99min or GigaRec-style discs?

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Mozgus
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99min or GigaRec-style discs?

Post by Mozgus »

So how does one purchase these, and proceed to burn full dumps to them? I have never even heard of these discs.
darcagn
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Post by darcagn »

They both require special burners.

It's hard to find 99min CD-Rs, but eBay usually has some, though who knows how good the quality of them is. Very few burners will burn all the way to 99min, so it's a question of luck when it comes to having the right burner. Search Google for your CD-RW model and see what comes up.

As for GigaRec discs, you use a normal CD-R in a special GigaRec burner that supports burning more data to a regular CD-R.

I personally have not used any of these, but az_bont has. He hasn't been able to stretch these formats to be able to hold an entire GD's worth of data, but he is still testing as far as I know. At the very least, you could use the Dumpcast dumps to create games which are less downsampled than 80min CD-Rs.
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Post by adam917 »

How can I burn these releases anyway? Are they archive-only? Say if I had the compatible discs (capacity-wise). What tool is used to burn the data in the right format? I'm pretty sure that overburn + a GigaRec (works only on a few Plextor drives) mode on a 90-, 99-, or 100-min disc should get the amount needed. Whether it will actually work in a DC is another matter due to how cheaply these discs are made. I can try 1.4x or 1.3x mode on a Taiyo Yuden 80-min CD-R right now if anyone wants results of a test burn in my DC.
Majinseed
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Post by Majinseed »

i'd be really interested in that, of course just if you try it anyway ^^
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Post by adam917 »

Majinseed wrote:i'd be really interested in that, of course just if you try it anyway ^^
I just need to know what to use to burn from the multiple track files though...
Xiaopang
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Post by Xiaopang »

Sorry to resurrect that old thread, but it seems that I am one of the few who successfully uses 99min CD-Rs with the DC and I want to share some information.
I'm using a five year old Mitsumi CR-48X9TE writer. I bought that one because I knew that he was one of the few that was capable of writing up to 99:59. My biggest disc is 99:32 so far and it works without a problem.

adam917 wrote:I'm pretty sure that overburn + a GigaRec (works only on a few Plextor drives) mode on a 90-, 99-, or 100-min disc should get the amount needed. Whether it will actually work in a DC is another matter due to how cheaply these discs are made.
I recently started to backup DC-games with sizes up to 99min. It works like a charm. Personally I prefer normal 99min discs over GigaRec-discs, because they are non-selfboot. I never had any problem with my DC reading content over 80min. If someone has the capable hardware + access to 99min media and wants to give it a try, I have a 93min version of vanishing Point that I made.
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Post by az_bont »

I thought I would jump in and add that some of my previous attempts with GigaRec that seemed not to work, probably actually did. I've managed to deduce that the Utopia Boot Disc chokes on any disc that has 100 minute or more burned to it, and seems to send the laser running off its tracks looking for the files.

However, when I combined a 100 minute CD-R with Gigarec 1.1x (giving approximately 110 minutes of available space) but only burnt to around a third of the disc's total capacity, the Dreamcast was able to read it perfectly every time.

If anyone knows of a boot disc other than the Utopia one which might work, please let me know. I've been trying DCHakker and DemoMenu, but despite them handling original GD-ROMs with ease, they seem to have issues when loading commercial binaries from a CD-R, regardless of how they're hacked or scrambled/unscrambled.
Xiaopang
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Post by Xiaopang »

So you're saying that you burned just around 400Mb to the disc?

May be you should give CDX or the System Disk a try. Also, there are two Utopia Boot Disk versions (1.1 and 1.2). May be you only used the old one and the newer one works? I remember reading comments regarding Gigarec backups that were well beyond 100min and where the DC had no problems reading them with the Utopia Boot Disc.

You could also try turning that data into an audio/data selfboot image and burn that. Then you wouldn't need the bootdisk
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Post by darcagn »

Xiaopang wrote:So you're saying that you burned just around 400Mb to the disc?

May be you should give CDX or the System Disk a try. Also, there are two Utopia Boot Disk versions (1.1 and 1.2). May be you only used the old one and the newer one works? I remember reading comments regarding Gigarec backups that were well beyond 100min and where the DC had no problems reading them with the Utopia Boot Disc.

