PC Utilities to see if a disc is playable

[erehwon]

I was wondering if there are any pc utilities that you can use to see if a Playstation game is playable? I picked up several ps1 rpgs from a garage sale today, but they are not in the best condition. I'm wanting to see if any of the scratches are bad enough to affect the playability of these games, without having to play through each one. I don't have the time for that.

[Kitsune Sniper]

I use this:

http://www.cdspeed2000.com/

If the disc doesn't have some funky disc encryption (like Chrono Cross does), it should work. All it does is check if the files are readable, and if one has issues, it tells you.

It won't work with some DVD drives, though.

[erehwon]

Thanks.

[Superman]

I didn't even know there was a program like that. I always figured the way to check was to put the game in to see if it played. But, I guess it wouldn't be any fun to make it most of the way through a game, only to find it won't work anymore because of a blemish.

[Cryomancer]

you could also just do a rip and verify in the ripping program of your choice, that should at least tell you that your data is readable.

[Jehuty]

you could also just do a rip and verify in the ripping program of your choice, that should at least tell you that your data is readable.

Being readable is not enough to tell if it would run on the console itself, if your pc drive struggles to even hit 2X disc read then you can probably give up on it being playable on the console.

[erehwon]

So far, the worst disc has been disc 3 of FF7. 15% damaged, 5% bad, and the speed indicator says 0.44 X. I'm not sure if that is an average. That one will definitely need to be resurfaced.

[Kitsune Sniper]

It may not even work after being resurfaced. I had a game disc that only got worse after "fixing" it.

[kedawa]

It depends a lot on how the disc is resurfaced.

I've never used that program, but wouldn't there be problems with most games since they have 'bad' sectors as part of their copy protection?

[savageone]

I use the disc speed program for checking discs I'm worried about as well. I can confirm that if it reports ANYTHING as a bad sector it's a bad sign.

A few examples of PSX games I ran tests on:
Dragon Warrior 7 immaculate discs: 100%
Silent Hill disc is a bit scuffed, nothing horrible: 100%
Resident Evil 3 IMMACULATE disc (which makes this all the more strange): 99% good, less than 1% damaged, less than 0.1% bad. This game locks up at a very specific point in time each and every time. For a long time I had thought I had run into a game breaking glitch since the disc is in perfect condition (not a single scratch, finger print, it looks new and I can't stress that enough).

So I can confirm if the disc speed program is reporting any bad sector at all, that disc is going to give you some sort of trouble if you play it. Of course it isn't a sure thing, if the damage is minor it could be a non-critical sector and it may very well be totally unnoticeable. But you should never count on that.

15% damaged, and 5% bad though? Might as well chuck that in the garbage.

[erehwon]

I use the disc speed program for checking discs I'm worried about as well. I can confirm that if it reports ANYTHING as a bad sector it's a bad sign.

A few examples of PSX games I ran tests on:
Dragon Warrior 7 immaculate discs: 100%
Silent Hill disc is a bit scuffed, nothing horrible: 100%
Resident Evil 3 IMMACULATE disc (which makes this all the more strange): 99% good, less than 1% damaged, less than 0.1% bad. This game locks up at a very specific point in time each and every time. For a long time I had thought I had run into a game breaking glitch since the disc is in perfect condition (not a single scratch, finger print, it looks new and I can't stress that enough).

So I can confirm if the disc speed program is reporting any bad sector at all, that disc is going to give you some sort of trouble if you play it. Of course it isn't a sure thing, if the damage is minor it could be a non-critical sector and it may very well be totally unnoticeable. But you should never count on that.

15% damaged, and 5% bad though? Might as well chuck that in the garbage.

Well, if I have to throw some away, it won't be a total loss. I bought the copies of Wild Arms and Vandal Hearts since I already have them, but only the discs. This way I get a case for disc only copies. The FF7 is a black label, so I'll keep that and put my GH discs in there. By the way, is there a difference between non-GH and GH discs?

A couple of the discs have some gunk or some really nasty finger prints on them. That could be throwing the software off. I have to see if I can clean them off. I wonder if some isopropyl alcohol would be safe for cleaning off the bottom of a disk.

[Greg2600]

I use a portion of Nero 7 called CDDVDSpeed. Works good, although only a small portion of the disc is readable to a PC DVD-ROM for XBOX games, so it's kind of useless on them. Usually if the game can get through the menus and into the first level, it is good to go. Bad sectors are a problem, though I've found some damage sectors don't really affect much.

[Haoie]

No diff. A few have bugs fixed, but that's it.

And you never know if it's bad or not unless you play it yourself!!

[j1e]

Will the software work for Dreamcast disks?

[kedawa]

Only part of the DC disc is readable to a pc.

[Kitsune Sniper]

I use a portion of Nero 7 called CDDVDSpeed. Works good, although only a small portion of the disc is readable to a PC DVD-ROM for XBOX games, so it's kind of useless on them. Usually if the game can get through the menus and into the first level, it is good to go. Bad sectors are a problem, though I've found some damage sectors don't really affect much.

That's the tool I linked to. :P That's their official site. The tool's free and you don't need to install Nero.

[Cornelius]

I use this software also (and have for a long while despite recently asking for something better). It seems to me to be good for telling you if a game WILL work. It cannot, however, reliably tell you if a game will NOT work. I had a SOTN disc with some bad scratches that scanned with bad sectors. I went through the whole game on that disc and the only problem was the music in 1 area (maybe 2?) stopped playing and there was just silence.

I have a small stack of decent games that scanned with bad sectors, but load up fine. I've put off dealing with them (i.e. selling), though, because I don't know if they will play all the way through. I don't really have the inclination to play them all, and let's face it, I suck too much at fighting games to make it through all of SF Alpha (or whatever it is called).

[erehwon]

I cleaned several discs with some of the alcohol and reran discspeed. It looks like final fantasy discs improved. Vandal Hearts looks like it has improved, but it is still going slowly, around 2 X.

[erehwon]

After cleaning, the FF7 disc 3 that discspeed said was really bad is now playable. I did notice some major slowdown during the final boss where I summoned knights of the round.

I think I'll keep all of these. I don't think I want to sell any of them when I can't guarantee that they'll work without any problems. The software was useful, though.

[Haoie]

For CDs, a little cleaning goes a long, long way.

Especially the fragile PS1 black discs.