Converting Jag CD's to ISO image

[UHATEIT]

To make sure I am understanding this correctly, if I ad a rip of one of my Jag CD games in either ISO or BIN/CUE it will NOT load on the Jag GD? I would have to rip them with Clone CD and they need to be in what format?

 

From watching this video there is a conversion tool not yet released which per the video mentioned it will convert them to .JCP I can always wait for the conversion took but wanted to know what toher formats are able to be used in the meantime. 

[Hastor]

11 minutes ago, UHATEIT said:

To make sure I am understanding this correctly, if I ad a rip of one of my Jag CD games in either ISO or BIN/CUE it will NOT load on the Jag GD? I would have to rip them with Clone CD and they need to be in what format?

 

From watching this video there is a conversion tool not yet released which per the video mentioned it will convert them to .JCP I can always wait for the conversion took but wanted to know what toher formats are able to be used in the meantime. 

No CDs are supported until a firmware update adds that. Right now a GD only does carts.

[glorfindeal1]

13 minutes ago, UHATEIT said:

To make sure I am understanding this correctly, if I ad a rip of one of my Jag CD games in either ISO or BIN/CUE it will NOT load on the Jag GD? I would have to rip them with Clone CD and they need to be in what format?

 

From watching this video there is a conversion tool not yet released which per the video mentioned it will convert them to .JCP I can always wait for the conversion took but wanted to know what toher formats are able to be used in the meantime. 

Until Saint releases a new update to the GD, it doesn’t support CD game play.  In his tweets, he indicated that his conversion tool will support CloneCD.  No other information has be provided since.  The best guess is the appropriate way to rip the cd’s is with the data option, but until it is released and Saint gives the official information, you’re own you own

[UHATEIT]

All good. I've got them all ripped previously and saved as ISO or Bin/Cue. I have no issues waiting until the program is released, but didn;t know if I should even bother with it if the GD will read ISO or Bin/Cue. 

[glorfindeal1]

Just now, UHATEIT said:

All good. I've got them all ripped previously and saved as ISO or Bin/Cue. I have no issues waiting until the program is released, but didn;t know if I should even bother with it if the GD will read ISO or Bin/Cue. 

It won’t read them.  Saint has a proprietary format for the files.  His conversion tool will convert the images to the correct format.

[Hastor]

I would guess that if it loaded any standard format already, or one that's easily converted to, SainT wouldn't be using his time making his own conversion tool.

[UHATEIT]

17 minutes ago, Hastor said:

I would guess that if it loaded any standard format already, or one that's easily converted to, SainT wouldn't be using his time making his own conversion tool.

Makes total sense. Hey I figured I'd check tho incase anyone had tried it and had any input. I have multiple Jaguars and CD units and can always throw the CD into one of those if I want to play and utilize the Memory Track as well. But for those who don't have a Jag CD this will be a good feature when it's working for sure!

[jamm]

I just ran some comparisons backing up using CloneCD (5.3.4) and ImgBurn (2.5.8).  Here are my notes:

 

CloneCD

 

CloneCD presents you with five options when backing up a CD: Audio CD, Data CD, Game CD, Multimedia Audio CD, and Protected PC Game.  These options toggle a few settings during the backup.  Based on the log output, these changes are:

                                 Audio  Data  Game  MMCD  PC
 Read SubChannel on Data Tracks: No     No    Yes   No    No
Read SubChannel on Audio Tracks: No     No    Yes   Yes   No
             Report Read Errors: Yes    Yes   No    Yes   No

"Audio" is different from "Data" in that in only seems to extract the first session. This always resulted in very short image files which were obviously missing data, so we won't use for Jaguar backups.

 

I don't know if Jaguar CDs ever make use of the SubChannel data on tracks.  If they do, then we obviously want to use CloneCD's "Game" option, as that's the only one that includes this data for both data and audio tracks.  However, this option also disables reporting read errors (presumably because they'll sometimes crop up as a form of copy protection).

 

If none of the Jaguar CDs use SubChannel data, then the "Data" backup option seems optimal, as that includes reporting on read errors.

 

CloneCD backups always result in three files:

 

CCD - A text file with metadata on the IMG file
* Minor differences between the different backup options:
- Multimedia and Game CCD files were identical
- Data and Protected PC CCD files were identical

- Multimedia and Game CCD files had a couple of extra lines, probably having to do with the extracted SubChannel data

IMG - The extracted binary data from all disc tracks
* With the exception of the Audio CD backup option, the IMG files were identical for all versions

SUB - Extracted SubChannel data

* These were different depending on the backup option chosen

 

ImgBurn

 

ImgBurn provides a single image backup function.  It creates a IMG file along with a CUE file. It can optionally output CloneCD-compatible CCD file to go along with these files, but the output of the IMG and CUE file is the same regardless of whether you choose this option.