You could also try turning that data into an audio/data selfboot image and burn that. Then you wouldn't need the bootdisk
The CDX and SD2 don't boot single-track, Utopia-style discs. The CDX will only boot selfboots and GD-ROMs, while the SD2 only boots GD-ROM/R. Besides, none of us possess an SD2 and so far any attempts to selfboot a backup copy of it do not result in a disc that performs the same function as the original GD-ROM (the backups just reboot the DC when you press start--this includes a personal selfboot I made from a friend's GD-ROM and the release of it that's on the internet).

Creating a selfboot is not possible because the audio/data track requires an additional 3 minutes overhead, cutting into disc space, and GigaRec discs require special software to burn discs, which seems to not support the selfbooting format.
Xiaopang
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Post by Xiaopang »

I could provide SD 2. I also know that it is possible to change the booktype of discs via bitsetting software. If someone figured out how to change the booktype of a gigareced CD-R to GD-R, the System Disk 2 might work.

Why wouldn't it be possible to create a selfboot? First of all not every game is filled to the max. You can fit 112min on a 80min CD-R in 1.4x mode. That should be enough for most games. If I remember correctly then 112min is already the maximum a GD-ROM can hold. Even if you needed more, a 90min CD-R could store up to 126min and that would definitely be enough to fit even the largest games plus selfboot code.

Regarding the burning process: Afaik, Gigarec drives are controled by the Plextools. There you can switch the Gigarec function on for all dao burning. That means that all DAO-burns in any program would be burned with the according Gigarec-setting. Seeing people all over the web using Nero and Alcohol for their Gigarec burns shows that this works quite well, so no reason why that wouldn't work with selfbootable discs. If however you can't use any other software then you could still use Plextools with their built in CD-Copy function to burn a selfbooting disc. In the CD-Copy dialog of the settings menu you even have the option to copy "1st session only" which already implies that multisession copies are possible.
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Post by darcagn »

Xiaopang wrote:I could provide SD 2. I also know that it is possible to change the booktype of discs via bitsetting software. If someone figured out how to change the booktype of a gigareced CD-R to GD-R, the System Disk 2 might work.
The SD2 does not boot MIL-CD formatted games; it only boots GD-ROM formatted games. This means that the disc's bootsector must be located at LBA 45000, which means we need to pad the track out by 10 minutes by using multisession--which brings us back to our original problem, avoiding multisession.

Bitsetting does not exist for CD-based media; it is for DVD-based media.

I don't have my own SD2 to test this, but it would actually probably already boot a properly GD layout CD-R.
Xiaopang wrote:Why wouldn't it be possible to create a selfboot? First of all not every game is filled to the max. You can fit 112min on a 80min CD-R in 1.4x mode. That should be enough for most games. If I remember correctly then 112min is already the maximum a GD-ROM can hold. Even if you needed more, a 90min CD-R could store up to 126min and that would definitely be enough to fit even the largest games plus selfboot code.
The Dreamcast will not read CD-Rs burned in GigaRec 1.4x mode.
Xiaopang wrote:Regarding the burning process: Afaik, Gigarec drives are controled by the Plextools. There you can switch the Gigarec function on for all dao burning. That means that all DAO-burns in any program would be burned with the according Gigarec-setting. Seeing people all over the web using Nero and Alcohol for their Gigarec burns shows that this works quite well, so no reason why that wouldn't work with selfbootable discs. If however you can't use any other software then you could still use Plextools with their built in CD-Copy function to burn a selfbooting disc. In the CD-Copy dialog of the settings menu you even have the option to copy "1st session only" which already implies that multisession copies are possible.
az_bont has already tried this and it resulted in a disc with a physically-visible gap between the two sessions' data, as if the second session started where it normally would have started had not the first session been increased in density.
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Post by Xiaopang »

darcagn wrote: The SD2 does not boot MIL-CD formatted games; it only boots GD-ROM formatted games. This means that the disc's bootsector must be located at LBA 45000, which means we need to pad the track out by 10 minutes by using multisession--which brings us back to our original problem, avoiding multisession.
What about dummying it to LBA 45000? Should work, too. If not, why not using several tracks in one session?

darcagn wrote: Bitsetting does not exist for CD-based media; it is for DVD-based media.
True

darcagn wrote: I don't have my own SD2 to test this, but it would actually probably already boot a properly GD layout CD-R.
Interesting idea and surely worth the try

darcagn wrote: The Dreamcast will not read CD-Rs burned in GigaRec 1.4x mode.
Then 1.2x ftw. This still would provide enough space to store any game granted that appropriately sized media is being used.

