[Lubuntu] Converting CUE-sheet with multiple tracks (BIN) to one ISO-file.

[tkullander]

Hey there.

First post on the Ubuntu forums!

I have recently tried to emulate playstation games by using the PCSX emulator. However, many of the games i have are using the CUE/BIN-format. PCSX does not have support for loading CUE/BIN. This is normally not a problem, since it's possible to convert CUE/BIN to ISO with 'bchunk'.

However, many games have movie sequences and audiotracks on separate tracks in the CD, which can result in multiple BIN-files. So, you have a pile of BIN-files, and one CUE-sheet that explains "how they work together".

It is my understanding that bchunk can only convert one BIN-file into ISO.

My question is therefore - do you have any suggestion on how to either convert multiple BIN-files into one ISO? Or, maybe i should mount the CUE/BIN somehow?

As a side note - i am new to Linux, and my Lubuntu install is very close to the default install.

Thanks in advance for your input!

[LillyDragon]

I've tried bchunk before, and it does work. ^^ But the ISO format doesn't support multiple tracks, which PSX games sometimes have. If the game is all data/data, like Spyro or Tekken, then yeah, an ISO would work. For games that rely on CD Audio, data/audio is not the ISO format's strongsuit.

If the games you're attempting to play use CD Audio, you'll need the cue sheet, or convert it to a TOC (Table of Contents) using cue2toc, then delete or move the Cue sheet out of the game folder. (Currently PCSX-R gets conflicted when cues and tocs are present in the same folder.) This didn't do any good for Vib Ribbon on my end, (The levels loaded, but no sound.) but one user reported TOCs worked just fine for Rayman.

[tkullander]

Thank you for your suggestions! Good information about the ISO-format, i did not know about the lack of support for data/audio.

Well, i did try converting the CUE-file into TOC, but to my understanding PCSX-R does not support loading either CUE or TOC-files? I am missing something here? Or should i just load the data track while have the TOC-file present in the same folder?

Another question then - is there an application that can mount Playstation data/audio cd's in CUE/BIN-format?

[LillyDragon]

That's something I forgot to explain! PCSX-R actually loads the TOC or CUE files "silently", as in, just clicking the corresponding bin file will work because the emulator finds that itself. That's partly why you can't have the TOC and CUE in the same folder together because it can't prioritize between the two. (At least not yet; it's bound to change in the future.)

So yes, you'll still need the TOC in the same folder as the game. =P In Vib Ribbon's case, I think that may just be a compatibility issue; other games that I dumped with CUEs, or converted TOCs afterwards, seem to be working fine.

Both CUE sheets and TOCs can be opened in a text editor, so if you decide to rename your dumps, you will need to manually rename lines in the TOCs to match your dump's file name. Personally I recommend all caps for both so there's less case-sensitive issues between running game images in Windows and Linux.

For instance, this is what my cue sheet for Spyro the Dragon looks like :

FILE "Spyro the Dragon.bin" BINARY
  TRACK 01 MODE2/2352
    INDEX 01 00:00:00

It doesn't have any audio sessions recorded, so it's just one track. I actually run the game without the CUE sheet because of that and everything's been fine so far, from start to finish!

This is what you'll expect with games that use CD Audio in TOC format. There's an entry for every audio track so the emulator knows where to look for audio sessions.

// Generated by cue2toc 0.4
// Report bugs to <dermatsch@gmx.de>
CD_ROM_XA

TRACK MODE2_RAW
    DATAFILE "VIB_RIBBON.bin" 01:29:00

TRACK AUDIO
    PREGAP 00:11:00
    AUDIOFILE "VIB_RIBBON.bin" 01:29:00

TRACK AUDIO
    AUDIOFILE "VIB_RIBBON.bin" 04:06:00 04:08:00
    START 04:06:00

TRACK AUDIO
    AUDIOFILE "VIB_RIBBON.bin" 06:40:00 06:42:00
    START 06:40:00

TRACK AUDIO
    AUDIOFILE "VIB_RIBBON.bin" 09:12:00 09:14:00
    START 09:12:00

TRACK AUDIO
    AUDIOFILE "VIB_RIBBON.bin" 11:47:00 11:49:00
    START 11:47:00

TRACK AUDIO
    AUDIOFILE "VIB_RIBBON.bin" 14:34:00 14:36:00
    START 14:34:00

TRACK AUDIO
    AUDIOFILE "VIB_RIBBON.bin" 17:07:00 17:09:00
    START 17:07:00

Easy enough, no? =P

EDIT : As for the right image mounting application, that's something I haven't looked into in years, so I don't know how much has changed since then. There are plenty of them to choose from in the Software Center, though, so it couldn't hurt to try any of those first.