Sega CD Roms

[Rich666]

O.K. so I have a number of Sega CD games on my PSP, most of which consist of a folder containing an ISO file and a load of MP3s for each game. These don't take up more than 200mb for any of them at the VERY most, and a lot of them are under even 100mb.

But the copy of Shining Force CD is a ZIP file (which does not contain the same sort of set up as the others), and takes up a lot more room on the memory stick at a little over 410mb.

Is it just a big game, or is it the format that is causing the increase in size? and if it's the format then is there any way to make it playable in the format which all the other seem to work in?

Thanks

[Zorlon]

I hope you are not emulating the PSP that this section is for only to emulate the Sega CD

If you are using a real PSP then this needs to be moved to Everything Console

P.S. there is an easy fix for this but will get to that later

mp3's are lossy codex files (usually apx a 10th of the original size) and are much lower in file size to raw/wav audio that is used on a real CD, because disc images are best shared in a format that can be used with real hardware without issue then games that are from good sites for CD images anyway are shared in raw format or lossless codex files that can be converted back to the original raw format that lossy codex files such as mp3 files can't and would cause sync issues and even make some games crash

as you have not even mentioned the actual format I am going to guess at Bin+Cue that has not only the data track stored in it but raw audio data for every CDDA track (Compact Disc Digital Audio)

[Rich666]

Yes I am using the actual PSP console, sorry for the confusion as I am not sure what section it would have gone in to.

Yeah the files inside the rar file do appear to be .bin and .cue, but it would be really handy if I could somehow get that other style of storage with the folder and the MP3s just because it takes up less room, plus I've not seen it have any real affect on any of the other games.

[b2p1mp]

the program to turn a bin/cue into the folder comes with the Picodrive (sega cd emulator for psp) The file called something like: bin_to_cso_mp3 tool is run from ms-dos with a few parameters and the iso is converted into a cso and mp3 files. There should be a readme or help file on the small app. I recall there being instructions in the readme. I haven't done it in a very long time so I cannot remember the command I used when converting.

[Zorlon]

easy as pie to convert with just two windows programs, no silly command prompts here

CDMage
LameDropXPD

1. extract both the above files
2. create a work folder, can be on your desktop
3. copy the bin+cue files to that work folder
4. run CDMage and File>Open then select the cue file
5. Tap Session1 that is in the left side (that should make the right side list all the tracks)
6. Click on MODE1 on the right then press Ctrl+A (to select all)
7. File>Extract Tracks (Stop here before you get carried away, a few things need to be changed)
8. Under Extract tracks change Mode1 to Mode1/2048
9. Click Default extensions and change Audio to wav, and all the mode ones to iso now hit OK
10. Change Extract tracks to to the Work folder and finally change the Track naming sceme to read ?i ?n.?e
11. Hit Extract
12. run LameDropXPD
13. Drag and drop all the wav files onto the LameDropXPD window
14. Now just to clean up the files...


Hint in the search box for that folder type *.wav and tap enter that will pick out all the wav files, you can then just select them all (ctrl+A) and hit delete, after hit back to return to the full list of files for that folder

This will allow the game to work with any emulator that uses iso+mp3's

[Rich666]

O.K. cool it seems to all work, but step 12. doesn't seem to do anything, does it just do something directly to the files as they are, or is it supposed to produce any new files etc.?

[Zorlon]

Untitled.png should be shown when you run it

You should of got either
LameDropXPd v3.1 based on LAME 3.99.5 or LameDropXPd v3.1 64 bit based on LAME 3.99.5 though, the last one requires the lame.exe file found http://www.rarewares.org/mp3-lame-bundle.php that you can try if neither of the first two work, that one may look a little different though


If not though you can do that with any wav to mp3 program

[Rich666]

Yeah that is how it looked, but nothing got produced.
I tried a program I have called FormatFactory to try and convert the wav files in MP3s, but all of them failed so maybe the original extraction failed somehow? I did follow the steps though so I'll have to try it again I guess.

[Zorlon]

step 12 just starts it

You need to drag and drop the files onto that box

just select all the files Ctrl+A then hold the left click of the mouse and keep it help down and move the mouse to the box then let go of the left click to drop the files

[Rich666]

Yeah that is what I did honestly and nothing happened so I have to assume something went wrong in the original extraction.

[Zorlon]

If there was CDmage would just tell you it could not open the file or say there was an error on extracting the tracks

What does lame drop say when you drop a single wav onto the Drop Files Here window?

[Rich666]

Dragging anything into that box just seems to make the box close/disappear, I didn't assume that was supposed to happen but having never used the program before I have no idea what to expect.

[Zorlon]

Nope the box is never supposed to just go, the only time it should close is if you tell it to do so, just sounds like you don't have the correct runtime files for it, the problem is with your system there that is preventing LameDropXPD from running correctly rather than the files you are feeding it, because normally if you feed it a file it can't handle it just says it can't handle it and skips to the next file if you dumped lots of files on it

try the old front end version instead

lame.exe from http://www.rarewares.org/mp3-lame-bundle.php is also needed

OK another way via CDmage is to change the audio to type to WAV under Extract tracks though that should not be needed but may enable other converters to work if they do not support RAW audio




Is this resolved now???

[Rich666]

Sorry I was really busy the last few days looking after my nephew, so I only just got a chance to read this reply, I am currently checking your first post when you told me what to do originally to see if I missed anything but it looks like I didn't so I might have to start again with this Lamedrop thing as it's still just closing with an error sound.

edit:
O.K. so it actually did something this time instead of just closing, a load of command prompts flicked up really quick (then went away again), but I can't honestly work out if it actually did do anything, the files are all still .wav files and I can't see any MP3 files if it was supposed to make any.

[Zorlon]

And other converters after running through CDMage with the audio converted to real wav files instead of the raw wav files, that possibly would not be readable by other audio converting software

I explain that in my previous post