Mostly we need to protect the games from the 'bunnies' provider a.k.a c**cker,especially if we just have simple serial check,and save the trial info on registry,with few public tool it's easy to bypass,example code from manual :
wait(1); game_load("ini",0); // load user settings
if (!game_is_unlocked()) // call provider algorithm for checking the key or password if (0 > sys_trial("Software\\myCompany\\myApp","install",30)) // 30 days trial period expired?
sys_exit("Sorry - trial version expired!");
as i have been developing for quite time,i have gone and come into several 'protector' from aspack,asprotect(both died!was a legend),icelicense(delphi-4 years ago was uncrackable but now has been stop the legend by the protector itself cracked!),armadillo(flaw in implementation of encryption algorithm).for .net app we have themida which is the strongest for now,not impossible but i said strongest,how about for other compiler?like us?lite c?.
I have come across to newcomer in these business called "Enigma Protector",so far from my observation it's on the list of the strongest,other protector has failed to protecting lite-c compiled exe because of as the enigma author conform this :
I have found a core of the problem! Protected files do not work becuase lite-c executables have self-check routine. For example, any modification of executable memory causes check sum exception and crasing.
,and now the good news is the author has add 'basic' support without sdk support(hopely will be added soon) for lite-c!!i have tested to protecting one of the open source games "a7titude",it succeed!.
About performance wise,of course for every protector it will degrading the performance of the protected exe,my test is it depends on your setting and plugins,with addition into isdebuggerpresent plugin with lite-c plugin,it adds 3 mb to runtime ,for example a7titude before protected run using memory ~47mb,after protected it will add ~3mb so around 50mb~,consider the current pc are more using more than >1gb ram,this slight degradation won't affect much. If you interested you can ask around on the author forum on lite-c thread,including the custom plugin required to add support lite-c into protector :
http://enigmaprotector.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=456
if there is good demand probably the author will add support lite-c into their sdk.With more advanced features,like encapsulate your function in a VM,Marking,Simulating,etc.So far the basic protection will work but with sdk it will be much more to cr*ck!
