putting games on harddrive?

[bugsy]

I'm wondering if I can load the entire cd of a game onto my harddrive. It seems like it would play faster than having the cd in the cd player.Am I right? and if so, how would I go about doing it. Thanx for any help.

[danee]

It all depends on the game... usually.
Generally speaking it depends on how the game was developed (when programmed) to run.
You can though get CD ROM emulators. This will emulate a virtual CD ROM, by using space on the Harddisk.
This way for example, u could copy a CivIII CD, into a directory on your harddisk. Then using an CD ROM emulator, tell the PC that Directory where CivIII is, is actually a CD ROM drive.

Note though, i dont believe this example would work with an original CivIII CD due to copy-protection technology. If however you were using an illegal cracked version of the game, this would work most likely work... but then thats illegal.

In simple, i believe its a case by case matter, all depending on how the software was developed, who by, and what protection technology exists on the original product.

[rockinmale]

After copying the cd's to the hard drive you execute the install program off the hard drive. The game will install and copy all the necessary files needed to run the game on the hard drive in its own directory.
The directory you copied the entire cd's to will still be there and isnt needed anymore to play the game.

As for your question? The game will not run any faster by copying the entire cd onto the hard drive. The major part of the game is already running off the hard drive.

The only way to make the game run faster or smoother is a hardware upgrade.
I hope that answered your question.....

Take care:t
rockinmale:cool:

[grimfandango]

It does run faster from the Hdd. The cd is a lot slower and takes alot of time. The hdd is fast.

:p

[$1500-P4 gamer]

Use VirtualCd for this. It works great and as rockinmale said you must run the install of the virtual cdrom as to direct the files to that cdrom and not the real one. Copy protected cd's WILL work I have used this prog a million times and it does speed things up alot if there are alot of load screens in the game. (like between scenes). The reason this is not illegal is though it will copy a copy protected cd onto the virtual cdrom it will not allow you to burn the game from that image so it is perfectly legal. The image file you get is copy right protected also by the virtual cdrom!:eek: So no copy right infringement here at all. Happy gameing!

[bugsy]

Thanx to everybody for the help. I'll give it a whirl and see what happens.

[Wombat]

Some games also allow custom installs, select complete, then see if there is a NO-CD patch available. That should do the trick..

Paul

[gibsinep]

You will need a crack as there is no way to put the cd protection on the harddrive. Unless using virtual drive


Also another good vurtual cd drive is Dameon Tools.

[namrak]

Virtual CD sounds sweet. I'll have to take a look into this. Think I'll download the trial version and demo it. If it works flawlessly with games, than it might not be such a bad buy at $40. Whether it works with DVDs is minor since I don't know of anyone who watches one single movie in a daily manner. However, games you could play weeks on end, especially if its Morrowind. :D

[lefou]

This program is good, and no matter what CD you load into the virtual CD drive (copyrighted or no copyrighted), all works fine. I myself have tried it for over a month and all's OK. You can create MORE than one virtual CD drive, so you can load TWO disks, and play TWO games alternately, if you want, no CD-ROM opening and closing all the time and changing disks! Good also for games that are on more than one CD... just load all of the CDs onto the virtual drives, if needed, and play!

Personally, I very much recommend this program.

...And, as to copyright, all's legal, of course, you load your copyrighted CD into a VIRTUAL CD drive, and, besides, it's YOUR CD, you can't take the virtual CD drive out of the PC and sell it, you know :D So, use such program, and don't worry!