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fatih_emre_52: Maybe its even not right place but I'm just so curious, will you help me to understand this subject ?

for example, Ghostrunner, published by 505 Games

it's drm free on epic games store and it's drm-ed on steam.

for me, looking to buy drm-free games why should i buy from steam ? And most important why drm-free on egs unlike steam? Which part i'm missing ? Isn't EGS drm store just like Steam ?

note: I'm not a native speaker of english, sorry if i did mistake.
Another interesting piece of this puzzle: A lot of games are DRM-free, but their DLC won't load without the launcher. Ghostrunner is indeed DRM-free on Epic, but if you don't run it through the Epic Games Store launcher, none of your DLC will be available in the game.
I assume game publishers can use an Epic (code) library to check what DLC the customer has bought and it also secures this mechanism against piracy. That saves the developers of the game a lot of time, because they don't have to build this themselves and usually you need a lot of knowledge to this in a secure way.

Steam will have the same but they probably have it as a part of their standard DRM package. So if you want to enable DLC for customers on Steam you are pretty much stuck with their DRM as well. (note: this is speculation on my part)

With Epic, if you then want to enable DLC for customers that bought it, you need some way to check, so the library will connect to the Epic account system to check if your account owns that DLC. So even if your base game is DRM free, the check needs to happen which means it now has a form of DRM.

The only possible way to stay DRM free all the way is to always just launch the game with all the features as is on the hard drive and not perform any check. That also means that anyone that has the right game files can play the DLC, regardless if they bought it and own it on their account. Epic can regulate this a bit by only letting you download the DLC game files if your account owns the DLC, but true DRM free game files means that anyone that has all the DLC game files can just copy them to anyone and anywhere and they would now also be able to play.
Not only has Denuvo been removed from Dragon Quest XI S - Definitive Edition, but it's also now completely DRM-free.
The game Fearmonium https://store.steampowered.com/app/1068360/Fearmonium/ worked without Steam on a secondary PC. Games was Version 1.0.1. Save and Load worked.
D'LIRIUM: Runs right off the bat, no tricks needed. Currently on beta/early access.

Motor Mash: Couldn't open it, but it's a PS1 game emulated, and the ROM included works in other emulators right off the bat (get both GAME.BIN and game.cue in the folder [Steam install]\Motor Mash\res, they're the ROM).
Also, tip about Motor Mash: if you rename the file GAME.BIN, you need to change its name in the first line of the .cue file (the .cue file is just a fancy text file that can be edited with a lot of text editors). Just avoid changing their extensions if you rename anything.
And probably the files mcd1 and mcd2 are Motor Mash's emulator's memory cards, but I couldn't find how to save the game, so maybe it doesn't have such a function.

Palladise Island: Runs right off the bat, no tricks needed.

Sonic Adventure DX: Already listed in the wiki, but just a little update - it has two executable files, but the game can only be launched with AppLauncher.exe if Steam's not present.

All games downloaded through Linux and were tested in a Windows 10 virtual machine that never had Steam installed.
Okay, we're finally all updated again, everyone.
I have Duck Tales remastered on Steam and it has always been DRM free as I can just copy the install directory to another system without steam and run the exe without any issues at all.
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tastymonkey: I have Duck Tales remastered on Steam and it has always been DRM free as I can just copy the install directory to another system without steam and run the exe without any issues at all.
This has been known for a long time. It's already on the list.
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tastymonkey: I have Duck Tales remastered on Steam and it has always been DRM free as I can just copy the install directory to another system without steam and run the exe without any issues at all.
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Crimson-X: This has been known for a long time. It's already on the list.
I missed it I guess.
First, a question:

Some games can launch Steam if it's installed.
They do so by checking if Steam is listed in the registry, right?
If so, is it safe to test the games with Wine in the same machine that Steam is installed without using emulators to isolate the games?
If each of Wine's prefixes has a registry of its own registry, including Steam's Proton's prefixes, I feel like it should be safe, but I'd like to confirm.

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Now, the latest findings:

Defeated Girl (https://store.steampowered.com/app/1205260/): Need to create a steam_appid.txt file with 1205260 written inside, then place it in the executable's folder.

Midnight Castle Succubus DX (https://store.steampowered.com/app/1299320/): Runs right off the bat, no tricks needed. Both game_s.exe (+18 contents present) and game_sfw.exe (+18 contents cut) can be launched without Steam.

Super Hunchback (https://store.steampowered.com/app/1539070/): couldn't make it run, but it's emulated and it comes with a GameBoy ROM. The ROM is the file "game" (no extension) in the folder \Super Hunchback\res. To make emulators recognize the ROM, just add the .gb extension to it (and rename it, if you wish).

冒险村传说(Tales of Legends) (https://store.steampowered.com/app/578440/Tales_of_Legends/): No tricks needed. Can be run from either \Tales of Legends\Game.exe (Windows) or \Tales of Legends\www\index.html (any OS that supports .html executables).

Tower and Sword of Succubus (https://store.steampowered.com/app/1327080/): Includes 2 games, The Sword of Succubus (Succubus_sword.exe) and The Tower of Succubus (THE_TOWER_OF_SUCCUBUS.exe). Both run right off the bat, no tricks needed.

