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NEC PC-Engine/SuperGrafx => PC Engine/SuperGrafx Discussion => Topic started by: Drakon on August 20, 2012, 01:45:19 PM
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My burner has a slowest possible speed of 16x, I burned a game at 48x on a 700 mb cdr and it runs fine. Should I worry about burning stuff at high speed? Sorry if this has been asked before I did a search but found it a bit difficult to find answers to this question.
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mileage always vary. Some works fine, some refuses to work if you burned too fast.
It's still best to burn as slow as possible. Look around thrift shops and garage sales for older CD burners to get the really slow burn rate.
I also have IDE-SATA adapter since my computer don't have any older 40 pins IDE at all.
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been having issues with the higher capacity cd's. gonna try aniin different software suite. So far i've tried imgburn and win 7 built in burner. gonna try ashampoo next.
8x is my lowest burning speed.
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The burn marks or the reflectivity on the disc is actually different in appearance when burned very fast versus slow. I noticed more skipping at 16x than 8x and more uniform appearance in the burned area when examined under light at the right angle. This is not at all a problem with a PC's modern CD/DVD drive (the disc will always work unless it was just plain bad), but fast burn speeds *can* be a problem with early CD/DVD players/systems that were in principle designed to deal just with pressed discs. I stick with 8x for the most part. If you're not in a hurry and can be doing something else while the burn is taking place, I say slower is better! ;)
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Okay I'll do as slow as it lets me (16x) I'm certainly in no hurry. I burned the first game at 48x because the games I bought havn't showed up and I wanted to test my cd unit.
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More time is taken to burn the individual pits the slower your burn speed. Depending on the burner this doesn't necessarily mean more defined pits. But in a lot of cases it causes that, this is why burning at a slow speed usually leads to better results, with that said your burner and media has a lot to do with the results as well.
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I burn at 4x, if you burn it at higher speeds their is a higher risk of getting errors.
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Burn as slow as possible (what your drive will allow), but make sure the media is rated for that slow of speed as well.
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It depends also on how well the burner can handle error correction.
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All of a sudden, my DuoR is having issues reading Taiyos burnt at 10x. If the game loads, the CD audio track plays for a bit then no CD Audio is heard until the next track is played. I'll have to try burning with the Win98 clunker.
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I burn at 4x, if you burn it at higher speeds their is a higher risk of getting errors...
..and damaging your system as well.
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All of a sudden, my DuoR is having issues reading Taiyos burnt at 10x. If the game loads, the CD audio track plays for a bit then no CD Audio is heard until the next track is played. I'll have to try burning with the Win98 clunker.
Burning at 8x (lowest possible) using the clunker also didn't work. Tried Taikos and Verbatims (cmc magnetics).
Something I noticed while playing one of my original discs is the appearance of granulated bars on the screen (barely noticeable). These bars don't appear when playing hucards. Could it be a power issue?
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Something I noticed while playing one of my original discs is the appearance of granulated bars on the screen (barely noticeable). These bars don't appear when playing hucards. Could it be a power issue?
Whatever you're talking about here it has nothing to do with CDRs.
I'd say the laser is just getting old in your Duo or its settings are drifting. Since CDRs didn't exist back in 1988 the lasers in these units were never designed to read them. Many people have problems, many people have no problems. You get lucky sometimes but you can't expect them to work at all, honestly.
I've owned 3 PCE systems, currently 2, and they all read CDR with no issues, but its not that often that I actually use them since I prefer originals.
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Quite honestly, I wouldn't recommend putting in CDRs into your system at all. Unless you are a fan of replacing parts, best bet would be to play them on a emulator on a pc or something on the lines of that. Meteor Blaster killed one of my Duos badly enough that I had to send it off to Keith Courage to fix it.
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Quite honestly, I wouldn't recommend putting in CDRs into your system at all. Unless you are a fan of replacing parts, best bet would be to play them on a emulator on a pc or something on the lines of that. Meteor Blaster killed one of my Duos badly enough that I had to send it off to Keith Courage to fix it.
Agreed. I'm not messing with CDRs anymore.
After getting the hang of wiimednafen, I'll stick to that for testing.
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Quite honestly, I wouldn't recommend putting in CDRs into your system at all. Unless you are a fan of replacing parts, best bet would be to play them on a emulator on a pc or something on the lines of that. Meteor Blaster killed one of my Duos badly enough that I had to send it off to Keith Courage to fix it.
