Anyone use Virtual CD-ROMs?

[Giovanni]

I've been looking around for a good CD-ROM emulator, so I can play games off image files on my hard drive without swapping CDs all the time (my CD drive is slow, so it takes forever to load levels and music). I checked out Daemon Tools and CD Space, but neither one seems to work with Half Life. Does anyone have any other suggestions?

 

[Alphacowboy]

I have Nortons VirtualDrive, I have never even tried it... I'll let you know if it works

 

[freeway]

I use Norton VirtualDrive on two of my systems. It is Farstone VirturalDrive with the Norton name- same program. I got it for free with my new SOYO mobo, so I decided to try it out. It really works great. You can make something like 20 virtural drives. You make images of your cds, then you load them into the virtural drive. So far I have it working with 98, 98se, ME, windows 2000. If you play a game that runs off the cd a lot, this is the way to go because it is much faster running off the hd than off the cdrom. I think you can dl a evaluation of Farstone and try it out.

 

[Alphacowboy]

Mine came with my Maxtor 20.5GB drive (which died 2 days later) I kept the software and got an Expert WDD instead. I tried it once but the only CD I really wanted it for was MidTown Madness, but it wouldn't create the image file... any idea?

 

[AMB]

Any one tried Virtual Drive

 

[Gunbuster]

Copy protected games and virtual drive programs dont mix.

 

[Alphacowboy]

V.D. is cool I guess, but like I said I haven't used it that much, I was thinking of buying one of those 60GB drives and setting it up as a server with all my CD's archived on it... would that work?

 

[Stealth1024]

For example Gunbuster?

 

[Frenchie]

I have virtual drive installed on a few systems. Use it to play Diablo and a few other games off the HDD instead of CD. Nice and fast, even in comparison to my Kenwood 72x true-x. Never had any problems with Win98 or Win98SE.

 

[Fandu]

I use Vitrual CD from Logicraft. Works great with all CD's I've tried, copy protected or not. I think Norton bought them out, but the norton version doesn't work with copy protected programs, or so I've heard.

 

[jonnyGURU]

So this general concensus says that Norton (formerly Farstone) Virtual Drive is the way to go?

It doesn't do copy protected games?

Is there anything better?

 

[Gunbuster]

I think the people who make CloneCD were thinking about a virtual CloneCD program

 

[jonnyGURU]

Well, I just found that Norton no longer puts out VirtualDrive.

Back to square one.

 

[jonnyGURU]

Cool! Farstone's Virtual Drive is still Farstone's Virtual drive and from a link on Farstone's website, I've got it downloading from ZD Net!

Cool!

 

[JaiKnight]

How is Virtual Drive working for you? Does it work with copy protected games?

 

[tonyou]

So far, with the Norton Virtual drive that came with my Soyo 6BA+IV, I was able to get Diablo 2, NFSII/III, and Monaco Gran Prix racing to work. I tried Unreal Tournament, Quake III, and Playstation games off Bleem but they don't work.

Tony

 

[JaiKnight]

Thanks for the feedback, anybody else care to share any success or failures? Has anybody tried the Paragon CD Emulator, or VirtualCD?

 

[jonnyGURU]

Since my initial post, I've been using Far Stone's Virtual Drive.

No stability problems with the OS and it works EVERY SINGLE TIME. I like it a lot!

 

[JaiKnight]

Cool, you noted above that it might not do Copy Protected CDs, is that still true with the Virtual Drive you're using right now? (I know you said every single time, but I'm not sure if you meant that referring to non-copy protected CDs only)

 

[Piecia]

Tried only VirtualDrive 2000...it's OK