App to make my game think a mounted disc image is the actual CD?
 

I have a game I play and run into some problems when i play it online and it has to access the CD for sounds (cd drive has to spin up which causes the game to pause for a few seconds for everybody).

I have a 1GHz PB with a SuperDrive and i guess the CD read speed is kind of slow. So is there a way to install the game so it looks on my HD for the files?

I tried using Disk Copy and mounting the image once it finished, but when i run the installer it says "Couldn't open the installer archive, must run the installer of the CD"

What i don't understand is how the game knows it's not being run off the CD. I checked in Terminal, and when the CD is not in the drive and i mount the image, the path name to the mounted volume is the same as the path to the actual CD. So, maybe there are some files missing? I'm not sure. Please help.

Thank you,
Mike

Did you ever find a way to do this?

My DVD drive which magically started working again makes a lot of noise and this would be ideal.

wow, blast from the past!

But yeah, i did find a way. Put in your disc, and go into Toast (assuming you have it), and go to file-->Save as Disc Image...

Toast will save all your data on that CD to one file on your hard drive. once it is done, eject your cd, double click the file that toast made (remember where you saved it) and it should mount on your desktop with a CD icon. Now try to run your game. This tricks older games, i'm not sure about newer games though. Let me know if it works for your game.

I have used that trick too:)
 

Good Luck

P.S. Once mounted you do not neeed to leave Toast Open.

:)

Yeah i wasn't too clear, you can close toast after you mount it. You can also change its association to open with Disk Copy, so then you just have to double click the file to mount it, not have to use Toast at all.

Thanks for the tips.

I don't have Toast. The computer only has a DVD drive. When it went on the fritz I was looking at the suggestions given to me here :http://forums.macosxhints.com/showth...threadid=20768 so now I have more of an incentive to get a combo drive.

your dvd drive should be able to read regular cd's though, just not burn them..

Yes, it does.

I was just looking at their site (Toast) and it is an expensive program for me to get for one game that I am not that good at or play that often.

If/when I upgrade to the combo drive it looks to be a worthwhile investment.

Oh, yes i understand now. I didn't see that part in your previous post about not having Toast. Sorry

No problem. I do appreciate the suggestion. It's something to look into - more than I had before.

Toast info
 

Though I see you're not interested in buying Toast, but just in case you ever do get Toast or if anyone else out there would be interested in some Toast info, here it is. A little trick I learned is that Finder can mount .toast images (among many other types of images), but most newer games will not recognize them as the actual game disk. If you mount it with toast though it will mount it and make it look to the system as if it is an actual CD in your computer. To this day I have not found a single game where this does not work.

Jayson

?

One more note Many Mac Burners come Bundled with Toast
 

So hardware can get you software:)

And if you are buying a DVD Burner you may get Toast and somthing Like CaptyDVD for DVD Authoring.

You don't need Toast!
 

While I've only checked in Panther, you can use Disk Utility to create an image that games will see as a mounted CD.

1. Insert the original game CD.
2. Open Disk Utility, find and select the CD.
3. Click on "New Image".
4. In the window that opens, name your CD and select the Desktop as the location.
5. Now the key bit... in this window select the "Image Format" drop-down window and select "DVD/CD master" as the format.
6. Burn the image.
7. Done!
8. To use the image (you should see it as WhateverName.cdr), click on it to mount it, you are good to go!

Thanks for the suggestions.

I am getting stuck. Hopefully someone can help.

It's at #5

If I choose the CD (when I choose New Image) it does not give me the option for a CD/DVD Master.

If I choose my HD it does give me that option but tells me that it is busy and can't complete.


Thanks for all the help!

I unfortunately don't have the time for screenshots (will do that later today and post on my .mac account :) ), I will say that in my example case (realMYST), when I open Disk Utility and look for the CD in the upper left pane, I get a "tree" view that goes like this:
757.3 MAT****ACD...
Session 1
realMYST

(with CD icons on the left...)

If I select the top of the tree, 757.3 Mat****a..., I don't get the DVD/CD master option. You must select realMYST itself in the tree to get this option.
Hope this helps. Look later today for screenshots that will make this clear (I have an errand to run! :D





c

i just tried doing that too, i didn't see an option for DVD/CD Master (although i know that option exists within Toast)

Much appreciation. I will check back later.

MBHockey - I am only able to see that option if I choose the HD, not the CD when I choose to make a new image. Can you see this option if you try that?

Yeah dvd/cd master is missing from the drop down menu (among other options it seems) when you pick a cd (i wouldn't have though this would be available from disk utility because of piracy)

Well now... what should have been a simple exercise has turned into something quite different...in a nutshell: It seems that Safari is having issues with .Mac accounts! Without going into details, here is a Quicktime movie of me using Disk Utility with the game realMYST, as promised (a seeming lifetime ago :( ). You can't, however, download it with Safari! I used I.E. successfully... after two tries... haven't tried other browsers. This problem is cropping up big time over at Apple's .Mac forums, and that is where I'm headed back to!

Safari downloaded it fine for me (v125.1)

Interesting, it looks like for some games it works, and some games it doesn't (just make sure you are clicking the actual CD in disk utility)

I don't quite know how to explain this, as it works with 2 of my games, but doesn't with 2 others. :confused:

Thanks for the tip though.

I was able to download the movie too with no problem.

I was able to find the dropdown menu after viewing it. I had to add one more step and unmount the audio cd. Once I did that the option came up and it made a .cdr.

It still won't let me play the game without the cd - but I am one step closer. Thanks.

MBHockey-
Do the games that won't let you create a DVD/CD master with Disk Utility allow it with Toast? If so, I wonder if it could be some sort of permissions issue..

schwartze-
After you get the .cdr on the desktop, did you double-click on it to mount it? You must do this before you fire up the game.

addendum: After scouring Apple's .mac forums and not finding the answer to my problem (but plenty of other people with the same issue) I finally figured it out. After I cleared Safari's cache, the download link worked fine. Why a new page would view fine but the download link wouldn't, I don't know. After all, it's a NEW page, nothing should be in Safari's cache concerning it... I guess when I muck about with my .mac page, I'll just routinely clear the cache!

Yes Toast works for ALL games.

Yes, I did double click on it first. I also checked to make sure the image had the same name as the cd. I installed the files it wanted me to on the HD as well.

Stumped at the moment - but thanks for all the ideas and suggestions.

I have found toast always works when mounting images too... Has anyone found out what the difference is between an image mounted with toast and an image mounted with disk utility? Has anyone found an alternative way to mount the images so they are seen as cd's as with toast?

hhahahaha :D

I thought I'd bump this back up and see if anyone is having problems with OS 10.4 and tricking games into thinking there is a cd in the drive.

Well, if the game is hard-coded to look for it's files (or a special sector) on the CD, then you are just out of luck (unless you can find a cracked version, but that is another topic).