Game Jackal Pro

Just started using and liking so far as saves swapping disc's each time you want to play a different game

Introduction:
Nearly 4 years Game Jackal was released. Just under three years ago version 2 of the program was completed. Now here we are ready for version 3 from the new owners SlySoft.

Game Jackal’s Own Words:
Game Jackal Pro is the ultimate "must have" killer app for the PC gamer! If you, like most gamers, find it annoying looking for and inserting the CD-ROM for your favourite game each time you play it, then Game Jackal Pro is for you.
Keeping your gaming investment safe: One major concern gamers have is the CD's life span. The CD-ROM for a popular game may be inserted and removed many hundreds of times, this of course leads to the inevitable "Unable to read" error and ultimately a trip to the trash.
Unleash your games and go gaming "CD free" in seconds: Using Game Jackal Pro eliminates the need to insert the CD-ROM before playing your favourite title, therefore allowing you to fire up your favourite game in seconds.
Easy to use: Game Jackal Pro provides the user with a powerful and easy to use interface to go gaming "CD free". It does this without modifying any of your game's files or installing any virtual drives on your system. Simply select the game you want to play from the Game Jackal Pro interface, or create a desktop shortcut for even faster access.
Image mode: Image mode adds support for games that need to stream data directly from the CD or DVD during game play.
Keep young eyes from playing games that may be not right for them: Game Jackal Pro comes complete with a feature called Guardian Control, this feature allows restrictions to be placed on game profiles.
Young gamers can make short work of a game CD: Being able to pack away the game CD has proven to be extremely popular with parents of young gamers, where a game can be destroyed in weeks!
There's no other product like it: The simple fact is that Game Jackal Pro stands alone. There's no other product on the market that delivers the flexibility and functionality that Game Jackal Provides.

 
Program Features:
• Create profiles right from the desktop with the new "One-click" profile creation option. Simply right-click any game icon on your desktop (or anywhere else for that matter) and select "Convert to Game Jackal Profile", a much simplified creation wizard guides you through a 2 step process.
• Unused profiles can now be moved to an archive section allowing you to keep only your current favourites in the "My Game Profile" section.
• A new "plug-in" interface is now available, this allows third-party developers to create plug-ins for Game Jackal Pro.
• Right-click popup menu for profiles, this provides a faster and easier way to manage profiles.
• Improved reliability, support and performance for many games and hardware configurations.
• Support for multi processor hardware, including the ability to specific processor(s) on for each profile.
• Image mode, for games that need to stream data from the CD or DVD during game play.
• An easy to use interface, providing the user with a single tool for "CD free" gaming.
• The creation of a Game Jackal Profile is performed while you are playing your favourite game!
• Using the auto update feature, your version of Game Jackal Pro will always be the latest version available.
• Guardian Control, this feature allows for the password protection of game profiles in addition to specifying when and how long a game can be played.
• No longer do you need to find and insert the game's CD-ROM.
• Preserve the original game's CD-ROM: one of the problems with having a favourite game is that the CD-ROM gets damaged over time.
• Game load times are dramatically shortened

System Requirements:
• 500 MHz Processor
• 64 Mb Ram
• Windows 2000 / XP/ Vista 32bit
• 12 MB hard-disk space
Additional space will be required for each game profile that you make as well.
The software package is about 3.5mb’s in size so you will be looking at roughly 10mins to download it on a 56k modem.

Test Machine:
The following test machine was used for this review.
Hardware
• Processor : AMD Athlon X2 Dual Core 4400+
• Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-K8NXP-SLI
• Ram: 4Gb OCZ Platinum Dual Channel Kit DDR500
• Graphics Card: Gainward GeForce 7800GTX 256MB PCI-E
• Sound: Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Elite Pro
• Hard Drive 1: Western Digital Raptor SATA 74Gb
• Hard Drive 2: Western Digital Raptor SATA 74Gb
• Hard Drive 3: Maxtor Maxline III SATA 300Gb
• Optical Drive 1: LiteOn 167T DVD-Rom
• Optical Drive 2: LiteOn 52327S CD-RW
• Optical Drive 3: NEC 3520A DVD-RW
Software
• Operating System: Windows XP SP2 32bit and Windows Vista 32bit

Results:
Below are a summary of the games I have tested along with the copy protection version they use.
Working games
• The Sims: SafeDisc 1
• The Sims: Patched To 1.1: SafeDisc 1
• Command And Conquer: Tiberian Sun: SafeDisc 1.11.000
• The Sims: Livin It Up: SafeDisc 1.50.020
• Medal Of Honor: Allied Assault: SafeDisc 2.51.021
• Medal Of Honor: Allied Assault: Spearhead SafeDisc 2.80.010
• Total Club Manager 2003 SafeDisc 2.80.010
• Medal Of Honor: Allied Assault: Breakthrough SafeDisc 2.90.040
• Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time SafeDisc 3.15.10
• Football Manager 2005 SafeDisc 3.20
• The Sims 2 SafeDisc 3.20.020
• FarCry SafeDisc 3.20.022
• Medal Of Honor: Pacific Assault SafeDisc 3.20.024
• The Sims 2: University SafeDisc 4.00.001

• Desperados LaserLock

• Beach Life SecuROM 4.82.01.0005
• Roller Coaster Tycoon 2 SecuROM 4.83.11.0048
• Grand Theft Auto: Vice City SecuROM 4.84.69.0071
• Space Colony SecuROM 4.85.00.0005
• Championship Manager 03/04 SecuROM 4.87.02.0017
• Sid Meier's Pirates SecuROM 5.03.06.0042
• Evil Genius SecuROM 5.03.06.0051
• Roller Coaster Tycoon 3 SecuROM 5.03.11.0047
• Star Wars: Republic Commando SecuROM 5.03.13.0049
• Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas SecuROM 7.00.00.0036
• Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas: Patched to 1.01 SecuROM 7.00.00.0096
• Star Wars: Empire at War SecuROM 7.00.00.0154
• Command & Conquer: Tiberium Wars SecuROM 7.29.0008
• Supreme Commander SecuROM 7.30.0014
• S.T.A.L.K.E.R: Shadow Of Chernobyl SecuROM 7.31.0010

• Football Manager 2008 Custom CD / DVD Checks

Non working games
• TrackMania + Power Up Expansion Pack StarForce 3.3.35.04

Positives and Negatives:
Positives
• Easy to use
• Many options to get profiles working
• Works with a vast range of copy protections
• Quicker loading times than from disc
• Low Price of €29.00
• Now has Windows 64 bit support

Negatives
• Drive name / model not shown. Just the drive letter
• No native multi core support
• No StarForce or Tages support yet

 
Conclusion:
Game Jackal is still a must buy application for anyone wanting to play games without using their original discs or on a laptop. Once setup the program takes over the running of the game to such an extent that you don’t even know that you using a third party application to run your games.
Because Game Jackal doesn’t target specific copy protections this program also doesn’t suffer from the notorious black listing that other copying programs and virtual drives do. This means that if you buy the latest game there is generally a better chance of the game working without having to wait for an update for the program.
Although this doesn’t seem as a big a jump up that version 2 was this latest version has continued to evolve by adding support for Vista and 64bit systems as well as always trying to improve the profile detection to create a working profile first time every time.
I think the only thing I wouldn’t mind seeing in Game Jackal at present is an option to send data to SlySoft regarding the game you are profiling, version number, advanced profiling options etc so that they could build up a database of working/non-working games as a quick reference for people using the system. Maybe you have the game and can’t get it to work but someone else did via the advanced options panel.