Problems w/ Metroid and QOOB?

[LanceSteel_01]

Hi I've backed up a few of my games recently and found that my backups of either Metroid Primes (1 and 2) seem to lock up after a short play time. Other games I've backed up seem to play fine (and with no lockups). I've using Ritek G04 mini disks w/ a pioneer dvr-108 drive. I'm using the QOOB chip with the 1.2 bios.

Anyone have any ideas as to what is going on. Is this a QOOB related issue or a Laser Tweak issue?

Thanks

[Xboxmodder999]

Is it locking up, or giving you a DRE? Also with the lockup/dre, is it in the same place everytime?

[Hajaz]

did you make the image yourself?

[LanceSteel_01]

Originally posted by Xboxmodder999
Is it locking up, or giving you a DRE? Also with the lockup/dre, is it in the same place everytime?
I guess I'm confused about the difference between the two. Yes, it seems that they are crashing at the same points and Yes I made the images myself. In Metroid Prime everytime I try to load a save it "locks up" at the Samus animation. This consists of a freeze in the animation and hanging the audio at a single tone. In Metroid Prime 2, the disk acts like it has trouble loading (it pauses for short periods during the opening movie). With a DRE do you see an error message or something?

Thanks for the help.

[Phantom8]

Yes, DRE actually gives you a Disc Read Error message.

[cory149]

using the "scene" image I have no problems with prime2, perhaps you need to align the image or something similar (FSTFiX)

- Im not entirely certain on the process of getting a decent stream onto the PC but I know that aligning to 32k boundaries and making a full 1.4Gb has helped on the lost kingdoms 2 disk I have.

you sure you didnt get a bad read off the origional?

Phantom8 -thanks for that info, you have no idea how long I looked around to find out that little bit of info about the cube (freeze vs DRE - is there a message)

[LanceSteel_01]

It definitely isn't a QOOB issue. I thought that it might have been a laser tweak issue, so I tweaked that and found that Metroid P2 still locked up at the same spot. So in one last attempt I reburned the image at 4x speed instead of 1x and whalah, it worked flawlessly. I assumed that if a disk didn't work at 1x it definitely wouldn't work at 4x (I guess I was wrong). Anyway, problem solved.

Cory149, I've read that FSTFIX shouldn't be used on full images. Do you think its ok for me to use it on a full image (ie have you done this before)?

Yes, thank you Phantom8 for the DRE message clarification.

[Xboxmodder999]

Lancesteel,

If the disc says 4x on it, always burn at 4x(prefered), or 2x, never at 1x. 1x will just give you problems and errors.

[cory149]

I was having similar problems with mario sunshine, but nero doesnt let me burn the disk any slower than what its rated as "optimum" for the media (which is 4x in my case)

Did you try the old not working one with the qoob's disk check - that should tell you if the burn had a bump in its road (an area with a high pi/pio error will not read on the cube, the machine was designed for near flawless reads of pressed disks)

FSTfix is used to fix wiped garbage, but if the image didnt stream 100% then there could have been alignment issues, but since your reburn is done there is no real need to rebuild the image at all ;)

you have the better image too if you have all the garbage intact and dont use any of the tools as they usually just cause more havok than they are worth - unless you are already dealing with a messed up image like I was...

[LanceSteel_01]

Thanks for the input guys. I think I was dealing with a bunch of different issues. A laser tweak was needed, burning at the wrong speed and a bad dump. Even after reburning Metroid Prime (the first one) at 4x the game still locks up (not DRE's) at the same spot which makes me think that it is a bad dump and not a QOOB/disk/laser issue. I tried doing a FSTFIX on it (the GUI version) but it just says that the disk is ok and that its for wiped images only. I guess I'll redump and try again.

[cory149]

check the image size, it should be 1.35gig, there is a version of the fstfix gui which allows you to align any way, even if its not cleaned. (KEKSi FSTFiX GUI)
Im pretty certain its one of the ones in the downloads at this site, but like I said before - if you can get a good image off the stream (best), or you can at least get all good files from the disk, you could just build your own image and pad it yourself.

I dont have the BBA myself so have not ever tried to see the limits of streaming :(

Not sure if it would help you, but isnt there a driver that allows reading of the GC format disks in a PC?

[LanceSteel_01]

I may have to rebuild the image myself. I redumped the Metroid Prime disk and reburned the image. Unfortunately, it locked up in the exact spot that it had before. There must be some issue with the image and the subsequent burn that the GC doesn't like.

As for a PC<->GC disk driver I don't think there is one available.

[crumpster]

Whats strange is that I just started playing this game from my backup and its locking up too and all my other iso's are working perfectly fine using ritek g04's. I am using the scene image, wonder if somethings wrong with it? I had 2 lock-ups tonight playing mp and this sux. I burned them just like i burn all my gc iso's.

[LanceSteel_01]

Back to my original comment: I wonder if this is a QOOB related problem. Do people with a Viper have this problem? I've never had any problems with lock ups on any other games other than the two metroid images. Is there something that those games do differently (loading-wise) that other GCube games don't?

[crumpster]

It seems both viper/qoob users are having problems with this game. One guy told me the only backup he got working was one he made himself. I am trying the fstfix.exe and will see if that works. If it doesn't, i'm going to either grab a cheap copy of eBay or not play the game. All of my other backups work 100% of the time.

[crumpster]

i downloaded fstfix and it solved all my problems with metroid prime 1, this is the command i ran and it patched rare's release, I have played for about an hour an no lockups and loaded my save game 4 times with no lockup during samus animation. Try this and it should work:

fstfix.exe mp.iso t s f

[LanceSteel_01]

I'll give that a try and let you know the outcome.

Thanks.

[crumpster]

Lance, did that work for you? I am pretty far in the game and so far it worked 100% for me. Btw, i'm using Qoob Bios 1.2 and Ritek G04 full size dvd-rs.

[LanceSteel_01]

Yep tried it last night and it seems to be working well. I'm using the mini Ritek dvd-r's (G04).

[Kazuya]

I've had absolutely no problems with the RARE scene release of Metroid Prime with Qoob PRO and bios v1.3.

I burn all my GC games on full size RitekG04 discs.

I even loaded and saved about 10 times one after the other and experienced no freezing and also played the game long enough to complete it although not in one sitting.

I noticed this post is kinda old so maybe the problem was fixed in bios v1.3.