All games downloaded through Linux and tested in a Windows 10 virtual machine that never had Steam installed.
Post edited June 11, 2021 by _Auster_
Armillo plays without Steam running. No special tricks needed.

Also it's totally free! I higly recommend it too. It's a great throwback mascot "platformer" (more rolling than platforming lol).

https://store.steampowered.com/app/349520/Armillo/
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_Auster_: First, a question:

Some games can launch Steam if it's installed.
They do so by checking if Steam is listed in the registry, right?
If so, is it safe to test the games with Wine in the same machine that Steam is installed without using emulators to isolate the games?
If each of Wine's prefixes has a registry of its own registry, including Steam's Proton's prefixes, I feel like it should be safe, but I'd like to confirm.
Well Linux has no "registry" for one.
Two is "the games" generally have hardcoded registry paths 99% of the time so they should not even be able to scan entire span of storage device in search for them.
Also, if you want to be safe you should remove default symlinks to your entire drive within winetricks (these symlinks are completely unneccessary in 99% of cases while they expose profoundly large attack vectors for malware and "finicky" software, they should not be there in the first place and I don't understand why they still are being put there by default).
If you dual boot from the same drive then just not mount "the Windows partition" for the sake of safety.

This all of course is unrelated if you happen to run Wine through WSL somehow - in which case I have no clues as to how to secure THAT of all things :P

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_Auster_: Some games can launch Steam if it's installed.
They do so by checking if Steam is listed in the registry, right?
Yes and no.
Some (majority of new ones?) run checks through Steam protocol on IPC sockets.
For those you would likely need Steam emulator like Goldberg to go further.
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B1tF1ghter: (reply snip)
Thanks for the reply, but by "safe", I meant "will Steam not be found if I use Wine?"
As I do now, to be sure the games can be preserved without issues, I use a virtual machine that never had Steam installed.
But the process is extremely demanding for both time and processing power of my computer, so I was considering using Wine instead of virtual machines for testing these games.
But then there's the issue that my Linux install already has Steam installed, so I fear it might temper the results, making them not reliable. Thus the part about the multiple Wine/Proton prefixes being isolated.

Also, each Wine prefix does have files that simulate Windows' registry. It's the .reg files in the root of each prefix. (and I know Linux doesn't use registry like Windows)
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B1tF1ghter: (reply snip)
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_Auster_: Thanks for the reply, but by "safe", I meant "will Steam not be found if I use Wine?"
As I do now, to be sure the games can be preserved without issues, I use a virtual machine that never had Steam installed.
But the process is extremely demanding for both time and processing power of my computer, so I was considering using Wine instead of virtual machines for testing these games.
But then there's the issue that my Linux install already has Steam installed, so I fear it might temper the results, making them not reliable. Thus the part about the multiple Wine/Proton prefixes being isolated.

Also, each Wine prefix does have files that simulate Windows' registry. It's the .reg files in the root of each prefix. (and I know Linux doesn't use registry like Windows)
Well isolating wineprefixes doesn't change much unless you've got Steam installed on some of them while others not.
It won't change the fact that any Wine "isolated" software can still escape Wine bounds if you don't remove DEFAULT SYMLINKS to your root complex of an underlying drive (these symlinks are there by default even tho they are COMPLETELY unneccessary for 99% of use cases, which means whatever software you run on "default settings Wine" can totally access ALL your Linux files no problem).
Wine is not a security sandbox. It offers NO SECURITY ISOLATION CAPABILITIES.
The bare minimum you should all (and I mean ALL) of you do is remove those default symlinks, on literally EVERY wineprefix that does not otherwise need them (they are barely ever required for anything).
Even if you do that there are still certain methods of escaping "Wine chroot" (for a lack of a better term, not sure if "root complex redirection" is a term that should be used here).
Speaking of which, I find it pretty mesmerising how seemingly majority of users of *NIX seem to still think they are "safe from Windows malware" while they use Wine.
Wine can run Windows viruses pretty well, and system call translation makes you automatically suspectible to the viruses doing harm to your *NIX install solely because they run in Wine.
On top of that default Wine installation system-wide settings are profoundly permissive, with things like automatic launching of exe files in Wine upon doubleclick being most-distro default.

Generally speaking:
would software be able to escape bounds of Wine? Generally yes. Under default symlinks: 100% possibility.
Would it do that? Depends on the software.
Would it recognise Steam install of another OS (as within Wine it is Windows and outside it is Linux, which the Steam clients are not 100% the same file structure wise)? Hard to say.

Out of curiousity:
what hypervisor do you use (and what host system)?
KVM/Qemu?
VirtualBox?
Something else?

Do you PCI-E passthrough anything?
Did anyone manage to run GundeadliGne (app/92220), Gundemonium Recollection (app/92200) and Hitogata Happa (app/92210) without Steam?

I tried both Linux with Wine and a virtual machine with Windows 10, the steam_appid.txt method, the -nosteam argument through the cmd, installing the C++ and DirectX runtimes that come in the games' folders, editing Wine's registry, deleting steam_api.dll, but nothing worked.

And the games don't even report errors. They simply don't load at all.

I just didn't try using my main Windows install, which has Steam installed.

EDIT: Tried the main Windows install. The game tries to load it if it can find Steam's executables. If the executables are not present or renamed, it doesn't load it doesn't give any errors.
Post edited June 17, 2021 by _Auster_