Crazy Taxi stuttering after 5 minutes of gameplay?

[Cobra!]

Whenever I play Crazy Taxi on my Dreamcast, it plays fine for a while, but after 5 or so minutes, the music stutters, level sections fail to load and I sometimes get a read error, telling me to "check my disc for marks or scratches". It's as if the disc drive is struggling to keep up with the game.

I've tried this with other copies, including a new old stock copy, and it's done the same thing. Given every other game works without any issues, I assumed this was normal. However, others have pointed out that it isn't, and the game shouldn't be doing that.

How do I fix it?

[Gocha]

Sorry, no clue, I coment so your topic doesn't go down into oblivion. Don't lose faith
thought, there are a lot of people in this forum that know much more than I and they usually answer in a few hours.
I've heard some weird things can happen to your games when the power supply is not clean and/or making good contact with the rest of the system, no idea if this is one of the problems.

[mr.kaeru]

If I understand correctly, you have the same issue with other copies of Crazy Taxi but with no other game?

I'd have guessed at an optical drive issue but if you don't get the same with other games, that can't be it...

[Cobra!]

Yeah, I have tried 3 different copies of the game, and they’ve all done the same thing.

I was guessing that the drive isn’t currently fast enough to keep up, given Crazy Taxi is a hectic game compared other games that is always loading from the drive during gameplay?

[cloofoofoo]

Correct. I have tried 3 different copies of the game, and they’ve all done the same thing.

I was guessing that the drive isn’t fast enough to keep up, given Crazy Taxi is a hectic game compared other games that is always loading from the drive during gameplay?

Ehh even as a cdr the drive is fast enough. I've tested both, they maintain 60fps even after hours of playing. This sounds like u have hardware problem. Could be your drive is dying or maybe even a greater issue.

[Cobra!]

It’s been like this for over 10 years. The performance hasn’t gotten worse or better. I don’t think it’s my drive going bad, otherwise it would have gotten progressively worse, right?

The frameate is consistently 60fps on my console, too. It’s just level sections don’t load and the music starts to stutter, like when a record repeats the same second or so of a song if it's scratched.

[cloofoofoo]

It’s been like this for over 10 years. The performance hasn’t gotten worse or better. I don’t think it’s my drive “dying”, otherwise it would have gotten progressively worse, right?

The frameate is consistently 60fps on my console, too. It’s just level sections don’t load and the music starts to stutter, like when a record repeats the same second or so of a song if it's scratched.

I tried multiple rips over the years of both games and the only time that happened was when my drive was done for. It would miss the timing for streaming parts of the stage. Mind you my drive had years of showing degrading performance before it kicked the bucket. After being replaced it no longer does that and seems to be only slightly slow than gdrom.

But if you said it isn't that I don't know. Might just be unique to you.

[beanboy]

A dirty lens?

[Cobra!]

I haven't tried that. I might as well give it a shot.

[dave_van_damn]

It's definitely a disc drive problem, I'm afraid. The game reads the levels on the fly and is constantly loading. The laser is too weak to keep up.