DiscCheckEmu

DiscCheckEmu is a tool designed to emulate disc checks found in many disc-based games and software without the need for physical media. By intercepting API calls and modifying their behavior on the fly, DiscCheckEmu provides a seamless experience for users looking to enjoy their favorite legacy software without the hassle of keeping CDs or ISOs mounted.

As computers increasingly lack CD-ROM drives, accessing old disc-based games and software has become impractical. DiscCheckEmu addresses this issue by allowing users to emulate disc checks, enabling them to run their favorite titles directly from their hard drives, without physically patching the game executable.

Please note that DiscCheckEmu works only for games and software that employs standard disc checks: old disc-based protections like SafeDisc, SecuROM or LaserLock are not (and will not be) supported by this software. This is due to the nature that these protections that use segment encryption and IAT obfuscation.

Features

• Intercept API calls and modify their behavior without patching the executable.
• File redirection.
• Virtual Drive definition.
• Utilize a generic API hooking engine configurable through YAML files.
• Easy to use injector for automatically creating the target process and injecting the DLL.
• Fully open-source and customizable to suit individual needs.

Components

• DCELoader: Main executable responsible for creating target process and injecting the DCEAPIHook DLL.
• DCEAPIHook: DLL used to hook APIs and modify their behavior.
• DCEConfig: YAML configuration file tailored to specific software, used by both DCELoader and DCEAPIHook.

About DCEConfig

DCEConfig serves as the blueprint for configuring both DCELoader and DCEAPIHook. This file must be customized by the user for each target software, detailing API hooking and process creation parameters. Refer to the DCEConfig Scripting Guide for assistance in creating a functional configuration file.

Building

This project utilizes CMake. To build it, install Visual Studio 2022 with C++ packages and load the project as a CMake solution. Once loaded, press F7 to build the solution.

Acknowledgements

• Microsoft: For developing the Detours library used in this project.
• jbeder: For developing the yaml-cpp library used in this project.