Gaming Backups. How do you treat / design them?

[LightyKD]

Hey people! I'm curious, how many of you stick official labels on your disc backups? Do any of you draw on your backups or do many of you either a) just write down the game name or b ) only use USB backups?

 

[BORTZ]

Ive never burned a single disk for my Wii. I either buy, rent, or borrow a game i want, rip it to my external drive and give the game back.

 

[Deleted User]

Hey people! I'm curious, how many of you stick official labels on your disc backups? Do any of you draw on your backups or do many of you either a) just write down the game name or b ) only use USB backups?

if anyone is burning dvds i would recommend to get jewel cases and labeling the cases cause i had problems with marker prints on my discs i think it eats the disc.

 

[BORTZ]

Do people still burn backups of disks?

 

[emigre]

I USB them. Fuck fapping around with discs.

 

[Deleted User]

Do people still burn backups of disks?

i guess. i mean i still have my back ups from when i first started. but who knows. i think some still do.

 

[Tom Bombadildo]

Before USB loading I used to label the discs. Then I went to USB loading.

But for my 360 I use jewel cases to and label them.

 

[LightyKD]

I used to print out the legit labels and sticker them onto he the disc. After a while I as starting to get tired of buying printer ink. Now I just draw the legit logos onto the disc. It's fun and artsy. I would love to show you guys my disc artwork but after what happened to Kongsnutz and the "New Super Mario Bros Wii" situation. I'm having second thoughts

 

[Foxi4]

My latest experience with "burning" backups was with the Dreamcast - I sign those discs with a CD pen and write down the name of the game, its region if it's not a PAL game and the write speed it was burned with (for bugfixing purposes - the Dreamcast was picky about games burned at fast speeds)

For the Wii, I stick them on a USB HDD and make sure that I have the all labels downloaded for them.

For the PS2, I'm sort of "forced" to name the ISO's in a certain way to load them in OPL - REGIONCODE_Release.Number.Name.iso is the only way to go, so they're pretty well-labeled as it is.

For the Gamecube I merely use DiscEX to name them for me and download the labels.

For the PC, I haven't burned a single game in years - nowadays I just use DaemonTools and mount ISO images.

Mind you, I probably wouldn't download labels if it wasn't a built-in feature of the loader - that'd be just more busy work. Burning discs is busy work in my opinion - the necessary evil when the console doesn't accept other loading methods or if it does, but does it poorly.

 

[LightyKD]

My latest experience with "burning" backups was with the Dreamcast - I sign those discs with a CD pen and write down the name of the game, its region if it's not a PAL game and the write speed it was burned with (for bugfixing purposes - the Dreamcast was picky about games burned at fast speeds)

For the Wii, I stick them on a USB HDD and make sure that I have the all labels downloaded for them.

For the PS2, I'm sort of "forced" to name the ISO's in a certain way to load them in OPL - REGIONCODE_Release.Number.Name.iso is the only way to go, so they're pretty well-labeled as it is.

For the Gamecube I merely use DiscEX to name them for me and download the labels.

For the PC, I haven't burned a single game in years - nowadays I just use DaemonTools and mount ISO images.

Mind you, I probably wouldn't download labels if it wasn't a built-in feature of the loader - that'd be just more busy work. Burning discs is busy work in my opinion - the necessary evil when the console doesn't accept other loading methods or if it does, but does it poorly.

You know, there's a SD loader for the Dreamcast now, right?

 

[Foxi4]

You know, there's a SD loader for the Dreamcast now, right?

Of course I do. You do know that it's buggy as hell, it has low compatibility and framerate issues due to the transfer speed of the serial port and requires an SD-to-Serial Port dongle, right?

As I said - burning is the method of preference when other methods perform poorly.

 

[LightyKD]

You know, there's a SD loader for the Dreamcast now, right?

Of course I do. You do know that it's buggy as hell, it has low compatibility and framerate issues due to the transfer speed of the serial port and requires an SD-to-Serial Port dongle, right?

As I said - burning is the method of preference when other methods perform poorly.

Agreed. I never personally tried the SD loader. I was not aware of how buggy it was.

 

[Foxi4]

Agreed. I never personally tried the SD loader. I was not aware of how buggy it was.

Just a few snippets from the compatibility list, games that don't work or have issues are for example Shenmue 2, MDK 2, Crazy Taxi 2, Sonic Adventure 2, The Nomad Soul and Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2 - meaning a lot of the very best Dreamcast games (and for some reason a lot of them are sequels).

 

[LightyKD]

Agreed. I never personally tried the SD loader. I was not aware of how buggy it was.

Just a few snippets from the compatibility list, games that don't work or have issues are for example Shenmue 2, MDK 2, Crazy Taxi 2, Sonic Adventure 2, The Nomad Soul and Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2 - meaning a lot of the very best Dreamcast games (and for some reason a lot of them are sequels).

