Multidisk games and playing from CD blues

bobdevis · Post by **bobdevis** » Sat Sep 19, 2009 3:18 am

As you may have noticed, the help forum is full of "Insert disk 2, what now?" posts.
I was thinking this could be solved by letting ScummVM only recognize a game if some files from both cd's are present.
This would disable playing from CD for those games.

Removing from-cd play here would be better from a user-friendliness point of view, because it is more confusing for novice users to fix the problem later.
They may not realize they need to remake (or tweak) the ScummVM game profile.
They may think that remaking the game profile will delete savegames.
If they add a 2nd profile of the same game they may be puzzled as what to do when they don't see the savegames of the 1st profile.

It's just an idea....

ezekiel000 · Post by **ezekiel000** » Sat Sep 19, 2009 7:00 am

I think it's a good idea as ScummVM doesn't support running from CD so should actively stop it being done.

Mataku · Post by **Mataku** » Sat Sep 19, 2009 1:04 pm

yhea, but then instead of 'disk #2 problems' you'll get 'i'm trying to play off the CD and it doesn't recognize' problems.

clone2727 · Post by **clone2727** » Sat Sep 19, 2009 5:45 pm

ezekiel000 wrote:I think it's a good idea as ScummVM doesn't support running from CD so should actively stop it being done.

ScummVM *does* support running from the CD in most cases (at least Feeble has to be installed and Windows can have problems with CD audio). The problem is multi-CD games, usually (though it is much preferred to copy to the HD of course). Section 3.5 of the README clears that up.

ezekiel000 · Post by **ezekiel000** » Sat Sep 19, 2009 6:26 pm

Ah right I've never considered running any of my games from the CD but from reading various threads on the forums I just assumed that ScummVM didn't actually support it.

I still think it's a good idea for a file from each CD to be required before ScummVM recognises the games.

bobdevis · Post by **bobdevis** » Sat Sep 19, 2009 11:51 pm

Mataku wrote:yhea, but then instead of 'disk #2 problems' you'll get 'i'm trying to play off the CD and it doesn't recognize' problems.

I know, but my point was that it is easier to help people do it right the first time then to help them fix the problem half way though the game.

Collector · Post by **Collector** » Sun Sep 20, 2009 7:37 am

bobdevis wrote:
Mataku wrote:yhea, but then instead of 'disk #2 problems' you'll get 'i'm trying to play off the CD and it doesn't recognize' problems.
I know, but my point was that it is easier to help people do it right the first time then to help them fix the problem half way though the game.

And the error message from ScummVM only seeing one disc could be it needs both discs. It would add to bloat, but what if ScummVM upon detection of a CD game could offer to copy the data files to the hard drive. It could ask for both CDs, then.