It took me soo damn long to get this damn patch to work right CDRwin just wouldnt work right for me, finally with mero it came out flawless. I got it right abotu two weeks ago but I refuse to play it. I just got Ys 3 and I am stuck on Darm in ys book 2.
Someone sent me the patched Ys IV but it doesn't work.
I wish someone would provide me the opportunity to get a working one ...............
You and anybody else that's ever had difficulty ripping a PC-Engine/TG-16 CD will have a nifty tool at your disposal very soon. I'm working on a program tentatively called "TurboRip" and I'm about to release version 1.00 very soon. It will probably be my last gift to the PCE community, although if it becomes popular enough, I might return to it someday to make a GUI version (this will be commandline). For a long description, I made a post about it
here if anyone wants to take a look. Basically, TurboRip will rip all PC-Engine/TG-16 CD discs perfectly to an ISO/WAV/CUE image format which among other things will allow easy patching in the case of Xak III or Ys IV. I have options to prepare the image for use on Sony's PSP even as one of its many extra pluses! So with an ISO/WAV/CUE image, you can then burn that using whatever burning software works best with your system, whether it's Alcohol 120%, Ahead Nero, CDRWIN, Fireburner, or CloneCD, etc. All of those support the CUE format well enough.
Anyway, I'll make a post on this forum to let you guys know when it's ready. Keep on the lookout for that announcement which should be imminent. I wanna get as many people testing it with original PC-Engine discs to see how my CD-ROM devices it supports. You can inform me if you have trouble and it might be possible to see about fixing some issue. I have Squaresoft74 and Dave Shadoff testing it for me as we speak, and I've fixed quite a few issues already. Among some of the features are being able to detect and read from an external CD-ROM device connected to your system via Firewire or USB.
Here're two screenshots of it in action using an original disc of Cosmic Fantasy 2:
It will account for PREGAPs when it comes to track type transitions, which is what causes trouble with such Mixed-Mode discs if you try to dump them on a track by track basis. One of the main reasons I wanted to create such a program was because if the dubs for Ys IV were ever finished, you would need the image in ISO/WAV/CUE form, and you would just need to replace the Japanese wave files with the English ones I would provide. It's easy enough to dump an image to BIN/CUE, but such a format is not suitable for patching the waves within it. It also results in varying sizes whereas in this case, every data track is correctly dumped to the same size on EVERYONE's PC, so there wouldn't be any inconsistencies say if you wanna patch a particular data track.
Anyway, that's the gist of it. I talked about it more
here as I mentioned, if you wanna learn more details about it. It works on one of Squaresoft's DVD-RW devices, but not the other, so I've delayed releasing it in the hopes I can make it more compatible. Plus I have to finish the ReadMe. Your drive basically must be modern (later than 1996 preferably), and support the MMC-1 standard. Its compatibility with CD/DVD readers will be as good if not better than David Michel's MagicEngine. It will also extract its own ASPI layer and use that by default, but you can provide a parameter to force it to load the usual WNAPSI32.dll provided by Adaptec or Nero, if your system operates better with that layer. Also, the MP3 encoding is done using the latest copy of the LAME MP3 encoder if you use an option that requests MP3 audio extraction.
Ehem, http://www.lazerdorks.org/stunningarticles/ysiiiduel/index.html .
Yeah, I agree with that. Turbo CD wins. I played the SNES version and I would've expected much better graphics for a SNES cart compared to Turbo CD, but they're almost the same. And so then when you take the Turbo CD's cinemas, awesome soundtracks, etc. into account, it's enough to place it above the other ports in my book. Oh, yeah, good job on being an Ys nerd. You actually went and wrote a review comparing them side by side.
Even I couldn't do that...