46 replies to this topic

[t.skid]

I've just ended to play with BattleMorph, and.... it's marvellous!

Really, I can't believe BM could be so... great. Good graphic, excellent gameplay, and fun fun fun! I enjoy Cybermorph, and before play with BM I expect an 'updated' version, but not a game like this

I've only find a trouble: during the second level, CD stop spin and Jag write "too many errors, try to clean your cd". Cleaned it (but game was new, still shrinkwrapped) and game followed. I'm scared thinking about a problem of the cd-player. Tomorrow I will try the other games to see if all is ok.

[Gunstar]

Have you cleaned your cd player? If not, get a cd cleaning kit.

Battlemorph does rock! It only gets better too! it will suprise you again and again as you get further along in the game, tons of worlds! Wait until you start searching through the underground levels, some are HUGE and have fantastic texture mapping throughout!

[Thunderbird]

Gunstar said:

Have you cleaned your cd player? If not, get a cd cleaning kit.

Battlemorph does rock! It only gets better too! it will suprise you again and again as you get further along in the game, tons of worlds! Wait until you start searching through the underground levels, some are HUGE and have fantastic texture mapping throughout!

This is a problem with a certain planet on ALL the CD's they made. If you keep trying it will read successfully if you're lucky. Some people have CD drives that cannot get past this error. I don't know if it's a defect in the glass master or what. It is supposed to be present in every one.

You are right, BattleMorph is an awesome game!

[Sauron]

Yes, Battlemorph is easily one of the best games in the Jag's library. It's a shame that by the time it came out, no one really cared. This game alone is one of the reasons why I NEED A WORKING JAGCD!!!!!!

[Tyrant]

I havnt played battlemorph as much as cybermorph, and havnt got very far in it yet, but I actually prefer the smooth gaurad shading of cybermorph. Perhaps cybermorph was a compromise on the designers vision of the look of the worlds, but I thought it was wonderful, and unlike any other game, battlemorph, while adding loads of great stuff, Im not sure I like all the texture mapping. Also, a silly thing really, but I hate the artifacts in the video sequences, they really detract from it for me. Since there really are only a few video sequences that are used at the begining and end of every mission, you'd have thought they could have cleaned them up better, even if it ment hard coding a little bit of code to fill black rectangles over the artifacts to make space look black and not have grey blocks in it.

[Thunderbird]

Tyrant said:

I havnt played battlemorph as much as cybermorph, and havnt got very far in it yet, but I actually prefer the smooth gaurad shading of cybermorph. Perhaps cybermorph was a compromise on the designers vision of the look of the worlds, but I thought it was wonderful, and unlike any other game, battlemorph, while adding loads of great stuff, Im not sure I like all the texture mapping. Also, a silly thing really, but I hate the artifacts in the video sequences, they really detract from it for me. Since there really are only a few video sequences that are used at the begining and end of every mission, you'd have thought they could have cleaned them up better, even if it ment hard coding a little bit of code to fill black rectangles over the artifacts to make space look black and not have grey blocks in it.

Use an S-Video cable or RGB cable and adjust the brightness and contrast of yout TV properly, and the artifacts will magically disappear. This holds true for any digital video. The Jag's DV was amongst the best of that era, so BM's should not be as bad as you say.

The other totally cool thing about BattleMorph is the underwater sequences and the way they encoded the audio tracks so that the switch was seamless.

Of course the music is very cool too!

[t.skid]

Thunderbird said:

Gunstar said:

Have you cleaned your cd player? If not, get a cd cleaning kit.

Battlemorph does rock! It only gets better too! it will suprise you again and again as you get further along in the game, tons of worlds! Wait until you start searching through the underground levels, some are HUGE and have fantastic texture mapping throughout!

This is a problem with a certain planet on ALL the CD's they made. If you keep trying it will read successfully if you're lucky. Some people have CD drives that cannot get past this error. I don't know if it's a defect in the glass master or what. It is supposed to be present in every one.

