Will Disc Swapping Ever Be Supported?

grim107 · Post by **grim107** » Tue Dec 20, 2011 7:35 pm

I guess the title pretty much sums it up. I know that most people could probably live without this, but I primarily use ScummVM with my Dreamcast, and because it will only read CD-R's, I'm unable to run a lot of games. Is this feature being worked on, or should I just forget the idea? Anyway, I appreciate all the hard work that's gone into ScummVM. I was very young when the adventure game genre was at it's peak, and the team has helped me live the glory days of video gaming.

Post by **sev** » Tue Dec 20, 2011 8:01 pm

Moved to Dreamcast port forum, where it really belongs.

Eugene

grim107 · Post by **grim107** » Tue Dec 20, 2011 8:57 pm

sev wrote:Moved to Dreamcast port forum, where it really belongs.

Eugene

I understand why you moved it, but it's not like this topic is exclusive to the Dreamcast. It would even be nice if the PC version supported disc swapping. It just wouldn't be as crucial...

scoriae · Post by **scoriae** » Thu Dec 29, 2011 8:30 pm

why the hell would the pc need disk swapping? You copy the files to the hard drive... it makes no sense to run them off disc.

grim107 · Post by **grim107** » Fri Dec 30, 2011 1:19 am

scoriae wrote:why the hell would the pc need disk swapping? You copy the files to the hard drive... it makes no sense to run them off disc.

It doesn't need disk swapping. It could be a useful feature. I've run games on computers with limited hard drive space, and it's nice if you don't need to copy the files over.

Regardless, this topic was more intended for Dreamcast hardware. I assumed that if it were built into one distribution, it would be built in for all.

Stryfe · Post by **Stryfe** » Sun Jan 01, 2012 2:13 pm

The problem being that many of the multidisc supported game have files needed for playback spread over multiple discs. With the exception of some of the really old DOS games, it's not like they just have the files scummvm needs to access on disc 1, followed by disc 2, etc. Scummvm more than likely needs files from disc 1, disc 2, or even disc 3 at the same time.

The only way this would be feasible if is it were rebuilt images, and then this would only really apply to the Dreamcast.

I think our best bet is when MC, or any other contributor, decides to add SD card support. Many games will be made accessible on the DC at that point. Depending on where you live, SD cards are very affordable, even when shipped from China.

SD card support in combination with the ability to replace the gd-rom lense with a cd-rom lense, will greatly extend the lifespan of many Dreamcasts. The SD loader still needs a working disc drive to boot, unless of course you're hardware guru with the ability to do the BIOS mod...