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General discussion (archive)CD Music and GOG Windows Games(25 posts)solved(25 posts)solved
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Posted December 15, 2012
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mondo84: In that case I think you'll be fine using a program like Alcohol 52% (free download here) to make an image of your game CD and run it from there.

However the game reads the music on disc, it should take care of itself. Unless you are talking about games which have a separate disc with music tracks. I can't think of too many games that did that, aside from a few first person shooters that allowed you to put in any CD and listen to it while you played the game.
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korell: I don't want to create my own CDs either. The whole objective is to get away from using CDs at all, and not relying on other installed software to be running the music for me. See, DOSBox runs the game and the music via cuesheet images, and as DOSBox is portable, GOG bundle it with their DOS games, so it is all one nice package.

Just for reference, the game I'm trying to do this with at the moment is Carmageddon 2. I have the CD tracks ripped to mp3 file, now I just want to get them playing in the game. It is looking like I may have to go with running a music player in the background, which isn't ideal.
I'm talking about creating CD images from your physical CDs.

You mount the image of your game CD onto a virtual drive. That virtual drive reads the virtual image as if it were a physical drive reading a physical CD.

Or maybe I don't understand what you're trying to do. You want to play game music in the background without CDs and without third party software?

I think if you just take your Carmageddon 2 CD, make an image of it, then mount it with Alcohol 52%, the game should run and read the music just fine.
Post edited December 15, 2012 by mondo84
Posted December 15, 2012
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korell: See, this is what I'm trying to myself. Get some old games I have running without me needing to use my old CDs, and without losing the music. I don't really want to have to create a disc image and have a virtual CD playing, nor do I want to have a music player running in the background. Some games you can just put music files within the game folders and they'll play, others aren't so nice.
Just some advice when creating backups of your CDs:

(in case you didn't know, if you do then please ignore the text below :D)

In order to properly preserve CD audio in your games, make sure to create either a CloneCD file (.ccd format) or a BIN and CUE pair. Most good imaging programs will create the BIN file and CUE file, which is where the CD audio info is kept.

The ISO format doesn't preserve CD audio information, at least that's the conclusion I have come to according to my own personal research.
Posted December 15, 2012
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mondo84: Or maybe I don't understand what you're trying to do. You want to play game music in the background without CDs and without third party software?
He explicitly stated he didn't want to use a virtual drive. Unless I'm mistaken, he wants to have the soundtrack playing from files, like the GOG version of Total Annihilation discussed above.
Posted December 15, 2012
So, it looks like the only ways are:

1) To play the music in a player in the background
2) Create my own image file with the music as CD audio and use an image mounting program to see the virtual CD

Both are additional programs. :( Was hoping I could find something to include within the game, or use of a portable program, rather than something else installed.
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mondo84: Or maybe I don't understand what you're trying to do. You want to play game music in the background without CDs and without third party software?
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drennan: He explicitly stated he didn't want to use a virtual drive. Unless I'm mistaken, he wants to have the soundtrack playing from files, like the GOG version of Total Annihilation discussed above.
Exactly! :) Not sure it is always possible though.
Post edited December 15, 2012 by korell
Posted December 15, 2012
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mondo84: Or maybe I don't understand what you're trying to do. You want to play game music in the background without CDs and without third party software?
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drennan: He explicitly stated he didn't want to use a virtual drive. Unless I'm mistaken, he wants to have the soundtrack playing from files, like the GOG version of Total Annihilation discussed above.
I think it may be his best option, though. I've made virtual images of old game CDs before. It's fast and easy, and the game runs smoothly.

In order to do what the OP is asking would seemingly require something to be running in the background. Doing a virtual image (BIN or CUE as Judas said) would take care of everything and not require something else to run the music. The game would run as if it were running from a physical CD, instead of having the game PLUS something else playing music tracks.
Post edited December 15, 2012 by mondo84
Posted December 15, 2012
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korell: See, this is what I'm trying to myself. Get some old games I have running without me needing to use my old CDs, and without losing the music. I don't really want to have to create a disc image and have a virtual CD playing, nor do I want to have a music player running in the background. Some games you can just put music files within the game folders and they'll play, others aren't so nice.
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JudasIscariot: Just some advice when creating backups of your CDs:

(in case you didn't know, if you do then please ignore the text below :D)

In order to properly preserve CD audio in your games, make sure to create either a CloneCD file (.ccd format) or a BIN and CUE pair. Most good imaging programs will create the BIN file and CUE file, which is where the CD audio info is kept.

The ISO format doesn't preserve CD audio information, at least that's the conclusion I have come to according to my own personal research.
Yeah, I had heard about this but I've never actually created a mixed data/audio CD image. I do have Virtual Clone Drive (which I think is what CloneCD became) but I don't want to have to rely on using it to mount the CD image for music every time.
Posted December 15, 2012
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korell: Exactly! :) Not sure it is always possible though.
It is, but in some cases it might take an unreasonable amount of effort. I don't have Carmageddon II (I never really cared for this series), so I can't even guess how difficult it would be in this specific case.
Posted December 15, 2012
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korell: Exactly! :) Not sure it is always possible though.
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drennan: It is, but in some cases it might take an unreasonable amount of effort. I don't have Carmageddon II (I never really cared for this series), so I can't even guess how difficult it would be in this specific case.
Well, if GOG were to get Carmageddon 2 for sale then they would most likely provide exactly what I'm looking for, and I wouldn't mind paying the small price for it.

EDIT: However, there might be licensing issues as the music is a mix of Sentience and Iron Maiden.
Post edited December 15, 2012 by korell
Posted December 16, 2012
Turns out that Virtual Clone Drive (the only image mounting software I have installed) does not support cue files. For now, then, I'll just stick to the ripped MP3s and a saved playlist file so that they can be played in the background from a media player. It isn't ideal but it works.

Let's hope GOG bring more of my old games on board so that I can replace my CDs. :)
Posted December 16, 2012
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korell: Turns out that Virtual Clone Drive (the only image mounting software I have installed) does not support cue files.
Virtual Clone Drive's site says it supports bin, which is the data part of the cue/bin files. Cue says where each track starts, bin holds the data. I'd say that it does suppot cue/bin, and I would be really surprised to find a virtual drive software that doesn't support cue/bin format.

Edit: it seems that the creation of a cue sheet is optional with VCD
Post edited December 16, 2012 by JMich
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General discussion (archive)CD Music and GOG Windows Games(25 posts)solved(25 posts)solved
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