You are right, BattleMorph is an awesome game!

Thanks T-Bird, I was a little bit nervous about it

And now, I need a memory track....

[Thunderbird]

You mean you're playing CD games and you don't have a Memory Track? Arrrgh! Go get one fast!!!!

How did you meat Cybermorph without saves, anyhow???

[LinkoVitch]

Thunderbird said:

This is a problem with a certain planet on ALL the CD's they made. If you keep trying it will read successfully if you're lucky. Some people have CD drives that cannot get past this error. I don't know if it's a defect in the glass master or what. It is supposed to be present in every one.

Would copying the CD onto a regualr blank help with this problem? as you could get your CD Copier to correct the error (theoretically) or at least read it and write out the data properly making it easy for the CD Unit to read?

Just a thought

[Thunderbird]

LinkoVitch said:

Thunderbird said:

This is a problem with a certain planet on ALL the CD's they made. If you keep trying it will read successfully if you're lucky. Some people have CD drives that cannot get past this error. I don't know if it's a defect in the glass master or what. It is supposed to be present in every one.

Would copying the CD onto a regualr blank help with this problem? as you could get your CD Copier to correct the error (theoretically) or at least read it and write out the data properly making it easy for the CD Unit to read?

Just a thought

Copying the CD onto a regular blank would not only potentially make the problem worse, but it would also be a violation of the software licensing agreement.

[LinkoVitch]

Thunderbird said:

LinkoVitch said:

Thunderbird said:

This is a problem with a certain planet on ALL the CD's they made. If you keep trying it will read successfully if you're lucky. Some people have CD drives that cannot get past this error. I don't know if it's a defect in the glass master or what. It is supposed to be present in every one.

Would copying the CD onto a regualr blank help with this problem? as you could get your CD Copier to correct the error (theoretically) or at least read it and write out the data properly making it easy for the CD Unit to read?

Just a thought

Copying the CD onto a regular blank would not only potentially make the problem worse, but it would also be a violation of the software licensing agreement.

You are allowed by law to make backup copies of software you own (suppose it is different in diff countries). But if you have no intention of distributing the copy it's not an issue.

As for making it worse I don't see how. The CD Reader would be able to spend a few minutes ensuring it read the track correctly, and then write out a perfect copy (assuming the Jag CD can read blanks, which I believe it can).

So then when you come to play the game and get to that section the disc would now be readable by the JagCD, and there would be no problem.

I have used this technique to resolve problems with damaged CD's in past. Could be worth a go, it's only going to waste an 18p disc (And you can keep your original stored safely and therefore less likley to get scratched)

[ZylonBane]

The silver lining in the BattleMorph CD problem is that it prematurely pressured Atari to release the level skip codes.

[Thunderbird]

LinkoVitch said:

Thunderbird said:

LinkoVitch said:

Thunderbird said:

This is a problem with a certain planet on ALL the CD's they made. If you keep trying it will read successfully if you're lucky. Some people have CD drives that cannot get past this error. I don't know if it's a defect in the glass master or what. It is supposed to be present in every one.

Would copying the CD onto a regualr blank help with this problem? as you could get your CD Copier to correct the error (theoretically) or at least read it and write out the data properly making it easy for the CD Unit to read?

Just a thought

Copying the CD onto a regular blank would not only potentially make the problem worse, but it would also be a violation of the software licensing agreement.

You are allowed by law to make backup copies of software you own (suppose it is different in diff countries). But if you have no intention of distributing the copy it's not an issue.

As for making it worse I don't see how. The CD Reader would be able to spend a few minutes ensuring it read the track correctly, and then write out a perfect copy (assuming the Jag CD can read blanks, which I believe it can).

So then when you come to play the game and get to that section the disc would now be readable by the JagCD, and there would be no problem.

