At the moment, I use different programs to back up my games, Using guides etc on this site. I have seen GamesXcopy and was wondering if thats better for backing them up, Ones with protection or Doing it the other way using guides for other programs.
There isn't really a 'any one better' program for backing-up games. They are each good at dealing with certain copy protections. eg, Alcohol 120....safedisc Blindwrite.....securom CloneCD........good all round These 3 top my favorites list. It is important to know before any back-up begins to know what protection scheme you are dealing with. Get a good protection scanner (eg A-ray), google search them. It also depends on the burner you have, if it will make a decent replication of the protection scheme (EFM Capable). I will check out GamesXCopy to see if it's any good.
I know what programs to use and how to backup them protection. I also have a 2 sheep burner, Just wondering if GamexCopy was better thats all.
Putting it nicely Games XCopy sucks. When it was first released it was decent at the relatively weak protections used at the time but became more and more useless as the protections became stronger. The company that made it is out of business so it will never be updated which means its absolutely useless now. My take on the best apps goes like this, Alcohol 120% is great at SafeDisc and horrible at SecuROM. One of it's strongest points is the ability to use emulation for those whose burners aren't able to make a true working copy. The downside of that is you must have A120 installed in order to run an emulated backup. CloneCD is a great all around app but it gets blacklisted all the time so your only option is to uninstall it until it gets patched. Not worth it in my book. BlindWrite is hands down my favorite of the bunch. With a good 2 sheep burner BW5 can blaze through all the current versions of SecuROM and SafeDisc up to 3.20. For SafeDisc 3.20.022 BW 4.57 works like magic - it even made a more accurate copy than A120 did for me. There's an outstanding app called BW5 Tweaker that allows you to fine tune your settings in BW5 for the best results. If you're serious about backing up PC games I feel you can do no better than both versions of BW coupled with a Plextor Premium which happens to have a special write method made just for SecuROM that BW5 Tweaker can take advantage of. I've used this combination to make excellent copies of SafeDisc up to 3.20.022 and SecuROM up to 5.03 that require no emulation of any sort and verify just as quickly as the originals.
I use Discdump / Fireburner for Safedisc. I use Alcohol 120 for the others. I'm my opinion, Discdump / Fireburner is the best choice for safedisc.
A 2 sheeper is a burner that can write EFM correctly, a 1 sheeper writes EEM almost correctly and a 0 sheeper can't write EFM at all. Being able to write EFM correctly is a crucial aspect of successful PC game backups.
There are different list around but all that I know of are quite outdated. here's our list: http://forums.afterdawn.com/thread_view.cfm/45121 With the level of difficulty the latest protections are posing your best bet is to get a Plextor Premium - it's the best there is at backing up PC protections followed by the Asus 5232AS and the Lite On 52327S.