This is a topic that has been debated here many times in the past. A lot of people are convinced CDRs kill PCEs but AFAIK nobody has formulated a decent informed theory on how this would even be possible. I've played through entire RPGs multiple times on CDR and nothing failed.
I have to wonder if the people who push this theory have any ideas of other systems that can be killed by CDR.
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While I don't have a scientific explanation, in the Duo's case, there are (metallic) noises you only hear when trying CDRs.
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The Duos will get physically stuck beyond their range of sled travel with CDRs for some reason. This is certainly a problem, although its easily corrected.
I've never heard "metallic" noises.
My theory is that these systems that die from CDR use were on their last legs anyway. Also, People who run primarily CDRs primarily are also more likely to be low budget late comers with leaky cap black Duos, crappy power supplies, etc.
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I think the "theory" was that on a CDR that's barely readable, the laser will have to track more often, leading to more work, leading to faster breakdown. I guess if you have a bad burn, and can actually hear your drive having to retrack often, then don't use that disk. If it works fine and sounds normal, probably not much chance of damage.
Edit: Also, I would NOT recommend trying to use an older burner just to get slower burn speeds. I've tested two different 1x burners years ago, and the newer 8x burner I had always produced better disks. Slower does not always equal better. It's mainly the quality of the burner itself.
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Excessive seeking/tracking/focusing could wear out the gears and stuff, but the fix for these dead Duos is usually just a laser sans sled, right? So its the focusing thats killing it? Plausible.
Here's the thing with PCE games though. They load once and then basically just play a music track. So if the game isn't taking a long time to load and the music track isn't skipping then its safe to say that it's not having a very hard time. It's not like a modern system where the optical drive is just doing all sorts of shit constantly. You're going to be aware of every miscue. When a PCE skips playing music it just plays silence until the next load. Unless you've been playing a lot of games with the music constantly dropping out then I don't think the CDR killed the laser. It probably just died because its been in constant use since Reagan was president.
I'm not pro or anti CDR or anything, btw, and I don't have a definite opinion on whether this is actually happening or not, just don't like superstitions being spread and as far as I can tell right now it's just that, superstition.
Maybe someone can measure the activity of the focusing coil with an ammeter or something with CDR versus pressed CD and see if there is any difference.
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Excessive seeking/tracking/focusing could wear out the gears and stuff, but the fix for these dead Duos is usually just a laser sans sled, right? So its the focusing thats killing it? Plausible.
Here's the thing with PCE games though. They load once and then basically just play a music track. So if the game isn't taking a long time to load and the music track isn't skipping then its safe to say that it's not having a very hard time. It's not like a modern system where the optical drive is just doing all sorts of shit constantly. You're going to be aware of every miscue. When a PCE skips playing music it just plays silence until the next load. Unless you've been playing a lot of games with the music constantly dropping out then I don't think the CDR killed the laser. It probably just died because its been in constant use since Reagan was president.
I'm not pro or anti CDR or anything, btw, and I don't have a definite opinion on whether this is actually happening or not, just don't like superstitions being spread and as far as I can tell right now it's just that, superstition.
Maybe someone can measure the activity of the focusing coil with an ammeter or something with CDR versus pressed CD and see if there is any difference.
There are other people here that had Meteor Blaster kill their Duos, I know I'm not the only one. If I recall, Meteor Blaster came out on a CD-R didn't it?
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I don't know if there are even enough people who have played Meteor Blaster period to make an accurate sample of whether or not it kills Duos.
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There are other people here that had Meteor Blaster kill their Duos,
MB rode my Duo hard and put it away wet.
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Just replaced the "original" AC adapter (9V 1A) with a universal one (9V 1.8A) and BAM! Sapphy works perfectly.
No more granulated bars or lens struggle.
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so your duo is consumpting more power than it originally was designed for? may be it isn't at its best health.
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Did ya test the original AC? It's probably not putting out what it once did.
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I haven't tested it. But I intend to
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All of a sudden, my DuoR is having issues reading Taiyos burnt at 10x. If the game loads, the CD audio track plays for a bit then no CD Audio is heard until the next track is played. I'll have to try burning with the Win98 clunker.
