of blank BD-Rs are around $15 at 25gb a disk and plus with 3d multilayer storage technology expected to reach upto 500+gb. experimental disks that store an exobyte have even been created.
Well I just got burned by EA, conducted an experiment with Daemon Tools, ripped the disc image, installed off the disc image, had to update Origin yada yada yada.
Enter my Serial to activate a game, wouldn't activate on my PC through my account, enter serial again, "This serial is already in use", no shit sherlock it's the same PC, same account so what the actual fuck, do I now have a bunch of EA branded coasters
if you have proof of purchase you should be able to call EA or origin and have them fix it on their end. in the case of some software you may not be able to reinstall a game if you haven't used the uninstaller to unregister it. some licence/eula text file in the disc or game directory may tell you how you can reinstall the game.
if all else fails there should be a crack for your games on TPB. personally I avoid games that use DRM especially if they use origin or steam. exactly because of the problem your having now. you might wan't to check GOG.com if you really want legit no nonsense copies of your games in a digital format.
I dont have proof of purchase (receipt) because its a game thats been in the wild for so long. Protip to everyone, keep all your receipts no matter the age