Xandros

Well, whatever. I had the game on order so would have been able to find out or not if it truly does have SecuROM or not... Of course that was before I played the demo just now and realised it still has a lot of annoyances I disliked about the first ArmA, so like the first one I'm going to give it a miss.

I haven't got the game, yet. I despise SecuROM that much, I simply won't buy games that use it. With what I have written here I'm only going on past experience of SecuROM, however I haven't had a game installed that uses it since 2006.

Well I certainly do want the eye candy. Maybe instead of a GTS250 I'll save up for something much better. The mobo and CPU will have to wait until the foreseeable future though. Thanks.

SecuROM will be existent on the DVD, however I'm fairly sure that it only "installs itself", i.e. creates those registry entries and any other crap, when the protected game exe is actually run. Not when the game is installed. Or at least that's how it used to work. As such if you've already got the game installed and patched to 1.05 before running it technically when you do run it on a clean system if the patch truly does remove the DRM then SecuROM won't be there to add those registry keys and the likes.

This calls for a celebratory ten pints of beer down my local.

Finger crossed it is gone. I really do despise SecuROM.

Is SecuROM truly still existent after patch 1.05 though or is it just the remains of what was there before being patched? I mean for instance if you clean SecuROM off your system using the various guides available online then run Arma 2 (patched to 1.05 obviously), will SecuROM registry entries and the likes reappear (indicating it is still used in the game)? I only ask because removing the disc check can be acomplished either by removing SecuROM completely or, by using those encryption key things that are stored in a hidden folder in Documents and Settings (and like the registry entries cannot be deleted because of a dodgy filename).

Hello. Can anyone shed some light on how well my current specs would run Arma 2? CPU: Athlon64 6400+ dual core (it's stock at 3.2GHz). RAM: 4gig DDR2 800Mhz. GFX: 9600GT 512MB (BFG OC edition which has a slightly higher core speed than stock). 1680 x 1050 resolution. I'm sure the 9600GT will likely be the main bottleneck in this game especially at that resolution so I was thinking of replacing it with a BFG GTS250 OC (maybe the 1gb version if I can find it, otherwise I'd get the 512mb). Opinions? I'm on a budget, hence me not upgrading to something even better. Not sure if the CPU would fair OK in this day and age. It certainly handled what I've thrown at it this far into its life. Anyway thanks.

Actually, no the reason why I wanted to get ArmA was because I did originally want to get it when it was first released but decided to wait a while for the bugs to be ironed out. Then not long after that I had a run-in with another game's SecuROM copy protection and decided from that day fourth I would never buy a game that had any disc based copy protection on it. That was late 2006, I've managed to stick to my guns since. Arma 2 looks nice and updated over Arma but if they're using SecuROM on it or any other crappy protection then I won't buy it. And since I expect a patch that removes the protection from Aram 2 is a long way off I figured I'd get the first one instead to, tide me over, so to speak. Quite frankly though wanting 25 quid for the Gold edition (that's around 40 bucks give or take), when in the American market the Gold edition is available for around 12 dollars... Well, go figure. I don't care about economics, If I forked out that much for a game this old I'd be getting ripped off something shocking. Even the standard edition over here is generally overpriced. Perhaps I'll just give it a miss.

I did check play last week but they were out of stock, guess they finally got some more stock in... Shame they want that much for it though. Seems a bit steep for an old game that's already got a sequel coming out out in a few days for the exact same price!

Out of stock there. There is one guy selling it on marketplace for 30 quid (including P&P) but I'd rather buy it from the actual retailer. Btw I'm in the UK, I just looked on Amazon.com and saw they got stock at a very reasonable price... Shame Amazon's international shipping charges are a joke (not that I could buy it anyway, they seem to have some stupid ideas about what they will and won't ship abroad as far as games are concerned).

Thanks for the response. As long as the protection files aren't still required after the patch and you can delete them that's okay by me... Now all I have to do is find a copy of the gold edition that's in stock somewhere at a reasonable price.

I never got Arma but now I'm thinking of doing so, though I do wonder about the fact 1.14 "removes copy protection". Does that essentially mean it completely removes every trace of the SecuROM protection in the game or does it simply make it so that it'll work without the disc in the drive (which would still create those annoying non-deletable registry keys and also the files in Application Data)?