It depends on your jdbc-driver (and the database behind) if scrollable result sets are supported or not.
To determinate this hibernate does following (this is a summary):
Code:
Class.forName("oracle.jdbc.driver.OracleDriver");
java.sql.Connection connection = java.sql.DriverManager.getConnection(yourUrl ,userName,password);
boolean ScrollableResultSetsEnabled = connection.getMetaData().supportsResultSetType( java.sql.ResultSet.TYPE_SCROLL_INSENSITIVE );
...
if (... !factory.getSettings().isScrollableResultSetsEnabled())
throw new AssertionFailure("scrollable result sets are not enabled");