Playing ISO and BIN/CUE Games on the Deck?

[ThorN]

I'd love to play some of my older disk-based games on the Deck, but I'm not sure how I could do this under Linux. If Windows Dual-Booting is ever coming I'm sure it'll be less of an issue, but for Linux I only know of CDEmu and a few others which work fine in Pop!_OS but there are no flatpak versions available and they all require system file access from what I can see. Is there any way?

[Taktloss]

DosBOX-X works fine thought im not sure if op really cares because it was mentioned already at the beginning.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2799215917

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2799254513

[ThorN]

Escrito originalmente por Darzai:

A virtual machine is also 'installed on your real, physical hard drive' , but still runs in sand box mode and behaves like an actual separate pc.
Everything is files on your system. The actual hardware you use to access them and what you do with it is besides the point.

There is no reason why wine would not be able to mount any CD image form that is a file on your harddisk and use it that way. Even if it's multitrack CD.
Now, the only question is whether this game uses some old obscure trick that no one cares about anymore. And then lacks support because of that.

Yes, there is a reason because audio tracks and others are not a file system. They are not mounted, they are read and interpreted by a physical disk drive; therefore, a disk drive needs to be emulated.

Some disk-based DRM installs drivers that talk to the disk drive and get info from data that way, this has nothing to do with a file system

If what you said was true I could just use the built in image mount in Windows, but that does not work. Even on Windows you need a disk drive emulator.

I have no idea what you're trying to get at with your virtual machine. It either uses your physical drive or some VM clients also have built in disk emulation. Either way it doesn't disprove anything I said so I don't know what you're on about

[Darzai]

Escrito originalmente por We Be Leaving You:

Escrito originalmente por Darzai:

A virtual machine is also 'installed on your real, physical hard drive' , but still runs in sand box mode and behaves like an actual separate pc.
Everything is files on your system. The actual hardware you use to access them and what you do with it is besides the point.

There is no reason why wine would not be able to mount any CD image form that is a file on your harddisk and use it that way. Even if it's multitrack CD.
Now, the only question is whether this game uses some old obscure trick that no one cares about anymore. And then lacks support because of that.

Yes, there is a reason because audio tracks and others are not a file system. They are not mounted, they are read and interpreted by a physical disk drive; therefore, a disk drive needs to be emulated.

Some disk-based DRM installs drivers that talk to the disk drive and get info from data that way, this has nothing to do with a file system

If what you said was true I could just use the built in image mount in Windows, but that does not work. Even on Windows you need a disk drive emulator.

I have no idea what you're trying to get at with your virtual machine. It either uses your physical drive or some VM clients also have built in disk emulation. Either way it doesn't disprove anything I said so I don't know what you're on about

VM clients are just files within a system man. Mounted cd images too. Audio tracks not.

Anyway, if you are talking about audio tracks on the physical CD that are used in the game, then you might need a crack to trick the game into using ripped audio files when you want to play from a mounted image. Good luck with that.

It has been ages since I ripped CD's so I don't remember if there was CD player emulation that could do this.

The DOSbox version might be an easier alternative. Are you sure it is not the same game? Many 'released for Windows' games back then were still DOS games.

Is this even Steam Deck related? You wrote that you can't make it work under windows using an image of the game CD.

[PopinFRESH]

Escrito originalmente por Darzai:

Escrito originalmente por We Be Leaving You:

Yes, there is a reason because audio tracks and others are not a file system. They are not mounted, they are read and interpreted by a physical disk drive; therefore, a disk drive needs to be emulated.

Some disk-based DRM installs drivers that talk to the disk drive and get info from data that way, this has nothing to do with a file system

If what you said was true I could just use the built in image mount in Windows, but that does not work. Even on Windows you need a disk drive emulator.

I have no idea what you're trying to get at with your virtual machine. It either uses your physical drive or some VM clients also have built in disk emulation. Either way it doesn't disprove anything I said so I don't know what you're on about

VM clients are just files within a system man. Mounted cd images too. Audio tracks not.

