jerry
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Posts: 18
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Post by jerry on Mar 17, 2008 10:46:50 GMT -5
Game Title: Tomb Raider Game ID(s): SLUS-00152 pSX Version(s): 1.13 & 1.8 Hopefully I'm getting all of this right. I'm using Windows XP. My bios is scph1001.bin. The side of my Tomb Raider CD says "NTSC U/C". I tried running the game through pSX 1.13 from the actual CD. It started up ok, but then I got the familiar problem of the game freezing on a black screen when I tried to start a game or enter Lara's Home. In the background window, I noticed a bunch of errors... IoControl: raw read error, Incorrect function. It looked like it retried about 15 or 16 times, and then just froze. I tried creating an image of the CD, using both bin/cue and cdz, and I got the exact same error as before. But the error messages above weren't displayed this time. The strange thing is that the error I'm getting is reported on the PAL list and not the NTSC-U list. The PAL list suggests trying psX 1.8, so I did that too, and I got the same error again. Are there specific settings in the options that MUST be set a certain way for this game to work properly? The only things I've changed are the controllers. Any suggestions? Above transferred over from deleted alternative thread. Original post below - patrickpHi, I have a question about Tomb Raider. I got the pSX emulator up and running, everything seems to be working ok. I made a disc image of Tomb Raider using my own personal copy of the game. It seemed to work, it created a bin file and a cue file. I converted the bin to cdz, and I got the game running through pSX, and it looks perfect. It starts up and shows the movie and then goes to the main menu. Everything seems ok, but when I go to start a game or try to go to Lara's Home for the practice thing, it basically goes black and stops. I tried reading the compatibility lists here on the forum, but I'm a little confused. Don't laugh, but what does "PAL" refer to? One list showed the same Tomb Raider problem I mentioned above, and it said to use version 1.8 of pSX. So I downloaded the older version, but I got the same problem. Any suggestions? Thanks in advance! jerry, you shouldn't have started an alternative thread: two threads on the same topic split the responses and make the topic hard to follow. I've had to copy over the posts in your alternate thread and delete it. - patrickp
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Post by patrickp on Mar 17, 2008 14:19:22 GMT -5
Read Things to Remember when Posting Reports, prominently linked at the top of every page in the forum, jerry - if you want to post about problems with a game, there's certain information you must supply, otherwise there's not much help we can give you without just guessing. PAL is the video standard used in Europe and much of the rest of the world, while NTSC is the standard used in North America and Japan, and some other Asian and South American countries. As a rule, PAL gives a better quality picture, while NTSC supports a faster frame rate. However, there are many variations on each standard - North America and Japan use slightly different NTSC formats, for instance. Most video games are originally produced for the North American or Japanese markets, so are made to the NTSC-US or NTSC-J standard; for release in Europe, they have to be converted to the PAL standard, and this often produces differences in the way local versions play, also, even in the same region, different editions may play differently. Tomb Raider is one example of this: from your description, you're using a PAL version. The original PAL versions were probably not copy protected, but the later Platinum edition was. There's no mention of this in the Compatibilty Lists, but if your game is copy protected, you won't be able to rip it successfully to .bin/.cue, as this format does not include subcode from the original CD, which is necessary to defeat the copy protection. You'll have to rip it to .ccd/.img/.sub or .mdf/.mds, as these formats do include the subcode. If your original game works, but your image doesn't (did you try the .bin/.cue image before converting to .cdz?), this is almost certainly the explanation. See the HOW TO: Make Disc Images thread for advice on ripping. As I mentioned, there's certain information we need for this to be a proper game report. Please supply it, or I'll have to move the thread; ATM it's no good as a game report and shouldn't be here.
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jerry
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Posts: 18
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Post by jerry on Mar 17, 2008 15:32:50 GMT -5
Ok, thanks for the info. Sorry about that, I definitely know about the need to provide information before asking a question. I run a Beatles discussion forum, and I run into this all the time.
I left the game at home, so I couldn't check the version and all that other stuff before posting here from work, but I was hoping there was a quick fix. I'll post the game info tonight. The game was definitely bought here in the US, so I'm not sure how it could be a PAL version, or is that possible no matter where it was bought? I'm 99% sure it's not a Platinum Edition, but again I'll post that later tonight.
But I did try running the game in the bin/cue format first, and I got the exact same result as when I later converted it to cdz.
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Post by patrickp on Mar 17, 2008 16:19:41 GMT -5
According to the Compatibility Lists, jerry, the problems you describe are for the PAL version. The NTSC version is quoted as There are also no reports for version 1.13 of the emulator, so this makes it important that we turn this into a valid report. When you get the rquired information, could you include it in your first post, please? This makes life a lot easier for smegforbrain, who valiantly maintains the Compatibility Lists. I've found before that games not reported as being copy protected nevertheless exhibit the behaviour of being protected. A game playing Ok from CD, but not from an image is typical of this, because that's what copy protection is for - to prevent you copying the CD successfully. One young friend of mine thought she was going to rule the world a few years ago when she discovered you could copy Playstation games but she ran into copy protection... BTW .ccd/.img/.sub and .mdf/.mds are the proprietary formats of CloneCD and Alcohol, respectively. Alcohol do a free version of their Alcohol 52% application (you can rip but you can't burn), that you can use to rip to both formats. Not only are those formats excellent for ripping games (that's what they were actually developed for), but CloneCD and Alcohol are particularly effective applications for this, too.
