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By Daniel K (Apr 09, 2006) (#1)
I downloaded the "Dracula X" (PC Engine) ISO that's floating around on the VGM Central DC hub, and burned it to a CD. I heard that it works perfectly with the Magic Engine emulator (currently using version 0.99b3), and indeed, the game seems to run almost perfectly, but with one fatal flaw: no music! I get the sound effects, but none of the redbook CD audio. Needless to say, this sucks - there's no need to describe the dull experience of playing a Castlevania game without music (and no puns regarding CV64's soundtrack, please!). But I know the music is on there: I burned the CD using the accompanying ".cue"-file, and I've tried burning it with the music in both mp3 and wav format.
What's wrong? Can't Magic Engine handle the game's audio? Or have I commited some error in the process of burning? I searched around for info on this matter, and read that you get audio in some CD games where it's missing if you load the game using the "System Card 3.0" option, but I've tried that and the only result was that there still was no music, and it was impossible to get past the title screen (the screen goes black and nothing else happens).
If anyone could help, I'd be most grateful. In the worst case scenario, I'll have to play the game on my computer without sound and have the soundtrack CD playing on my stereo, which will no doubt prove a schizophonic aural experience, but I want to avoid that at any cost. Well, not the $100+ cost of hunting down a real copy of the game and the console.
Last edited by Daniel K (Apr 09, 2006)
By Qui-Gon Joe (Apr 09, 2006) (#2)
I've never known anyone who's been able to get Magic Engine to run the CD audio properly. Also, FYI, the Turbo Duo is old enough that they didn't consider the possibility of people being able to burn their own discs. There's no copy protection or region coding, should you manage to find a Duo or CD-ROM add-on (with system card 3.0) to put a CD-R in.
By Zane (Apr 09, 2006) (#3)
This is somewhat off-topic, but do you mean the PCE DX Rondo of Blood? I read somewhere that that game was going to be playable on the Revolution. No joke! It'll be one of the hundreds of games you can download for it.
By Daniel K (Apr 09, 2006) (#4)
Qui-Gon Joe wrote:
I've never known anyone who's been able to get Magic Engine to run the CD audio properly.
Uh, that's what I feared. How crappy.
Is this everyone's experience, or is there someone out there that got it working properly?
Zane wrote:
This is somewhat off-topic, but do you mean the PCE DX Rondo of Blood?
Yes, I meant the PCE DX Rondo of Blood.
By Angela (Apr 09, 2006) (#5)
Qui-Gon Joe wrote:
I've never known anyone who's been able to get Magic Engine to run the CD audio properly.
Same here. Darkheim made up Drac X for me at one point, but audio has always been a no go. It's quite disheartening, actually.
If anyone has a solution, now would be a fantastic time to share. *_*
By tz (Apr 09, 2006) (#6)
It depends on how you are playing.
If you have an ISO mounted in Daemon Tools or Alcohol 120%, you need to find the option that enables "analog audio."
If you are playing through your actual CD drive, you will need to make sure the CD audio connector from your CD drive is connected to your soundcard, and then of course you need to make sure that CD audio is not muted.
Last edited by tz (Apr 09, 2006)
By jmj20320514 (Apr 09, 2006) (#7)
I've gotten Dracula X working just fine (with audio) on Magic Engine 99b5.
It took a little messing around with the PCE.ini file. Make sure all the CD audio settings on it are in order (cd_audio_input_line and cd_audio_volume are the culprits in this case). I also had forgotten to run the audio line from my CD ROM drive to the sound card at one point, so you may want to check that if nothing else is working.
The only thing I haven't been able to work out is the fade-ins and -outs when the game transitions from or to certain areas. But other than that, I have no sound issues when running Drac X.
By Princess-Isabela (Apr 09, 2006) (#8)
I have original copy of Drac X and it works great whether using PC-Engine or Magic Engine.
By Zaggart (Apr 09, 2006) (#9)
There is a topic on the board for this game that solves this problem on Gamefaqs, I think it's by Iceman. It's on the Turbo Duo Dracula X board.
By GoldfishX (Apr 09, 2006) (#10)
Zane wrote:
This is somewhat off-topic, but do you mean the PCE DX Rondo of Blood? I read somewhere that that game was going to be playable on the Revolution. No joke! It'll be one of the hundreds of games you can download for it.
What was announced was support for Turbo Grafx games (both the credit card-style games and CD's). No specific titles have been announced yet. There was a discussion here about how they would deal with the audio, since the redbook audio take up the bulk of space on the CD and compressing it would help the sizes of CD game downloads. What doesn't look promising is Dracula X: Rondo of Blood was never released outside of Japan for the Duo/PC-Engine, but the crappy port to SNES was brought here. So it's still up in the air if we'll see the superior CD one, as opposed to the SNES one.
