From pirate to steam
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GasBandit
Staff member
Pirated... disc? As in.. pay for a pirated copy... on physical media?
WHAT HERESY IS THIS
ahem.. uh... anyway...
What you can do, is after you buy something on steam, start it to downloading, then pause the download. Then go into your steam folder, under steamapps/common, you should find a folder with the game's title on it. Close the steam client, and install your pirated copy to that folder and delete its executables (don't install any cracks). Then reopen the steam client, go to your library, right click the game in question in the list and choose "properties," then go to the "Local files" tab and click the "Verify integrity of game cache" button. It will take a while of number crunching, but what this does is it compares what you've got with what steam thinks you should have. There's a decent chance most of the asset files (that store things like graphics and sound, the bulk of most games' size) are identical, unless you bought a copy that had assets ripped out/compressed to save space (which happens fairly often, especially with titles that have FMV). But if all goes well, it should reduce your download time by some. But if you're installing a rip, there's not much benefit.
As Ravenpoe said, you can create a shortcut within steam to run something not of steam itself, but this probably won't make a pirated copy magically work for multiplayer on steamworks - though there might be a chance if the pirated copy you bought was either a steam version or is inherently a steam-only game such as Left 4 Dead, etc.
You're probably going to want to disable automatic updates, too, if bandwidth caps are a factor in whatever third world country you're living in.
WHAT HERESY IS THIS
ahem.. uh... anyway...
What you can do, is after you buy something on steam, start it to downloading, then pause the download. Then go into your steam folder, under steamapps/common, you should find a folder with the game's title on it. Close the steam client, and install your pirated copy to that folder and delete its executables (don't install any cracks). Then reopen the steam client, go to your library, right click the game in question in the list and choose "properties," then go to the "Local files" tab and click the "Verify integrity of game cache" button. It will take a while of number crunching, but what this does is it compares what you've got with what steam thinks you should have. There's a decent chance most of the asset files (that store things like graphics and sound, the bulk of most games' size) are identical, unless you bought a copy that had assets ripped out/compressed to save space (which happens fairly often, especially with titles that have FMV). But if all goes well, it should reduce your download time by some. But if you're installing a rip, there's not much benefit.
As Ravenpoe said, you can create a shortcut within steam to run something not of steam itself, but this probably won't make a pirated copy magically work for multiplayer on steamworks - though there might be a chance if the pirated copy you bought was either a steam version or is inherently a steam-only game such as Left 4 Dead, etc.
You're probably going to want to disable automatic updates, too, if bandwidth caps are a factor in whatever third world country you're living in.
I think you're joking, but I think Covar is actually in a developing country.
GasBandit
Staff member
Cog?
If you want to know, bandwith is not the problem. It's time. A 10 gb game could take a week or more to download and probably the electricity will cost more than the pirated disc.
Selling pirated games used to be very big here. Pc games were the first to dissapear. Not because people downloaded their own copies, but because common pcs weren't able to play most of new games. There's still people who don't know and still try to sell pirated copies of new games. They don't last.
Selling pirated games used to be very big here. Pc games were the first to dissapear. Not because people downloaded their own copies, but because common pcs weren't able to play most of new games. There's still people who don't know and still try to sell pirated copies of new games. They don't last.
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Ah, the 90's.
As someone in a developing country, his internet just sucks...
It's not the biggest state or anything, but I'd hardly call North Carolina a developing country.
