Author Topic: Preserving Old Games (Read 4464 times)

Takeshi · « **Reply #20 on:** November 13, 2009, 12:42:32 PM »

Quote from: Xtras on November 13, 2009, 12:59:01 AM

My only qualm with Steam is that I like to keep the boxes of the video games. I think it is possible to load them onto Steam actually, but I haven't tested this.

If you bought a game which can also be bought on Steam, you should be able to register the serial and then you'd be able to download it using Steam even if you don't have the DVDs with you. You can also add games so you'll be able to choose the game you want to play on your Steam Game list. However, I only use Steam for games I've bought or have registered through the serial number.

If you want to play with an emulator then PM me. I can provide you with what you need. For PSX, at least.

Xtras · « **Reply #21 on:** November 13, 2009, 10:57:32 PM »

I looked. Aside from Valve games, Steam supports an extremely limited list of games for which you can just add the serial number.

Do ISO's work for games that came out recently? I thought companies deliberately make it to where you can't get a working ISO. I know if works for FF7, but say Crysis Warhead (with its infinite securom and drm nonsense)?

DaggerLite · « **Reply #22 on:** November 13, 2009, 11:03:31 PM »

I haven't had problems with ISOs and virtual drives. I only use it for my old offline stuff, though. Too much of a hassle fiddling with discs all the time. Newer stuff is usually online enabled and require no disc in the first place. If it runs with certain DRM like Securom, I doubt it works. Thing is, you don't really need the legit disc if your disc breaks. You just need a legit (or working) key.

You're right on the Steam matter. I think they're working on enabling more titles, but a few months back, Unreal Tournament 3 was the only game you could enable on Steam from a physical disc. I wouldn't be surprised if more are available now.

sdedalus83 · « **Reply #23 on:** November 13, 2009, 11:12:47 PM »

It takes some work to properly rip protected games but very few, if any, are impossible to back up.

Slykester · « **Reply #24 on:** November 14, 2009, 12:57:48 AM »

There's some good reading material on making backups at game copy world. I won't link to it since you might want to use a local mirror.

Viseroid · « **Reply #25 on:** November 16, 2009, 11:26:36 AM »

It's been a while since I've played the PC version of FF7 but I think I remember the music not sounding as good as the PS version. Btw, the Playstation Store is selling FF7 for I think 10 bucks. You don't get a nice jewel case or pictures but 10 bucks for a classic is a great deal.
Using an emulator can be a pain sometimes. You can easily spend over an hour's worth of time tweaking the bios's of the emulator to make a single game run well. However, the benefits of running the game on an emulator are pretty good: save states, anti aliasing and other graphical tweaks.
As for the original question I have FF7 disks that are at least 10 years old that still run beautifully. Unfortunately, I've lost the case for some reason :(.

sdedalus83 · « **Reply #26 on:** November 16, 2009, 08:42:54 PM »

Quote from: Viseroid on November 16, 2009, 11:26:36 AM

You can easily spend over an hour's worth of time tweaking the bios's of the emulator to make a single game run well.

For PS2(most games can be set up pretty quickly), Dreamcast(The same as PS2 emulation), Gamecube(Can be quite a bit of work for games that need a lot of speedhacks), Wii(same as Gamecube emulation), and Saturn(A nightmare for pretty much anything, no matter how fast your PC is) emulation maybe. I've never spent more than 5 minutes getting an SNES, PSX or N64 game working properly.

If it's really that much of a problem, just use Delta and its presets for a few hundred games.

Viseroid · « **Reply #27 on:** November 16, 2009, 09:20:26 PM »

It might have been the games I was configuring for (MGS and FF7, both of them have emulation problems with ePSX). Like you said it took easily under 10 minutes to work but much more for finer details. MGS worked the first time except the audio would spaz out on the training missions, that took some tweaking :(. Then, I wanted the FF7 battle swirl to render properly and ran into a few more problems. Once I had that working the hand pointer icon in battle had blue stuck on the edges. Ran into no problems with Star Ocean though.
If you aren't OCD like I am about the finer detail of graphics and just care about playing the game you'll be fine. Then again I like getting things to work the perfectly :). However, there are some games like Golden Eye that just won't perfectly no matter what you do. The sky has a habit of never being rendered properly.
Thanks for reminding me about the Dreamcast though, I want to play some House of the Dead :).