This is exactly the problem I was having with my Turbo Duo. At first, I somewhat fell for the ole "Blame the CD-R" reaction so what I did is take an original music CD and let that play. Sure enough, after a few seconds of playing whatever track was selected, it'd skip and then cease playing until the next load, just as it was doing with a game read off of a CD-R.
Conclusion ? The problem is not the disc, CD-R or otherwise. Here's one of the many threads where this was talked about and the possible solution in detail (http://www.pcenginefx.com/forums/index.php?topic=13164.msg260130#msg260130). Basically, you're gonna have to regrease the slider poles of the lens, preferably with white, lightweight lithium grease if you can get it. You need to thoroughly degrease the old grease off of course. Also, don't mess with ANY potentiometers until having done this first...
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Did ya test the original AC? It's probably not putting out what it once did.
Oldskool coil transformers very rarely change its outputvoltage/power over time. either they fully work or they do not at all. but one plausible factor could be oxidation on the plugs which produces a higher contact resistance, which then will result in a power drop.
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There are other people here that had Meteor Blaster kill their Duos, I know I'm not the only one. If I recall, Meteor Blaster came out on a CD-R didn't it?
Anecdotal evidence does not proof make. This is one of those rare issues on which I agree with SignOfZeta. A poor quality CD-R might put a tiny bit of extra wear and tear on the drive due to an increased number of errors and the resulting work re-reading data, but that's like a drop in the bucket. Dust, carpet, older electrical wiring, and being used normally to play games are much more likely to cause your equipment to wear out.
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Fact: some people will continue to ignore previously stated reasoning for why cdrs cause premature wear and tear (not to be confused with instant death). Nothing will sway their beliefs. Nothing.
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Science a logic go a long way towards convincing me. I haven't see very much of that.
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Did ya test the original AC? It's probably not putting out what it once did.
Oldskool coil transformers very rarely change its outputvoltage/power over time. either they fully work or they do not at all. but one plausible factor could be oxidation on the plugs which produces a higher contact resistance, which then will result in a power drop.
Tested the old supply with the multimeter. I'm getting 9.33V . So it is probably not making good enough contact with the PCE.
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Conclusion ? The problem is not the disc, CD-R or otherwise. Here's one of the many threads where this was talked about and the possible solution in detail (http://www.pcenginefx.com/forums/index.php?topic=13164.msg260130#msg260130). Basically, you're gonna have to regrease the slider poles of the lens, preferably with white, lightweight lithium grease if you can get it. You need to thoroughly degrease the old grease off of course. Also, don't mess with ANY potentiometers until having done this first...
Thanks for the advice. I'll look into that (and also on a CDX system).
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Did ya test the original AC? It's probably not putting out what it once did.
Oldskool coil transformers very rarely change its outputvoltage/power over time. either they fully work or they do not at all. but one plausible factor could be oxidation on the plugs which produces a higher contact resistance, which then will result in a power drop.
Tested the old supply with the multimeter. I'm getting 9.33V . So it is probably not making good enough contact with the PCE.
If you are testing it not hooked up to the PCE you aren't really testing it. You need to know if it can still maintain 9V while the PCE is drawing on it, that it can still provide 1A. My hunch is that it isn't.
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The Duos will get physically stuck beyond their range of sled travel with CDRs for some reason. This is certainly a problem, although its easily corrected.
I've never heard "metallic" noises.
My theory is that these systems that die from CDR use were on their last legs anyway. Also, People who run primarily CDRs primarily are also more likely to be low budget late comers with leaky cap black Duos, crappy power supplies, etc.
how do you correct this, i have had this with 3 games on my duo. Just had to take the lid off and more the gears back. Ys 1 and 2 did this at the end fight now and then, and gates of thunder 4 in 1 cd does this all the time, cant remember the other game that did it.
how can this be corrected would love to know.
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Sorry. By "easily corrected" I just meant that it doesn't destroy your Duo permenently.
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ahh ok
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Fact: some people will continue to ignore previously stated reasoning for why cdrs cause premature wear and tear almost instant death (not to be confused with instant death a slight amount of extra wear and tear). Nothing will sway their beliefs. Nothing.
Fixed that for you so that it better reflects what I typically hear bandied about by the fear-mongers (not necessarily by you, but by many).
