Funky Last Alert issue (and hello)

[bozo55]

Hello to everyone here at the PCEngineFX forums.

The Turbo has always been that elusive system throughout my childhood.  Only one of my friends had one, and we would rent games for it and it was awesome.  But I never got to own one myself as I couldn't afford it.

Flash forward about 25 years, and I finally have not one, but two Turbo systems.  A coworker sold me his TG-16 that was in storage for many years.  He didn't care about the current market value and was kind enough to let go of it for a great price.  I got the complete console, box, and 4 games with their manuals and jewel cases all in great shape for sixty bucks (Keith, Devil's and Alien Crush, and Ninja Spirit).  I was ecstatic.

But I was still longing for the CD attachment.  After watching the GameSack console modding episode, I was inspired to try fixing a Duo myself. So I bought a bare PCE Duo on ebay for a great price (130 shipped).  I recapped it myself, and I bought a beaten up PCE Multitap and painted it black to match the consoles.  I built 2 controller adapter cables so that I could use the Tap on the TG-16 and use the TG-16 Pad on the Duo.  I even grabbed an Arcade Card Duo to play Sapphire, and an Avenue Pad 3.  At first I was using a Genesis AC with tip adapter but upgraded to a Retrogamecave adapter and it's been great. 

Recapping the system was an adventure, but it turned out great.  I used the Console5 kit as I don't have experience selecting caps myself. I tried to go the extra mile by scraping off any corrosion on the traces (5 of the caps did their thing) and then recoating the traces with green PCB paint.

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Due to my limited funds and the collectiblity of the games, I've had to resort to playing CDRs of the games (I know, it sucks, please don't hate) and for the most part they work great.  I've used the best quality discs I could get (JVC Taiyo Yuden).

The system works great with several discs I've thrown at it, except for one game that has a funny issue... Last Alert.

This game is known for its hilarious one-liners before each boss battle.  The dialogue is handled by redbook audio and plays fine, except that it cuts off 2 seconds early every time, except for the movie scenes and the first boss battle.  All the other dialogue ends abruptly, and ruins the enjoyment for me.  It always cuts off at exactly the same time so I doubted that the CD drive was having a tracking issue. 

I tried my copy of the game on Ootake and it works fine, the entire dialogue is played.  Oddly enough, playing the disc's audio back in Windows Media Player has it end abruptly the same way but VLC media player plays it fine...  I tried recording the disc TAO but it only works if recorded DAO.

I was wondering if anyone could shed some light on this.  Would this be a pot adjustment or a bad disc?  The drive works great on everything else.  (Well it takes a bit of a pause to load the Bonk intro for 4-in-1 but otherwise everything else is great).

P.S. I re-greased the drive rails and gears with high quality silicone lubricant that is 100% plastic safe.

Thanks for reading this and for any advice everyone   Sorry for the long post.

[NecroPhile]

Welcome aboard!

Nice job on saving a Duo from the dust bin.  I'm not a technical person, but my guess would be that you have a bad rip.

[PCEngineHell]

Yeah sounds more like a bad copy then anything. On the off chance you can check to make sure the laser is calibrated right. Make sure you don't hear any "whine" sounds from it as it reads. You can also use a normal music cd that has around 80 mins worth of audio on it. I use the Return of the Jedi 2 disc set for this purpose. You can load up the disc in the music player and hold fast forward from beginning to end of the disc. If the disc starts skipping a lot during the fast forward then you will know it's not tuned right. You should maybe only get a minimum of 1-2 skips during fast forward, if any at all, for a laser that is well tuned.


As for the game, try hunting a different copy down. Also, like NecroPhile said, gj saving the Duo. The Duo needs love too.

[bozo55]

Welcome aboard!

Nice job on saving a Duo from the dust bin.  I'm not a technical person, but my guess would be that you have a bad rip.

Thanks! I really like Last Alert so I might post on the trading section to see if anyone has a copy to sell...  The eBay scalper prices on that game are insane.

Yeah sounds more like a bad copy then anything. On the off chance you can check to make sure the laser is calibrated right. Make sure you don't hear any "whine" sounds from it as it reads. You can also use a normal music cd that has around 80 mins worth of audio on it. I use the Return of the Jedi 2 disc set for this purpose. You can load up the disc in the music player and hold fast forward from beginning to end of the disc. If the disc starts skipping a lot during the fast forward then you will know it's not tuned right. You should maybe only get a minimum of 1-2 skips during fast forward, if any at all, for a laser that is well tuned.