I have used this technique to resolve problems with damaged CD's in past. Could be worth a go, it's only going to waste an 18p disc (And you can keep your original stored safely and therefore less likley to get scratched)

You are allowed by law to do ONLY what you agree to in the terms of a license agreement. If a software license agreement prohibits you from making copies for ANY reason, then you cannot legally copy it.

If your law states you can make backups of software, the license agreement still is in effect. It supercedes the quaint local laws.

As for making things worse, your CD copier will read the bad data on the CD a few times and then faithfully reproduce whatever random garbage it happened to read onto your brande new CD. When the Jag reads the perfect copy of bogus data it will never work and Poof! You cannot ever read the CD.

[LinkoVitch]

Thunderbird said:

If your law states you can make backups of software, the license agreement still is in effect. It supercedes the quaint local laws.  

I don't think this is the case, if a license agreement says something that is contradictory to law in the region it is being applied I am sure the law of the land overrules it. This stuff is pretty similar but I am sure no-body minds you making legitimate backups, especially to fix flaws that should not be present, and means they are distributing faulty goods (which I think is illegal).

Thunderbird said:

As for making things worse, your CD copier will read the bad data on the CD a few times and then faithfully reproduce whatever random garbage it happened to read onto your brande new CD. When the Jag reads the perfect copy of bogus data it will never work and Poof! You cannot ever read the CD.

But you did say that some drives will retry a few times and then get it and continue. If this is the case the valid data must be there but take several attempts to read. So by copying it, you offload this rereading delay to a one time only operation of the CD Reader, which once it gets the correct data proceeds also. Then when the new disc is written the correct data is written.

Obvioulsy turning on "Ignore all read errors" would cause problems, but if the Jag can finaly get past it, it is either not required data, or readable (eventually).

[Thunderbird]

Because the Jag's CD software is stored in audio format and NOT data format, the error correction is not very good. They get to say 790MB of data because they use audio format and leave out the redundant bits that make data CD's have less capacity.

Since the files are audio and not digital, Atari made the game companies do things like add checksums to their code read from a CD. The CD drive reads the bogus BattleMorph track and the CD unit reports a successful read. The JAG then computes the checksum and it gives a failure indication and then you get the "clean disk" screen.

Because a CD copier sees the Jag CD as a audio disk, it has no concept of the checksums encoded in the data and merely reads the data off the disk much in the same way the CD drive does. The copier reads until it gets a successful read from the drive (same as the read the CD gives) and because it doesn't know the data actually read WRONG because the checksum code is only run in the jag, the copier will WRITE out a perfect copy of the bad data.

Now, every time you run it on the Jag, the cleanly written data ALWAYS fails the checksum.

[t.skid]

Thunderbird said:

You mean you're playing CD games and you don't have a Memory Track? Arrrgh! Go get one fast!!!!

How did you meat Cybermorph without saves, anyhow???

I'm discovering it right now... I must get one Memory track!

[Paolo]

Curious!
I had the "clean disk" problem only two times, and this was at the very first days of playing.
Recently I didn't have that problem anymore.
Funny,Jag CDs are like the wine, the older they get, the better they are:-)

TSkid, it happened to my second level, just like you, but I already had a memory track and I didn't really worried (gameplay-wise, at least)!

[t.skid]

Paolo said:

Curious!
I had the "clean disk" problem only two times, and this was at the very first days of playing.
Recently I didn't have that problem anymore.
Funny,Jag CDs are like the wine, the older they get, the better they are:-)

TSkid, it happened to my second level, just like you, but I already had a memory track and I didn't really worried (gameplay-wise, at least)!

Yep, but you have to think that:

After years, I finally put my hands on the JagCD.... then I had to wait some days for the games... So, I must play with it, even if without memory track

[Clint Thompson]

Battlemorph is probably my favorite JagCD game!
The music is awesome and it gives you a weird felling (especially on level 2 or 3 I think? Where the main boss is a bee or something along those lines)

Great stuff, and it all looks nice too!