darcagn wrote: az_bont has already tried this and it resulted in a disc with a physically-visible gap between the two sessions' data, as if the second session started where it normally would have started had not the first session been increased in density.
So the second session didn't fit, because it wasn't written in gigarec mode? I still think this would be possible if you just find the right drive + media. Take into consideration that there's a plethora of different gigarec capable drives out there, which all use special versions of plextools. According to plextors gigarec faqs these software versions are not interchangeable due to the different features of the drives. Throw in some bad media and a buggy writing app and you have plenty of possibilities why this didn't work. Plextor itself stated that gigarec only works in dao-mode. I didn't find any document saying that this is limited to single session isos. Also, if this wouldn't have been possible, I'm sure they would have pointed that out clearly.
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Post by darcagn »

Xiaopang wrote:What about dummying it to LBA 45000? Should work, too.
Dummying what? Putting the ISO bootsector and header in the middle of the track? That would either require a loss of 10 minutes worth of disc space before, or manually creating an ISO header with a hex editor in order to stick data at LBAs before the header--assuming the Dreamcast's behavior is indeed to look directly at LBA 45000.
Xiaopang wrote:If not, why not using several tracks in one session?
AFAIK you can't merge data from two different tracks without multisession, unless you do like the above and manually hack together two ISOs with a hex editor.

And then what? Now we've managed to use a custom expensive writer with custom media using an expensive internal boot disc to burn a gigabyte Dreamcast disc from ISOs made with a hex editor. Would this get anyone interested? Not for usability...
Xiaopang wrote:Then 1.2x ftw. This still would provide enough space to store any game granted that appropriately sized media is being used.
We haven't tried 99min+1.2x yet, but 80min+1.3x didn't work, so things aren't looking to good there, but az_bont is testing a 1.2x disc right now.
Xiaopang wrote:So the second session didn't fit, because it wasn't written in gigarec mode? I still think this would be possible if you just find the right drive + media. Take into consideration that there's a plethora of different gigarec capable drives out there, which all use special versions of plextools. According to plextors gigarec faqs these software versions are not interchangeable due to the different features of the drives. Throw in some bad media and a buggy writing app and you have plenty of possibilities why this didn't work. Plextor itself stated that gigarec only works in dao-mode. I didn't find any document saying that this is limited to single session isos. Also, if this wouldn't have been possible, I'm sure they would have pointed that out clearly.
The point of this is to get other people able to use it. If you need a certain model drive, it isn't going to be worth putting all this research into it.
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Post by Xiaopang »

darcagn wrote: AFAIK you can't merge data from two different tracks without multisession, unless you do like the above and manually hack together two ISOs with a hex editor.
mkisofs seems to support just that.

darcagn wrote: And then what? Now we've managed to use a custom expensive writer with custom media using an expensive internal boot disc to burn a gigabyte Dreamcast disc from ISOs made with a hex editor. Would this get anyone interested? Not for usability...
So what? If it works then it is one further possibility to boot games. Even if you loose ten minutes of disc space, most games are not nearly big enough so that this method would be a problem.

darcagn wrote: We haven't tried 99min+1.2x yet, but 80min+1.3x didn't work, so things aren't looking to good there, but az_bont is testing a 1.2x disc right now.
1.2x works. Several people on different forums have already successfully backuped games with that mode.

darcagn wrote:The point of this is to get other people able to use it. If you need a certain model drive, it isn't going to be worth putting all this research into it.
LOOOL you need already a special drive to use Gigarec. So it wouldn't get that much more special. Btw, what software did az_bont use to burn that disc? Blindwrite and Discjuggler seem to have native Gigarec support.
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Post by darcagn »

Xiaopang wrote:
darcagn wrote: AFAIK you can't merge data from two different tracks without multisession, unless you do like the above and manually hack together two ISOs with a hex editor.
mkisofs seems to support just that.
Through which parameter? The only thing I see that is similar to what you're suggesting is the -M merge parameter, which is for multisession. Perhaps it can achieve the same effect within one session?
Xiaopang wrote:So what? If it works then it is one further possibility to boot games. Even if you loose ten minutes of disc space, most games are not nearly big enough so that this method would be a problem.
But it's quite pointless, because I don't have an SD2 anyway.
Xiaopang wrote:LOOOL you need already a special drive to use Gigarec. So it wouldn't get that much more special. Btw, what software did az_bont use to burn that disc? Blindwrite and Discjuggler seem to have native Gigarec support.
LOOOL yes, you do, and GigaRec drives aren't exactly the easiest drives to find, and finding some odd, probably-discontinuted model is going to be a bitch.
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