[CP5670]

Does anyone here know if it is possible to set the time that must pass (when data is not being requested) until a CD drive stops spinning a CD? I am having trouble getting an old DOS game to run properly because when it needs to read data from the CD and the CD has been stopped (which happens when no data has been requested by the computer for a while), instead of starting up the CD spin cycle again, the game gives an illegal operation error and quits to windows. Anyone know if there is some BIOS setting or something like that where this can be changed?

On a side note to the administrators, are you guys doing some maintenance on the forums? I seem to be having trouble getting stuff to load up today, but it is somewhat erratic; it works fine one second, and suddenly stops loading the next.

Also, if anyone noticed, we passed 90000 posts yesterday. Onward to 100000! w00t!;7:D

[Fineus]

I don't know how to set the spin down/up time (or if it can even be done) but have you tried copying the whole contents of the game over to the hard drive - thus bypassing the problem?

As for forum stuff... it's run fine for me all day - and AFAIK nobodies doing anything to it

And yes - post count total! w00t!

[CP5670]

I was thinking of doing that but the game is on 3 CDs, so it would take some time to put everything on there and would occupy some HD space. The game is Mission Critical, a 1995 sci-fi adventure game; want to try playing through it again. (this had one of the best storylines I have ever seen, second only to the FS series ) Still, I think I will just give that a try, since it is fairly easy to get the game to run from a hard drive - a small change in a configuration file will do it.

Anyway the forums are working fine now; maybe it was something on my end. (all other sites loaded correctly though...oh well)

[Thorn]

Go to your CD drive manufacturers website, some companies put out programs that do that, I know A-Open did.

[vadar_1]

Most cd drives will actually lock the system while it spins up, thus preventing such an error... at least thats what all of mine 5 or 6 cd/dvd drives do, and they are all created by a different manufacturer

[Setekh]

Originally posted by CP5670
Also, if anyone noticed, we passed 90000 posts yesterday. Onward to 100000! w00t!;7:D

We've been watching that for some time. I'm quite impressed.

[WMCoolmon]

The Mechwar3D board (which I run) just passed 6000! w00t!

About the CD stuff, is there some way to keep your CD-rom drive from spinning up when you are opening and/or saving a file and click the dropdown with the various drives listed? It takes 3-4 seconds for the CD to spin up, which is a bit annoying in notepad. I can live with it, though

[Nico]

for the spinning thing, I think it has something to do with the amount of data loaded in the cache memory (is it the same name in english?). I had to do that once coz a game CD kept stop/spining/stoping/etc. I had to lower the amout of data put in cache, but I cann't remember where this is.

[an0n]

If you're really brave you could find the CD's driver config files and play with them.

Doesn't that little 'Disconnect' tick box in the Device Manager options keep the CD running all the time?

[Nico]

Originally posted by an0n
If you're really brave you could find the CD's driver config files and play with them.

Doesn't that little 'Disconnect' tick box in the Device Manager options keep the CD running all the time?

lol, yes it sure does unplugging the CD driver will also prevent it from spinning all the time

[an0n]

No. If it's checked then the CD still works, as evidenced by the fact that mine is working right now. I always thought that box meant disconnect if idle.

[Admiral LSD]

Originally posted by an0n
Doesn't that little 'Disconnect' tick box in the Device Manager options keep the CD running all the time?

I think thats only for SCSI drives since it stops one device on a bus from totally dominating it.

[Nico]

Originally posted by an0n
No. If it's checked then the CD still works, as evidenced by the fact that mine is working right now. I always thought that box meant disconnect if idle.

ah, sorry

[Kitsune]

The cache size is very important for this stuff.
You can find a program called TweakAll.  This will let you do a bit of modificatins to your system.  Including cache and buffer sizes for HD's and CD-Roms.
I fiddled with it and found that if it's too small, it will cause a lot of lag in games as it reads, stops, reads, stops...  I set the buffer on mine to about 2 megs I think.  It really improved my performance in FS and ST: Armada.  All the movies would play, but sound would keep skipping out on me, really annoying.

But that's taken care of fortunately.  So it's back to the games for me.

[CP5670]

Thanks for the responses, guys.

Most cd drives will actually lock the system while it spins up, thus preventing such an error... at least thats what all of mine 5 or 6 cd/dvd drives do, and they are all created by a different manufacturer

Yeah mine does that too, but only in Windows applications unfortunately.

I have tried playing around with the "Disconnect" setting in the CD properties tab, but that did not seem to do anything. The drive is some Sony 52x model; I am going to see if I can find any utilities at the Sony website. I don't really get any choppiness in most games, but this particular one seems to mess up whenever it cannot read the CD due to it not spinning.