Xtras · « **Reply #28 on:** November 17, 2009, 01:50:48 AM »

I dunno, in general I try to avoid doing anything illegal when it comes to Video Games. I feel the gaming industry does a hell of a lot better than the anime industry at smoothening out the interactions between the company and the buyer, since they offer numerous demos and sales and things. Although I admit , stuff like Crysis Warhead are really starting to make me question that belief.

UMMX · « **Reply #29 on:** November 17, 2009, 02:00:46 AM »

Quote from: Talapus on November 13, 2009, 03:30:53 AM

The PC version of FF7 has no copy protection to speak of (I have ripped many copies without any problems). You will have to download a patch for the chocobo races (XP/Vista), but otherwise it works fine.

For the emulation route, you need a PS emulator such as ePSXe, and find an ISO of FF7. Configure your plugins and go. Problems with emulation include video and audio being too fast (some of which you can correct), and lack of an analog stick.

WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT!!!!!! EpsxE fix all those problem with 170 version. You can also play your original FF7 and other PSX games on you computer.

Also about what is my oldest computer game, I have Balder Gate 1,2 and Marrowwind....

PS: The Ps3 slim can also play PSX games, so you can do that also....

kureshii · « **Reply #30 on:** November 17, 2009, 02:12:48 AM »

* kureshii writes UMMX a chill pill prescription.

Keep it civil, guys.

Viseroid · « **Reply #31 on:** November 17, 2009, 02:36:36 AM »

Quote from: Xtras on November 17, 2009, 01:50:48 AM

I dunno, in general I try to avoid doing anything illegal when it comes to Video Games. I feel the gaming industry does a hell of a lot better than the anime industry at smoothening out the interactions between the company and the buyer, since they offer numerous demos and sales and things. Although I admit , stuff like Crysis Warhead are really starting to make me question that belief.

Your stance is good but oftentimes our wallets speak more loudly to companies than our words. Piracy is a complicated thing and I'll save it for another thread :). The PC version of Modern Warfare 2 is quite a predicament. No matter what you do it is a lose-lose situation. If I don't buy they claim there is no market for PC games and stop developing for the PC. If I pirate they claim piracy is making they lose money and stop developing for the PC. If I buy their overpriced and underdeveloped game that tells they that they can get away with anything and make me pay for DLC that should have already been in the game in the first place.
If it makes you feel any better I used legitimate copies of MGS and FF7. However, I like using iso's because then I don't have to listen to my disc drive spin :). Also, you can get games to look much nicer than they were intended to by turning on AA and increasing the resolution.

AntiPaladin · « **Reply #32 on:** November 20, 2009, 02:50:26 AM »

Okay, first to the emulation question-

Provided you have a good, fast system, you can currently emulate anything out there except for 360, PS3, and PSP (If anyone knows of a good emu for those, let me know) The number one issue is finding a GOOD rom file. Many of the problems you'll encounter can be traced back to a crappy rom, just like many issues with ISO games is based off of a bad rip. So make sure you have a couple different sources to d/l from. Otherwise, as said, you shouldn't need too much time to get an emu up and running, especially the older systems. I've run almost every PS1 game perfectly out of the gate on PSX, and it looks pretty damned good. If you want to get started with emus and roms, head to another torrent site and just search for "emulator." Should be a couple 5-6 gb torrents that have EVERY game ever made for everything up to PS1 or so, along with emus and instructions. Plus, there's plenty of forums available for help if you get stuck, which I don't see as a problem provided a) you're at least somewhat tech-savy, and b) you're not trying to get MAME working (whole other bag of transistors there...)

Personally, if a game is out of print, I see no reason NOT to run it as an emulator. The only people losing money are the scalpers trying to rip me for $100 for a "rare, collectors item" that I just wan to fucking play. Not put away in a museum case in my basement, but to actually play. (I'm looking at you, Tactics Ogre...)

kureshii · « **Reply #33 on:** November 20, 2009, 02:59:40 AM »

Should add that the original Xbox is still far from being fully emulated, too.

