CD-R's

OldRover · 07/31/2005, 08:37 PM

Quote from: NEC AvenueYou also have to keep in mind that we're not just talking about initial load times since games are constantly loading when you change levels etc.

Depends on the method they use to load the new data. Some games precache everything in huge overlays to reduce the frequency of future loads and some use dynamic loading of data segments which keeps load times down but more frequent. I can't think of any examples off the top of my head but I believe more games use method #2...which further narrows the speed difference and makes your argument even less fathomable.

(Of course, this more frequent loading of data results in more reseeks...and again, look at the speed of the read heads for both drives...)

For Mysterious Song, we use method #1, since there's a lot of data to be loaded and having to dynamically load data between battles or whatnot is going to be a pain in the tail no matter what system you play it on. But for Neutopia III, we're using method #2 since the precache method isn't very effective for larger games.

NEC Avenue · 07/31/2005, 09:22 PM

QuoteI can't think of any examples off the top of my head but I believe more games use method #2...which further narrows the speed difference and makes your argument even less fathomable.

The thing is most games use red book audio so you cannot be constantly accessing the disc. You have to load big chunks of data.

OldRover · 07/31/2005, 11:22 PM

Quote from: NEC Avenue
QuoteI can't think of any examples off the top of my head but I believe more games use method #2...which further narrows the speed difference and makes your argument even less fathomable.

The thing is most games use red book audio so you cannot be constantly accessing the disc. You have to load big chunks of data.

You missed the point...ah well fsckit, you're just going to keep arguing this anyways.

I'm still waiting on the evidence...

I never said ANYTHING about constantly accessing the disc. Frankly, I bore of this discussion since you don't have the foggiest clue as to what I'm talking about...ever...and you don't read what I say. Ever.

NEC Avenue · 07/31/2005, 11:49 PM

QuoteI'm still waiting on the evidence...

What are you talking about? As of right now nobody has evidence for or against 2x CD in DUO. What's up with all the drama anyway?

OldRover · 08/01/2005, 12:07 AM

Quote from: NEC AvenueWhat are you talking about? As of right now nobody has evidence for or against 2x CD in DUO. What's up with all the drama anyway?

You told me I was wrong on a subject I am pretty knowledgable about...time to put up or shut up. And all of a sudden you say nobody has any evidence? I thought YOU did? That's what we're all waiting for...

Keranu · 08/01/2005, 12:50 AM

Hahaha, this will never end.

OldRover · 08/01/2005, 12:52 AM

Seems to be a lot of fights going on lately, and for once, I'm not starting...most of them.

twor2005 · 08/01/2005, 04:33 AM

I looked through a lot of old magazines but didn't find anything that tells the speed of the drive. And yet it seems like read it was double somewhere- because this was one reason I was considering a Duo even though I already had a TGCD. All I found was an ambiguous reference in Gamepro to slightly faster load times. One thing I haven't checked is Turboplay and the dedicated magazines on steve's site.

NEC Avenue · 08/01/2005, 12:28 PM

Quote from: OldRover
Quote from: NEC AvenueWhat are you talking about? As of right now nobody has evidence for or against 2x CD in DUO. What's up with all the drama anyway?
You told me I was wrong on a subject I am pretty knowledgable about...time to put up or shut up. And all of a sudden you say nobody has any evidence? I thought YOU did? That's what we're all waiting for...

The only evidence you have is a bunch of websites that are parroting the same information..doesnt' make it correct. The evidence that I've shown actually supports my claims like the SCSI adapter announcement. The DUO came out before the adapter anouncment. Now I ask you why the adapter allows you to use your DUO as a 2x CD drive if it wasn't already 2x? Doesn't make any sense at all. No offense, but it seems you are not that familiar with what kind of drive is used in the DUO otherwise you would know it's 2x.

OldRover · 08/01/2005, 12:37 PM

Are you gonna keep going, or are you actually gonna give us the facts rather than speculation? You're getting pretty damn annoying. And I've already explained about six times why a 2x drive would be impractical and so have others. But I guess you missed all that, didn't you...relying on one advertisement, a very inconclusive "but discs look like they spin faster" argument, and a product which was never released, officially because drives were cheaper then...or could it be that it wasn't released because the hardware didn't live up to the claims they made? Like all the OTHER claims they made and never went through with?

soco · 08/01/2005, 02:54 PM

there is a rather simple way to test this. assuming there were no special commands needed to enable this, if you have any pce programmer friends out there, they could do sequential reads from the cd and time them. with the magic engine kit it's a rather simple program. you shouldn't even need to care about the ram as you would repeatedly do disc reads from an increasing position back and ignore what was read in.

from what i've seen of the system card disassemblies, it's possible that the drive could've been 2x as they never seem to guarantee a specific seek or read time for any operation. they just do it until it succeeds or timesout.

perhaps if no one has done it in a few months, i'll do it so you can end this ;)

OldRover · 08/01/2005, 03:22 PM

Fragmare suggested a similar thing, but the only real way to test this would be to use the arcade card, since that's the only way you're going to get a sustained rate long enough for any noticeable differences that could prove its speed. Since there's no acd api developed yet, it's gonna be awhile before this can be tested. Just using the standard functions isn't going to work because of the very small amount of RAM the normal setup has. A track jump test would only further prove the seek time difference that is already well-known, and doing a spinup time test isn't likely to be possible through code.

soco · 08/01/2005, 04:27 PM

unless the hardware access method changed between the drives the amount of ram is irrelevant, simply because the cdrom drive has an internal sector buffer, that the system cards read out byte by byte. there no DMA from the drive to system ram (only to ADPCM RAM). thus the amount of ram is irrelevant.

you just keep sending commands to read one sector, wait until it's returned success, and then read the next, without transferring the data back to system ram. this is enough to keep the rate up to what it should be.

you shouldn't need the acd library, because you can access the hardware directly, inthe same way the card does.

if the hardware differs in some access way, then yes you would need to use the ACD. however, i thought the ACD only added extra memory and the special shifting registers to the system card.

a spinup test wouldn't really help much, but i think it should be possible by simply stopping the drive and checking the hardware that it's spundown. then start a timer, play a track, and read the Q channel data or the PCM data.

NEC Avenue · 08/11/2006, 08:22 PM

Quote from: twor2005I'm in the process of scanning old magazines that feature the Duo. Rest assured the CD ROM in the Duo is double speed and I will post the relevant clippings when I find them.

When I finally got the Duo I was expecting much faster load times due to the double speed CD ROM, and was pretty surprised not to get them in a terribly pronounced way.

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