Ripping PSX Games

[Aethix]

javaJake: Split from this topic: viewtopic.php?t=265

Sorry if this is off-topic, but is it easy to rip PSX ROMs? I want to, but I don't want to download the ROMs.

 

[efegea]

Re: New PSX4Pandora video

Sorry if this is off-topic, but is it easy to rip PSX ROMs? I want to, but I don't want to download the ROMs.

Yes, it's very easy, to rip and to compress them. Although the correct name is not ROMs, but ISOs

 

[Aethix]

Re: New PSX4Pandora video

Great, so do you just pop it in the computer, copy, and paste? Will there be a way to download it directly to the Pandora with an external disk drive?

 

[efegea]

Re: New PSX4Pandora video

Great, so do you just pop it in the computer, copy, and paste? Will there be a way to download it directly to the Pandora with an external disk drive?

No, not just copy and paste, but a raw copy bit to bit of the cd. It's very easy to do. On linux is a simple comand (I don't remember what at this moment)

 

[lulzfish]

Re: New PSX4Pandora video

byte-for-byte copy would probably be along the lines of:

dd if=/dev/scd of=/home/user/psx_isos/game.iso

Assuming there isn't any issue with copy protection, which I think the emulator takes care of for you. [i.e., you can read game data, but the actual PS1 looks for unreadable sections that the emulator ignores...]

edit: Since the Pandora is running Linux, it will be the same command, but the CD's path might be a little different depending on which device node it attaches to.

edit: Doesn't work, apparently.

 

[efegea]

Re: New PSX4Pandora video

I've found the command:

cdrdao read-cd --read-raw --datafile [filename.bin] --device [bus,id,lun] --driver generic-mmc-raw [filename.toc]

dd doesn't work for me.

 

[Prometheus]

Re: New PSX4Pandora video

Just to confirm, here, that the cdrdao method works perfectly. It's what I've used for all of my PSX games.

 

[dflemstr]

Re: New PSX4Pandora video

Please note that dd is the preferred method. It will always make an exact image of your CD, no matter what (except when it's encrypted or something). But remember that there might be other solutions that are better in some (very few) situations.

Usage:
"dd if=cdromdevice of=imagefile bs=someblocksize"
"dd if=/dev/cdrom of=myimage.bin bs=4096" (blocksize can be anything, but should be a power of 2)

Some examples of cdrom devices (it's different on every computer):
/dev/cdrom
/dev/cdrom1
/dev/cdrw
/dev/cdrw1
/dev/scd0
/dev/scd1

Note that the command won't show any output while it's copying.

 

[God Ginrai]

Re: New PSX4Pandora video

Although the correct name is not ROMs, but ISOs

Why can't you call them ROMs? Game CDs are none other than Read-Only Memory, are they not? And that is exactly what ROM stands for.

-God Ginrai

 

[lulzfish]

Re: New PSX4Pandora video

But once they're on a hard drive, they're ISO images, and technically re-writable.

 

[God Ginrai]

Re: New PSX4Pandora video

But once they're on a hard drive, they're ISO images, and technically re-writable.

But so are any ROMs, once they are on a harddrive.

-God Ginrai

 

[lulzfish]

Re: New PSX4Pandora video

Which is why I call my GBA roms "GBA games".
and I shall call my PS1 ISOs "PS1 games", and it shall be good.

 

[God Ginrai]

Re: New PSX4Pandora video

Which is why I call my GBA roms "GBA games".
and I shall call my PS1 ISOs "PS1 games", and it shall be good.

Of course, I see no problem in that. I just didn't see why he was correcting that it should be called ISOs instead of ROMs, seeing as both should be perfectly acceptable.

-God Ginrai

 

[gibberish]

Re: New PSX4Pandora video

although they will play ok in an emulator, iso is not the right choice if you want an exact 1:1 copy of the game since iso does not handle audio tracks properly. there is a huge thread on this at undergroundgamer, if you want an exact replica of the disc then you must use bin/cue and rip your game to the redump.org standards.

