[Falk]

Sorry, could I have a step by step tutorial on how to burn a CD?

[Sodaholic]

Falk, on 06 December 2011 - 09:26 PM, said:

Sorry, could I have a step by step tutorial on how to burn a CD?

Just load the disc image into an image burning software, select the drive you have a blank CD in, burn at the lowest possible speed (the higher the speed it's burned at, the less likely the Sega CD can read it, 10x or so at max). Maybe use something like ImgBurn, works well enough for me, very simple and easy to use.

[Flygon]

Actually, I recommend setting ImgBurn to MAX (not AWS, MAX) instead of the lowest possible speed. Provided you don't bump your CD drive, the margin of error isn't too great anyway.

Take it from someone that's had more failures in form of 1x burn speeds than MAX burn speeds.

[Sik]

Sodaholic, on 05 December 2011 - 02:21 AM, said:

Also, why is it apparently so difficult to port things to the Sega CD when all it comes down to is a matter of breaking the game down into 256kb standalone chunks and loading them?

Because besides the fact doing that in itself is a huge change to the core engine... there's also the fact you need to rewrite pretty much all hardware access. Not to mention the Z80 can't access MCD hardware, so for games that use SMPS/Z80 you will have to replace the sound engine. And I'm still not talking about taking advantage of the MCD hardware (besides loading), but just using the MD-side hardware. As soon as you start dealing with the MCD hardware it becomes madness in terms of porting.

Also I don't get from where the 256KB number comes, considering MCD's work RAM is 512KB.

[Flygon]

Sik, on 07 December 2011 - 03:19 AM, said:

Also I don't get from where the 256KB number comes, considering MCD's work RAM is 512KB.

From what I gather, apparently 256KB of the 512KB work RAM is reserved by the hardware for some reason. I'd say more, but I'm kinda dumb and just relaying stuff I've heard from other people.

[theocas]

Sik, on 07 December 2011 - 03:19 AM, said:

Sodaholic, on 05 December 2011 - 02:21 AM, said:

Also, why is it apparently so difficult to port things to the Sega CD when all it comes down to is a matter of breaking the game down into 256kb standalone chunks and loading them?

Because besides the fact doing that in itself is a huge change to the core engine... there's also the fact you need to rewrite pretty much all hardware access. Not to mention the Z80 can't access MCD hardware, so for games that use SMPS/Z80 you will have to replace the sound engine. And I'm still not talking about taking advantage of the MCD hardware (besides loading), but just using the MD-side hardware. As soon as you start dealing with the MCD hardware it becomes madness in terms of porting.

Also I don't get from where the 256KB number comes, considering MCD's work RAM is 512KB.

That number comes from the Word RAM size - which I'm pretty sure is often used by Sega CD games to hold the MD-side code. The Sub-CPU has it's own 512KB Program RAM, but about 128KB or even more are reserved by the BIOS and the system as disk buffers, etc.

It's usually just simpler to use those 256K of Word RAM instead of trying to squeeze it all into program RAM.

Sodaholic, on 05 December 2011 - 02:21 AM, said:

Also, why is it apparently so difficult to port things to the Sega CD when all it comes down to is a matter of breaking the game down into 256kb standalone chunks and loading them? I can understand that managing to load them might be a pain in the ass with all the pointers, but wouldn't it be more of a pain in the ass than truly difficult? I ask because from what it sounds like, it's not terribly complicated, just a pain to work around at times.

The issue is this - you need to have all of your art for the zone, including for example, character artwork, as well as basically the entire game engine and code to load your next chunk of code for the next zone or the special stage or some shit like that. The pointers shouldn't be all that hard if you know how to properly use your assembler. tl;dr: The Sega CD hardware is 'a huge b-word to work with,' as Fygon put it that one time on Skype.

This post has been edited by theocas: 07 December 2011 - 10:37 AM

[Shadow Hog]

Sik, on 07 December 2011 - 03:19 AM, said:

Not to mention the Z80 can't access MCD hardware, so for games that use SMPS/Z80 you will have to replace the sound engine.

Ah, so is that why Sonic CD has its unusual jumping noise? I had been wondering.