 

In my tests, the IMG file created by ImgBurn was always larger than the IMG file created by CloneCD, and larger than the IMG and SUB files created by CloneCD combined. I don't know if the SubChannel data extracted by CloneCD is embedded in ImgBurn's IMG file, though, or why there's a significant size discrepancy.

 

ImgBurn's CloneCD-compatible CCD file has largely the same output as the CloneCD-generated file, but there are a few differences, including sometimes different values.

 

It's not possible to mount the image created by ImgBurn using Virtual CloneDrive and get same output as above using CloneCD. This may be because of limitations of Virtual CloneDrive and not because data is missing, but we don't know.

 

Conclusion

 

Based on these results, and the fact that Saint specifically mentions CloneCD, I betting on the safest bet right now being using CloneCD with its Game CD backup settings.  I think it's pretty unlikely JagCDs make use of SubChannel data, but better to have it than not.  The only downside to this is that read error reporting is disabled, but I didn't run into any read errors when testing discs with the other backup options.  If you want to be doubly-certain, you can back up the image twice: once in Data mode and once in Game mode, then throw out the Data mode backup once you've confirmed you haven't gotten any errors.  Modern drives are very quick to read the entire disc contents, so it's not much extra time or effort.

 

[mario64]

On 4/6/2021 at 8:27 PM, jamm said:

I just ran some comparisons backing up using CloneCD (5.3.4) and ImgBurn (2.5.8).  Here are my notes:

 

CloneCD

 

CloneCD presents you with five options when backing up a CD: Audio CD, Data CD, Game CD, Multimedia Audio CD, and Protected PC Game.  These options toggle a few settings during the backup.  Based on the log output, these changes are:

                                 Audio  Data  Game  MMCD  PC
 Read SubChannel on Data Tracks: No     No    Yes   No    No
Read SubChannel on Audio Tracks: No     No    Yes   Yes   No
             Report Read Errors: Yes    Yes   No    Yes   No

"Audio" is different from "Data" in that in only seems to extract the first session. This always resulted in very short image files which were obviously missing data, so we won't use for Jaguar backups.

 

I don't know if Jaguar CDs ever make use of the SubChannel data on tracks.  If they do, then we obviously want to use CloneCD's "Game" option, as that's the only one that includes this data for both data and audio tracks.  However, this option also disables reporting read errors (presumably because they'll sometimes crop up as a form of copy protection).

 

If none of the Jaguar CDs use SubChannel data, then the "Data" backup option seems optimal, as that includes reporting on read errors.

 

CloneCD backups always result in three files:

 

CCD - A text file with metadata on the IMG file
* Minor differences between the different backup options:
- Multimedia and Game CCD files were identical
- Data and Protected PC CCD files were identical

- Multimedia and Game CCD files had a couple of extra lines, probably having to do with the extracted SubChannel data

IMG - The extracted binary data from all disc tracks
* With the exception of the Audio CD backup option, the IMG files were identical for all versions

SUB - Extracted SubChannel data

* These were different depending on the backup option chosen

 

ImgBurn

 

ImgBurn provides a single image backup function.  It creates a IMG file along with a CUE file. It can optionally output CloneCD-compatible CCD file to go along with these files, but the output of the IMG and CUE file is the same regardless of whether you choose this option.

 

In my tests, the IMG file created by ImgBurn was always larger than the IMG file created by CloneCD, and larger than the IMG and SUB files created by CloneCD combined. I don't know if the SubChannel data extracted by CloneCD is embedded in ImgBurn's IMG file, though, or why there's a significant size discrepancy.

 

ImgBurn's CloneCD-compatible CCD file has largely the same output as the CloneCD-generated file, but there are a few differences, including sometimes different values.

 

It's not possible to mount the image created by ImgBurn using Virtual CloneDrive and get same output as above using CloneCD. This may be because of limitations of Virtual CloneDrive and not because data is missing, but we don't know.