 

[Aethix]

Great, but what about cartridge games like for the Nintendo 64? Can you use clip-on cables or something for those?

 

[Dauric]

When we get our Pandoras, someone's going to have to figure out the best emulators for 'em, and figure out the best software/method for ripping ISOs, then post it somewhere we can all take a look. I've got sixty-some-odd PS1 games waiting to become portable...

 

[Kramy]

Re: New PSX4Pandora video

But once they're on a hard drive, they're ISO images, and technically re-writable.

But so are any ROMs, once they are on a harddrive.

-God Ginrai

(Obligatory car analogy below)

After a car crash, most people still call their old cars "my old car" rather than "my old pile of scrap metal".

Technically it's now a pile of scrap metal, but calling it by the old name helps you remember its purpose and where it came from.

ISO is generic. I'd use it the same way I'd call a floppy, CD, DVD, or USB drive a "disk".

Therefore ROM = ISO +[Type/Purpose] (More specific; not less specific)

 

[dflemstr]

Re: New PSX4Pandora video

But once they're on a hard drive, they're ISO images, and technically re-writable.

But so are any ROMs, once they are on a harddrive.

-God Ginrai

(Obligatory car analogy below)

After a car crash, most people still call their old cars "my old car" rather than "my old pile of scrap metal".

Technically it's now a pile of scrap metal, but calling it by the old name helps you remember its purpose and where it came from.

ISO is generic. I'd use it the same way I'd call a floppy, CD, DVD, or USB drive a "disk".

Therefore ROM = ISO +[Type/Purpose] (More specific; not less specific)

You use some flawed logic there. An ISO isn't a generic name for all ROM images, only for images of CD-ROMs. And a ROM itself has nothing to do with an ISO (like in your relation "diagram").
I'd rather say that since ISO is a file format and has various attributes, like this:
ISO = ROM + [writability] + [is a file] + [was a specific type of ROM called CD-ROM/DVD-ROM]

So, ISO is more specific than just ROM. ROM is any read-only memory, while ISO is more complex than that. The general term for ISOs, GBA images and other game images is "data image" or "ROM image" or "binary file".

 

[Dauric]

ISO is a specific kind of file format, like *.exe or *.txt, that refers to the International Standards Organization's standards for optical disks. It has squat all to do with cartridges or "Carts".

When emulation first got started programs were called "ROMs" because they were emulating pre-CD, Read Only Memory cartridges. Most emulators used data files with the three letter extension ".rom" and the extension stuck as the generic name for cartridge-based software.

Along comes the PSX and Saturn emulators using ISO standard images of the optical data on PSX disks, the game files for disk-based emulation were saved in the ".iso" format because that's what the disk copying software saved them to, and if you wanted to burn a cloned disk you'd send the *.iso to a burning software. There was no need to change the format, no need to rename .iso to .rom, and so the .iso has come to refer to optical-disk images, which are used by Sony's machines.

 

[Gary13579]

Re: New PSX4Pandora video

Please note that dd is the preferred method. It will always make an exact image of your CD, no matter what (except when it's encrypted or something). But remember that there might be other solutions that are better in some (very few) situations.

Usage:
"dd if=cdromdevice of=imagefile bs=someblocksize"
"dd if=/dev/cdrom of=myimage.bin bs=4096" (blocksize can be anything, but should be a power of 2)

Some examples of cdrom devices (it's different on every computer):
/dev/cdrom
/dev/cdrom1
/dev/cdrw
/dev/cdrw1
/dev/scd0
/dev/scd1

Note that the command won't show any output while it's copying.

Won't this just dump the disc, exactly as it's stored, bit for bit? So a game that uses 100mb will take up 700mb, 600 of which is just zeroes?

(Never used dd with ISOs before, but from my work on HDDs, I was pretty sure it copied it EXACTLY).