Force 2003
Description
Notes:
Patches:
Note that patches are all for Force 2003.5 as there is no point in running 2003. Patches for Force 2003 should be similar.
Patching Force 2003.5 to boot on non-Merit Motherboards
Force 2003.5 checks to see if it's booting on an official Megatouch Force Motherboard (aka the ECS P6IWP-Fe 2.0 / PCChips/Hsin Tech M771LMR 2.0). If not, it'll show an "Invalid Motherboard Detected!!!" error message and stop booting.
To fix that, decrypt /usr/local/bin/start, open up the file in a Hex Editor and replace the following:
| Offset | Replace | With |
|---|---|---|
| 0xF62AF | 75 | EB |
One way to trick the HDD Model Check:
Add the following to any script that runs before the main game start is executed:
echo MERIT0011 > /tmp/hd
mount -v -n -o bind /tmp/hd /proc/ide/ide0/hda/model
Booting Force 2003.5 on non Megatouch Hardware:
Force 2003.5 checks to see if you're running an official Merit Hard Disk (it has a MERIT0011 model string) and a Force SMT-4 Touchcontroller (similar to SMT-3, but with a black case instead of white), and if it detects it's not, it will boot the game as MAXX.
To fix this, decrypt /usr/local/bin/start, open up the file in a Hex Editor, and replace the following:
| Offset | Replace | With |
|---|---|---|
| 0xF4F2B | 00 | 01 |
| 0xF4F4C | 00 | 01 |
| 0xF4F59 | 00 | 01 |
| 0xF4F66 | 00 | 01 |
| 0xF4F6C | 00 | 01 |
This is what it should look like if you open it in Ghidra and choose the ForceChk1__fv Function:
