Hi everyone,
I found this forum recently as I was re-re-re-digging into best ways to burn games for PS1/PS2 and I tought my recent experiments might be useful to some.
Three years ago I was like "Yeah emulators are cool but I really wish to enjoy my old childhood games as they were meant to be played". And I proceeded to get myself a CRT, a chipped PSOne (scph-103 PAL) and a chipped PS2 slim (scph-90004) because I knew my games were heavily scratched and finding games in good state might end up being more expensive and time consuming than getting into the world of burning (wich is so fun to me).
So I read a lot online on the subject and ended getting a Pioneer BDR-212EBK (tried other older DVD/CD drive from ebay but always ended up with worn out burner and I read at the time that pioneer's BD drives were just the best you could get in the world of modern burners).
As for the blank medias, I'll skip all my trials and error and try to summerize the best I can:
CD-R media for PS1:
Never got to make perfect playback of any modern Verbatim AZO I could find (the one I found seem to have a special coating that makes them hard to read ?). I never tried old stock from ebay but I suppose they would work waaaay better.
I finally found my ideal media when I tried the moderns CMC-Pro CD-R made with Taiyo Yuden technology.
DVD-R media for PS2:
I've always read Verbatim's AZO was the holy grail, and while I've always made playable disc with them, I never could make a perfect burn free of FMV skipping. I even stopped trying to do better, I just tought my ps2 laser couldn't do better. ( I tried MCC03RG20 and MKM004). Not sure but I think it's safe to say they are all from the current CMC era except maybe a pack of DVD+R DL that is made in UAE.
But I went into it again the last few weeks and decided to try some genuine Taiyo Yuden Premium Grade TYG03 from the JVC era and, surprise, I got a perfect FMV playback !
Ok so now, the real deal, the burning speeds:
(for reference, I attached a pdf from Pioneer with ALL the writing strategies in firmware, I think people here could find it interesting).
CD-R burning speed:
In the file attached, we can see CD-Rs have a 4x and 10x strategies and then, a 16x, 24x, 32x and 40x all marked as "CAV".
At first, I tried to follow the "slower the better" approach. Terrible idea, the two non-CAV 4x and 10x both resulted in horrible playback performance. They were perfectly fine to read on the computer but the PSOne would absolutely hate them.
The ideal speed I found was the slowest marked "CAV": 16x.
I got PERFECT playback with dozens of games at that speed with the CMC Pro CD-R. Going faster would simply add a bit more and more of stutter (but nothing like the horrible 4x and 10x playback)
DVD-R burning speed:
For short: Exact same story as CD-Rs
In the file attached, we cans see DVD-R 16x have a similar pattern, a slow speed (4x) and then, CAV strategies (6x, 8x, 12x, 16x)
Again, the 4x speed would give me horrible playback in my PS2.
And again the slowest CAV is the only one to give me perfect playback on JVC Premium TYG03 (Never got an AZO disc to be that perfect but 6x was also the best).
In summary:
Pioneer BDR-212EBK
16x on CMC Pro TY CD-R
6x on JVC TY TYG03 DVD-R
Never got the chance to try older Verbatim's disc (CD-R or DVD-R)
Never tried modern CMC Pro made TYG03
Both my PSOne and PS2 never got a nice regreasing of their moving parts so these results are from units in relatively good shape but certainly with suboptimal performance.
As for buying those CMC Pro discs, I'm in Belgium and got them from Nierle.com
Hope this might help some people.
EDIT: Forgot the burning software.
ImgBurn for everything without libcrypt.
Libcrypt games: Alcohol 120% Free Edition RAW DAO with .ccd made with SBITools with subchannel data from .lsd files to get a disc the closest to a 1:1 copy (except the fact I burn on 80min CD-Rs of course).
I found this forum recently as I was re-re-re-digging into best ways to burn games for PS1/PS2 and I tought my recent experiments might be useful to some.
Three years ago I was like "Yeah emulators are cool but I really wish to enjoy my old childhood games as they were meant to be played". And I proceeded to get myself a CRT, a chipped PSOne (scph-103 PAL) and a chipped PS2 slim (scph-90004) because I knew my games were heavily scratched and finding games in good state might end up being more expensive and time consuming than getting into the world of burning (wich is so fun to me).
So I read a lot online on the subject and ended getting a Pioneer BDR-212EBK (tried other older DVD/CD drive from ebay but always ended up with worn out burner and I read at the time that pioneer's BD drives were just the best you could get in the world of modern burners).
As for the blank medias, I'll skip all my trials and error and try to summerize the best I can:
CD-R media for PS1:
Never got to make perfect playback of any modern Verbatim AZO I could find (the one I found seem to have a special coating that makes them hard to read ?). I never tried old stock from ebay but I suppose they would work waaaay better.
I finally found my ideal media when I tried the moderns CMC-Pro CD-R made with Taiyo Yuden technology.
DVD-R media for PS2:
I've always read Verbatim's AZO was the holy grail, and while I've always made playable disc with them, I never could make a perfect burn free of FMV skipping. I even stopped trying to do better, I just tought my ps2 laser couldn't do better. ( I tried MCC03RG20 and MKM004). Not sure but I think it's safe to say they are all from the current CMC era except maybe a pack of DVD+R DL that is made in UAE.
But I went into it again the last few weeks and decided to try some genuine Taiyo Yuden Premium Grade TYG03 from the JVC era and, surprise, I got a perfect FMV playback !
Ok so now, the real deal, the burning speeds:
(for reference, I attached a pdf from Pioneer with ALL the writing strategies in firmware, I think people here could find it interesting).
CD-R burning speed:
In the file attached, we can see CD-Rs have a 4x and 10x strategies and then, a 16x, 24x, 32x and 40x all marked as "CAV".
At first, I tried to follow the "slower the better" approach. Terrible idea, the two non-CAV 4x and 10x both resulted in horrible playback performance. They were perfectly fine to read on the computer but the PSOne would absolutely hate them.
The ideal speed I found was the slowest marked "CAV": 16x.
I got PERFECT playback with dozens of games at that speed with the CMC Pro CD-R. Going faster would simply add a bit more and more of stutter (but nothing like the horrible 4x and 10x playback)
DVD-R burning speed:
For short: Exact same story as CD-Rs
In the file attached, we cans see DVD-R 16x have a similar pattern, a slow speed (4x) and then, CAV strategies (6x, 8x, 12x, 16x)
Again, the 4x speed would give me horrible playback in my PS2.
And again the slowest CAV is the only one to give me perfect playback on JVC Premium TYG03 (Never got an AZO disc to be that perfect but 6x was also the best).
In summary:
Pioneer BDR-212EBK
16x on CMC Pro TY CD-R
6x on JVC TY TYG03 DVD-R
Never got the chance to try older Verbatim's disc (CD-R or DVD-R)
Never tried modern CMC Pro made TYG03
Both my PSOne and PS2 never got a nice regreasing of their moving parts so these results are from units in relatively good shape but certainly with suboptimal performance.
As for buying those CMC Pro discs, I'm in Belgium and got them from Nierle.com
Hope this might help some people.
EDIT: Forgot the burning software.
ImgBurn for everything without libcrypt.
Libcrypt games: Alcohol 120% Free Edition RAW DAO with .ccd made with SBITools with subchannel data from .lsd files to get a disc the closest to a 1:1 copy (except the fact I burn on 80min CD-Rs of course).
Last edited by KeeranJolka,
!! And maybe, just maybe, it doesn't support mixed mode cds? or multisessions? sorry, can't remember...
