Playing Burned Games on Classic Consoles?

[CGQuarterly]

I've read a lot on various forums about the hazards of playing burned games on older consoles. People claim that it wears out the laser faster, but other people claim that it makes no difference (including one person who claimed to work in "the laser industry"). Is there anyone here on AA who has the technical knowledge needed to speak intelligently about this? I'm not asking for anecdotes from people about how they played backups on their DC and then it died. That doesn't mean that it was the discs that killed the system. I think we can generally agree that optical drives are not as reliable as cartridge-based consoles, so there is always going to be a higher failure rate. Maybe this is contributing to peoples fears about playing burned games? Could this just be an urban legend that gets perpetuated by optical drives' lower reliability?

 

I freely admit that I don't understand how an optical drive works, but I consider myself to be a pretty smart fellow. I can understand a burned game wearing out a drive motor if the data is arranged on a disc in a non-standard manner so that the laser has to jump around more than normal. But if I burn an image of the game (instead of that iso/mp3 crap) using good media and a low burn speed, then I just don't see why it would have an effect on the laser. How is it different than playing a "real" game? Wasn't that disc burned from an image, too?

 

And can we please not turn this into an argument about piracy? I just want to have a technical discussion about the effect of playing backups on the laser of a console's optical drive.

 

Chris

[Rex Dart]

I don't have an answer for you, other than the fact that legit discs are not burned, they're pressed. If burned games wear out lasers, it could be because they struggle a bit more to read your janky burned-ink discs when they're designed to read physical pits and valleys.

[SlowCoder]

Not that I'm a laser guru, but I think to say that a burned disc will wear out a machine faster is farcical. Either the disc can he read, or it can't. More likely some of these guys could be modding their laser's brightness to read the discs better, which will wear the laser out faster. But in that case the blame rests on the fact they modded, and not on the burned discs.

[tz101]

I think the logic always given for the theory of burned discs wearing out laser drives prematurely revolves around the laser eye needing to stop and start intermittently to access "fragmented" data on the burned disc. Much like how a severely fragmented hard drive slows down the performance speed of a computer. But I wonder if this holds true for laser media like it does for magnetic media, or is this just an assumption on the part of many who would perpetuate the "myth"?

 

Someone with more knowledge of laser drives will need to address that issue.

[jferio]

Most of the issue with the Dreamcast can probably be attributed to the 1GB GD-ROM specification of Dreamcast games, and forcing it to read a 700MB CD-R. It's not really designed to cope with the difference when it comes to reading games, hence some units probably wind up getting damaged in the process.

 

I can imagine the same would be true for any other system that the designer came up with some bizarre way of putting the data on the disc that isn't just CD-ROM or DVD-ROM in terms of getting more tracks per inch. However, if the system uses one of the format standards, then it shouldn't make any difference, since burned discs are meant to be readable by the same hardware.

[HatefulGravey]

Not that I'm a laser guru, but I think to say that a burned disc will wear out a machine faster is farcical. Either the disc can he read, or it can't. More likely some of these guys could be modding their laser's brightness to read the discs better, which will wear the laser out faster. But in that case the blame rests on the fact they modded, and not on the burned discs.

 

I agree with that. It can read it or not.

 

As to the idea of the difference in 1gig and 700mb disc, I can't see where that would matter. I say that only because the hardware can't adjust itself in the way we can adjust data. So if the information on the disc was over compressed to fit the disc in such a way as to damage the laser the laser wouldn't be able to read the information off that disc at all. The laser only knows to look for information in order, I can't see how it would know how to "look harder" because the disc was smaller.

[Underball]

The common misconception is that a burned disc will wear out the laser. Thats not really the case. The problem is that poorly burned inaccurately written discs will cause the drive to have to work harder to read the data, putting more strain on the drive gears and motors. Also the prolonged time required to read the bad discs will eventually shorten the life of the laser, but it needs to be a LONG time.

 

The short answer - burned discs are fine provided you use good quality media, and the slowest (and most accurate) burning speed.

 

Just because the drive can burn at 48x doesn't mean your 3DO can read a disc burned at 48x. It will be better off with a slower burn.

[+remowilliams]

The short answer - burned discs are fine provided you use good quality media, and the slowest (and most accurate) burning speed.

 

Bingo - don't use the cheapest shit media you can find. Which is exactly what most people buy...

[user42]

Don't know how true this is but the old story about PS1's was that a silver disk reflects back more heat than a black disk and eventually causes the plastic plate that holds the laser to warp... Of course you could buy black disks to avoid that.

[Koopa64]

Most of the issue with the Dreamcast can probably be attributed to the 1GB GD-ROM specification of Dreamcast games, and forcing it to read a 700MB CD-R. It's not really designed to cope with the difference when it comes to reading games, hence some units probably wind up getting damaged in the process.

 

I can imagine the same would be true for any other system that the designer came up with some bizarre way of putting the data on the disc that isn't just CD-ROM or DVD-ROM in terms of getting more tracks per inch. However, if the system uses one of the format standards, then it shouldn't make any difference, since burned discs are meant to be readable by the same hardware.

 

I really feel the need to correct this. Pretty much the only difference between GD-ROM and CD-ROM is the tightness of the tracks on the disc. GD-ROM optimizes for physical disc space better than CD-ROM, giving it some extra data storage. The Dreamcast has support for CD media, there is no problem with using that format. If there was, then audio CDs would also slowly damage the Dreamcast, but last I checked I've never heard any problems with playing audio discs on the it.

[Chuplayer]

Don't know how true this is but the old story about PS1's was that a silver disk reflects back more heat than a black disk and eventually causes the plastic plate that holds the laser to warp... Of course you could buy black disks to avoid that.

