Dangers of Swap Magic and About Backups...

[SamusKnight2K]

Well, after alot of debating I finally broke down and purchased a Swap Magic + CODER and Slide Tool Pro package combination from a website for about thirty bucks. But being new to the PS2 modding community there's but a few questions I do have:

* Dangers of Swap Magic, are there any? I know playing burned games on the Dreamcast and Playstation can over time eventually wear out the laser eye (Extra strain?) but what about the Playstation 2? One claimed feature of Swap Magic is it supposedly reduces laser eye strain.

* Ripped PS2 titles. Looking back to the Dreamcast many ripped games have problems where to fit it on a standard 700MB image it was required to downsample videos or gut music and video files. To fit a game on your average 4.2GB DVD does the same have to be done?

[Heathenreel]

1. There's no danger. The only thing that's a problem is that the Swap Magic discs scratch REALLY easily. Like, 10x more sensitive than a DVD-R. I don't think there's any extra laser strain though.

2. Most DVD-9 PS2 games (and there aren't many of them) have already been ripped by scene groups. But for personal DIY backups, ripkits are available via a quick google search.

[Ktiger41]

1. There's no danger. The only thing that's a problem is that the Swap Magic discs scratch REALLY easily. Like, 10x more sensitive than a DVD-R. I don't think there's any extra laser strain though.

Lies. I have been pretty clumsy with these discs and have not scratched them yet. Whereas if I gave a DVD-R the same treatment it would look like I attached it to the end of my sander and sanded some lumber.

[Sprung]

Actually, the Swap Magic discs do scratch pretty easy. I have a some scratches on mine, and I treat my discs very well.

[Heathenreel]

Lies. I have been pretty clumsy with these discs and have not scratched them yet. Whereas if I gave a DVD-R the same treatment it would look like I attached it to the end of my sander and sanded some lumber.

I went through 3 sets of them from normal use.. And being the impatient guy I am, I broke several PS2's trying to force them to read a Swap Magic disc after ONE scratch that ruined it.

[Fear]

i don't suppose something like this would help
http://www.thegeeksource.com/Product...id=22182&tab=0

or would that just strain the laser more?

[Kazekage Gaara]

Well, I don't know much about Swap Magic, but I would suggest you to use good quality media for your PS2 backups, which in turn will prolong your laser's life

[Inferno.]

PS2's nothing like Dreamcast. DVD-ROMs/CD-ROMs were a standard, and are a standard now. Unlike the Dreamcast, where GD-ROMs weren't a standard, therefore a lot of downsampling/ripping took place. Making it fit onto a regular sized CD-ROM.

As for the laser strain, I dunno. But using good media and burning your backups slow is going to save your laser a lot.

I recommend you using 2x write speed with ImgBurn, onto Verbatim or similar discs.

As for damaging the console it's not that serious the damage that you could do. Maybe you'd break the clips that clip on the fascia onto the DVD drawer... Or extra wrong use of a slide tool could break the DVD tray's mechanism, but I doubt you'd be clumsy enough to DO that.