Preacher

Hey, all.

I just did a search here and it turned up bupkus (as have my earlier searches on Google), so I'll ask y'all:

Is it possible to burn multi-CD games (like the latter WC ones, obviously) to a DVD, so as to be able to play thru the game w/o swapping CDs back and forth?

If so, how does one go about doing so? (any weblinks that point to how to do this are appreciated)

Thx.

ChrisReid

It probably is, but nobody's really looked into it much because it's probably not worth the effort. You can just copy all your discs to the hard drive and mount them in whatever manner is necessary for the game to see them.

Killer

It seems to me this wouldn't be too difficult for wc3 at all, and I imagine wc4 (cd) either. You'd basically just to dump all of the files into the root of a single dvd. WC4 on the other hand... not so much (this I think would only be feasible with a double layer dvd anyway).

I tried making my own wc4 (dvd) once. Despite the lack of any type of copy protection, I couldn't get the game to start. I wasn't trying to fit the entire game on one dvd though. I just tried making a manual copy of a single side of the dvd, to no avail (if anyone can explain why, I've love to know... I have two copies of wc4 dvd.. both with corrupt movie files, though not the same files).

cff

I think you'd also have to modify some files as IIRC there are some files that have identical names on different CDs which are not the same file.

ChrisReid

Six maxed out CDs fit fine on one single-sided single-layered DVD. In fact, there is a version of the WC4 DVD which is just that.

We have to know more about what was going on. The only problems you should have encountered would be related to general incompatibility issues.

Unregistered

Yes, but some have not the requisite HDD space free to do so, and may not be able to afford to pick up another HDD for this purpose.

True, but we're talking about homebrewing a solution for the *other* multi-CD based WC games: WC3, & Prophecy, mainly

maniac89

Just thought about this,
If you were to take the PSX version of WC3 for example, and made disc images for all 4 discs, then made a data DVD out of them, would a PS2 be able to read it?

__________________
The Wing Commander: Prophecy Movie Project

MajorCamKollent

PSX discs work on a PS2 just fine. You don't have to change them.

__________________
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The CIC staff are my heroes.

ChrisReid

If you did try to manipulate stuff like this, I expect there would be problems.

This is 2006. That's no longer a valid concern. 250 gigabyte drives cost about $70 these days. WC3, WC4, Prophecy & P2 total less than 10 gigs.

Read the post. I was directly replying to a WC4 comment by Killer.

AD

I don't think that's what he means at all. He's wondering if its possible to put the game all on one disk and still have it play in a PS2. The issue isn't compatability, just whether or not you can eliminate disk changing. Honestly I never had an issue with this in WC except for P2. And even then it was minimal. Other games though were insane, like THe Pandora Directive, or Riven. (though they at least made a DVD version of Riven)

__________________
"I saw a monster come with speed, Its face of grimmliest green,
On human beings used to feed, Most dreadful to be seen."

- Excerpt from Horrors, Lewis Carroll, 1850

hurleybird

Hmmm. I suppose you could also copy all the image files onto a DVD and mount them from there. Still not an ideal solution, but possible.

Killer

Sorry for the vagueness, it's been awhile. I'll repeat the experiment later this week if I have the opportunity. IIRC, the issue was that WC4 was not recognizing my 'homebrew' dvd at all. The error message was the same as you would receive if you tried to launch the game without the dvd in the drive (again, its been a long time- the last time I tried this was when the patch for playing wc4 without a dxr2 was released).

Killer

Wow, that's a mishmash of ideas.. heh. Unfortunately, there's no possible way that'd work. Both the PSX and PS2 utilize very strong copy protection. They won't recognize a cdr or dvdr at all (without a 'modchip' which of course introduces further complexity, not to mention being a precursor to illegal activity not to be discussed here).

Killer

That works rather well, actually. I did this for KS for example. It doesn't *really* save disc swapping (one would say minimizing the application and re-mounting the next cd image with your favorite mounting program is harder than physically swapping a disc) but it allows me to play KS without taking my original cds out of their cases... and it saves disc media (which isn't much of a concern with the price of blank cds these days.. but still)

ChrisReid

It's a bit of a creative idea at least. If you have a program that will let you mount multiple disc images at once, I think KS will see them all.

maniac89

Whoa, thanks for the heads-up.

__________________
The Wing Commander: Prophecy Movie Project

Unregistered

Now see, dat *there* is what I'm talkin' 'bout...

So tell us, Killer, how did you go about doing this for KS?
What's the strastegy used, what caveats are there to be aware of, etc.?
Give us the lowdown, por favor....

Mincemeat

If somebody has the required disk space, here's something they can try for WC3 or WC4:

Burn a DVD image comprising of all the CDs of the game. But modify the WC3.CON or WC4.CON file with a text editor - there is a list of which files go on to which CD. Change it so that all files belong to CD1. (This file may also be present in the actual installation directory of the game)

Mount that image and see if that DVD will be recognised throughout the entire game without prompting for a swap.

hurleybird

Or, if that doesen't work, copy all of the images to a dvd, mount those images as different drive letters, and modify the .CON files to point each CD path to point to the respective drive letter that each image is mounted to.

Mincemeat

You'll probably find that the .CON files only lists file names under different headings rather than the full paths.

Unregistered

you can mount multiple images using DAEMON tools (is it legal to mention that tool? or is that "contraband" information?) I made images of disk 2-5 of KS and mounted all four at the same time.

ChrisReid

There's nothing wrong with mentioning Daemon tools. This entire thread talks about using programs like that. But if you think something you're posting might be against the rules, you need to make that determination before you post about it.

Unregistered

Here is a thought, If i learn more I may try it.

Make the first disk of wc4 a dvd, then make all the other discs subfolders on that dvd. Then change where it looks for disc data to like D:\wc4 disk1\disc 2 and so on.

In theory that should work.

ChrisReid

When you change discs, it doesn't pop up a window for you to enter stuff like that. But that's how it would work if you were mounting each directory as a CD-ROM in DOSBox.

Unregistered

Problem solved extract discs to subfolders on one dvd.
Put a version of dosbox on it for Mac OS X, Windows, and Linux.
You could play it anywhere. One disc on the go, keeps your original discs safe too.
Hell, dosbox is the furture for wing commander IV, it wont run on vista.

The dos version is the one to have.

~~~

ChrisReid

Have you tested that? I agree that the DOS versions are very good to have, but we've also gotten the (Windows) WC4 DVD version to run flawlessly in Vista.

Unregistered

Thats interesting everything I have read said that vista has no 16-bit program support. Is there some sort of extra emulation used?

ChrisReid

Nope. WC3 Kilrathi Saga, Prophecy, Secret Ops and other Wing Commander games ran fine too in our testing. I just don't think we tested WC4 for Windows, because we got the DOS versions and Windows DVD ones going. I would expect it to play. I'm pretty sure "16-bit programs" refer to really really old stuff. Things have been 32-bit since t