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Post by pSX Author on Mar 17, 2008 16:51:58 GMT -5
If the game freezes when you go to the inventory or pause screen this means you have a bad rip (as several of the rips available on the internet seem to be). The game is very sensitive to the positioning of the audio tracks - if they are not exactly right it will hang like this.
I have completer TR1,2 and played most of the way through 3 with pSX (from the original discs - I also tested with correctly made images).
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jerry
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Posts: 18
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Post by jerry on Mar 17, 2008 19:32:52 GMT -5
Ok, I'm starting to get it a little bit. My TR1 CD is NOT the Platinum edition. The side says "NTSC U/C" and the ID # is SLUS-00152. I'll try to edit my first post and put in the info like you said.
I know the CD works with an actual PlayStation, but one thing I didn't try was running the actual CD with the emulator, so I guess that's the next step. After that, I guess I'll try ripping the CD again using a different method.
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Post by patrickp on Mar 17, 2008 19:42:57 GMT -5
Cool, jerry. You can edit a previous post of yours by clicking the icon.
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jerry
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Posts: 18
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Post by jerry on Mar 17, 2008 19:54:37 GMT -5
I tried modifying, but I guess it's stuck on a "regular" message, and I can't change it back to a "report" now. If I can't get the game to work tonight, I'll just post a new topic and do it right. Thank you for your help.
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Post by patrickp on Mar 17, 2008 20:01:24 GMT -5
See? Easy!
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Post by Sune on Mar 17, 2008 23:03:01 GMT -5
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Post by patrickp on Mar 18, 2008 3:56:39 GMT -5
jerry, if you're getting the error when you try to play the game from CD, it means the drive isn't reading the CD properly: this will, of course mean that any image ripped from the CD is likely to be faulty unless you rip it with an application that uses its own driver, and this driver enables the drive to read the CD properly. The problem is probably one of two things: either your drive is not capable of reading the non-standard formats that Playstation CDs are usually in, or the driver you're using doesn't allow it to. As far as the drive is concerned, you can only try different ones: as a general rule, -RW drives are better at reading non-standard formats than -ROM ones. IOControl is well known for not supporting subcode reading for CD (and DVD) drives: so you certainly need to try another driver. I've always found the solution, in Windows, to be ASPI: if you're running an NT-based Windows OS, get wnaspi32.dll from Nero's site, put a copy in your pSX folder, and select ASPI reading on the CDROM tab in pSX' configuration. If you're using Windows 9.x, google for ForceASPI version 1.17, install it and, again, select ASPI reading. Don't use ForceASPI in an NT-based OS or wnaspi for a 9.x OS. The SPTI driver should also work; maybe someone else here can give you a link. The IOControl driver in Linux should already be capable of supporting subcode reads. Sune: I was going by the Compatibility Lists: your report doesn't seem to have made it in there yet.
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jerry
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Posts: 18
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Post by jerry on Mar 18, 2008 8:54:57 GMT -5
Ok, thank you again for all of the info. And thanks for editing my two threads together. I'm new remember. I'll try your suggestions tonight. Just wanted to clarify a few things. I'm using Windows XP. So should I still look for that "wnaspi32.dll" file and try that? And will this file affect anything else on my system, other emulators, programs, etc? And is this solution only for playing the game with the actual CD? Or will it also work if I'm using a ripped image?
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Post by patrickp on Mar 18, 2008 13:41:21 GMT -5
Yes, jerry, Windows XP, 2000 Professional and (I think) Vista are all NT-based OSs; i.e. they're all developed from the NT lines of OSs rather than the DOS-based Windows 9.x ones.
No, if you put wnaspi32.dll in your pSX folder, nothing else will be affected by it; it will simply enable pSX to use ASPI rather than IOControl to read CDs. You can use it to enable other emulators etc to use ASPI reads by putting a copy in their respective folders. I believe you may be able to enable ASPI as a resource for your whole system if you put the file in your Windows\System32 folder; I'm not sure about that, and you may have to register the .dll to do this.
Yes, it's only for CD (and mounted image) reading, not for reading images directly. However, if it does enable your drive to read Playstation CDs properly, and you're using a ripping application that doesn't use its own driver to facilitate CD reading, it may improve that application's ability to rip correct images. The applications I mentioned above both use their own drivers for reading; Alcohol, I think uses SPTD; SlySoft (now the developers of CloneCD) just say they use their own 'Elby' drivers - Elby was the German company that originally developed CloneCD, but passed it on to SlySoft (in the Bahamas) when changes in European/German law meant it became questionable for them to market copy protection-breaking software.
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jerry
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Posts: 18
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Post by jerry on Mar 18, 2008 13:57:18 GMT -5
Awesome, thanks again. I'll give it a whirl tonight. Some way or another, I'm gonna play Tomb Raider again.
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Post by Melanogaster on Mar 18, 2008 18:28:22 GMT -5
Well, I for one just acknowledged my TR1 and TR2 copies' suckiness and went to finish them on ePSXe... which is somewhat sad.
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