Can a BWA file be superflous?

vbimport
#1

Are there times a BWA file just won’t make a difference?
I am using the latest version of BlindWrite 4.4 and I thought I would test the cd physical characteristics dumper. I tested it on Global Operations (old, and maybe out of print) which uses safedisk 2 according to clonyxxl. I started the BWA app, it took just 9 minutes or so. By comparision C&C Generals was taking so long (10% completed after 2 hours) I just gave up. At the end, the app stated that the BWA file was not necessary.

So when I went to burn the image to cd, the option to select or deselect “use BWA file” was not even present. I am not sure what that was about, but the option just wasn’t there.

#2

I should state that I did save the BWA file to the same directory using the same name as the image, and when I recorded the image to begin with I did select read subchannel data. Overkill? You bet.

#3

You do not need a BWA file for Safedisc protected games.
Some protections are based on media signatures.
The BWA builder reads this signature and stores the data into a BWA file. Since Safedisc is not based on media signatures then a BWA file is not needed.
The only use for a BWA file is for SecuROM 4.8.
There are other protections based on media signatures, but only Alcohol can extract and emulate the signature. Blindwrite is only designed to patch SecuROM 4.8 backups (as is Twinpeak).