Doesn't really explain why Chaotix also went with it, since I'm pretty sure I heard Z80 use in the music (the Z80's where the square wave/noise channels come from, correct?), but eh.

[theocas]

Shadow Hog, on 07 December 2011 - 10:38 AM, said:

Sik, on 07 December 2011 - 03:19 AM, said:

Not to mention the Z80 can't access MCD hardware, so for games that use SMPS/Z80 you will have to replace the sound engine.

Ah, so is that why Sonic CD has its unusual jumping noise? I had been wondering.

Doesn't really explain why Chaotix also went with it, since I'm pretty sure I heard Z80 use in the music (the Z80's where the square wave/noise channels come from, correct?), but eh.

I doubt that's why Sonic CD has that jumping noise, as I believe it still uses the FM channel, Sega just decided to be a little odd about it. The Z80 can still be running and access the MD hardware, it just won't have access to the MCD hardware. Usually, most CD games just use the Z80 for sound effects, and the CD-DA or PCM for the actual music.

The Z80 doesn't generate the square wave and noise channels, those come from the SN76489 in the VDP. The 32X however has some PWM channels that I believe Chaotix uses for some things.

[ICEknight]

I was wondering, does this "mode 1" allow to read data from the Mega-CD?

If it does, perhaps it would be possible to make it play the Sonic CD intro and ending, even? That would rule.

This post has been edited by ICEknight: 07 December 2011 - 10:46 AM

[Puto]

theocas, on 07 December 2011 - 10:42 AM, said:

Shadow Hog, on 07 December 2011 - 10:38 AM, said:

Sik, on 07 December 2011 - 03:19 AM, said:

Not to mention the Z80 can't access MCD hardware, so for games that use SMPS/Z80 you will have to replace the sound engine.

Ah, so is that why Sonic CD has its unusual jumping noise? I had been wondering.

Doesn't really explain why Chaotix also went with it, since I'm pretty sure I heard Z80 use in the music (the Z80's where the square wave/noise channels come from, correct?), but eh.

I doubt that's why Sonic CD has that jumping noise, as I believe it still uses the FM channel, Sega just decided to be a little odd about it. The Z80 can still be running and access the MD hardware, it just won't have access to the MCD hardware. Usually, most CD games just use the Z80 for sound effects, and the CD-DA or PCM for the actual music.

The Z80 doesn't generate the square wave and noise channels, those come from the SN76489 in the VDP. The 32X however has some PWM channels that I believe Chaotix uses for some things.

If they wanted to have the normal jump sound effect in Sonic CD, they would. Changing the sound effect was a deliberate decision, there is absolutely no limitation whatsoever about using the PSG in the Mega CD.

[Sodaholic]

They changed more than just the jumping sound. They changed the splash and moving spikes sounds as well. I actually prefer the cd versions.

[Iron Sonic]

ICEknight, on 07 December 2011 - 10:46 AM, said:

I was wondering, does this "mode 1" allow to read data from the Mega-CD?

If it does, perhaps it would be possible to make it play the Sonic CD intro and ending, even? That would rule.

Yes, that should be possible.

[Aerosol]

How was this done? This goes almost far enough to make me want to play Sonic 1 and enjoy it. I'd love to see it done for Sonic 2 or, if at all possible, 3&K.

[theocas]

AerosolSP, on 07 December 2011 - 07:48 PM, said:

How was this done? This goes almost far enough to make me want to play Sonic 1 and enjoy it. I'd love to see it done for Sonic 2 or, if at all possible, 3&K.

Magic.

Essentially, it just uses a special mode of the Sega CD where the MD cart holds the code for the game, but accesses the Sega CD hardware. It's not definite whether we'll apply this to another game as it requires quite a bit of modification to a lot of parts of the game, but I definitely won't say no right away.

This post has been edited by theocas: 07 December 2011 - 10:23 PM

[Covarr]

If it was done with S3K, I can see a bunch of people replacing most of the soundtrack with Michael Jackson, and mashups.

Personally, I'd keep the game's standard OST except for the inclusion of Poker Reef/Lava Face and Knuckleduster in their respective zones. It'd make the game perfect.