Guide to making games run noticably faster.

I recently started playing around with iso emulators. Iso emulators are programs that create a 'virtual' dvd drive on you system (will appear in my computer) that contains an image of one of you games. This means that you can basically run games off of your hard drives. Running games from your hard drives are much faster than running from cds/dvds. Your cd/dvd drive can only read at generally 8/16x compared to your hard drive that can run at up to 300x ( if on a laptop ) and 600x ( if on a computer ). I have tried using the emulator for several modern and aging games, and have noticed superfast loadings times/ slight increases in gaming performance. Using iso emulators also means that you can play multiple games at the same time, and never have to change cds/dvds (since you can have several emulated drives). Using emulators also enables laptops (namely ultraportables) that do not have optical drives built in, to run games without having the need of an external drive. I'd appreciate it if a few readers would try the guide below and post their own conceptions during their testing.

GUIDE
1)Download magiciso from http://www.magiciso.com/tutorials/miso-magicdisc-overview.htm note that this software is freeware.

2)Install it and run it.

3)A picture of a cd should appear on your taskbar.

4)Right click the picture and click on make cd/dvd image.

5)Choose your optical drive (with your game inside) and choose an output destination. I always choose the output format as .iso however you can experiment yourself with .uif. Click OK.

6)Once finished right click on the cd icon on your taskbar once more, and then click on virtual cd/dvd-rom.

7)Browse to your previously selected output destination and select your iso file.

8)Right click on the cd icon on your taskbar once more, and navigate again to virtual cd/dvd-rom and mount the iso image that you have previously selected.

9) If you want to run one or more games from your hard drive right click on the icon in your taskbar once again, then set the number of drives to any number you want.

Thanks for reading this guide, and I appreciate any comments!

 

umm...

sorry, but as of the past decade, games run off of your hard drive anyway. the fact that your cd needs to be in the drive is unrelated. its just used as a piracy prevention measure. it just checks that the cd or dvd is there, its not actually using it in game.

this strategy also takes up a massive amount of hard drive space. you can get a no-cd crack for almost every game (even big name games like crysis and call of duty 4, that just skips the cd check altogether.

other games don't require the cd at all.

 

yes but the fact is that data is still accessed from a cd/dvd - even in modern games.Many people still play games like starcraft etc... that access the optical drive even more, meaning using a virtual drive would see a more prominent improvement in performance. Anyway improved performance was only one positive i mentioned through using a virtual cd/dvd drive. The other advantage is that laptops with no optical drive can run games without having to use an external optical drive. This is especially handy for those that are concerned about portability.

 

Magic ISO is freeware?I am sure magicdisk is.

 

This is from the magic iso link I provided. MagicISO Virtual CD/DVD-ROM and magicdisc are one and the same.

 

People have been using ISO's for years, nothing really new here.

As masterchef341, use a NO/CD file if you trust it, as opposed to the older games that may access drive.

I hate key disks for on the road laptop use!

 

exactly; and this doesn't use up any additional resources like an emulator would. so that's actually how to get the very best performance.

sorry OP.