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Post by Gamesoul Master on Aug 21, 2006 7:52:00 GMT -5
Not even by waiting until the "CD Player" is loaded (and showing no CD of course), and then clicking "Insert CD" and loading the corresponding drive? Maybe you could list the CD's you're trying this with, in case I might have any of them that I can use to test myself. It's really bugging me that this would somehow work for me using my method, but not for you. There has to be some kind of difference between our methods or CD's... is there a difference of format between European and US CD's of any sort...? Maybe a difference in how pSX accesses our drives? When you try loading the CD, does it even show how many tracks are on the CD, the total time, anything at all to indicate that there's a CD inserted? What kind of drive are you using? There has to be some way to get to the bottom of this. I'm going to test my CD-ROM drive now (I was using my DVD-RW drive, pretty much the only one I ever use... the CD-ROM is useless to me).
Edit: I've now tested both my drives, using a wide selection of CD's (enhanced CD's, non-enhanced CD's, exact CD-R copies of enhanced and non-enhanced CD's, and CD-R's that were simply compilations that I had made, and even those were burned with different formats/methods). The only thing I couldn't test (because I don't have them) is CD-RW's. No matter what drive I used, no matter what CD's I used... they all worked flawlessly (although I will say that the CD-ROM drive had some small trouble reading a CD-R that was old and scratched, but pSX even played that one just fine). So now I'm really stuck on why people would be having trouble, as it seems that pSX reads/plays audio CD's as well as the original Playstation (actually, I think it does a *better* job, as I don't think the original Playstation can handle certain formats very well due to the CD-ROM itself).
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Post by patrickp on Aug 21, 2006 8:40:17 GMT -5
See my previous post updated, GM - just me being fik! Edit: actually, as I mentioned, I just resurrected my old Playstation - partly because I just happened to come across it (took ages to find the video lead, though) and partly because, with all the complaints in the forum recently about pSX "not looking as good as a real Playstation." I'm doing what I was doing when I started getting into Playstation emulation and put the Playstation away; running it into my PC (which is a bit better now... via a direct video and audio output lead. So I think I'm getting a fairly good comparison of what the Playstation outputs and what my emulators output - they're going through the same videocard/monitor/soundcard/speakers. I'm not relying on the blurring qualities of a TV screen. Well, since mine is an unmodded European Playstation (SCPH-5552), I can only play PAL titles, but I can say that of everything I've played so far, pSX ouputs much clearer and more precise video than the Playstation. ePSXe does as well, but tends not to be so accurate sometimes. The surprise comes with the sound: I'd have to say that, on the games I've tried so far, the sound is better on the Playstation. Obviously, as many people have commented, emulators don't seem be as accurate as the Playstation sometimes, but the Playstation sound seems to have a more coherent, "solid" quality. I think some of this may be due to the way reverb is used; maybe I'll have to muck about with ePSXe a bit, where you can change the reverb qualities more.
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Post by Gamesoul Master on Aug 21, 2006 9:00:22 GMT -5
Ahh... sorry. Missed that. The only reason I can see for having to do it the "GM way" (I like that... makes me feel all special inside...), is that maybe the code for auto-running a game (which happens everyplace in the BIOS *except* when the CD Player is open) is incorrectly defaulting to reading it as a game disc. Maybe pSX Author could look into his code to see if the correct functions and calls are in place for detecting the disc-type and taking the appropriate action in the manner that the actual Playstation does. I think I have the hardware specs for that someplace if he wants/needs them.
Yeah, I noticed that even when you tell the emulator to run while not having focus, it will run without sound when it doesn't have focus. I'm wondering if there's a way around that, and if I figure it out, I'll be sure to post it. There *has* to be a way to fix that or get around it. I wonder, too, if pSX Author intended it to be that way or had to do it that way for some reason, or if it's a problem with his code...
Did you know that, apparently, the original Playstations released (the models only released in Japan) had audio capabilities superior to a lot of commercial equipment used even now? I was quite amazed to find this out. Apparently, by the time Playstation was released in US and Europe, Sony had downgraded the audio capabilities to a point that wasn't noticeable while playing games and such, but were terribly inferior to the original models. Basically, the older the unit, the better the audio capabilities (sounds so backwards, but I guess they didn't wanna waste the money to keep capabilities which were useless for the standard uses of a Playstation).
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Post by patrickp on Aug 21, 2006 9:25:14 GMT -5
Yes, if I run pSX with a music CD already in the drive, GM, I get this error in the DOS box:
pad=0 IoControl: Using SPTI (Formatted sub-q) iso9660: incorrect header
and the pSX screen goes to a different (black) page with 'Sony' in blue, 'Playstation tm' and 'SCEA tm.'
Interesting what you say about the sound qualities of the Playstation with reference to my remarks above. I also noticed that playing a CD produced pretty good quality sound; one of the things you get listening to a direct video/audio output rather than RF, of course, is stereo. My Playstation isn't even one of the oldest models - June '97, according to wikipedia, with the oldest models being probably pre '95 and the last ones '98, with the PSOne in 2000.
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Post by Gamesoul Master on Aug 21, 2006 9:36:38 GMT -5
Well, even the newer models have very good sound quality compared to stereos and such... just not nearly as good as the older models. I don't even have any speakers around good enough to fully display the high quality of the Playstation (mainly because I don't have hundreds of dollars to blow on speakers that good).
You changed the setting? I keep mine on automatic and get "Full subcode" or something very much like that. Any advantage to your setting?
