Can LD-ROM2 games be played on non-LD?

[wilykat]

Pioneer had Genesis and TG-16 module for one of the laserdisc system and released a few games that are only on LD.

Would it be possible to play games that were exclusive to LD-ROM2 format on a CD-R played on regular TG-16 or Duo console?  Or is the LD format so different it couldn't be converted to CD format?

[SignOfZeta]

Nope. Not at all.

[BigusSchmuck]

It's so different they can't even rip the damn things let alone emulate it. Might be able to rip the video, but that's about it.

[CrackTiger]

LD2 games are just laserdisc videos with a layer of PCE aesthetic on top. It's similar to how you can't just make a 32X or PC-FX game run on a standard Genesis or PCE system.

What may be plausible, is for people to eventually rip the video from the discs, convert it to a different format and create a new type of disc image to play in a new type of emulator. This has already been done for arcade LD games, but a LaserActive equivalent would require essentially that combined with a PCE emulator.

[elmer]

LD2 games are just laserdisc videos with a layer of PCE aesthetic on top.

Haha ... That sounds pretty much like the original design spec for the PC-FX! 

[SuperDeadite]

LaserActive games and LaserDisc Arcade games are actually quite different.   Arcade games use a standard LD for video, and a ROM board which contains the overlay sprites, and all the controlling hardware.

LA discs however contain the videos on the analog portions of the disc, while the sprites and data are on the digital portions.   The PACs render the sprites, but the overlay hardware is in the LA unit itself.

When arcade games are played, the disc is pure video so it will chapter jump to each video as needed.  The LA isn't able to do this and actually loads chunks of video into the digital memory, and streams it from there.  The digital memory space is limited of course, so TimeGal (which has a ton of unique death videos) actually has to pause and load quite often, the arcade original was much smoother in motion.

[DragonmasterDan]

LaserActive games and LaserDisc Arcade games are actually quite different.   Arcade games use a standard LD for video, and a ROM board which contains the overlay sprites, and all the controlling hardware.

LA discs however contain the videos on the analog portions of the disc, while the sprites and data are on the digital portions.   The PACs render the sprites, but the overlay hardware is in the LA unit itself.

When arcade games are played, the disc is pure video so it will chapter jump to each video as needed.  The LA isn't able to do this and actually loads chunks of video into the digital memory, and streams it from there.  The digital memory space is limited of course, so TimeGal (which has a ton of unique death videos) actually has to pause and load quite often, the arcade original was much smoother in motion.

And loading it into digital memory brings the resolution down to 240 which makes it look bad for Laserdisc video. By comparison if you play the Laseractive games in an LD player capable of playing the video back, your resolution improves greatly.

[Nazi NecroPhile]

I suppose you could rip out just the data portion of the games and modify them to boot in a Duo, but you'd end up with nothing but a handful of sprites zipping around on a blank screen, and nobody would want to play that.  Hell, people barely want to play LA games anyway.

[xcrement5x]

I was able to put some LDROMROM games in a couple other players and just view the raw video.  But yeah, like other said you are missing the whole game portion them.  I think I posted some screen shots I did of Angel Mate like that.  SAUCY!

[DragonmasterDan]

I was able to put some LDROMROM games in a couple other players and just view the raw video.  But yeah, like other said you are missing the whole game portion them.  I think I posted some screen shots I did of Angel Mate like that.  SAUCY!

I did that with Triad Stone (a Mega LD game) years ago.

Not all LD players can passively view the video though as newer ones detect that it's a Laseractive disc and reject even trying.

[Psycho Punch]

If someone ports Virtual Cameraman to the regular SCD setups please let me know.

[xcrement5x]

If someone ports Virtual Cameraman to the regular SCD setups please let me know.

Those games are on the 3DO already I believe.  Oh, and the first one is tough.

[wilykat]

So unless someone finds a way to combine CD+G and LD data to work on non-LD console, it's pretty much next to impossible.

Is there any exclusive LD-ROM2 game that makes it worth hunting down a working LD player and TG-16 module?  There aren't many of them and some of them I could probably get by watching Youtube.

[SignOfZeta]

Its got nothing to do with CD+G and another console will never run them unless that other console is powerful enough to run whatever emulator will eventually exist.

Basically the discs need to be correctly dumped. This is possible, but to my knowledge still hasn't been done.

Another issue is that some games compress two LD video streams into one. Basically, field one is one stream, field 2 is the other. When viewed in a normal LD player you get two things at once. If you have some sort of device that will allow you to sync only two one field and line double it, you could at least grab the analog video properly. This would likely need to be done in the analog realm, probably with broadcast TV gear since most (all?) capture devices compress to MPEG before they even enter the USB bus, and that's never going to work with this kind of thing.

Its a long way off, but as soon as someone smart puts effort into it I don't think it will take that long. The piss poor software is more of an obstacle than the technical side of things. That's a lot of hard work to play shitty games.

[xcrement5x]

So unless someone finds a way to combine CD+G and LD data to work on non-LD console, it's pretty much next to impossible.

Is there any exclusive LD-ROM2 game that makes it worth hunting down a working LD player and TG-16 module?  There aren't many of them and some of them I could probably get by watching Youtube.

Vajra 1 is good, Vajra 2 is really good.  Zapping TV Satsui is a unique experience but is also available on Mega-LD.  Most of the rest are boobie games or edutainment, and many were available on both the NEC and Sega PAC.  I would say there are better exclusive Mega-LDs than the other way around, and for once Genesis hardware is not constrained by brown.

[BigusSchmuck]

So unless someone finds a way to combine CD+G and LD data to work on non-LD console, it's pretty much next to impossible.

Is there any exclusive LD-ROM2 game that makes it worth hunting down a working LD player and TG-16 module?  There aren't many of them and some of them I could probably get by watching Youtube.

Maybe that JB Harold game, but it hasn't really enticed me to pick up a PCE PAC.

[SuperDeadite]

Manhatten Requiem is good if J. B. Harold is your thing.  But Vajra 2 is certainly the highlight of the LD-ROM2 exclusives.