Jag CD and CDR and .cdi

[phoenixdownita]

If you are too sensible to this argument just don't bother reading this topic cause I will ask about CDR over a JagCD.

 

I just received my JagCD from Best Electronics, and separately from 3rd party on Amzn a Mem Track.

So far so good it all works as expected, and the cart slot on the JagCD is almost as temperamental as the one on the Jag, but at least the JagCD itself makes a very good contact with the Jag.

 

So I went to the DopeABC.XYZ site and DLed the 13 members of the bundle of joy that is CD gaming on Jag.

Separately I DLed also Jagtopia and Kobayashi Maru.

 

All images are .cdi, that is to say DiscJuggler.

I didn't give it a second thought as I didn't want to use DJ and started "backup-ing" using ImgBurn 2.5.7.

 

The results are mixed. Jagtopia works, KM works, Baldies works, BattleMorph sometimes gives "too many read errors".

Blue Lightning wouldn't work, tried 3 times, Brain Dead 13 wouldn't work tried once.

 

I then decided to take the plunge and look for DiscJuggler6 demo as suggested .... and got back into "backup-ing" from Blue Lightning onwards.

I did all the rest of the bunch, and they all work fine when using DJ with a caveat for World Tour Racing, when it boots it goes to the audio player, to actually play it I need to use Jagtopia then it works.

 

At that point I thought I would re"backup" with DiscJuggler the 4 I did with ImgBurn just to stay on the safe side, so I started with BattleMorph .... no go ... same "too many read errors" and all the times, the ImgBurn version only sometimes, I stopped the process of re"backup" to avoid more coasters.

 

Now for the questions?

 

1) Is ImgBurn CDI challenged?

 

2) How comes BattleMorph has issues while the rest seems just fine? Is it a sort of "backup" protection?

 

3) Is World Tour Racing unencrypted hence the need for Jagtopia?

 

I repeat, if your too skittish about the subject of "backups" don't bother reading, no need for a flame.

Edited July 4, 2014 by phoenixdownita

[Chilly Willy]

One thing to remember about burners today is that they tend to operate in zonal mode - they increase the speed as they pass from one zone on the CD to the next. It may start at 20X at the inside, jump to 26X, then to 32X, and so on until it reaches its max speed on the outside part of the CD. Old 1X and 2X CDs in particular can't handle that. You don't need to burn a CD at the slowest speed, but you need to burn at a speed where your writer doesn't use zonal mode. Most burning apps show the write speed while burning a disc. Watch it and look for those jumps in speed. It should either stay the same speed, or slowly increase the speed steadily to work best on old drives. If you see a big jump, forget it!

 

You also need to use high quality media. crappy cheap discs usually fail to read on old consoles. Try a few different brands and use the one that works best for your console. I use Verbatim DataLifePlus discs, myself. Those work on my Sega CDs... don't have a JagCD yet. Remember that the JagCD does NOT use the standard ISO data correction on CDs, so high quality media with no errors is essential!

 

One final thing - I have one old console that HATES CDs written in DAO mode - it prefers discs written in SAO mode, even though there's only one session. Very weird, but that's the way it is. Try different burn methods to see if your JagCD likes one mode better than another.

[phoenixdownita]

Yeah I noticed that, in DiskJuggler there's little to chose as you are forced to write RAW without post-gap (at least the tutorial says so).

The ImgBurn attempts were done at 4x and failed, unclear why Baldies works without a hitch.

 

Anyway I was using slower-ish speed. My burner can only do 4x, 8x, 12x or 16x and in ImgBurn once I set the speed it respects it but for DiscJuggler only the first session respects my will, the second one not so much, not clear why as I don't set it per session.

DAO/SAO is not even a choice in DiscJuggler once RAW is selected.

 

Also although RAW mode has less error correction it is still not absent, but I agree that if a media is prone to errors to start with it is worse for non ISO based CD (PS1 I am looking at you).

In the end Jag and PS1 use the "same" technique with a 2352 byte data sector foregoing most of the CRC that would have come from a std ISO, not sure if the 10% increase in space really justifies the risk ... oh well, it's almost 20Y later too easy to speak now.

Edited July 4, 2014 by phoenixdownita

[Zerosquare]

The PS1 CDs generally use 2048-byte sectors for data, and they can even be browsed just fine on a PC.

2352-byte sectors are supported too, but they are only used for streamed video and audio, where a read error can be tolerated.

Edited July 4, 2014 by Zerosquare

[Paul Westphal]

I use Philips cd's from Big Lots. I have not made a coaster yet.

[phoenixdownita]

I did a few more copies of BattleMorph and eventually got it right, I think.

I impute my issues to a combination of media and impossibility to slow down the recording speed in DJ.

 

I have not tried with ImgBurn to see if it is CDI challenged, for now I am happy the way it is.

 

I'm still searching for an answer to 3). Is the "available" WTR unencrypted?

I attempted a second image from alternative source (but it had the same CRC), on a different burner and different media brand with same result -> audio player.