Settings for proper rip using latest CloneCD?

[lordflux]

I recently purchased CloneCD to make some good backups of my extensive Playstation collection and was wondering what settings do I need to use in order to make them as perfect as possible.

Also, I did a test rip with one of the games, then compressed it using the cdztool. When I attempted to uncompress it, it gave me an error which reads "Track size is not an exact multiple of sector size". The IMG and SUB files it extracts are 0 bytes in size. Is this a limitation by the current version? Or is there a setting I need to change?

[patrickp]

The most important thing when ripping is not to read the CD at full speed, lordflux. Half maximum speed is usually favourite. Also, particularly for protected games, it's essential to have a drive that can read subcode from the CD. As a general rule, -RW drives are better at subcode reading than -ROM ones so, if you have both in your machine, use the -RW one.

If you check out the CloneCD forums, you'll find there are several custom profiles you can download; in particular AIR there are one or two specific Playstation ones.

See the HOW TO: Make Disc Images thread in this forum.

[lordflux]

I couldn't find any profiles for CloneCD 5 for reading PSOne discs, so I lowered the speeds to 8x (the slowest it would read) and insured that 'read subcode data' was checked.

But...

Apparently my Samsung SH-S203N (DVD-/+RW) doesn't read RAW96 subcode. Just tried ripping Wild Arms 2 and got the copyright screen.

Any recommendations on a new drive that supports reading RAW96?

[patrickp]

That's Ok, lordflux - Wild Arms 2 is mod protected, not copy protected, and getting the copyright screen actually means it's working properly. Try using a PAL BIOS with the game.

[lordflux]

Yup, that made it work. Also works with my freshly ripped copy of Legend of Dragoon.

Do you mind going into more detail on why the PAL BIOS can play them? If CloneCD copied all of the subcode/LibCrypt data, why can't the NTSC US BIOS play them?

[patrickp]

Well, the purpose of copy protection is exactly that, lordflux, it's to prevent you copying the CD because most drives and ripping software can't copy the subcode on the CD, and that subcode is needed to enable a Playstation or an emulator to play the game.

It's thought that in the US, Sony's legal advisers decided that preventing people from copying the CD (i.e. making a backup) might not be considered legal under fair usage, so they decided to use mod protection instead. Rather than preventing the CD from being copied, the idea is that mod protection checks the device the game is being played on for modifications, i.e. a mod chip designed both to allow a Playstation to play CDs from different regions and to play copied CDs - if it detects this, you get the piracy screen - if your copy hadn't included the subcode, the game simply would not have played. Mod protection is always the method used for protected US CDs, while copy protection (of several different kinds) is always the method used for protected PAL and Japanese CDs.

We don't know why using a PAL BIOS works, but it may be that mod protection performs its checking by seeing what regions the console will play, and using a BIOS from a different region somehow confuses this process and bypasses the protection. That's purely a guess.

It's probably because pSX implements subcode reading so well that this in itself enables the protection checking. Interestingly, versions 1.7 (the first one to implement subcode reading) and 1.8 of the emulator will play mod protected games without the PAL BIOS trick. Possibly subcode reading is implemented well enough to enable the mod protection but not well enough to enable it to complete the checking - who knows?

Edit: AIR the LibCrypt CloneCD profiles are the best ones for Playstation games.

[lordflux]

*two thumbs up* Got it!

Thanks so much for your help and explaining my confusion of the security features.

[patrickp]

Everybody gets confused about it, lordflux - and don't forget that a lot of my explanation is guesswork. It seems to fit the way things behave, though.