Anyway, if you are talking about audio tracks on the physical CD that are used in the game, then you might need a crack to trick the game into using ripped audio files when you want to play from a mounted image. Good luck with that.

It has been ages since I ripped CD's so I don't remember if there was CD player emulation that could do this.

The DOSbox version might be an easier alternative. Are you sure it is not the same game? Many 'released for Windows' games back then were still DOS games.

Is this even Steam Deck related? You wrote that you can't make it work under windows using an image of the game CD.

CD Audio tracks aren't files, they are data streams encoded according to the Red Book standard. At the start and end of the "program area" (as in a theater program) there is a lead-in and lead-out track that marks the beginning and end of the data. In the lead-in track there is a table of contents (TOC) that provides the data structure according to the standard so a CD player is able to locate the beginning and end of tracks in the data stream.

This is what the OP has already established as why they were seeking out any other ideas for the Steam Deck. They want to be able to play their old 90's era CD based games which used CD audio for the game music. The OP is aware they can just mount an ISO and play a game via a few options including DOSbox, however, that would not have the CD audio which you seem to also have noted. The OP also previously mentioned they don't really want to have to use cracks / modified executables in order to use ripped audio files.

Yes, its Steam Deck related as the OP is discussing trying to get this working on Steam Deck. The mentions of Windows were to note how they are able to do this on Windows using a CD rom emulation software, and explaining that on Windows you also need to emulate the CD rom drive.

[Taktloss]

Escrito originalmente por PopinFRESH:

Escrito originalmente por Darzai:

VM clients are just files within a system man. Mounted cd images too. Audio tracks not.

Anyway, if you are talking about audio tracks on the physical CD that are used in the game, then you might need a crack to trick the game into using ripped audio files when you want to play from a mounted image. Good luck with that.

It has been ages since I ripped CD's so I don't remember if there was CD player emulation that could do this.

The DOSbox version might be an easier alternative. Are you sure it is not the same game? Many 'released for Windows' games back then were still DOS games.

Is this even Steam Deck related? You wrote that you can't make it work under windows using an image of the game CD.

CD Audio tracks aren't files, they are data streams encoded according to the Red Book standard. At the start and end of the "program area" (as in a theater program) there is a lead-in and lead-out track that marks the beginning and end of the data. In the lead-in track there is a table of contents (TOC) that provides the data structure according to the standard so a CD player is able to locate the beginning and end of tracks in the data stream.

This is what the OP has already established as why they were seeking out any other ideas for the Steam Deck. They want to be able to play their old 90's era CD based games which used CD audio for the game music. The OP is aware they can just mount an ISO and play a game via a few options including DOSbox, however, that would not have the CD audio which you seem to also have noted. The OP also previously mentioned they don't really want to have to use cracks / modified executables in order to use ripped audio files.

Yes, its Steam Deck related as the OP is discussing trying to get this working on Steam Deck. The mentions of Windows were to note how they are able to do this on Windows using a CD rom emulation software, and explaining that on Windows you also need to emulate the CD rom drive.

Dosbox works fine even with Audio as you can See in Screenshots i posted.

[ThorN]

Escrito originalmente por Taktloss:

Dosbox works fine even with Audio as you can See in Screenshots i posted.

I noticed, by the way, but I would prefer a method that doesn't involve emulating the games themselves when they run fine "natively" (with Proton). Plus it won't work for games that expect to run on an OS without DOS at its base, if I understand correctly?

[Prezidentas]

Escrito originalmente por We Be Leaving You:

Escrito originalmente por Taktloss:

Dosbox works fine even with Audio as you can See in Screenshots i posted.

I noticed, by the way, but I would prefer a method that doesn't involve emulating the games themselves when they run fine "natively" (with Proton). Plus it won't work for games that expect to run on an OS without DOS at its base, if I understand correctly?

well games that cannot run on DOS-Based windows came out from around 2002, which is a lot more modern and it's possible that such new games don't use CD Audio anymore.

