Virtual Drive Issues with PSX Emulators!

[Haldrie]

It would seem that virtual drive tools like Dameon Tools and Alcohol 120% install additional software that is disrupting the emulator's ability to read from real CD drives! I came to this conclution after reading topics on a rom/ISO sharing site about how Tomb Raider was not working properly after it was burned (some mentioned problems running it on a real PSX but I don't have access to one right now so I was unable to test this).

 

When I first found out that pSX had a new verion (1. and read that they fixed it to be able to read audio tracks I decided to test it out using my original copy of the greatest hits verion of Tomb Raider. It indeed was now playing the audio tracks that had not played in the previous version of the emulator. At this time however I had not installed any virtual drive software onto the computer. I then decided to get Dameon Tools so I could use the ISOs that I was downloading to play them in the emulators that I had. They worked as well as you can expect a PSX game to work in an emulator but of course this was using the virtual drives to run the images in the emulators. After reading the posts (as mentioned above) I decided to see if I could come up with a solution to the problem. I had just so happend to have downloaded the very ISO that these people were complaining about (it was the original non-greatest hits version that had been hoping for). As they said in their posts, the image woked flawlessley as expected but when burned and run from a CD all sorts of problems suddenly became obvious.

 

The first thing I noticed was that there were all kinds of weird messages showing up in the debug window on pSX that did not show when running from the image. Then there was the fact that the FMVs were very skippy (for the most part is was the drives as I have tried it on a different computer and the FMVs play perfectly for some reason). I decided to skip these and see the other problem, the audio tracks. As they said the main menu's audio track was not playing at all. Then the third issue, freezing when starting the game. I decided to wait for the demo to start and sure enough the menu ring rolled itself up and the screen went black without loading anything.

 

When I tried to see if the game would play in ePSXe it wouldn't load anything. It just sat at a black screen no matter which CD plugin I used.

 

Of course after some time I figured that maybe the disc was simply not burned correctly so I decided to once again test my Greatest Hits version of Tomb Raider and sure enough it did the same thing as the burned game! I have now also tried Destruction Derby 2 and Frogger and similar issues are happening with these games as well.

 

For DD2 the audio tracks will not play and when the game goes to the menu the debug on pSX 1.8 goes crazy, contently display all kinds of error code non-stop. As for Frogger it only displayed the same strange code that the other games did when they started up:

1: 00000000-000170ec

It displays this message over and over again, filling the debug window. This message is also displayed when starting the other two games from a real CD drive but will not show up when running from an image or virtual drive.

 

If anyone knows what exactly is being insalled by these virtual drive programs to cause this please let me know and if possible can someone find a way to correct the problem. My guess is that it has to do with that message that makes you restart your computer before it actually installs the program saying something about it not being compatible with kernal debugging software. Whatever that is it is not removed when uninstalling the programs as the problem still persists.

 

 

 

Also to anyone reading this that has not read the board rules yet. DO NOT ask me for the link to the site I mentioned. I did not post it for a reason. Read the board rules and you will understand why.

[Agozer]

For the record, the latest pSX release is 1.9.

[Haldrie]

Really! Wow, I need to check more often. I only got 1.8 about a week and a half ago.

[Robert]

http://www.1emulation.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=19539

[Haldrie]

Well, unfortunately the problem still exists with version 1.9 and I do not think it has anything to do with the emulators themselves but with windows accessing the drives. The only change I did notice was a different debug code then the one I posted above:

1: 00000000-0002025f

This is now what is being displayed but other then that there is no change. The only way I'm able to play these games is by using a CD image.

 

[EDIT]

I would also like to add that I am really impressed with pSX's progress. I think pSX will soon surpass ePSXe in a very short amount of time at this rate. When I get some money I will gladly donate whatever I can to help these guys.

 

[EDIT]

PROBLEM SOLVED!!!

 

I decided to try an old CD burner that I had to read the discs with and it now works perfectly. The problem was the RAW reading ability of the DVD drives. It couldn't send the data it was suppose to so it spat out a bunch of errors. Anyway, it works now.

Edited October 19, 2006 by Haldrie