 

Conclusion

 

Based on these results, and the fact that Saint specifically mentions CloneCD, I betting on the safest bet right now being using CloneCD with its Game CD backup settings.  I think it's pretty unlikely JagCDs make use of SubChannel data, but better to have it than not.  The only downside to this is that read error reporting is disabled, but I didn't run into any read errors when testing discs with the other backup options.  If you want to be doubly-certain, you can back up the image twice: once in Data mode and once in Game mode, then throw out the Data mode backup once you've confirmed you haven't gotten any errors.  Modern drives are very quick to read the entire disc contents, so it's not much extra time or effort.

 

Thank you for this detailed post. Unfortunately neither of these tools is producing a usable image of Dragon's Lair. I tried CCD data and game options as well as IMGBURN. Saint's tool rejects them all. Which version of CloneCD is working for you?

[jamm]

On 4/13/2021 at 5:41 PM, mario64 said:

Thank you for this detailed post. Unfortunately neither of these tools is producing a usable image of Dragon's Lair. I tried CCD data and game options as well as IMGBURN. Saint's tool rejects them all. Which version of CloneCD is working for you?

I haven't tried Saint's conversion tool, yet, since I don't yet have a Jag GD (still waiting on mine).  What error do you get when you try the conversion?  I was thinking of trying it out this weekend.

 

[rayik]

On 4/13/2021 at 7:41 PM, mario64 said:

Thank you for this detailed post. Unfortunately neither of these tools is producing a usable image of Dragon's Lair. I tried CCD data and game options as well as IMGBURN. Saint's tool rejects them all. Which version of CloneCD is working for you?

 

I have an old copy of DiscJuggler 6.  I burned my original disks (including Dragon's Lair) it produced cdi files which SainT tool converted to jcd which run fine on the Game Drive.

[Fredifredo]

Is Someone tested Brett Hull Hockey CD ? I want to know if it works or not ... And may be a video to see loading time ...

Thanks

[Goochman]

1 hour ago, Fredifredo said:

Is Someone tested Brett Hull Hockey CD ? I want to know if it works or not ... And may be a video to see loading time ...

Thanks

I have it in CCD format but the converter doesnt work with those yet.  

[Rick Dangerous]

Had anyone put together a retail set yet that will work?  Doesn't seem necessary for all of us to rip and convert the entire library 800 times over.  Seems really cumbersome. 

[Kirkman]

On 5/28/2021 at 4:03 PM, Rick Dangerous said:

Had anyone put together a retail set yet that will work?  Doesn't seem necessary for all of us to rip and convert the entire library 800 times over.  Seems really cumbersome. 

Looks like a user finally uploaded a full set of JCD and MRQ files to the Internet Archive, claiming they are "fully tested, CRC confirmed, 100% compatible". I am just now downloading them, so I can't verify that claim.

[bluejay]

16 hours ago, Kirkman said:

Looks like a user finally uploaded a full set of JCD and MRQ files to the Internet Archive, claiming they are "fully tested, CRC confirmed, 100% compatible". I am just now downloading them, so I can't verify that claim.

Could you share the link to this? Quick googling yielded no results. 

[neo_rg]

Some of the cd images are for actively supported games. I'm guessing the owning parties would rather not their IP is shared, here or elsewhere. 

[UHATEIT]

35 minutes ago, neo_rg said:

Some of the cd images are for actively supported games. I'm guessing the owning parties would rather not their IP is shared, here or elsewhere. 

Sorry for asking on this I don't know where the link is to see what's on there, but what Retail Jag CD games are still being actively supported? Unless some of the newer games are on the lost. Again I can't find whatever page or link thats supposedly out there 

[Rick Dangerous]

I also could not find the CD set, but found a similarly titled set of the retail release ROM set.  Please someone post a link if a Jaguar CD retail and MRQ set is posted anywhere?  THANK YOU!  Would love to use this feature of the GD at some point without spending hours burning and converting the CD games through a command prompt program. 

Edited July 8, 2021 by Rick Dangerous

[neo_rg]

They are both available in the GD support section on AA 

[Kirkman]

On the front page of the Internet Archive, searching for both "Jaguar" and "jcd" (with the quotes) will show several collections folks have uploaded to IA. 

[Atari Nut]

On 7/8/2021 at 3:32 PM, neo_rg said:

They are both available in the GD support section on AA 

Can you point out the post # please?

[neo_rg]

I was talking about the .mrq files for both the retail released carts and CD's. 

[+jgkspsx]

Has anybody been able to rip the Baldies CD? ImgBurn just chokes on track 2 segment 9. I guess I need to use CloneCD anyway, huh.

 

Also, whaaaa? They scratched off an overlay label at the factory? Does that button not do anything???