Thinking about SH3

[MarkShot]

I have been thinking about getting SH3. I have mainly held off from purchasing due to the issue of StarForce. Both for concerns about security/stability and as a matter principle.

Well, my solution to security/stability will be simply to put SH3 in its own XP partition which would only be used for SH3 (disable the optical drives and the network adapters). That should prevent any issues with StarForce.

On my current system, I don't have a DVD drive. So, I guess that leaves me with having to purchase through Direct2Drive.

Has anyone here used that option? I have some questions:

Is there a limit to how many times SH3 can reinstalled? If so, how many installs do you get?

If I just save a copy of a clean install will that be sufficient to work around any limitations on the number of repeat installs?

Can the download version later be installed on a new computer when I replace this one?

Does the download version need access to the Internet in order to install or launch SH3?

Will the various mods out there work for the download version?

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If you are using the DVD version, will SH3 load if you disable your DVD driver and, of course, do not have the DVD in the drive?

My next computer will have a DVD drive. Also, I have a slight preference for the DVD version, since I could buy it off of E-bay used and thus avoid supporting the publisher's/developer's use of StarForce.

Thanks.

PS: I do know that Ubisoft has dropped the use of StarForce for future titles. However, as far as I know, they don't plan to re-release existing titles without StarForce.