Error "No Disk in drive"

[Squaresoft74]

Hi all,

Today i finaly got a chance to give a try to Neo4All Beta 2 and i must say it's really impressive.
Still i have some issue with some of my games.
First of all , all of my games are either original or 1/1 non hacked backups of originals i had to sell.
All of them work fine on the real NeoGeoCD hardware.

I don't use any Cd rebuilt from the iso/mp3 rips you can find everywhere simply because they're all inaccurate rip (erroneous TOC) and most are hacked.

That said i get a "No Disk in drive" error with some of my games.
Here's a list of what i tried and got :

Error "No Disk in drive" :
- 3 Count Bout / Fire Supplex
- Aero Fighters 2 / Sonic Wings 2
- Aero Fighters 3 / Sonic Wings 3
- Art of Fighting 3 / Ryuuko no Ken Gaiden
- Cyber Lip
- Fatal Fury Special / Garou Densetsu Special
- Last Resort
- Real Bout Fatal Fury Special / Real Bout Garou Densetsu Special
- Robo Army
- Samurai Shodown / Samurai Spirits
- Samurai Shodown 2 / Shin Samurai Spirits
- The King of Fighters '95
- The King of Fighters '96

Doesn't work :
- Shinsetsu Samurai Spirits - Bushidouretsuden (doesn't boot)
- Voltage Fighter Gowcaizer / Chojin Gakuen Gowcaizer (doesn't boot /crash the emulator)

Works with CDDA :
- Aggressors of Dark Kombat / Tsuukai GanGan Koushinkyoku
- Fatal Fury 3 / Garou Densetsu 3
- Galaxy Fight (gfx glitches and no sound effects)
- Kabuki Klash / Tengai Makyo - Shinden
- Metal Slug
- Oshidashi ZinTrick
- Pulstar
- Real Bout Fatal Fury / Real Bout Garou Densetsu
- Real Bout Fatal Fury 2 / Real Bout Garou Densetsu 2
- Super Sidekicks 2 / Tokuten Oh 2 (gfx issues)
- The King of Fighters '94
- The King of Fighters '97
- The King of Fighters '98
- The King of Fighters '99
- The Last Blade / Bakumatsu Roman - Gekka no Kenshi
- The Last Blade 2 / Bakumatsu Roman Dai ni Maku - Gekka no Kenshi
- View Point
- World Heroes Perfect

How exactly does the emulator check the inserted disc ?
Does it use an internal TOC or specific file crc database ?

If that can help , my Dreamcast is a Japanese model (HKT3000).

Thanks for your time.

[chui]

NEO4ALL try read (using fread function of newlib+kallistios) 'IPL.TXT' file at cdrom root. I try read ALL keysentitive cases.

You can see my 'fopen_s' function at cdrom/cdrom.c source code.

I dont know what happen, i havent originals games, sorry.

Try build a little program that read 'IPL.TXT' file.

[Squaresoft74]

Sorry i don't have the coding skills to do this.
Still i found something interesting common to all the unrecognized games.

I dumped the data tracks of working and non working games and when opening them with cdmage you can notice something :





Looks like they have been compiled/built/whatever with a Mac machine /os.
So maybe their filesystem is different and currently unsupported by your emulator.

Quzar's NeoDC emulator has the same issue and can't load these games aswell.
Data track content can't be accessed either when trying to browse with DCHakker menu.

If you need a data track dump of one of these games to give it a closer look , just pm me.

[chui]

I have a mac machine, i wil toast using mac format only and will try read under Dreamcast.

Thanks!

[quzar]

Certain originals used a slightly nonstandard file system on their CDs that prevents reading on the dreamcast. My best reccomendation is that if you want to be able to play these games easily wait till the next number version of NeoDC (i know how to at least partially solve this with more low level CD reading) or just make copies of your own originals. PC burning programs are very detailed in their creation and can easily read original NGCD discs, and if you simply take the files from the data section and copy them, then take the audio tracks and copy them you will get a disc that should be readable by the Dreamcast.

[Squaresoft74]

Well yes , i know i could remaster the games on PC , but for an accurate of emulation of the original support that isn't the main goal , is it.
I'm only for using either original or proper 1/1 backups so i'll wait for your next release and see what it gives.

On a side note if i'm getting a DC Coder cable , will it allow me to test every emulator for DC without having to burn a CD everytime , or is it only used for coding and the resulting program have to be burnt to be used ?

Also any idea of where i could get a cheap one ?

[DARKGATE]

QUZAR ,NEODC is very good, i have a dreamcast PAL, but the games run slow, =| i hope the next version work to good speed ^_^ good work friend.
p.s. i have got the last version of neodc.

[karloz]

With a little advice of goombakid, I found out today, that each CD must have a top name/label in order to get it to work with Neo4All !!!

There are some ISOs floating around, that come without CD names/labels. So, you have to re-compile the files of these data tracks and create new ISOs using "MagicISO" for example (-> just google for it). I clearly state, that there are NO Neo-Geo CD games that should cause the "No Disk in drive" error...

And BTW: In fact "Samurai Shodown RPG" does work - you just have to wait for about 7 minutes until it loads properly!

[Squaresoft74]

As i stated above i'm not using any downloaded iso/mp3 games , since they're all crappy rips.
I'm only using original discs or backups i made from my own originals i had to sell.
And the issue happen with both of them if the discs use the Mac file system , which seems to be the problem here.

[quzar]

QUZAR ,NEODC is very good, i have a dreamcast PAL, but the games run slow, =| i hope the next version work to good speed ^_^ good work friend.
p.s. i have got the last version of neodc.

i know it is not fullspeed but it is far from slow. neo4all underclocks the z80 and uses default of automatic frameskip to stay fullspeed. NeoDC strives for accuracy over speed, and because of that has exact clock speeds, no frameskip, and runs according to how the original console would (on a PAL machine it tells the neogeocd to be a pal neogeocd and run at 50hz)