do cdr's mess up your system?

SGT Killjoy · Post by **SGT Killjoy** » Fri Jun 27, 2003 1:36 pm

Just wondering. I heard this somewhere else.

Jaded JAaron77 · Post by **Jaded JAaron77** » Fri Jun 27, 2003 2:06 pm

most people say it won't hurt anything (unless you have commercial games on a cdr) but I'm begining to wonder 'cause my system's having trouble reading after its been on for a while, but it may just be that my system is an August 1999 and the laser may need to be cleaned

BlackAura · Post by **BlackAura** » Sat Jun 28, 2003 4:03 am

The DCs sometimes have some heat problems, which can cause all kinds of problems. If the thing gets too hot, it sometimes fails to read anything, or keeps resetting. If you're using commercial games from CD-Rs, it's quite possible that it'll damage your DC, but it's never been proven. Homebrew and emulators should be OK, since they either don't load anywhere near as much as commercial games, or they've been designed to work from CDs anyway.

darkmaster · Post by **darkmaster** » Sat Jul 05, 2003 12:05 am

the cd-rs read in dc (with comercial games warezed) produce more heat than gd roms because the cd data begin in the inner layer and in gd roms not. i heard somewhere this can be fixed usin dumy files for the cd-rs but i never tried. I solve my reset problem leavin the dc in front of my room a/c by 5 mins (in the left side to make air enter the dc)or u can set a pc fan in this place. My dc works like a newone since i made this (a/c method)

Sirmorpheous · Post by **Sirmorpheous** » Tue Jul 08, 2003 2:59 am

I've used cd-r's for years on my dreamcast and have only had minor problems I have fixed right away. I've also used several different types of media on the cd-r's (some of which I will not discuss on this forum). As a matter of fact, i'm on my dreamcast right now using a cd-r that obviously has a web browser on it. From personal experience they haven't caused any problems for me.

T1z3R · Post by **T1z3R** » Tue Jul 08, 2003 5:11 pm

i can't say i've had any problems using CD-R's on my DC. i bought it brand new back in January last year (2002) and have since been playin movie's, mp3's and homebrew on it pretty much every day.

MystiK · Post by **MystiK** » Sat Jul 12, 2003 4:19 pm

hmm..
i thought about that heat issue when mine started giving trouble with homebrew games, cuz its similar to pentium 1's when u use them too long with no pc fan, it reboots much like the dc 'reboots' when trying to read from a homemade cd.

Chainfist · Post by **Chainfist** » Sat Jul 12, 2003 4:50 pm

From What I've read it doesn't make a difference. (As long as the CD was compiled well with all the data in logical order using a quality burner drive and using a high quality Brand Name CDs.)

Post by **melancholy** » Sat Jul 12, 2003 9:08 pm

If your using emu's or homebrew's, there's nothing to worry about. Most only load once, then never access the disk again. Burned commercial games, however, can damage the laser because it has to work a lot harder to read the inner layer of a CD-R, whereas GD's read on the outside. As for adding dummy files to push the data to the outside, I'm not sure how well that works. Of course, I'm sure 90% of all faulty lasers are caused by people playing too much Ecco the Dolphin anyway.

Chainfist · Post by **Chainfist** » Mon Jul 14, 2003 9:41 pm

Melancholy.. do you know if PS2 and XBox DVD's use the inner layer of the CD or do their games start on the outer layer like with the GD-ROM?

I wonder if PS2's are at risk of "working" too hard during cd-reads. (I've even heard that some of the very first PS2 games didn't ship out on DVD's.. just regular CD... Which makes some sence, looking at most games, they only use about 1/2 the CD anyhow.)

hearld500 · Post by **hearld500** » Mon Jul 14, 2003 10:23 pm

I could be wrong, but for some reason this subject seems kinda repeditive.

Post by **melancholy** » Mon Jul 14, 2003 11:41 pm

Chainfist wrote:Melancholy.. do you know if PS2 and XBox DVD's use the inner layer of the CD or do their games start on the outer layer like with the GD-ROM?

I wonder if PS2's are at risk of "working" too hard during cd-reads. (I've even heard that some of the very first PS2 games didn't ship out on DVD's.. just regular CD... Which makes some sence, looking at most games, they only use about 1/2 the CD anyhow.)

PS2 reads like normal. However, regular CD's are a bit harder on the system because they are thinner and tend to wobble a bit. But then I heard that DVD's were harder on it because it works the laser more. And then I finally decided that both statments are probably right because the PS2 is a flimsy piece of sh*t. It's got good games, but the console is crap.

As for Xbox, I imagine it reads normal too. The Dreamcast is the only one I know of that reads disk backwards.

syco · Post by **syco** » Wed Jul 16, 2003 2:17 pm

I'm sure 90% of all faulty lasers are caused by people playing too much Ecco the Dolphin anyway.

wots wrong with ecco?

Chaniyth · Post by **Chaniyth** » Wed Jul 16, 2003 2:46 pm

Regular CD-ROMS read from the inside (from the little hole) to the outside edge.
Dreamcast GD-ROMS read from the outside in towards the inside (to the little hole).

When you burn a commercial GD-ROM game to a CD-ROM are you heavily fragmenting the data, and it's scattered all over the CD-R, thus causing the GD drive to work harder, thus eventually killing it.

When you dummy a homebrew game or app it can force the GD drive to read it from the outside in (store the data on the outside edge, and the dummy files from the end of the data all the way to the inside edge), as if it were a regular GD-ROM disc thus keeping the drive as close to it's real lifespan as possible.

ishpeck · Post by **ishpeck** » Wed Jul 16, 2003 4:12 pm

This may be the senseless babblings of an uneducated newbie. . . But, according to the conversation here, I gather that GD-ROM data when burnt to a CD-R, causes strain because the leaser has to read the data nearest the center of the disk first. Does moving the laser inward cause this strain?

According to Marcus Comstedt's burning tutorial, a bootable CD-R consists of two filesystems (often called sessions); the first being an Audio session, the second being the ISO with other data. Does this first session get touched at all? Can one increase the size of the first (audio) session to offset the ISO filesystem physically on the disk -- thereby moving the data outward and allowing the laser to avoid the center of the CD-R? Or will the laser traverse this space regardless?

az_bont · Post by **az_bont** » Sun Jul 27, 2003 7:22 am

ishpeck wrote:According to Marcus Comstedt's burning tutorial, a bootable CD-R consists of two filesystems (often called sessions); the first being an Audio session, the second being the ISO with other data. Does this first session get touched at all? Can one increase the size of the first (audio) session to offset the ISO filesystem physically on the disk -- thereby moving the data outward and allowing the laser to avoid the center of the CD-R? Or will the laser traverse this space regardless?

Yes, that's how fathead did XDP (only with a data track instead). Most people get the same effect by adding a large, dummy file named 0DUMMY to the start of the second track, so that any data read by the Dreamcast will have been pushed more towards the edge.