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PSX 1.13 and Final Fantasy 9 error

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AlexH

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Discussion starter · #1 · (Edited)
Hi everyone,

I can't get FF9 to load with PSX 1.13. I'm running it from CD images I made. It loads the image and displays "Squaresoft Electronic Arts Presents", but after that it won't play the video before the menu or even get to the menu so I can start the game.

The console is saying "cuebin: No .cue file found! Will attempt to guess format assuming single track.
cuebin: Seems to be Mode1/2048

So I think I need a .cue file. Where can I get one or what else can I do? Thanks

By the way, the game works fine when I use the CDs. I'd prefer to use an image so that the discs won't be worn down though.
 
#4 ·
Actually, Alcohol also do a free version of Alcohol 52%, AlexH - this will rip to .ccd/.img/.sub or .mdf/.mds, but won't burn images to disc. As you've found out by playing from the CDs, pSX is perfectly capable of playing this game but, as Shendo says, you need to use a better format for playing this game from images.

.iso is probably the worst format to use for Playstation games: because it has no descriptor file (.cue, .ccd or .mds), any application trying to read the image has to guess the disc structure - and Playstation games are usually not standard formats.

.bin/.cue will work better than .iso, but still doesn't include subcode from the original CD - this is necessary if, for instance, the game is protected in any way. .ccd/.img/.sub and .mdf/.mds have descriptor files and include subcode. Theoretically, if there's no protection to deal with, .bin/.cue should work as well as .ccd/.img/.sub or .mdf/.mds, but it doesn't. I've no idea why this is.

It's possible that NTSC-US versions of Final Fantasy IX may be mod protected. PAL versions are definitely copy protected, so the .ccd/.img/.sub or .mdf/.mds formats are needed for this game.
 
Discussion starter · #5 · (Edited)
Alright I converted disc 1 into a .mdf/mds, but PSX throws an error when I try to load it. A box pops with "b0rken" as the title, and says "Unhandled exception. Save a crash dump?". I say no and then PSX exits. Any ideas how to handle this?
 
#6 ·
That's... odd. Which file are you loading into pSX? Make sure you're loading the .mds file and not the .mdf file (though it shouldn't matter, better safe than sorry). Also, are you directly inserting the image or mounting it? As a rule, it's better to mount the image. And make sure you rip the game at a good, slow speed (16x or less). That last part isn't a necessity, but it can very much help in not creating problematic image files.
 
Discussion starter · #7 · (Edited)
Hi Gamesoul Master,

I tried loading both the mds and mdf file and I got the same problem. I am loading them from PSX's menu and not mounting them. I don't know how to do that. I ripped the CD at less than 16x. I can't think of what's going wrong unless I have a bad ISO. I'm in the process of downloading the game ISOs through bittorrent. Maybe that will work better.
 
#8 ·
Try the .ccd/.img/.sub format instead, AlexH - AFAIK Alcohol 52% will also rip to this format. Generally, try using an -RW drive to read it rather than a -ROM one. I found that in my machine, I could play the game or rip perfect .ccd/.img/.sub images of this game with my DVD-RW drive, but my DVD-ROM drive couldn't read it.

What's the game ID of your game? It's always important to identify a game properly when you have problems with it. What OS are you using? If you're using Windows, try ASPI instead of IOCntrl - again, in Windows, even my DVD-RW drive wouldn't read the CDs, but with ASPI - no problem. Get a copy of Nero's wnaspi32.dll, put it in your pSX folder, and select ASPI rather than IOCntrl or Auto on the CDROM tab.

Linux isn't usually such a problem, and I don't think you can use ASPI in Linux anyway (maybe in Wine). It's a pity there are no applications that will rip to .ccd/.img/.sub or .mdf/.mds in Linux. TBH, ripping is the only reason I still keep a copy of Windows going...

You shouldn't mention downloading illegal games in a responsible forum like this; and bear in mind that downloaded games are usually problematic in themselves: the people who post them never bother to rip them as carefully as you would. They generally just want something to post so that they (so they think) look good.
 
#9 ·
@AlexH: Yeah, from what you've said of how you ripped it, you probably did a better job than some random person on the internet (from a statistical point of view anyway).

As for mounting an image, download Daemon Tools Lite, which is the free version which is more than enough for what you'll need to do (I'd suppose the more advanced versions are good for mounting PC game images that have protections that need to be bypassed). That'll create a virtual DVD-ROM drive on the computer. With that, you can mount your image through the system tray access and load the game in pSX as if it was an actual CD. Hopefully that should fix your problem.

I should ask... you didn't simply try to convert that .iso file to mds/mdf, did you? Because that wouldn't work at all. You definitely have to rip the image fresh from the disc.
 
Discussion starter · #10 ·
Thanks GM. I'm a computer science major so I know what I'm doing most of tht time. I didn't try to to convert the ISO to a MDS/MDF, I did it straight from the disc. I'll try using Daemon tools and see how that goes.
 
#11 ·
Alright... sorry if I seemed to talk down a bit, but there's so many people around here that just don't know things like that, so I always try to cover all bases when I can remember to. Oh, and while you're doing that, try throwing on the -r switch (which can only help) and try a PAL BIOS if you have a NTSC version of the game (again, it can only help, even if only *after* you get the game to work).
 
#15 ·
Glad to hear it worked.

Well, I guess it just offers more proof (in general) that .iso images are best not used in pSX.
 
#16 ·
I can't help thinking that, it's not just the superiority of the .ccd/.img/.sub and .mdf/.mds formats, it's also that the applications that support them are developed, to a large extent, specifically for ripping games discs, including Playstation ones.

Edit: but you're right, GM - apart from anything else, .iso is not a good format for Playstation games.
 
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