You got Blue Lightning?

Clint Thompson

[Guyôme]

I remember not having a lot of fun on Cybermorph, but for sure when started Battlemorph I couldn't stop playing at it.

The game is lot funnier than Cybermoprh, you got really missions, and some times they quite hard.

THe FMV are just gorgeous, and the sound quite good(could be better), the possibility to underground, or underwater, si a grea idea.

It is ont fun like Starfox, but it is fun somehow else, like Iron soldier, Ih you like Iron soldier you'll like Battlemorph.

MY only regret is Sklyvar voice, she do not say "Where did you learn to fly !" anymore.

For me it is the best 3D space shooter on Jaguar.

If you don't have it you're not a jaguarist

[Guyôme]

I remember not having a lot of fun on Cybermorph, but for sure when started Battlemorph I couldn't stop playing at it.

The game is lot funnier than Cybermoprh, you got really missions, and some times they quite hard.

THe FMV are just gorgeous, and the sound quite good(could be better), the possibility to underground, or underwater, si a grea idea.

It is ont fun like Starfox, but it is fun somehow else, like Iron soldier, Ih you like Iron soldier you'll like Battlemorph.

MY only regret is Sklyvar voice, she do not say "Where did you learn to fly !" anymore.

For me it is the best 3D space shooter on Jaguar.

If you don't have it you're not a jaguarist

[Tyrant]

Thanks for reminding me of something else I dont like about Battlemorph hehe, the weak spot on the boss's (if there is one) isnt easy to see, I've spent an age shooting at that bee, being blown up by its missiles, then deliberatly ramming it over and over to try and kill it. I think I managed a couple of times but normally nothing seems to hurt it.

The music is cool and the underwater bits are really great. Im not sure about turning down the contrast/brightness to kill the artifects, but the texture mapping I think will look bad at any settings, since it's so large and pixelated in places, and just looks... not like the smoothness of cybermorph. Also I cant say Im a big fan of the loading weapons screen.

Then again, Battlemorph is a totally uber game, just I think I prefer cybermorph hehe, had a nicer feel somehow.

[Thunderbird]

Tyrant said:

Thanks for reminding me of something else I dont like about Battlemorph hehe, the weak spot on the boss's (if there is one) isnt easy to see, I've spent an age shooting at that bee, being blown up by its missiles, then deliberatly ramming it over and over to try and kill it. I think I managed a couple of times but normally nothing seems to hurt it.

The music is cool and the underwater bits are really great. Im not sure about turning down the contrast/brightness to kill the artifects, but the texture mapping I think will look bad at any settings, since it's so large and pixelated in places, and just looks... not like the smoothness of cybermorph. Also I cant say Im a big fan of the loading weapons screen.

Then again, Battlemorph is a totally uber game, just I think I prefer cybermorph hehe, had a nicer feel somehow.

I really really enjoy the transition from air to water in the game. The water sound and the way the whole audio changes when you drop below the surface is extremely well done.

[Guyôme]

in the water the look of all what is around you is great, got idea.

the load weapon screen is pretty ... well nothing exceptionnal.

The first hehe, ... I've lost about three before understanding what you have to do just .... shall I say it ?

THe textures, are quite average, yes, but I wasn't disturbed by them.
Is that so isturbing the texture ?
In cybermorph, the animation of the ennemis is average, and i Battlemorph, not perfect i agree, but quite good, the pulpe are moving with morphiong, etc, etc,

[Guyôme]

in the water the look of all what is around you is great, got idea.

the load weapon screen is pretty ... well nothing exceptionnal.

The first hehe, ... I've lost about three before understanding what you have to do just .... shall I say it ?

THe textures, are quite average, yes, but I wasn't disturbed by them.
Is that so isturbing the texture ?
In cybermorph, the animation of the ennemis is average, and i Battlemorph, not perfect i agree, but quite good, the pulpe are moving with morphiong, etc, etc,