Hi,

I've been using TY (TYG01) discs to back up my original games and burnt them at 2X with great results. After running out of discs I bought some TYG02 8X discs. I hadn't thought about it before hand but I've now found out that the only supported write speeds are 4 and 8. I've never been able to have a smooth burn writing an image file at 4X or above previously and it's no different with these discs (maybe my PC sucks). The read buffer and write speed constantly fluctuate during the burn with all the different programs I've tried. Is there any way I can write at below 4X with these discs and if not does the fluctuating of the read buffer and speed have negative effects on the burned disc?

My burner is a LG 4163B A105 firmware.

Thanks,

If you get buffer fluctuation then it's most likely down to either DMA not being enabled, poor quality 40wire IDE cables or a badly fragmented HD. All these factors being right are essential for good burning.

The LG should have no problems burning these TYG02 discs at 8x. Only a very low spec PC would have problems with this speed.

Not sure about DMA but a quick google found the following and it seems to be enabled.

http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/device...e/IDE-DMA.mspx

The cables haven't been touched. As for the hardrive that hasn't been defragged sicnce I bought this PC which was years ago. Would that cause the fluctuating only when writing image files? I can burn data discs at full speed with no problems but when I burn an image file at above 2.4X the buffer always fluctuates at some point during the burn.

Does the fluctuating casue any negative effects on game disc and is it possible to burn these discs at a lower speed?

Thanks,

PCs pecs - P4 2.0 GH, 256 ram, 80 gig H-drive.

There have been reports by reputable people of image burning stressing system resources, so it would appear that you are underpowered. I would suggest it is time for an update. Keep your 4163 though; if you burn TYG02 at 4X it is some of the best quality ever.

If the firmware doesn't support slower speeds, it is possible to use MediaCodeSpeedEdit to add a slower speed, but it might be tough to figure out if you are unfamiliar with hacking firmware. Read up on it here:
http://club.cdfreaks.com/showthread.php?t=114269

HI,
Check with Nero Info tool, please.
Jepp. This might be one reason.
Then there are really some issues with your system. Your drive by itself is capable to burn the media at full speed.
I don't know anything about game dics, but you really should tidy up your system instead of burning at lower speeds, that aren't supported. Maybe there is some copy protection mechanism affecting your system performance. You should check that, too.
You also should get additional 256 MB or even 512 MB RAM. That also would increase overall system performance. Running XP using only 256 MB RAM is at the lower edge.

Michael

I think a full defrag is called for right now & it's most likely that the images you're burning are severely fragmented which would cause major fluctuations.

Thanks for the help guys.

I checked the DMA with the nero tool and it is turned on. I did however notice that the ASPI is corrupted but the nero one is working. Could this be a problem?

http://img135.imageshack.us/img135/6458/aspi17md.jpg

http://img135.imageshack.us/img135/5199/aspi20tz.jpg

I will have to do the full defrag (after I back up my files incase something goes wrong). I have an old version of perfectdisk laying around somewhere and I'll give it a try in the next few days. I've also taken note of the RAM suggestion.

cheers.

Try DIRMS.
It's free & does a decent job. Let it run overnight.

Your PC will also perform alot better, if you upgrade with an extra 256MB ram.
WindowsXP needs about 200MB's of ram just to run windows. Add a bit of HD caching, cdrom caching, and you are down to just 24MB's of ram. Install a few proggies which have system tray icons/ resident programs & you're already paging to the HD before you fire up your first program.

Nero uses about 30MB's + 40-80MB's of cache ....

Of course the buffer is fluctuating wildly, and your burns aren't going to be good, or you won't achieve decent speeds ... nero is caching burn data to ram ... and windows is paging out ram to the HD.

Thanks for the RAM info. I will get to the defrag first and see what happens.

cheers.