Game doesn't start after clicking Play in setup screen

[orangensaft 🫩]

When I start the game in Steam, the setup screen shows up just fine, and I can change the video options. But when I press Play, the game doesn't actually start, and after a few seconds I can see that Steam Cloud syncs the savegames, as if I just closed the game.
When I started the game initially, a SecuROM window showed up, but I couldn't see any buttons. The window didn't have any visible text, except for a key with a textbox below it. I pasted my key into there and a progress bar moved from left to right. When I then clicked the leftmost button, the window closed. After that initial experience, it won't show up anymore..

Has anyone experienced this? Any help?

Windows 10 Pro 64-bit
Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E3-1240 v3 @ 3.40GHz (8 CPUs), ~3.4GHz
16384MB RAM
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070

[Austin]

Having this same problem, any help would be appreciated

[Moss]

google for gfwlive35setup.exe and install it. then you can play the game and you need to create a offline account by scrolling to the bottom and clicking the blue text in the games for windows live popup.

[mendel]

are you sure that takes care of securom as well?

[orangensaft 🫩]

Installing GfWL 3.5[www.microsoft.com] solves my issue in part - FUEL starts up, but then can't continue because of Fatal Error: "Please make sure your hardware is supported by this application. Please refer to the ReadMe file. (WinLiveNetPlayManager_Z)"
Here's what I've found.
There's a solution from 2011[web.archive.org] that talks about removing an updated version of GfWL and reinstalling the one that's shipped with the game. Since I've tried installing the GfWL installer that comes with the game before downloading version 3.5, I can confirm this does not work. Unless there's something happening in the background after installing 3.5 and then downgrading, but the thread talks about removing all traces of it, so I doubt it.
Starting SecuLauncher directly just bypasses the setup window, and still shows the error.
Rebooting my system didn't make any difference for me. Executing SecuLauncher as administrator, or requiring FUEL to run as administrator in the file properties didn't work - same error message.
I've checked the Event Viewer and can see warning entries regarding XLive:

Title FUEL.exe (1, 0, 0, 1) XLive 3.5.0088.0 (WGX_XLIVE_V3.05_RTM(panblder).110409-1835) C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\xlive.dll
0x800b0100

Games for Windows - LIVE DLL
C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\msidcrl40.dll 10.0.17134.1 (WinBuild.160101.0800)

I'm not sure how to fix them and at this point am losing interest for today. Why does this have to be such a hassle? These all seem like DRM-related issues..
For the record, this thread[www.nfohump.com] talks about a SecuROM crack by razor1911, which I wasn't able to test. The users there say you can even play online and it won't be recognized, because it uses the original FUEL.exe.

[mendel]

Originally posted by orangensaft:

Why does this have to be such a hassle? These all seem like DRM-related issues..

Codemasters love their copy protection. They are the one company who sold me a game I couldn't play, because I had a multi-CD drive at the time and the copy protection simply didn't allow the game to be played on that. FUEL has Steam, SecuROM, and GFWL, and while FUEL would still run, the copy protection is outdated and a hassle to activate.

[ZiMRAA ✙ {위생병} {衛生]

jupp we got ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ scammed!!!!!!!!!!

[mendel]

Originally posted by OP ZiMRA ✙ {위생병} {衛:

jupp we got ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ scammed!!!!!!!!!!

FUEL is not a scam. It is a racing game that worked well, but its copy protection is no longer compatible with current systems, and that is why the game is no longer sold officially.

If you get an older game (and FUEL is over 9 years old now), that's what you should expect. There are many older games that won't run properly on modern systems.

[orangensaft 🫩]

Originally posted by mendel:

Originally posted by OP ZiMRA ✙ {위생병} {衛:

jupp we got ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ scammed!!!!!!!!!!

FUEL is not a scam. It is a racing game that worked well, but its copy protection is no longer compatible with current systems, and that is why the game is no longer sold officially.

If you get an older game (and FUEL is over 9 years old now), that's what you should expect. There are many older games that won't run properly on modern systems.

The publisher or developer of the game could simply remove the copy protection and the game would run like a charm on my system. And why would I expect something to just break after a certain time? I've played with 30 year old editions of the Risk board game, still works perfectly fine. Or take Half-Life as a digital example: 20 years old and it still works. If I run an operating system that the game supports, I don't see a reason for the game not to work on it, just because the DRM isn't supported anymore. Just remove the DRM, if you're not even selling the game anymore

[mendel]

Removing the DRM takes another website which sells DRM-free games quite a bit of reverse engineering, aka "hacking". Games are made with tools, compiled from program source code, so even if you still have the source code, you also need to have a computer that runs the set of tools that were used to create that game, and that's not something "simple". Does Asobo even exist any more? So if you wanted to do that, you'd better make a DRM-free version in the first place, to release later. But Codemasters really sell into that copy protection thing, so why would you expect them to remove copy protection from an old game that wouldn't generate any revenue even if it did?

For the customer it means being aware of this, and keeping that in mind when judging the price that you pay for a Codemasters game.