I agree that there may be a slight increase in wear and tear. Not sure why you chose the word premature. The system has wear and tear whenever it is used. Increased wear and tear isn't premature. It's just more. Almost sounds like you were going for premature system death, and it's not premature if it's due to a little extra wear and tear. Premature system death would be "oops, I dropped it". That said, these devices are designed for hundreds and hundreds of play hours. Good CDRs burned well probably have no significant impact on the life of your equipment. If you use cheap CDRs and burn them badly, well, you'll knock a few tens of hours of life off your hundreds and hundreds and you'll end up making repairs just a little sooner than you might otherwise.
Cost-benefit analysis, folks. Very simple. You're all going to have to make repairs at some point because no mechanical device lasts forever, even if well-maintained. So you have to decide if the opportunities you get to play CD games you aren't paying mucho $$ for (or translations you simply can't get otherwise) is worth paying some $$ making repairs a little sooner.
Honestly, if we want to talk about costs, emulate on that PC you've using to access these forums. Download ISOs and emulated them in Ootake or Mednafen (free, both of them). That way you're not putting any wear and tear on your Duo or CD-Rom unit. Heck, make ISOs from your original games and play them on the PC and you can preserve your Duo a lot longer than if you were actually using it. As long as you use your CD unit once a month to keep things limber and the moving parts don't dry up and the belts crack with age, you can preserve your CD-ROM drive much longer by putting almost no wear and tear on it at all. You too can be that old grannie who drives her car once a week and owns it until it simply rusts through.
So make sure you have a good brand burner (they're all pretty generic and capable these days, though), buy good discs like Taiyo Yuden or similar, and burn them at a speed appropriate to the disc and burner (slower will probably yield better results, but your mileage may vary). Chances are if you're getting a stack of 50 discs for $5 and burning them at 48x in that burner that cost you $15.99 at MicroCenter, you'll be making your repairs just a little sooner than you might if you stuck to pressed discs. If you're buying Taiyo Yuden or gold "archival" discs and burning them at the lowest speed supported by the discs and your $50+ burner by a known good brand with good reviews and reliability, I doubt you would really notice any perceptible decline in the lifespan of your CD unit. But even if you're using only originals, you're going to have to pay for repairs at some point. The only way to keep the repairs away forever is to not own the hardware, and then what's the point?
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Confirmed logic-supported scientific facts:
Authentic CD games wear out your hardware.
CDRs wear out your hardware.
Your hardware will breakdown even if you never play any kind of CD games, but likely sooner in some ways if you don't play them.
All of the above ailments can be repaired by many people today.
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I haven't had much desire for playing CD-Rs on my Duo, preferring to just play the real deal, but I do worry what it may do to my PC-FX. With all the time I've put into Pia Carrot and all the time I'll hopefully put into future fan translations, it makes me wonder. This is getting slightly off-topic, given the forum section, but should any effect be the same on PC-FX, or does it make a difference that that's a slightly more modern piece of hardware?
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Confirmed logic-supported scientific facts:
Authentic CD games wear out your hardware.
CDRs wear out your hardware.
Your hardware will breakdown even if you never play any kind of CD games, but likely sooner in some ways if you don't play them.
All of the above ailments can be repaired by many people today.
I haven't had much desire for playing CD-Rs on my Duo, preferring to just play the real deal, but I do worry what it may do to my PC-FX. This is getting slightly off-topic, given the forum section, but should any effect be the same on PC-FX, or does it make a difference that that's a slightly more modern piece of hardware?
See above.
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The Duos will get physically stuck beyond their range of sled travel with CDRs for some reason. This is certainly a problem, although its easily corrected.
I've never heard "metallic" noises.
My theory is that these systems that die from CDR use were on their last legs anyway. Also, People who run primarily CDRs primarily are also more likely to be low budget late comers with leaky cap black Duos, crappy power supplies, etc.
how do you correct this, i have had this with 3 games on my duo. Just had to take the lid off and more the gears back. Ys 1 and 2 did this at the end fight now and then, and gates of thunder 4 in 1 cd does this all the time, cant remember the other game that did it.
how can this be corrected would love to know.
I never heard of this and I don't see how a CD-R disc could be blamed for it in any way. But, I'd say it's time to regrease everything, the slider poles, sprockets, etc. At this point, that's 20 year-old dried out grease that's collected dust to boot. As mentioned, this solves skipping problems when audio tracks are being played. Anyhow, unless there's a sprocket that's worn out/damaged, that'd be the route to try... Doesn't hurt to get fresh oil in that motor as well. That isn't as strong as it used to be either.
