PS1/2 Do modern burners/CD's make lower quality PS1 backups?

[tmihai20]

Apologies for the double post, a mod can merge this post with my previous one. I just wanted to let you know about my experience with burning and using backups for my PS1. I used cdrdao-pled on Arch Linux laptop with a Hitachi LG GUD1N 2024 model to burn one game on a Verbatim CD-R 80 minutes blank disk. Linux terminal was showing a 10x speed, although I selected 1x speed (most likely the drive cannot go this low). The game does not boot on my SCPH-1002 original console at all and I realized at some point it is a NTSC game that cannot work on an unmodified PAL console. I even managed to get a SD2PSX Bitfunx card so I can boot any backup game and it still got stuck at the loading screen (bypassing region lock). I burned another copy of the game, this time a PAL version that should work on my PAL console. I used Windows 11, IMGBurn and a Samsung BluRay external drive (SE-506BB/TSBD USB 2.0). The game does not boot on the unmodified console (obviously because of IMGBurn), but it does boot after unlocking the drive region using SD2PSX. I realized that these Verbatim blanks are quite see through and this is most likely an issue with older drives like the ones in PS1. I am still waiting for the CD-R and DVD-R from CMC Pro (from the links I posted earlier), they are still in transit. I will not make any more tests even with proper software, these Verbatim blanks are not worth the time.

 

[KleinesSinchen]

Linux terminal was showing a 10x speed, although I selected 1x speed (most likely the drive cannot go this low).

Very few drives will allow going below 16x (full sized) or 10x (slim). It is usually the only speed supported for CLV (Constant Linear Velocity) recording. Higher speeds use CAV (Constant Angular Velocity) or variants like P-CAV (Partial CAV) and Z-CLV (Zone-CLV).
Only very old drives support speeds down to 4x while double speed and single speed can only be used on the very first CD-R(W) drives from the mid 1990s. SPOILER: Most of these are broken and don't handle modern CD-R well, if at all.
My personal test results showed no notable correlation between speed and recording quality as long as CLV mode is used. With CAV mode it is a lot harder to maintain equal quality across the whole CD. I also saw a statement supporting my results in a service manual for some optical drive.
(Side note: For DVD the recording process is even more complicated, especially when applying overspeed mode from 9.6x to 24x CAV at roughly 15000RPM)

The game does not boot on my SCPH-1002 original console at all and I realized at some point it is a NTSC game that cannot work on an unmodified PAL console.

What do you mean by booting on unmodified console? To be clear there is -- to my knowledge -- one single proof of concept showing a self-booting CD-R backup on an unmodified PS1. A stock consumer CD writer is unable to replicate the PS1 copy protection marking (infamously called "wobble groove"). This protections served two purposes: obviously anti-piracy and region locking since the embedded wobble code (SCEE, SCEA, SCEI, rarely SCEW) on a CD has to match with the one in your console.

CD-R will only start with either:

• Modchip in console
• Software exploit applying "secret unlock" (Tonyhax International, FreePSXBoot)
• Swap tricks
  • Swap disc (PS-X-Change)
  • very early SCPH-100x with CD player
  • cheat cartridge in parallel connector supporting disc swap
  • Hot swapping spinning CD three times (yes, it works when you get the timing right. But just don't --- please)

 

[tmihai20]

What do you mean by booting on unmodified console? To be clear there is -- to my knowledge -- one single proof of concept showing a self-booting CD-R backup on an unmodified PS1. A stock consumer CD writer is unable to replicate the PS1 copy protection marking (infamously called "wobble groove"). This protections served two purposes: obviously anti-piracy and region locking since the embedded wobble code (SCEE, SCEA, SCEI, rarely SCEW) on a CD has to match with the one in your console.

I am aware of the wobble groove in the original PS1 disks. I bought a console that came with a few non-original games and out of those 4, about 2 of them work on the console, sometimes even a third game. As far as I know, the console does not appear to be modded at all. I only took the console apart to service the optical disk drive. All of them work after using the software exploit. The quality of those CD-Rs is quite low.