CD-R usage

[Blayer98]

Hi there,

I’ve been thinking...
IDK if I should keep using my CD-Rs. I’m impressed my GD-ROM drive is still going after all these years but I don’t have the experience to fix it if the laser burns out, or what...

I’ve also wanted to have actual GD-ROM copies of games and not bootleg due to personal reasons like trying not to pirate games, and I’ve also been looking into the idea of getting a GDEMU, but I’ve also heard horror stories about the system dying from overheating. Idk what I should do, I want to keep playing Dreamcast, and also keep my collection...
I don’t know what else to think of, I’m very accident prone too so I cannot trust myself with repairs.

Sucks that there’s no GD-ROM drive replicas or whatever. I’ve also looked into GDEMUs but it’s confusing, there’s clones to deal with and I just want something simple and that isn’t going to like brick my Dreamcast or force me to waste another £50-70 on another one.

[Blayer98]

Is there a right way to burn a CD-R? I just want to make sure that I haven’t set the speed too high or too low

[247]

Well i do actually use discjuggler and burn games at the lowest speed possible, lowest speed is always recommended, then you have to look out for good rips and try to avoid bad ones

Just to give you an example

Nhl 2k2 is a very bad rip and you should avoid that, and no there is no good rip of the game
Alien front online is a bad rip too and will make your console grind like hell

On the other side the original phantasy star online will make you console grind like hell while the patched one is completely silent

I would say you'll need to try things first, althought i know it may be a waste of cds...

[Blayer98]

Well i do actually use discjuggler and burn games at the lowest speed possible, lowest speed is always recommended, then you have to look out for good rips and try to avoid bad ones

Just to give you an example

Nhl 2k2 is a very bad rip and you should avoid that, and no there is no good rip of the game
Alien front online is a bad rip too and will make your console grind like hell

On the other side the original phantasy star online will make you console grind like hell while the patched one is completely silent

I would say you'll need to try things first, althought i know it may be a waste of cds...

Ah ok, thanks! I am thinking of getting a GDEMU because otherwise you won't even be able to play games on original hardware seeing as you can't exactly replace the GD-ROM Drive/Laser...

Regarding lowest speeds, I use ImgBurn to burn games onto CD-R, idk if there's a way to put the speed down at the lowest one...

[AgentMomo]

Alcohol for me was the best way to burn it , I also used MAXWELL Brand CD-Rs. Sometimes cheaper CDR Brands can be super hit or miss.

[SMiTH]

Just to give you an example

Nhl 2k2 is a very bad rip and you should avoid that, and no there is no good rip of the game
Alien front online is a bad rip too and will make your console grind like hell

On the other side the original phantasy star online will make you console grind like hell while the patched one is completely silent

there could be several reasons for that...
one might say its the sort order of the files on the disk / not using a dummy file etc.
others might say its a sign of a dc laser going bad.
some might say its due to using inferior cd-r's.

Ah ok, thanks! I am thinking of getting a GDEMU because otherwise you won't even be able to play games on original hardware seeing as you can't exactly replace the GD-ROM Drive/Laser...

yes, you can replace the laser in a dreamcast.
you can even use an old pc cd rom laser lens, tweak the potentiometer and it works with gd-rom disks and cd-r.

most people don't own a gdemu or a usb gdrom.
the majority of dreamcast owners use cd-r's.

[247]

there could be several reasons for that...
one might say its the sort order of the files on the disk / not using a dummy file etc.
others might say its a sign of a dc laser going bad.
some might say its due to using inferior cd-r's..

i see, but in this case i can tell you it's the first one because nhl 2k2 seems to grind on everyone console's and i even tried it on 2 different machines...

[ac3t1ne]

I put a slightly less stuttery alien front online (correct sort order) in the requests thread a while ago in the downloads section. I guess it might just want some of the sound downsampled to really fix it, but no-one has done that because the game is so small? I havent checked so that's just a theory.