The only logical way you could possibly blame a CD-R on this is if you were using say a 750 MB overburned one. But since you're making duplicates of original games that were designed to work with it, that'd never exceed the space limits of pressed discs, the laser is gonna be moving within the expected ranges that it's designed for.
I think how these superstitions build up is because a % of users have finished playing all their originals and now all they're playing are CD-Rs of downloaded games and fan-translated patched ones. Their CD unit was due for eventual servicing, it just happens to be the case that a CD-R was playing when it finally breaks, so presto, blame the CD-R!! Something like that, as Zeta was already explaining. Whatever the case, a CD-R was the last type of disc in there when it broke, so blame the CD-R! I almost did it myself as mentioned in my earlier posts here. I burned a couple of Ys IV CD-Rs at very slow speeds, same problem, then it dawned on me to try a real pressed music CD and a game, and the same shit was happening... Regreasing was the only option I felt I had, and...it worked! Would've sucked if it meant having to replace the laser or mess with the potentiometers.
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I don't know how it happens either but it really does happen. For some reason the laser gets stuck beyond its range of travel and has to be shoved back. AFAIK it only happens on the Duo/SuperCDROM2 deck and not the original CDROM2. It might actually be confined to black Duos come to think of it...
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Fixed that for you so that it better reflects what I typically hear bandied about by the fear-mongers (not necessarily by you, but by many).
Taking it to the other extreme is just as pointless, as you can't possibly quantify the 'slight' amount of extra wear caused by cdr use.
I agree that there may be a slight increase in wear and tear. Not sure why you chose the word premature. The system has wear and tear whenever it is used. Increased wear and tear isn't premature. It's just more. Almost sounds like you were going for premature system death, and it's not premature if it's due to a little extra wear and tear.
I chose 'premature' because cdr usage will cause the laser to wear out prematurely. Duh.
Good CDRs burned well probably have no significant impact on the life of your equipment. If you use cheap CDRs and burn them badly, well, you'll knock a few tens of hours of life off your hundreds and hundreds and you'll end up making repairs just a little sooner than you might otherwise.
Nobody knows with any certainty how little (or how much) cdr use will shorten a laser's life, but it doesn't really matter. My point was that some people will never believe that cdr use has any detrimental effect whatsoever, and even worse, people like zippy will conveniently forget/ignore every technical reason given for why they cause damage and keep telling people there's nothing to worry about.
By the way - not once have I said that people should never use cdrs. They're great for playing rare/pricey titles and translated stuff, but everyone should know going in that there are indeed risks involved but nothing that can't be fixed for relatively little money.
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From what I know:
Burning at faster speeds = more effort for the disc to be read and properly loaded. (wears out that shit faster. Doesn't immediately make it implode. Real discs do the same thing but will take longer.)
Using janked up CDRs = lens goes out of it's comfort zone and gets stuck (Poke it back to a safe area carefully and let it fix itself by loading a new game)
I've seen CDROMROMs break from normal use. No CD-Rs ever used. So, it's not like you're safe if you just use real CDs.
It's like having a keyboard that's guaranteed for 1,000,000 keystrokes.
A normal chicken-pecker typist will get a lot more "use" out of it than someone who types 200WAM and sits on the internet all day posting on forums and taunting n00bs on CS, etc.
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I have been using blank burned cd-r\dvd on just about every console i own, and the only 2 die on me.
The playstation 1 was the first it was a japan release model that in the end had to play it on its side but so did everyone else over time as they were shit.
the second was my good old fat ps2 run copy's on that suckers for years finally died, but i will put that down to just wearing it out over 5 years.
everything else i got is still working strong, so i personal cant say i have every had burned disk kill a console. I suppose factory pressed disks have to be better quality than burned ones, but i bought shit original disks that i have had to return to the shop, also burnt bad disks as well.
so just use good quality disks and a good image you should be fine or if your that worried about it just use originals.
so here is another thing to think of i was playing my last alert original the other day, disk looks ok maybe a few minor scratches. anyway finished it and the ending music was jumping all over the place. so if i burn copy of this that works with no issues would you still be better of using the original with jumping music or the copy.
I would say copy how about you ?.