Well, my point with the auto-run function was trying to pinpoint the exact problem. I mean, of course it's treating the audio CD as a game (that much is certain as all of our results clearly show), but I was thinking maybe if pSX Author read this thread and saw what I had written, it might save him the small trouble of figuring out what is causing the problem, as I'm pretty sure my guess is right (although I didn't program the emulator, so of course there's a decent chance I'm wrong).
What I wanna find someplace is the "developer-model" BIOS, because apparently all of them (including the oldest ones, which is specifically what I'd want) are region-free, so maybe with one of those there wouldn't be a need to worry about which BIOS to use with certain games (for those who feel there is a problem in the first place).
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Post by patrickp on Aug 21, 2006 10:01:04 GMT -5
I do have a good stereo system, GM - Quad 34/303 into a pair of beautiful old BTH 12" dual concentrics (probably made in the mid/late 50s - I picked them up from a work colleague in '71/72 for £12!) - they're in rather crappy bass reflex cabs ATM. I have plans to build a nice pair of cabs for the drivers and get the system up and running, but not yet... The preamp/amp are about 20+ years old (bought them new) and I'd really like to replace a few caps etc as well. But when I've had it running, that system is wonderful.
Actually, you're right, I probably did set CDROM to IOControl. No particular reason, I guess.
I think maybe the main reason for using regional BIOSs (in emulators) is the differences in video standards - games will generally play OK with most BIOSs. It's more like PAL and NTSC TVs/VCRs than it is like DVD regionalisation (an evil system - avaunt!). So even developer BIOSs would be likely to be regionalised, in that sense. There's also the necessity in a Playstation for modifications (modchips) to play games from other region, but I think this is another evil system mechanism, and has been bypassed or just omitted in emulators.
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Post by Gamesoul Master on Aug 21, 2006 10:14:45 GMT -5
I just found out that the DTL-H3000 and DTL-H3002 (apparently the true naming of these models), are the "Net Yaroze" models of the Playstation, which were meant to allow people to develop their own homebrew games. There are many interesting details about these models, but the one relevant here is that they are region-independent. Upon reading what region the game is from, it outputs the appropriate signal for the region. So... not only are these old, highly compatible BIOS images, but they are region-independant. Here is the link to an old article written by Sony about this product: www.absolute-playstation.com/api_faqs/faq13.htmAnd here's a little snippet from it: Cool, huh?
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Post by patrickp on Aug 21, 2006 10:42:52 GMT -5
Interesting; especially as a modchipped Playstation, by contrast would, I think, only output one video standard regardless of what game it plays. Of course, The Net Yaroze costs "$750 in North America plus applicable taxes and shipping," but "includes all the essential elements of a comprehensive development package plus support tools." Basically a cut price developer's package. Stop dribbling, GM! And, of course, you'll need "A 486 DX2 66MHz IBM-compatible personal computer with one or more serial ports, 28.8 bps speed modem, an Internet connection, 2X CD-ROM, 10MB of hard disk space, 4MB of RAM, mouse and an SVGA monitor." Apparently the software wouldn't work with slower systems... Of course, you could try running pSX on that... ;D
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Post by Gamesoul Master on Aug 21, 2006 11:16:15 GMT -5
Anybody who doesn't have a system better than that requirement isn't a computer user in this day and age. Besides, it's nearly impossible to program in C/C++ with a system lower than those requirements. I used to have a computer slightly better than that one, and compiling my source code was a somewhat long wait, even with older software. I wish I could stop drooling, but it's just... my dream machine...
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Post by patrickp on Aug 21, 2006 11:32:49 GMT -5
Anybody who doesn't have a system better than that requirement isn't a computer user in this day and age. Besides, it's nearly impossible to program in C/C++ with a system lower than those requirements. I used to have a computer slightly better than that one, and compiling my source code was a somewhat long wait, even with older software. Yes, it mentions you'll need a familiarity with C; quite likely that's the reason for the minimum requirements... But it'll get wet if you're not careful! ;D Edit: I've just noticed - only 5 posts to the 500 mark for me! I wonder what that gets me - Senile Member, maybe?
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Post by Gamesoul Master on Aug 21, 2006 11:41:24 GMT -5
Yeah, I noticed you were getting close myself, and was wondering what you'd become (a MONSTER!!! XD)
Well, C is the language you have to use for the programming, but I think they also have those requirements because the software that they provide needs them too.
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Post by patrickp on Aug 21, 2006 11:51:36 GMT -5
Yeah, I noticed you were getting close myself, and was wondering what you'd become (a MONSTER!!! XD) Could be cool! Well, you seem to have a much higher post rate than me (well over half the posts and you only joined last month), so whatever happens to me - you're going that way before long!
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Post by Gamesoul Master on Aug 21, 2006 11:53:49 GMT -5
LMAO... I can't wait. I'm coming up behind you, and I'm not even spam-posting or anything like that. Just have lots of things to say to a lot of subjects. I like adding my input, whether opinion or helpful, to anything that I can. You forgot to add "[/quote]" to the end of that quote... Edit: Bah... you beat me to the fix again!
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Post by patrickp on Aug 21, 2006 12:15:34 GMT -5
LMAO... I can't wait. I'm coming up behind you, and I'm not even spam-posting or anything like that. Just have lots of things to say to a lot of subjects. I like adding my input, whether opinion or helpful, to anything that I can. True. And you rabbit like crazy! No, it's just my strange powers manifesting themselves...
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Post by Gamesoul Master on Aug 21, 2006 12:19:23 GMT -5
Wow... we hijacked the hell out of this thread, didn't we? We probably should've started a new thread for this topic, considering we hijacked 2 or 3 threads to discuss it... XD
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