Best formats to get Sega CD / PSX multi-disc ROMS to show as one game?

[sad_muso]

I believe there's a way to get multi-disc ROMS to display at one single game for these systems. I'm currently using .bin and .cue for Sega CD and the same for PSX (although some are .pbp).

What's the 'best' format for each system, and how can I tidy them up to display as one game? If so, how do you switch discs?

I have already hunted around for the solution but am finding it tricky to implement!

Specs in signature

[windg]

You have to create a .m3u playlist file for the .cue & .bins of the game. More info here : https://retropie.org.uk/docs/Playstation-1/.

[ReadyPlayaWon]

@sad_muso said in Best formats to get Sega CD / PSX multi-disc ROMS to show as one game?:

I'm currently using .bin and .cue for Sega CD and the same for PSX (although some are .pbp).

I used to have all my PSX games as .pbp

But converted the lot to .chd ... much better compression ratio up to 60% and they load just as quick as .pbp but take up less space.

just double check your es_systems.cfg under the <extension></extension> tags that .chd and/or .CHD is in there and they will be recognized and play perfectly :)

and .chd should/will work fine for Sega CD as well :)

[simpleethat]

lr-genesis-plus-gx does support CHD files but does not support multi-disc games. lr-picodrive supports multi-disc games but does not support CHD files. You can read the details about that here.

IIRC with PSX emulation and m3u games: If you are going to keep the games as multi-part bin/cue files you have to convert the bin files to a single bin + cue. EDIT: While I'm not all that crazy about compressing files with how inexpensive storage media is these days tons of multi-part bin files make your directories look awful and it is a lot easier to batch convert to CHD than to convert multi-bin to single bin.

Do the Dreamcast emulators support m3u (if you edit your es_systems.cfg as needed)

[ReadyPlayaWon]

@simpleethat said in Best formats to get Sega CD / PSX multi-disc ROMS to show as one game?:

While I'm not all that crazy about compressing files with how inexpensive storage media

I have a number of systems on my 128GB Mirco SD Card (which i prefer to use instead of External Hard Drives) my small collection of Dreamcast games totals 30 Games at the moment.

I have compressed all of them to .chd and they take up about 11GB of space.

If i left them as there original .gdi uncompressed format they would take up about 300GB of space.

Where i live, a 512GB Mirco SD Card costs $184 .... so for me, compression is an inexpensive solution to an expensive alternative.

[simpleethat]

@ReadyPlayaWon I get what you're saying. Especially when you break the 256gb size MicroSD cards get absurdly expensive. I prefer to use external drives for roms, configs, and BIOS files. Upgrades are easier that way. Thumb drives/ external hdds are comparatively cheap compared to MicroSD. Where I am I can get a 2TB external for $70-80.

In the end it's just a matter of different strokes for different folks. I happen to enjoy the excessive number of hard-drives that I own (17 by a quick count, but they're for a lot of different things beyond my retropie habit).

[UberLumby]

@sad_muso said in Best formats to get Sega CD / PSX multi-disc ROMS to show as one game?:

I believe there's a way to get multi-disc ROMS to display at one single game for these systems. I'm currently using .bin and .cue for Sega CD and the same for PSX (although some are .pbp).

What's the 'best' format for each system, and how can I tidy them up to display as one game? If so, how do you switch discs?

I have already hunted around for the solution but am finding it tricky to implement!

Specs in signature

I do something I think might be out of the ordinary but I'm not sure if it's common.
I get the .bin .cue files... covert them to .chd files... then I place those files in a folder called .discs inside the psx rom directory. I create the .m3u file and type
.discs/"FILENAMEDISC1".CHD
.discs/"FILENAMEDISC2".CHD

I call the folder "period".discs because the period makes the folder hidden on emulation station.

[windg]

I haven't use .chd files yet. Are a game with .chd format require more processing resources to run, than bin/cue format?