UMMX · « **Reply #34 on:** November 20, 2009, 11:38:55 PM »

Quote from: kureshii on November 20, 2009, 02:59:40 AM

Should add that the original Xbox is still far from being fully emulated, too.

That because nobody want to emulated. Also there is an PsP emulator out that does work. But it's only 1.6 beta it does play games on it but you do have to find roms.

Also have you guys try the PS2 emulator? My computer is to old, but I heard it works well...

Sosseres · « **Reply #35 on:** November 21, 2009, 04:39:17 PM »

Quote from: UMMX on November 20, 2009, 11:38:55 PM

Also have you guys try the PS2 emulator? My computer is to old, but I heard it works well...

I ran psx2 a while ago, worked well for the game I tried (Kingdom Hearts). I havn't had time to do more than minor testing, a pain playing on keyboard but no stuttering or glitches in the first hours of gameplay. Can also save at any point, not just those rare save points even if those rare spots have more slots.

As for preserving old games, copy your cd key (if any). Download an iso and the highest cracked patch version you can find, store on hdd and move over to newer hdds as you go along. Would run into same problems with the isos as with your originals after a few years. Took me hours to get baldur's gate 1 working, finally found a guide.

sdedalus83 · « **Reply #36 on:** November 21, 2009, 08:27:00 PM »

Quote from: UMMX on November 20, 2009, 11:38:55 PM

That because nobody want to emulated. Also there is an PsP emulator out that does work. But it's only 1.6 beta it does play games on it but you do have to find roms.

Also have you guys try the PS2 emulator? My computer is to old, but I heard it works well...

The Xbox hasn't seen an emulator because recreating the OS would be practically impossible (see ReactOS), no one has figured out how to crack the OS to run on an emulator, and no one puts any effort into cracking the OS because it would need to be an integral component of the emulator, nothing like the way most emulators interface with BIOS files. Cracking the OS, or using a cracked SDK emulator, and then distributing it would result in Microsoft calling forth the Fist of God to crush any would be Xbox emulator developers.

PS2 emulation works pretty well. A lot of the playable games need a 4 + Ghz Core 2 to be playable though. And a lot of games are simply not playable, or are playable but have severe glitches which ruin the experience.

And why would you need to find illegal .iso files for PSP emulation? It's easy as fuck to rip games.

zherok · « **Reply #37 on:** November 21, 2009, 09:48:28 PM »

You can get away with much lower specs on some PS2 games. Persona 3 and 4 play well enough on my P8700 (2.53ghz Core 2 Duo) laptop. Not 100%, but close enough. And a lot of 2D JRPGs work perfectly.

Sosseres · « **Reply #38 on:** November 21, 2009, 10:29:48 PM »

Quote from: sdedalus83 on November 21, 2009, 08:27:00 PM

PS2 emulation works pretty well. A lot of the playable games need a 4 + Ghz Core 2 to be playable though. And a lot of games are simply not playable, or are playable but have severe glitches which ruin the experience.

And why would you need to find illegal .iso files for PSP emulation? It's easy as fuck to rip games.

Hmm I ran the first hour of Kingdom Hearts with a top of 22% cpu usage on a core 2 duo 3.0. Perhaps it requires more further in. K, just loaded it up again from a state save in the emulator, not a recommended way to do it. Graphical glitches since it hasn't loaded all the textures.

The intro for ff xii spikes at 12% cpu. Menu at 30, a spike at 60 when booting up a video. Edit, then it runs at 80% in the starting area. Might have to look over a few of my settings (if I ever get the time to play them).

UMMX · « **Reply #39 on:** November 22, 2009, 12:46:23 AM »

Quote from: zherok on November 21, 2009, 09:48:28 PM

You can get away with much lower specs on some PS2 games. Persona 3 and 4 play well enough on my P8700 (2.53ghz Core 2 Duo) laptop. Not 100%, but close enough. And a lot of 2D JRPGs work perfectly.

I have seen people playing Persona 3 and 4 on the PS2x and I can say that is one of the main reason, I wish my computer had two Core or more. It would be one of the only games I would keep on playing on it.