Need Help with PC-Engine Emulation

So after all these years I've finally found a cracked download of Magic Engine and would like to finally play all the games I've been meaning to for it, but for some strange and bizarre reason, neither MagicDisc nor Daemon Tools is mounting my .cue files for games like Valis and Exile. I can load the .iso images and get video and sound effects, but I get no voice or music tracks. Does someone using virtual drives to load PC-E ROMs have any solutions to this? I've searched on Google and YouTube, but somehow these people can get .cues to mount seemingly magically whereas mine just won't mount at all.

Hmm... sometimes the CUE file has the wrong extensions in it (like your actual track might be sound01.mp3, but in the cue file you have sound01.wav saved). In that case, try opening the CUE file with notepad and carefully edit the track names, giving them the right names and extensions. If it still doesn’t work, try converting the tracks to WAV format (if they’re not in that format already), and edit your CUE file again. If that doesn’t work for you, I’ll test it out myself (I mean, with my own copy of the emulator and isos I already have) and I’ll see if I can come up with anything.

By the way, you probably didn’t have to wait so long just to get Magic Engine... Ootake is a free emulator which works fine for a lot of games, and then there are the standalone exes from dreamworld for playing Valis.

SuperSailor7 wrote:

Hmm... sometimes the CUE file has the wrong extensions in it (like your actual track might be sound01.mp3, but in the cue file you have sound01.wav saved). In that case, try opening the CUE file with notepad and carefully edit the track names, giving them the right names and extensions. If it still doesn’t work, try converting the tracks to WAV format (if they’re not in that format already), and edit your CUE file again. If that doesn’t work for you, I’ll test it out myself (I mean, with my own copy of the emulator and isos I already have) and I’ll see if I can come up with anything.

By the way, you probably didn’t have to wait so long just to get Magic Engine... Ootake is a free emulator which works fine for a lot of games, and then there are the standalone exes from dreamworld for playing Valis.

I already had the MP3s converted to Waves, so that alone didn't work. I did go into the CUE and replaced all instances of .wav and WAVE with .mp3 and MP3 respectively, but that didn't work. The only thing I can really think of at this point is that it's not recognizing the .iso as a BINARY file, and I wouldn't know what to do about that aside from converting the .iso to a .bin file. If you can test yours and come up with a solution that works, I'd greatly appreciate it. Just seems kinda weird that I get these basic instructions from README files and I follow them to no avail.

As far as the waiting goes, I've ended up just trailing off to other projects until recently, plus there are lots of other PC-E games I'd like to play (Exile and Wicked Phenomenon come to mind. as well as Ys I & II again). It makes more sense, to me at least, to just grab the native disc images and play those as opposed to getting stand-alone copies since I'll have the emulator to run them on anyway.

What version of Daemon tools are you using? I had the most recent version and I just tried it... I had the same problem as you. I uninstalled it and installed an older version (4304), and after converting the files to WAV it runs with music. I did have to convert the tracks to WAV with a specific sampling rate though, otherwise Daemon Tools spits out an error telling me to change the sampling rate (44100 for Valis III).

I'm using version 4.45.4.0315. I think it is the newest version. I tend to use the highest sampling rates I can when converting using WinLame unless specifically otherwise indicated, and I think that was 44100. Which specific version of Daemon Tools did you use for it to work?

HeromanX wrote:

Which specific version of Daemon Tools did you use for it to work?

Daemon Tools Lite 4.30.4. I just happened to have the old setup file laying around.

However, FileHippo seems to have the older versions available for download. Look in the righthand column:

http://www.filehippo.com/download_daemon_tools/

Okay, so that fixed the problem of being able to mount the images. I think. It's giving me that sample rate error, but I found out that - at least for my Valis 1 ROM - only Track 19 isn't at the 44100 sampling rate, so I need a converter that will convert to a higher sampling rate since winLame doesn't do that. Any recommendations?

HeromanX wrote:

Okay, so that fixed the problem of being able to mount the images. I think. It's giving me that sample rate error, but I found out that - at least for my Valis 1 ROM - only Track 19 isn't at the 44100 sampling rate, so I need a converter that will convert to a higher sampling rate since winLame doesn't do that. Any recommendations?

Good to hear that it’s mounting. Well, Audacity is generally the go-to program for working with audio. You can try fiddling with it in Audacity, or try this, which is what I used for Valis III anyway:

http://www.oxelon.com/media_converter.html

I have my own problem too now; Valis III is running with minor glitches. I’m not sure if my iso is bad or what... the music is fine but some graphics are messed up. Anyway, I’ll test that more later. It’s been ages since I used Magic Engine and I forget how I dealt with these problems in the past.

Thanks a lot! This definitely solved my problems, although I think my Valis I ISOs (both of them) are duds - I get no picture at all and only the first track plays when I load it up in Magic Engine. Exile works perfectly fine and I still have Valis III and IV to try out. If you happen to have a tested and working copy of Valis I, I'd like to know where to get one since my usual site doesn't have a good copy. I'm also missing Valis II, so a locating a copy of that would be nice.

The Valis II and Valis III roms that I have seem to have at least minor bugs. I don’t know if it’s just an emulation problem or if the isos are corrupted. I haven’t tested my Valis I rom beyond the first level, but so far it works fine in Ootake -- in Magic Engine it has graphical glitches during the intro.

Well, Ootake certainly runs at least one of my Valis I ROMs, but the audio for the cutscenes is completely off. It starts to get out of synch in the first intro cutscene, and then cuts to Miss Blue when the second intro cutscene starts, throwing EVERYTHING off track (cutscene-wise) FOR THE REST OF THE GAME! Seems pretty weird, but I have a second ROM to test too. At least I was able to complete the game, albeit accidentally save-stating after losing a life at Rogles and having to defeat him with just a basic Cutter weapon. Felt like trying to fight Remilia Scarlet on Normal with anything less than Full Power in Embodiment of Scarlet Devil. =/

Nope, my cutscenes aren’t out of sync in Valis I... at least not the first four, which is as far as I played. I’m using Ootake 2.16. And ouch... I do that kind of thing to myself all the time with savestates

I used Ootake 2.61 to play Valis, but even Exile in Magic Engine was getting a bit out of sync about 2/3 through the game. Not nearly as bad as Valis did in Ootake, but it does make me wonder if it's more of a computer issue over an emulation issue. I'll try to do some more testing today and report how that goes.

Btw, I totally recommend Exile if you haven't played it yet. A fairly short RPG, but because of its maze-like dungeons it feels longer than it actually is. Also full of all sorts of historical references that may intrigue you if you're into that sort of thing.

As a longplayer Use pcejin <----- relevant emulator which does not require burning a disk

Update: Use Bizhawk it's the best thing ever.