psx4pandora question


andyhamer

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Just curious to know what format my games need to be in - Images, Bin's etc - i am eager to start ripping in preparation.


Nearly forgot, has anyone tried any language patched games? - the specific game i am interested in is Policenauts (superb game, if you haven't tried it - can be bought relatively cheaply, got mine from Ebay for around £10) and one of the best language translations ever.


EDIT:


Something that occurred to me recently can't you just use the .bin's (without the cue bit) i seem to remember when i used Epsxe, that this was fine.
 
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I've ripped my CDs to bin/toc (which works, but psx4pandora currently supports neither toc nor cue files), but I've learned since that toc isn't all that great (it's missing information that cue files have), so I suspect that it would be better to use bin/cue instead.


If you use Linux, I feel it's worth mentioning that Exophase helped me out a while ago with a command for cdrdao (a command-line app for Linux) for ripping another type of game CD I have, but this would also work for PSX games. This produces a bin/cue combo, and is nice and speedy;

cdrdao read-cd --read-raw --datafile [insert desired filename].bin --device /dev/cdrom --driver generic-mmc-raw [same name].cue

It will then drop it in your home directory - once it's done, move it to where you want it to be. Simples, as they say. :p (If the part with --device /dev/cdrom doesn't work, try --device ATAPI:0,0,0 instead.)


I'm afraid I can't comment on translation-patched games, though - I don't have any for which I need that, so I haven't tried. This post from the other forum suggests that Policenauts should be alright, though. :)


Hope this helps. :D
 
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I've ripped my CDs to bin/toc (which works, but psx4pandora currently supports neither toc nor cue files), but I've learned since that toc isn't all that great (it's missing information that cue files have), so I suspect that it would be better to use bin/cue instead.


If you use Linux, I feel it's worth mentioning that Exophase helped me out a while ago with a command for cdrdao (a command-line app for Linux) for ripping another type of game CD I have, but this would also work for PSX games. This produces a bin/cue combo, and is nice and speedy;


It will then drop it in your home directory - once it's done, move it to where you want it to be. Simples, as they say. :p (If the part with --device /dev/cdrom doesn't work, try --device ATAPI:0,0,0 instead.)


I'm afraid I can't comment on translation-patched games, though - I don't have any for which I need that, so I haven't tried. This post from the other forum suggests that Policenauts should be alright, though. :)


Hope this helps. :D

Yes: big help, many thanks - time to get busy then.
 
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Yes: big help, many thanks - time to get busy then.
Tomb Raider (PAL) uses some form of copy protection in the sub channels so I had to use a version of Alcohol 52% to copy my disks.


And off the top of my head I can't recall the extensions it produces (would require me switching on my windoze box).


Playing Tomb Raider on the Pandora is really quite important to me, and I need to play my Pal version of legal reasons. :p
 
You could always pick up a PC version, since it was a DOS game. I've not heard if anyone's had any luck with it under DOSBOX though.

Even with over-clocking I doubt it will run well on DosBox. Currently it's only performing around 386DX / 486SX 25mhz speeds. Tombraider required a Pentium 60mhz or better. I'd say Playstation emulation may be the better route.
 
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Ripped some of my CDs as cue/bin as well, but the point was to play them on my PC in the first place.


I guess it'd make sense for just about any PSX emulator to play the same types of images.
 
You could always pick up a PC version, since it was a DOS game. I've not heard if anyone's had any luck with it under DOSBOX though.
Haven't actually considered that as I suspected this could need too many cycles.


Worth a try. ((when I get the darn thing))
 
Well, I suspect TrashyMG is right - the PC I played it on was a Pentium of some description and it wouldn't be much fun running any slower. There's only one way to find out of course.
 
ISO files have always been safe, reliable and stable for me since my days of epsxe and pSX for Linux...seems like a good year since I've used either... epsxe doesn't support games like Chrono Cross and pSX is 32bit only (have yet to get ANY 32bit software to run in a 64bit env... so please don't suggest that. I'll figure something out eventually and will find myself back up and running with pSX when I am able to do so... :p
 
^ You're better off with bin/cue all-round, though, especially with games that use redbook audio. :p
 
so what if you convert an ISO to bin/cue? is that info still lost?


(I feel this is a valid question as I've gotten different answers from different people about converting "limited" formats of files to "not-so-limited" formats and 'recovering' information that was not accessible in the original/previous format... so I figure it's worth asking)
 
No, ISO discards the subchannel data.


Technically it could "recover" the data, but it would be wrong.
 
interesting... and how does that compare to img/ccd/(whatever other files come in that format)?


(compelled to note that this is still on-topic, as I am primarily asking these questions as far as PSX emulation goes... mostly for the Pandora, but this can easily be cross-compatible info for other PSX emulators for other platforms...)
 
ccd is basically ISO+. If ripped correctly, there will be a ccd file, an img file, and a sub file. The img file is the CD data (similar to ISO, but not really), the sub file is the subchannel data, and the ccd file is how it all goes together.
 
ok... so now the obvious next question.... img/ccd/sub vs bin/cue.... features and size... we all don't have 1TB portables, so it's worth asking :p
 
I've not found very many programs that can read ccd. Daemon Tools only added it as a favour to someone, as I recall. bin/cue is a more standard format. As for size, they should both be about the same: 700MB (at most) for data, and 24MB for subchannel data.
 
I see... ok... I know that pSX and epsx3 support it, as I have a few games I could only get in IMG format at one time (long story) and have not been sure since that time if I could convert to any other type... know of any good linux tools for the job? (Pandora-ported or otherwise :p )
 
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