Switching disks with Mooby2

[dbhankins]

Just a general question, as I've not needed to yet, but expect to soon (FFVII)...

How does one switch disks in a multi-disk game when using ISOs through Mooby2?

ePSXe, for instance, gives you a way to switch disks but no way at that point to change what image Mooby2 is accessing (i.e. the config menu is disabled).

There are only three ways I can think of it might be done, each with its own drawbacks:

• Save states.
  
  Save the emulator state at the point where the game asks to switch disks, kill the emulator, change the Mooby2 config, restart the game, load the savestate.
  
  This should work fine except in games that don't behave gracefully with save states (e.g. Metal Gear Solid).
  
  
  
• Replay from save with built-in ISO support.
  
  When the switch message appears, kill the emulator, change the Mooby2 config, restart the game using the build-in ISO support to run the first disk, load the last save, and replay up to the switch disks message. Then switch CDRs and go.
  
  This means possibly a large amount of replay, and no CDDA sound during the replay (e.g. Colony Wars).
  
  
  
• Don't use Mooby2.
  
  Use a virtual CD drive (such as Alcohol) instead.
  
  Haven't ever used one so I'm not sure of the drawbacks. I suspect there'd be a performance impact and possibly lack of CDDA sound.

Any insights anyone else can provide would be welcome.


Dan

[hushypushy]

i tried it for a bit, PSXeven and SSSPSX crashed when i attempted any funny business.

there are 2 things you can do and you mentioned them both. you can play to the end of a disc, and FF7 lets you save. close the emulator, and start over and load from that save.

honestly, i'd recommend not using Mooby's plugin for multi-CD games, just for this reason. FF7 doesnt have CDDA sound. you can just do file-->Run ISO and you'll be safe. i played 4 discs of FF9 with nary a lag and i played off just regular ISOs that i made with CloneCD and loaded with Run ISO.

and you do get CDDA sound from mounting an image with like Alcohol or Daemon's tools, as long as you have the cue sheet.

the pros of mooby's are that you dont have to mount an image, you can just pick it right then and there. furthermore, it supports compression. beyond that, there's no real reason to use mooby's. i dont have any games (well, i dont play any) that use CDDA sound, so i always just did run ISO.

[dbhankins]

Many thanks, that's exactly the info I was looking for. Should save me much frustration in trying to achieve the impossible.


Dan

[hushypushy]

have you actually verified lag/loading with the run ISO command? (as opposed to Mooby's, i guess) my games always ran smooth when i put it through that.

[dbhankins]

Originally Posted by hushypushy

have you actually verified lag/loading with the run ISO command? (as opposed to Mooby's, i guess) my games always ran smooth when i put it through that.

Huh? Is this meant to be a reply to something in this thread? Or was this meant to go in the FF7 sound slowdown thread?

Because I never said anything about lag or smoothness of performance in this one.


Dan

[hushypushy]

Because I never said anything about lag or smoothness of performance in this one.

oh really? because i somehow remember you saying this in the first post:

I suspect there'd be a performance impact and possibly lack of CDDA sound.

[dbhankins]

Guilty as charged. My bad.

I didn't realize what you were referring to. That's possibly because my performance impact comment was about using virtual CD drives, not Run ISO.

I wouldn't expect there to be any performance impact when using Run ISO. In fact, I would expect it to have better performance than Mooby2. The reason I thought using a virtual CD drive might have a performance impact, where Mooby2 (or Run ISO) wouldn't, is that the code paths are much longer for the former:

virtual CD: emu -> CDR plugin -> Windows filesystem (vCD drivers) -> Windows filesystem (ISO file)
Run ISO: emu -> Windows filesystem
Mooby2: emu -> Mooby2 -> Windows filesystem

The virtual CD option makes the emu go through the Windows file system twice to get to the data.


Dan

[hushypushy]

i dont think there's much of a difference, even with that hitch it'd still be MUCH faster than PSX emulation requires

[TheMaister]

In fact, I've been using Virtual Drives (Deamon Tools) for a long time (including Run ISO) and I think Virtual drives are "quicker" than the "Run ISO"-command..

(Now I just play from CD's though. Less stress that way. )

[dbhankins]

Thanks for the tips.


Dan

[TheMaister]

Well.. I tried to test it one more time. Virtual Drives vs. Run ISO.
And I must say that Run ISO is far more superior. However, I only tried with CloneCD-format. But as I tried, Run ISO was much quicker.
Weird actually. Before, Virtual CDs were supreme...

[dbhankins]

After some experimentation, I am happy to report that CD-changing (or should I say ISO-changing?) is indeed possible with Mooby2.

The catch: you cannot have an autorun image set in the Mooby2 plugin. You must leave that item cleared.

The result is that when you run, or when you switch CDs, Mooby2 will pop up a dialog box where you can supply the name and location of the ISO to load.

Switching CDs/ISOs is where the Favorites drop-down at the top right of the dialog box comes in handy. If you have the folder containing your ISOs already set in those favorites, you can go right to it instead of having to navigate your filesystem.

The other catch: if you're using ePSXe and a front-end like ePSXeCutor or Delta to start it, you need to make sure that it's configured to show the ePSXe GUI - otherwise when you hit ESC you won't get the opportunity to do File->Change Disc.


Dan

[TheMaister]

Heh. Nice that it works with Mooby2. But why stress with Mooby when you can just use Run ISO?

[dbhankins]

Mooby provides functionality that Run ISO in ePSXe does not. It supports CDDA sound, compressed images, and subchannel reading. I'm not 100% certain about the latter two, but I know for a fact that ePSXe Run ISO does not support CDDA sound.


Dan

[TheMaister]

Yeah.. I forgot about that with CDDA.

Run ISO CAN read sub-channel data. Hehe.
However, Mooby2 is only useful if you play games with CDDA audio.

And what's the point with compressed ISO's?!
I can only think it is useful if you have like 20 ISO's on your harddrive..