CD-i Emulator Teaser Unleashed

CD-i Emulator is the first fully evolving windows compatible emulator project of the Philips CD-i system. Discuss the emulator, compatibility issues, seek help and support to get the program operating and post what you'd like to see in future revisions of the program. CD-i players ROM (BIOS) requests, begging and links will not be tolerated. Otherwise feel free to post your thoughts on this amazing new piece of software.
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metalsphere
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Post by metalsphere » Mon Jul 25, 2005 9:07 pm

I have no problem in paying a resonable price for a fully functional CD-i emulator. Besides, when programers actually get paid for their work it encourages them to keep updating the program. Just look at Magic Engine ( http://www.magicengine.com ) the PC Engine/Turbo Grafx 16 emulator. It is the absolute best TG16 emulator available and I firmly believe that it is because they charge a small fee for the software.

...end of line
"All great truths begin as blasphemies." - George Bernard Shaw

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Ruekov
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Post by Ruekov » Mon Jul 25, 2005 10:57 pm

Com si com ça...
In spain, many publishers uses the cdi to make interactive encyclopedias. Spanish CDi Studio (CDi LAB) helps to have some titles in spanish, burncycle, asterix, inca and general edutaiment.

CDi was failure ... anywere :(. But have a good games and edutaiment.

Overdrive_X
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Post by Overdrive_X » Tue Jul 26, 2005 12:46 am

Erronous wrote:The goal of the emulator would be to emulate the hardware part of the CD-i player, so I guess it should also play CD+G and Photo-CD (it would just run the CD-i application like a regular CD-i player).

I would be for open-source too. With closed-source there's always the risk of a project 'disappearing' for various reasons.
If it's open source where did CDI FAN will make his money ?
I always thinked emulator author should get money for what they did, just exemple _DEMO_ * for epsxe and zsnes, how many time and effort they put on this. I think there work need to be pay in a way or another.

Just look at Linusappz and Shadow who did pcsx2, man, they emulated a PS2 (not a 100% but it's a good start). You can imagine how much work a emulator coder had put on his software, i don't think 15 to 25 $ is a lot, if it's a resonable price i will buy it for sure.

Like Devin told, when you buy a CD-I on ebay you can get them for a lot of money, lucky i was i bought mine 25$ with shipping.

Think of it, 25 $ for playing extremly rare Nintendo games.

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Erronous
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Post by Erronous » Tue Jul 26, 2005 12:16 pm

Think of it, 25 $ for playing extremly rare Nintendo games.
And then just downloading the ISO files.... When most people are already downloading the CD-i games themselves for free, why bother to pay for the emulator? Anyway, maybe prices for original CD-i titles will drop :).

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Ruekov
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Post by Ruekov » Tue Jul 26, 2005 7:17 pm

I have many games and ludimedia for CDi, and my cdi player it's out. CDiTronik and CDiteaster are the only way to save my gold goodies :D.

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Devin
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Post by Devin » Tue Jul 26, 2005 10:08 pm

Ruekov wrote:I have many games and ludimedia for CDi, and my cdi player it's out. CDiTronik and CDiteaster are the only way to save my gold goodies :D.
Yes I noticed you have a special interest in Full Motion Video (FMV) games something the CD-i did rather well :D

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cdifan
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Post by cdifan » Wed Jul 27, 2005 9:17 pm

CD+G and PhotoCD (and in the future, VideoCD) are definitely on my list of "things that ought to work". As said above, these are really just specific CD-i applications and should therefore not be very hard (for CD+G you'd need ROM support of course, not all player models have it)...

Regarding the open source thing, I haven't decided yet.

PS. I'm currently on vacation and using a cybercafe; don't expect prompt replies :-)

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cdoty
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Post by cdoty » Fri Jul 29, 2005 4:55 pm

Overdrive_X wrote:Will this emulator will be able to run .bin files. (Homebrew software)
Yep, check out http://www.game-shoppe.com/CDI.html. The screenshots were taken from the emulator.

Overdrive_X
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Post by Overdrive_X » Fri Jul 29, 2005 8:58 pm

cdoty wrote:
Overdrive_X wrote:Will this emulator will be able to run .bin files. (Homebrew software)
Yep, check out http://www.game-shoppe.com/CDI.html The screenshots were taken from the emulator.
What i wanted to know is does CDI EMU is able to load OS9 executable who are not in ISO format. Exemple a classic pong dosen't need external files. So does you will add a feture to load directly the OS9 executable without having to do a ISO everytime ?

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cdifan
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Post by cdifan » Fri Jul 29, 2005 10:23 pm

There are currently at least two ways to load OS9 memory modules into cdiemu:
  • Inject a "pseudo-ROM" file
    Use CD-i Link with the emulator
Both have the same basic problem, however: how do you get the player to start your module? The only "documented" (sort of) way to do this is to have your application replace the player shell by naming it "play" with a high version number (255 is typical), exactly like the cdistub module.

Most player ROMs do not support a way to start arbitrary OS9 modules, but I suppose that cdiemu could generate an ISO on-the-fly...

Then again, generating an ISO is not particularly hard or timeconsuming and most CD-i applications will need some auxiliary data anyway.

PS. Currently on vacation, don't expect prompt replies.

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