I'm going to have to call bull on that. The disk drive did a good enough job by itself making itself warp when using regular games that a burned disc wasn't going to make a difference. The PS1 didn't have any vents on the top. Heat built up around the disk drive and warped it by normal means.

[user42]

I'm going to have to call bull on that. The disk drive did a good enough job by itself making itself warp when using regular games that a burned disc wasn't going to make a difference.

 

I'm not so sure that's a valid argument...if, as you said "the disk drive did a good enough job by itself making itself warp when using regular games" adding to that with a reflective disk could greatly increase fail rate.

 

 

So the real question is, Do silver disk really reflect more heat? or is that just an urban legend?

 

 

[Itchy Koala]

If the silver disc does reflect more heat, and that heat was damaging enough to ruin the plastic plate surrounding the lens, wouldn't the black discs be ruined equally, given that black has more potential to absorb the heat rather than reflect?

 

Did that make sense to anyone else?

Edited April 14, 2011 by Itchy Koala

[user42]

I think that really depends on the type of plastic... Some is more heat resistant than others.

[Classic Pac]

I burned a few games for my PS1, and really had no problems period. Expect when I tired 2 PAL games one locked up and the other made the screen go crazy.

[Rex Dart]

So... Day Two, and we only have more misinformation

[Blarginatorr]

PSX Laser drive "warps" because of its poor production quality (early models had the laserhead on a plastic frame) and also what I assume, the very frequent loading times, possibly because the console had little RAM to load each portion on.

So after some time the laser reader was bound to wobble around, reason why you flip your PSX vertical and let gravitational effect keep the laser head stabilized.

[Chuplayer]

PSX Laser drive "warps" because of its poor production quality (early models had the laserhead on a plastic frame) and also what I assume, the very frequent loading times, possibly because the console had little RAM to load each portion on.

So after some time the laser reader was bound to wobble around, reason why you flip your PSX vertical and let gravitational effect keep the laser head stabilized.

Upside down was the fix for all the kids at my school.

 

My fix was just to get an N64.

[Lendorien]

PSX Laser drive "warps" because of its poor production quality (early models had the laserhead on a plastic frame) and also what I assume, the very frequent loading times, possibly because the console had little RAM to load each portion on.

So after some time the laser reader was bound to wobble around, reason why you flip your PSX vertical and let gravitational effect keep the laser head stabilized.

Upside down was the fix for all the kids at my school.

 

My fix was just to get an N64.

 

+1 to that.

 

I would think, as someone else mentioned, the failure might come more from the drive head having to move around more for burned discs than laser failure. As for the dreamcast, my understandign was that the GD-Rom drives tend to fail regardless of using burned media or not.

[tz101]

...reason why you flip your PSX vertical and let gravitational effect keep the laser head stabilized.

 

I think the early PSX units had the laser carriage traveling on a diagonal path, and the later consoles had it on a direct north-south path. So which way is "vertical" in your description? If I set my PSX diagonal unit on its side, then gravitational force will not stabilize it as you have described.

[Blarginatorr]

...reason why you flip your PSX vertical and let gravitational effect keep the laser head stabilized.

 

I think the early PSX units had the laser carriage traveling on a diagonal path, and the later consoles had it on a direct north-south path. So which way is "vertical" in your description? If I set my PSX diagonal unit on its side, then gravitational force will not stabilize it as you have described.

Far as I know, I havent had any of the "newer" PSX units, therefore I have no idea how the flipping affects them.

Or more like, never really put any attention in the direction the laser head was moving.

Flipping it vertical just made it magically work better.

[Koopa64]

Umm, for what it's worth, I have a PS1, Model 1, made in Japan, 1999 and the laser lens sled goes vertical compared to the usual orientation of the system (controller/memory card ports at the front etc).

[APE-]

I've seen Dreamcasts kick the bucket regularly but to be fair they were never designed to run the entire library of games off of a CD type media but rather the GD-ROM format. On top of that virtually every rip people use are downsampled, unpadded (not usually any space for it) and generally garbage.

 

The only console I can speak with any certainty of is the SegaCD that I've been told has a type of laser that is nearly indestructible in terms of the media killing it.

[sheath]

I killed two PC-Engine DUOs with CDRs. I tried to load a Dracula X CDR just to see what it was like. I have heard my Sega CD and my Dreamcast struggling with the one or two CDRs I've put in them too. My Sega CD makes a horrible crunching noise even when I'm just using the Pier Solar CDR. If CDRs don't ruin the laser, they definitely cause more access.

 

If I ever move to using CDRs I will have to use them on a second console, not any of the ones I've spent a bunch of money for and definitely not the ones I bought new back in the day.

[Hatta]

I freely admit that I don't understand how an optical drive works, but I consider myself to be a pretty smart fellow. I can understand a burned game wearing out a drive motor if the data is arranged on a disc in a non-standard manner so that the laser has to jump around more than normal. But if I burn an image of the game (instead of that iso/mp3 crap) using good media and a low burn speed, then I just don't see why it would have an effect on the laser.

 

 

You are absolutely correct. Ask people about the mechanism for CDR induced laser damage and all you get is hand waving.

 

I killed two PC-Engine DUOs with CDRs.

 

I think what you mean is two of your PC-Engines died while you were using CDRs. Old lasers die, especially from the first generation of CD technology. It's tempting to blame the CDRs, but since there's no theoretical mechanism for CDR induced laser damage, and no non-anecdotal data to support the assertion that it occurs, you can't conclude anything.

 

FWIW, my Turbo Duo works better with CDRs than original discs. The spindle on the thing is slightly warped, so it doesn't fully sandwich the disc between the spindle and the lid and the disc slips when it spins. However, Taiyo Yuden CDRs are just a bit thicker than the original discs, so they make good contact and spin just fine.