I've been meaning to make myself a copy of this game for the longest time. I actually have a Duo, but I haven't looked into running copied games on it.
Last edited by GoldfishX (Apr 09, 2006)
By TerraEpon (Apr 09, 2006) (#11)
GoldfishX wrote:
but the crappy port to SNES was brought here. So it's still up in the air if we'll see the superior CD one, as opposed to the SNES one.
Dracula XX is hardly a port. Outside of one or two levels and pieces of music, it's a total remake.
It's like comparing the original CV to Castlevania IV.
As for me? I've never been able to get Drac X to work /at all/, much less audio, on either the crappy mp3pro one (ugh) or the other I found.
-Joshua
By GoldfishX (Apr 09, 2006) (#12)
SPC Set for Dracula X
Track: Title: Length:
01 Overture 01:23
02 Map 01:01
03 Bloodlines 03:08
04 Vampire Hunter 01:18
05 Bloody Tears 02:20
06 Cemetery 01:50
07 Slash 02:08
08 Picture of the Ghost Ship 02:36
09 Beginning 02:30
10 Den 03:04
11 Cerberus 01:14
12 Boss 01:25
13 Illusionary Dance 01:36
14 Rescued 00:15
15 Stage Clear 00:07
16 Game Over 00:08
17 Ending 00:19
18 Credit 01:52
s01 Chosen Fate 00:04
s02 Death of Richter 00:03
OST for Dracula X (copied from GMR)
01 Overture 1:07
02 Requiem 1:40
03 Bloodlines 3:21
04 Vampire Killer 1:49
05 Cross a Fear 2:38
06 Bloody Tears 1:46
07 Cemetery 2:41
08 Beginning 2:31
09 Slash 1:28
10 Picture of the Ghost Ship 2:39
11 Opus 13 3:24
12 Den 3:19
13 Dancing in Phantasmic Hell 1:45
14 Illusionary Dance 2:27
15 March of the Holy Man 1:56
16 Mary Samba 1:53
I can't speak for the game (considering I never got far enough in XX to call myself an expert and haven't played more than a level of Rondo at a convention), but I always found the soundtracks rather similar. I've always heard XX referred to as a port. Hopefully, Nintendo isn't thinking the same way, when it comes to deciding which games to emulate...
Thanks for the heads-up in any case.
By Princess-Isabela (Apr 10, 2006) (#13)
Dracula XX and Dracula X Chi no Rondo - two different games, different levels, though soundtracks are very similar.
I hope Revolution will support Drac X and DragonBall(one of the best DB Games to date) for Pc-Engine as well(both never released in States)
By Qui-Gon Joe (Apr 10, 2006) (#14)
GoldfishX, think of it as the difference between Ys IV: The Dawn of Ys and Ys IV: Mask of the Sun, what with different people making different games that use roughly the same music and some shared elements. Only imagine if the SNES had been programmed by the people who had made the CDi Zelda games. That would give you generally an idea of the difference between Rondo of Blood and Dracula XX.
By jmj20320514 (Apr 10, 2006) (#15)
GoldfishX wrote:
I actually have a Duo, but I haven't looked into running copied games on it.
So long as the game is copied from an original or full ISO file (not those ISO/MP3 rips), it will work fine on the system. No copy protection or region encoding to deal with.
By XLord007 (Apr 10, 2006) (#16)
Qui-Gon Joe wrote:
Only imagine if the SNES had been programmed by the people who had made the CDi Zelda games. That would give you generally an idea of the difference between Rondo of Blood and Dracula XX.
Now that's totally unfair. Dracula XX was a good game on its own. Almost as hard as the NES ones, but still quite good.
By Daniel K (Apr 10, 2006) (#17)
YES! I got it working. The only thing I did was download the latest version of Magic Engine, "version 1.0.0 PR 10", and it worked flawlessly. The only problem I have now is that I only have the demo version, and the registered one (to avoid the limited playing time without resorting to the "load" trick every 4 minutes) costs €15. Ah, well... I don't spend much on games these days, but for this gem, I'm willing to make an exception.
Also (sidenote), I agree with XLord007 that the SNES version gets a lot of undeserved crap. It is a great game, maybe not as good as the original, but I loved it, mainly because it was so freaking hard. I don't think that it was "Almost as hard as the NES ones": I think it made the NES ones seem like walks in the park (even Castlevania 3). Just remembering that final battle on top of those pillars (where any minor wrong move literally meant instant death) still makes me shudder...
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