LMAO Was just about to say that there are a lot of twos in that list. *giggle*

 

[LightyKD]

Additional Question

For those of you who collect disc backups, do you try to "special edition" them by adding things like the game soundtrack or corresponding DVD movie with the game disc?

 

[C-Kronos]

Additional Question

For those of you who collect disc backups, do you try to "special edition" them by adding things like the game soundtrack or corresponding DVD movie with the game disc?

Eh, I didn't pay attention to the section this poll was posted in; so my vote is actually using a USB HDD for Wii backups. For the PC, PS1, PS2, DC, GC, I burn them to discs, but I don't try to "special edition" console games as it's pretty much pointless because if you want to access that content most of the time, you need to read the disc in a PC's drive. I do include stuff such as updates and backups of DLC on PC backups, but I've cut down on making backups of my PC games due to mainly buying PC games on Steam now-a-days, because most games end up activated on Steam whether you buy a physical or digital copy.. I do keep the serials of various Steam games backed up should Steam ever go out of business, that way if I can get my hands on the game's installation files, I can use my legally owned serial.

Also, I'm completely aware of the HDD options for the PS2, and using Wode for GC games, but the disc methods work just fine to be honest, it's not worth the money for a slight convenience, since DVD-Rs are dirt cheap; also, I don't use mini-DVD-Rs for my GC, as I have a replacement case that allows the use of full sized discs. My PS2 revision isn't compatible with the preferred HDD method as it's the latest revision of the slim released in the United States, and the PS2 doesn't have USB 2.0 ports, so loading games via USB would be too slow, and there's various compatibility issues with USB HDDs.

I'm also aware of the ability to load GC games via streaming from the PC using USB, or one of the Gecko cards with an SD cart, but again, there's quite a few compatibility issues that causes it to fail justifying the effort. I'm also aware of loading games on the Dreamcast via SD, but as another person mentioned above, there are quite a few issues that make it more of an annoyance than anything.

Also, I don't waste time and effort making the discs look legit and give them a nice printed label and "official" looking case, I just simply write the name of whatever is on the disc with a sharpie.

 

[Foxi4]

@[member='C-Kronos']

Y'know, you could load your PS2 games via SMB - it's highly-compatible, high-speed and it doesn't grind your laser... you should try OPL sometime - you just might love it.

 

[LightyKD]

To answer my own question, I DO "special edition" my games. My copies of Scarface and Godfather are in two disc DVD cases coupled with the movies. I also want to stick in the soundtracks for each movie in little disc jackets to go within the case. I used to have backups with soundtracks but almost all my games were stolen last year so it has taken me a year to recover the damage and In many cases I had to settle for PAL copies of many games. I used to have a rule where I would only use a PAL copy when a) its a non online game that I cant find he NTSC copy anywhere and b ) only in extreme conditions (Band Hero ) a wifi compatible game that is so damn hard to find that i have to settle for a wifi copy. Finally c) a PAL game slated for US release but is taking too damn long (Operation Rainfall games) to release here.

 

[mysticwaterfall]

I still just use my D2 pro and have never bothered to mess with the usb stuff. Originally I printed out the box art for the jewel case cover, but lately I'm lazy and just use a sharpie.

 

[C-Kronos]

@[member='C-Kronos']

Y'know, you could load your PS2 games via SMB - it's highly-compatible, high-speed and it doesn't grind your laser... you should try OPL sometime - you just might love it.

So, stream the games, when it doesn't have 100% compatibility.. That's my issue with that, I won't use anything unless it has 100% compatibility, lol.. I don't have an issue loading games from a disc, works just fine for me to be honest, because when I'm playing a PS1 or PS2 game, I'm usually playing one of the many 50-100 hour titles, so I don't switch games often anyways. Also, I'm using a modchip, not that freemcboot crap, or any of the disc swapping methods.

Besides, the laser in my PS2 is in excellent condition, and my console is a SCPH-90001, so it doesn't have the laser issues that past revisions suffered from. I'm aware that the laser will die eventually, but it'll be a simple fix because I get PS2s all the time for pretty much nothing, so lots of spare parts.

If I really wanted a better method to store and load my PS2 collection, I'd find a decent fat PS2, install an HDD, get a DMS4 Pro modchip, a badass case replacement, and replace anything in the console that needs to be replaced. One thing that annoys me about the SCPH-90001 is that the case is different than other slims, and a lot of the case replacements that are sold online aren't compatible with it.. The only replacement I've found for this model is just a clone of the original casing, which is kind of bland if you ask me. I hate the case on this model of the slim, since almost half of the top part of the console is glossy, and I hate gloss finishes.. I'm probably going to take the case off at some point, sand the gloss off of the casing, and repaint it to whatever I want it to be.