Most computers come with 2 or more disc drives(Mine did anyways)Make
sure you use the same disc drive that you installed the game from.I installed mine using a DVDRW + - drive and since I use that drive for
other things I sometimes mix my Dvd's up.:oops:

I d/l SHIII from ubisoft and installed from the d/l file. I didn't need to use any discs with it to play, although I did extract the ISO and burn it to DVD so i had a hard copy of it. I can see why they try to prevent pirating, but all it does is create issues. Years ago I ran into a new Dell where I couldn't use the dvdrom to install a retail cut of MS Office... over an hour later (after calling MS tech support, and digging all over google) I tried the cdrw and it worked.. really pissed me off. That stuff just isn't necessary in this millennium.. and the sooner software makers understand that, the better. I can see now why people do go with nocd patches, just to avoid swapping discs or worse, ruining your original that the producer won't replace.

Tool.

Thanks Tool, Just as I thought. So the best bet then to avoid this crappy protection system is to purchase the program via a download method. Isn't that then contradicting the protection process? The people that buy off the shelves are severely disadvantaged and to me that shows double standards. I presume it costs more to purchase off the shelve than direct to drive download. So I've paid more just to have protection against piracy and to have pay additional to buy another DVD drive to get it to work properly. Hmmm! something worth checking into. The double standards I mean :hmm:

I think the d/l and store prices are the same... at least according to the email i got form ubisoft, $49.99.

Unless you need all the extra stuff, i prefer to just download my games.

Tool.

The issues with the downloaded versions are two: bandwidth and patches. You need a good broadband connection to download a game; Medieval 2 Total War came in at nearly 10 gigs in size, IIRC. Not everyone has that. The more pressing issue at least to me is patches. If you purchase a download version of the game, you generally cannot use the regular patches. They add in the disk check! You of course don't have a disk, so then you can't even play the game. Usually the versions for downloaded games come out later than the patch versions for the retail purchase games. This isn't always true; Ubi was quite good about simultaneous release of the patches for both the DVD and downloaded versions of SH3, and I expect that to continue with SH4.

Ah yes but patch 1.1 is for both dvd and downloadable version. My argument is that you do not need to have a dvd rom in the drive for a downloaded version of SH4 but you do for the purchased off the shelve one. So why should some people that bought off the shelve have to suffer the consequences of the program not running because of the security access issue with DVD R/RW not being suitable. It should apply to both versions not just one. Alternatively get rid of that security crap alltogether. Why make dvd versions of it anyway.

Granted some comp systems have slow downloads but at the end of the day no dvd is needed in the drive to make it game work.

I agree with you on the copy protection. It seems a waste of time to me; all copy protection eventually can be circumvented and the pirates are going to distribute cracked copies regardless. To those of us who pay for the games, it does nothing but cause us inconvenience and problems. However, I don't think any solution is perfect.

Hell cracked copies were up before the game hit the shelves.

They had a few "issues" though :know:

mouse problem
 

Is anyone having a problem with the mouse not being stable while trying to play the game. I am having this problem an you really cann't do much with this game without using the mouse.

While this is way off topic Ill go ahead and pitch in.

If your referring to mouse stutters its "normal" espically at high time compression settings.

Try just waiting a few seconds and it will return to normal.

If its constant and happens at "normal" time speeds you have some issues.

I ran into this the first day. What happened was that I have a DVD drive and a CDRW drive.

I had the play disk in the cdrw drive and got a similar message. Switched drives and it ran.

Just a thought.

Hello, I own a retail version of SH4, and for a while I was just sliping the DVD in the drive because I thought it was necessary. I even used nero to make a copy of the DVD so I could use the copy, and save the original disk. I used the copy in my NEC DVD RW ND-3540A drive thinking I neede it in there in order to run the game. Just for the heck of it, I tried running the game with no disk, and she runs just fine. Why do you think I don't need the disk? Did UBI add that feature to the 1.3 patch? Hey, I'm glad I don't need it in there, but I'm guessing I'm not alone here............ am I?

Yes.

That was like ~~~~~~fast~~~~~~ Thanks Neuman.. :D