A couple of Questions

OK, these will most probably sound really crappy, but you'll have to bear with me, as I've been off the scene for quite some time.

I'm thinking of getting another DVD-R drive soon, and I just wondered

a) If Pioneer was still the best way to go

and

b) What's the best Media to go with

I've got an old Japanese v1 console, so remember, it's gonna be a little more pissy about the discs that it takes. I've got an old copy of Vice City somewhere which I burned onto a Ritek at 2x, and it runs like a bitch. Everything else I have done works perfectly fine.

So let me know your secrets OK. ;)

vice city will be hard to run on a v1 with any type of dvdr. pioneer is good but so are others. i have a toshiba that works perfectly.

Quote:

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Originally posted by ftothe3
vice city will be hard to run on a v1 with any type of dvdr.

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Really ? Why is that exactly ?

I expect it has something to do with the older lasers, right ?

Pioneer makes a nice drive but so does Sony, Plextor, Liteon etc. There's always going to be some bad drives in the bunch.
I prefer to use good name brand media and I've never had a problem. Granted my V7 is much newer. Personally, if you're going to to a lot of DVD-R you may just want to upgrade the PS2.

If you can't run Vice City on a Ritek nothing will likely work. Ritek is the best. V1 systems have shit lasers so you will either need a new laser or a new system.

Oh it worked fine, it just paused occasionally and did that "Loading..." thing. That was the only disc that I have ever had problems with, and since the first copy of MGS2 that I did on a crappy Bulkpaq worked perfectly, as has everything else, I'm thinking that it was because of the Recording Speed.

Point noted about the PS2 though. Right now I hardly use it, so nothing is really pointing me toward getting a newer model, but if my re-invoked interest suggests otherwise, I'll most probably look into it.

the reason why it gives you those loading screens is because vice city is a very laser intensive game. it loads the city "on the fly". so as you're driving through city, it's loading the rest of the city

Love my Pioneer A04 with a 2X4all hacked firmware. Burns like a champ for my v5, Apex DVD Players--even my brothers 2 yr. old JVC likes them--and I've been using the cheapo 2X certified medias--LeadTek, TDK Clones, Accu's. So far no problems.

Regardless what drive and media you use, make sure to test scan them to find the best burning speed first. There's a sticky up top about a testing utility.

Sony's were popular because of the multi-format options, but there are a lot of those out now--even Lite-On has one. A solid DVD-R capable drive is what you need for that v1 though, so I'd save the cash and nab a straight -R drive and hang on to the extra $$ for media or the possibility of upgrading/updating the v1 to something with a newer drive unit if it has trouble with the backups.

My 2 cents...

Raist

It doesn't have trouble with backups, like I said, it was really just that one, and I think that it was down to the actual disc/recording speed anyway. I used to have an A03, but I had a lot of problems with it, which I originally thought were due to a firmware flash, but it as it turned out, the drive was just generally malfunctional, so it was most likely down to that.

I got a 106 anyway, it should be arriving this week. ;)

Schweet!!!--Just make sure that the IDE channel has DMA enabled on it. Running it in PIO modes causes more problems with burners, and is always overlooked. Best to have it as Master on the Secondary channel as well. Pioneers are finiky little bastards, but once you give them what they want, they will treat you right!

Enjoy!

Raist