[PopinFRESH]

Escrito originalmente por Taktloss:

Escrito originalmente por PopinFRESH:

...The OP is aware they can just mount an ISO and play a game via a few options including DOSbox, however, that would not have the CD audio which you seem to also have noted....

Dosbox works fine even with Audio as you can See in Screenshots i posted.

Sorry, I should have made that sentence more clear. Just mounting the data CD and running the game, including running it that way via DOSbox (e.g. not mounting the image using DOSBox, which will use its emulation to emulate the CD Rom drive).

Escrito originalmente por Red Star Gopnik:

Escrito originalmente por We Be Leaving You:

I noticed, by the way, but I would prefer a method that doesn't involve emulating the games themselves when they run fine "natively" (with Proton). Plus it won't work for games that expect to run on an OS without DOS at its base, if I understand correctly?

well games that cannot run on DOS-Based windows came out from around 2002, which is a lot more modern and it's possible that such new games don't use CD Audio anymore.

Concurred, this is a pretty niche area. PC-CD games that started being launching after Windows XP were starting to compress "CD quality" audio files to be installed along with the games installer rather than rely on playback from the CD which reduced latency and minimized the potential issues with a disc becoming scratched.

[Taktloss]

Well i didnt emulate the game itself.
On my PC i did install Win95 in DosBox (in a HDD image) copied the HDD Image over to the Steam Deck and on the Steam Deck i use a DoBox config file to load the HDD Image and the CD Image.

[PopinFRESH]

Escrito originalmente por Taktloss:

Well i didnt emulate the game itself.
On my PC i did install Win95 in DosBox (in a HDD image) copied the HDD Image over to the Steam Deck and on the Steam Deck i use a DoBox config file to load the HDD Image and the CD Image.

Right, which will be using the DOSBox mount.com to mount the image as a virtual drive (e.g. emulating the CD Rom).

What I was referring to is just mounting the iso via Linux and then using DOXBox to launch the executable.

Either way, the OP should be able to use DOSBox-X for the majority of CD games from this era, or use CDEmu to emulate the CD Rom and then use Wine/Proton.

[Taktloss]

CDemu wont work at least when i installed it SteamOS did end up in a boot loop.

[ThorN]

Escrito originalmente por Taktloss:

Well i didnt emulate the game itself.
On my PC i did install Win95 in DosBox (in a HDD image) copied the HDD Image over to the Steam Deck and on the Steam Deck i use a DoBox config file to load the HDD Image and the CD Image.

Which... will run the game inside DosBox, thereby emulating it? No? I don't understand how else that would be possible

[Cyba]

SteamOS KDE Dolphin needs to include (at least) ISO mount options, that along using Lutris for the installer makes a piece of cake you can eat from the GUI . It probably would be better if Lutris had some ISO options itself.

[Prezidentas]

Escrito originalmente por Cyba:

SteamOS KDE Dolphin needs to include (at least) ISO mount options, that along using Lutris for the installer makes a piece of cake you can eat from the GUI . It probably would be better if Lutris had some ISO options itself.

isos should be openable and extractable with ark. Also, lutris is an interface for different "runners", it wouldn't be its job to offer such features

[Marlock]

Escrito originalmente por Red Star Gopnik:

Escrito originalmente por We Be Leaving You:

I noticed, by the way, but I would prefer a method that doesn't involve emulating the games themselves when they run fine "natively" (with Proton). Plus it won't work for games that expect to run on an OS without DOS at its base, if I understand correctly?

well games that cannot run on DOS-Based windows came out from around 2002, which is a lot more modern and it's possible that such new games don't use CD Audio anymore.

Sid Meyer's Civilization II, is an unfortunate example of a game that is native windows, not DOS, yet also relied on CD tracks for better audio

if it was DOS, I would be able to run it without headaches today...

It also used several other era-appropriate bad tech that makes it THE most frustrating challenge to put it running in modern machines, including a very niche and ancient proprietary video codec, cd-checking DRM, all in-game help in the form of a hyperlinked precursor to PDFs...

If only I hadn't seen that Elvis cosplay as a cultural advisor, maybe I would now be able to let that game go...