Burning cd games at faster speeds, bad or fine?

[SignOfZeta]

Quite honestly, I wouldn't recommend putting in CDRs into your system at all. Unless you are a fan of replacing parts, best bet would be to play them on a emulator on a pc or something on the lines of that. Meteor Blaster killed one of my Duos badly enough that I had to send it off to Keith Courage to fix it.

This is a topic that has been debated here many times in the past. A lot of people are convinced CDRs kill PCEs but AFAIK nobody has formulated a decent informed theory on how this would even be possible. I've played through entire RPGs multiple times on CDR and nothing failed.

I have to wonder if the people who push this theory have any ideas of other systems that can be killed by CDR.

[esadajr]

While I don't have a scientific explanation, in the Duo's case, there are (metallic) noises you only hear when trying CDRs.

[SignOfZeta]

The Duos will get physically stuck beyond their range of sled travel with CDRs for some reason. This is certainly a problem, although its easily corrected.

I've never heard "metallic" noises.

My theory is that these systems that die from CDR use were on their last legs anyway. Also, People who run primarily CDRs primarily are also more likely to be low budget late comers with leaky cap black Duos, crappy power supplies, etc.

[grahf]

I think the "theory" was that on a CDR that's barely readable, the laser will have to track more often, leading to more work, leading to faster breakdown.  I guess if you have a bad burn, and can actually hear your drive having to retrack often, then don't use that disk. If it works fine and sounds normal, probably not much chance of damage.

Edit:  Also, I would NOT recommend trying to use an older burner just to get slower burn speeds. I've tested two different 1x burners years ago, and the newer 8x burner I had always produced better disks. Slower does not always equal better. It's mainly the quality of the burner itself.

[SignOfZeta]

Excessive seeking/tracking/focusing could wear out the gears and stuff, but the fix for these dead Duos is usually just a laser sans sled, right? So its the focusing thats killing it? Plausible.

Here's the thing with PCE games though. They load once and then basically just play a music track. So if the game isn't taking a long time to load and the music track isn't skipping then its safe to say that it's not having a very hard time. It's not like a modern system where the optical drive is just doing all sorts of shit constantly. You're going to be aware of every miscue. When a PCE skips playing music it just plays silence until the next load. Unless you've been playing a lot of games with the music constantly dropping out then I don't think the CDR killed the laser. It probably just died because its been in constant use since Reagan was president.

I'm not pro or anti CDR or anything, btw, and I don't have a definite opinion on whether this is actually happening or not, just don't like superstitions being spread and as far as I can tell right now it's just that, superstition.

Maybe someone can measure the activity of the focusing coil with an ammeter or something with CDR versus pressed CD and see if there is any difference.

[BigusSchmuck]

Excessive seeking/tracking/focusing could wear out the gears and stuff, but the fix for these dead Duos is usually just a laser sans sled, right? So its the focusing thats killing it? Plausible.

Here's the thing with PCE games though. They load once and then basically just play a music track. So if the game isn't taking a long time to load and the music track isn't skipping then its safe to say that it's not having a very hard time. It's not like a modern system where the optical drive is just doing all sorts of shit constantly. You're going to be aware of every miscue. When a PCE skips playing music it just plays silence until the next load. Unless you've been playing a lot of games with the music constantly dropping out then I don't think the CDR killed the laser. It probably just died because its been in constant use since Reagan was president.

I'm not pro or anti CDR or anything, btw, and I don't have a definite opinion on whether this is actually happening or not, just don't like superstitions being spread and as far as I can tell right now it's just that, superstition.

Maybe someone can measure the activity of the focusing coil with an ammeter or something with CDR versus pressed CD and see if there is any difference.

There are other people here that had Meteor Blaster kill their Duos, I know I'm not the only one. If I recall, Meteor Blaster came out on a CD-R didn't it?

[SignOfZeta]

I don't know if there are even enough people who have played Meteor Blaster period to make an accurate sample of whether or not it kills Duos.

[vestcoat]

There are other people here that had Meteor Blaster kill their Duos,

MB rode my Duo hard and put it away wet.

[esadajr]

Just replaced the "original" AC adapter (9V 1A) with a universal one (9V 1.8A) and BAM! Sapphy works perfectly.

No more granulated bars or lens struggle.

[Tatsujin]

so your duo is consumpting more power than it originally was designed for? may be it isn't at its best health.

[Necromancer]

Did ya test the original AC?  It's probably not putting out what it once did.

[esadajr]

I haven't tested it. But I intend to

[NightWolve]

All of a sudden, my DuoR is having issues reading Taiyos burnt at 10x. If the game loads, the CD audio track plays for a bit then no CD Audio is heard until the next track is played. I'll have to try burning with the Win98 clunker.

This is exactly the problem I was having with my Turbo Duo. At first, I somewhat fell for the ole "Blame the CD-R" reaction so what I did is take an original music CD and let that play. Sure enough, after a few seconds of playing whatever track was selected, it'd skip and then cease playing until the next load, just as it was doing with a game read off of a CD-R.

Conclusion ? The problem is not the disc, CD-R or otherwise. Here's one of the many threads where this was talked about and the possible solution in detail. Basically, you're gonna have to regrease the slider poles of the lens, preferably with white, lightweight lithium grease if you can get it. You need to thoroughly degrease the old grease off of course. Also, don't mess with ANY potentiometers until having done this first...

[Tatsujin]

Did ya test the original AC?  It's probably not putting out what it once did.

Oldskool coil transformers very rarely change its outputvoltage/power over time. either they fully work or they do not at all. but one plausible factor could be oxidation on the plugs which produces a higher contact resistance, which then will result in a power drop.

[spenoza]

There are other people here that had Meteor Blaster kill their Duos, I know I'm not the only one. If I recall, Meteor Blaster came out on a CD-R didn't it?

Anecdotal evidence does not proof make. This is one of those rare issues on which I agree with SignOfZeta. A poor quality CD-R might put a tiny bit of extra wear and tear on the drive due to an increased number of errors and the resulting work re-reading data, but that's like a drop in the bucket. Dust, carpet, older electrical wiring, and being used normally to play games are much more likely to cause your equipment to wear out.