As for the game, try hunting a different copy down. Also, like NecroPhile said, gj saving the Duo. The Duo needs love too.

I do hear a little chirp when the drive initializes at the start screen, and there is a motor whine noise when the sled moves.  I thought that would be normal though?

Also, there is no audio while fast forwarding in the audio player.  It does fast forward fine though.  Am I missing something here?

Thanks again.

[PCEngineHell]

/BIOS TurboGrafx CD Super System Card USA v3.0-001.png


If you actually take the lid off of the Duo and just use the lids disc clamp to hold a music cd in place on the spindle and let it play, you can view things in motion and see how the drive has to adjust during playback. During this you will notice the disc will not appear perfectly flat during rotation, but instead appear to be warped some.

When fast forwarding like in the pic above, if the laser is not tuned right eventually it will start skipping around as you hold the button down. You will know when it happens because it will either jump forward or back time wise. You literally have to hold the button down during the entire cd and let it run through to the end. I used the rubber band trick to make that easier to do.

Basically do that a couple times, then just let the cd play normally all the way through a couple times also. It's a lot of busy work, and you have to stay close by and observe what is going on. But if you're doing a 80min audio cd it will put the laser through its paces, since it has to change focus as it reaches near the end to adjust for disc wobble/warping during disc rotation.

Its about pointless to use anything less then a 74-80min audio cd though, so you need to be picky about what you use because you need the laser to go as far down as possible during playback, and wobble/warping happens more near the end of the disc then it does the center during rotation.

As far as laser whine, you'd hear it from the laser itself, not the motor. It would be during normal audio/music playback. If you were experienced in tuning lasers, you'd know what to listen for. It has a distinct sound when the whine occurs.


EDIT: I should note its kind of hard to find 80 min audio cds, but there are some out there. I can tell you though that the Special Edition Star Wars Trilogy Return of the Jedi 2 disc set features two disc that both hit the 74 min mark. I would say you could just burn off a 80min music cd, but I wouldn't recommend using cd-r's to do this calibration though since people here have complained prior of the laser sliding to the end of the sled and locking up the gears on Duo systems during cd-r playback.

[bozo55]

If you actually take the lid off of the Duo and just use the lids disc clamp to hold a music cd in place on the spindle and let it play, you can view things in motion and see how the drive has to adjust during playback. During this you will notice the disc will not appear perfectly flat during rotation, but instead appear to be warped some.

When fast forwarding like in the pic above, if the laser is not tuned right eventually it will start skipping around as you hold the button down. You will know when it happens because it will either jump forward or back time wise. You literally have to hold the button down during the entire cd and let it run through to the end. I used the rubber band trick to make that easier to do.

Basically do that a couple times, then just let the cd play normally all the way through a couple times also. It's a lot of busy work, and you have to stay close by and observe what is going on. But if you're doing a 80min audio cd it will put the laser through its paces, since it has to change focus as it reaches near the end to adjust for disc wobble/warping during disc rotation.

Its about pointless to use anything less then a 74-80min audio cd though, so you need to be picky about what you use because you need the laser to go as far down as possible during playback, and wobble/warping happens more near the end of the disc then it does the center during rotation.

As far as laser whine, you'd hear it from the laser itself, not the motor. It would be during normal audio/music playback. If you were experienced in tuning lasers, you'd know what to listen for. It has a distinct sound when the whine occurs.


EDIT: I should note its kind of hard to find 80 min audio cds, but there are some out there. I can tell you though that the Special Edition Star Wars Trilogy Return of the Jedi 2 disc set features two disc that both hit the 74 min mark. I would say you could just burn off a 80min music cd, but I wouldn't recommend using cd-r's to do this calibration though since people here have complained prior of the laser sliding to the end of the sled and locking up the gears on Duo systems during cd-r playback.

Thanks for the explanation.  I do have a pressed music CD that's just shy of 76 mins total.  I went to the last track and it fast forwarded smoothly time-wise, as well as other random areas of the disc I tested.  I suppose the drive is not too bad calibration-wise and I should get myself another copy of Last Alert.

But I will have to try this test properly at some point especially if a real copy gives the same problems.