Burnt Games = Reduced DC Life?

[Limewater]

Heck sometimes the pot resistance value on a tweaked laser is lower than the resistance of another Dreamcasts factory set pot value.

Lowering the resistance value on a potentiometer CAN make things more dangerous/stressful for other components. I don't know the specifics of the Dreamcast internals, but you can't just assume that lower resistance is safer.

But I think you are all focusing too much on the laser and not enough on the carriage it rides on. It was mentioned a little bit earlier, but the laser has to physically move back and forth a lot more during a read of a bad backup. Moving components, particularly those that start and stop a lot, are usually (but not always) more susceptible to wear and tear than solid state electronics.

[Hatta]

So, if I have a dreamcast ISO that unpacks to 700mb, I can be confidant that it's properly padded?

And if I have a dreamcast ISO that unpacks to ~200mb I can fix it by rebuilding the ISO with a dummy file? I wonder if there's a way to control the order of the files with mkisofs instead of isobuster (windows only).

[Hobie-wan]

As I said though you are not really pushing the laser harder. It is still well within the tolerance of the laser. Heck sometimes the pot resistance value on a tweaked laser is lower than the resistance of another Dreamcasts factory set pot value.

But it doesn't matter if you're staying within the tolerances of the devices or not. If you have a car with a limiter that keeps it to say 100 MPH max, that's probably well under the tolerance limit of the engine, but will be limited for legal or safety reasons. If you constantly drive the car at 100, its going to wear out faster than if you never go faster than 45. Yes there are tolerances, but staying well under them will make things last longer. CDRs reflect less light than a pressed disc, so the drive will be working harder to read it.

[Beak]

So, if I have a dreamcast ISO that unpacks to 700mb, I can be confidant that it's properly padded?

And if I have a dreamcast ISO that unpacks to ~200mb I can fix it by rebuilding the ISO with a dummy file? I wonder if there's a way to control the order of the files with mkisofs instead of isobuster (windows only).

I wonder this too.

[pepharytheworm]

As I said though you are not really pushing the laser harder. It is still well within the tolerance of the laser. Heck sometimes the pot resistance value on a tweaked laser is lower than the resistance of another Dreamcasts factory set pot value.

But it doesn't matter if you're staying within the tolerances of the devices or not. If you have a car with a limiter that keeps it to say 100 MPH max, that's probably well under the tolerance limit of the engine, but will be limited for legal or safety reasons. If you constantly drive the car at 100, its going to wear out faster than if you never go faster than 45. Yes there are tolerances, but staying well under them will make things last longer. CDRs reflect less light than a pressed disc, so the drive will be working harder to read it.

If we use a car anaolgy lets say the normal is 35 mph but the burnt is like 55 mph. As far as I know running your car at 55mph at long distances is a lot better on the car then a bunch of short burst going 35 mph. And the thing about grandmas car being in good condition has more varying factors:

1: Grandma probably keeps the car in a carport or garage

2: Grandma doesn't drive her car but a few times a week

3: Grandma doesn't push her car to hard, no sudden speed ups and slow downs all gradual

4: And Grandma being around a lot longer makes sure she gets her car all the regular maintaince requirements.


Can the same be said about this teenager you were talking about.

I agree pushing something harder can cause damage sooner, but who here really know the tolerence levels of the dreamcast. For all we know cd-r while working harder then gd-roms could still be much lower then the threshold then we think.

[Beak]

Wait, wait, wait.

So Grandma's DC is gonna last longer than mine? What if my Dreamcast is the one driving the car, and not Grandma?

[pepharytheworm]

Wait, wait, wait.

So Grandma's DC is gonna last longer than mine? What if my Dreamcast is the one driving the car, and not Grandma?

Of course grandma's DC would last longer I would trust my dreamcast driving my car over grandma anyday.

[DownSince86]

So, if I have a dreamcast ISO that unpacks to 700mb, I can be confidant that it's properly padded?

For the most part yes, but it depends on the game. Some games fill the entire space of a CD even without a dummy file. In fact most games are larger than 700MB and the video/audio must be down sampled to make it fit. Anything else that can be cut will have been removed as as well. For example if a game shipped with a multi-language option (Japanese, English, Spanish, French) the rip might only include the English tracks.

And if I have a dreamcast ISO that unpacks to ~200mb I can fix it by rebuilding the ISO with a dummy file? I wonder if there's a way to control the order of the files with mkisofs instead of isobuster (windows only).

I'd use BootDreams to burn those files, IIRC it can automatically dummy them for you.

As for file orders I'm unsure if you can use mkisofs. If I were you I'd just follow his guide. Doing what he does is a pain in the ass though so you're probably better off finding a good release than spending your time fixing a broken one that might have corrupted files in it anyway.

[17DaysOlderThanNES]

This myth is mostly BS with a little bit of truth. I'm going to regurgitate some of what was said, but whatever.

The only CD-Rs that should shorten the life are those, as mentioned above, without padding to push the data to the edge of the disc. These games tend to make the laser track much more often, wearing the gears and laser sled faster than a normal game. More recent games that are padded to the edge, however, should not cause the DC laser to fail any faster than a commercial game. CD drives do not "work harder" in a wear and tear sense to read CD-Rs, it just requires a better shape CD drive because the bits are not as distinct. It's sort of like it's easier to take a clear photo in sunlight than a dark room, but it won't wear out your camera to take a picture in the dark anymore than in the light.

I think this myth was started mostly because people with a collection of burned games played their DCs more than people that had to wait until they had money or could find commercial games to play. Well, that and the aforementioned poorly designed early discs. FWIW, I've downloaded a number of games recently and nearly all burn right up to the edge of the disc, as it should be. I think a tell-tale sign of a game that will take the whole disc is a file at or above 700MB in .cdi format.

[Jrecee]

All I've ever played on it is burned games. I've never played an actual game on it since '99. Sega made a very durable system. How did it ever fail?