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Hi,
Why oh why did blizzard force us to play with the CD in the tray?
I get spin-ups on regular intervals, and with a DVD+R drive, those
spinups can take anything from 7-8 seconds and up to 15 seconds.
That is just letal.
Is there a way to play without the friggin spinup?
(and yes I did buy the game. When I choose "full install" I expect
it to install all the files it needs and not go look at the CD all the time)
(I was obviously too dumb to use that search feature, but at least
I tried :rolleyes: )
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Look for any *.mpq files that are on the disk, but not in the diabloii directory. Then copy them to the diabloii directory. These should be sound or music types of MPQ files.
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03-18-2003, 12:05 AM
(This post was last modified: 03-18-2003, 12:05 AM by WarBlade.)
If you are playing Diablo II: Copy the file Music.mpq from the CD into your Diablo II installation directory.
If you are playing Diablo II: Lord of Destruction: Copy the file D2xmusic.mpq into your Diablo II installation directory.
You will still need to start the game with the CD in the tray, but it will only spin up at a start and maybe for the cinematics. The game will be otherwise CD spin-free. ;)
Heed the Song of Battle and Unsheath the Blades of War
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To play without a CD on a Mac:
1- With either Mac OS 9 or Mac OS X:
a- Do a full install. Then visually inspect the Diablo II Files folder on the CD and compare it to the Diablo II Files folder on your hard drive. Even with the full install, a few files will not be on your hard drive. Copy over the missing files. (Sorry, I don't recall which ones they are. I did this a long time ago.) Then install whatever updates you need, most likely by just connecting to Battle.net and letting it do its thing automatically. (For Mac OS X, you will need to manually download and install the OS X patch.)
b- Ready to play? Put the CD in the drive. Launch the game, get through the splash screen. Hit <command-M> to go into window mode. Eject the CD. Hit <command-M> to go back to full-screen mode and enjoy CD-less play.
2- With Mac OS X only:
a- Do a full install. Then visually inspect the Diablo II Files folder on the CD and compare it to the Diablo II Files folder on your hard drive. Even with the full install, a few files will not be on your hard drive. Copy over the missing files. (Sorry, I don't recall which ones they are. I did this a long time ago.) Then install whatever updates you need, most likely by just connecting to Battle.net and letting it do its thing automatically. You will need to manually download and install the OS X patch.
b- Create a disk image of the CD using Disk Copy. Keep the disk image file somewhere handy. Put your CD somewhere safe, write down the CD-Key and put that somewhere else that's also safe; because you'll never need your physical CD again.
c- Ready to play? Mount the disk image. Launch the game and enjoy CD-less play. (You can eject the disk image at this point if you want to, but there's no need unless you are very, very tight on RAM.)
You can't use a disk image file as in <option 2> with Mac OS 9.
3- Finally, if you don't want to bother with all that but want to avoid spinup delays, and you're playing under Mac OS 9: On most Mac OS 9 install CDs there is a system extension (located in the Extensions folder which is inside the System Folder folder) called Insomnia which prevents the drive from spinning down. Copy this into your hard drive's system folder and the CD won't spin down. IMPORTANT: While convenient, it is not the best thing to do for the health of your CD or your CD drive.
John H
D2Player69@aol.com
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When in mortal danger,
When beset by doubt,
Run in little circles,
Wave your arms and shout.
BattleTag: Schrau#2386
Yes I also use, www.daemon-tools.com's program to run my game but to mount the image(the CD you want to play on the "faKe" drive) you'll need the Clone CD program.
I'm not sure where to get it but it allows you to make an image of the CD then mount to image on one of the 4-5 "fake" dvd drives daemon-tools allows.
Please Correct me if im wrong...
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Look for DDump on the Daemon site. That'll rip an ISO for ya in a quick, painless manner*.
*By quick and painless I mean a command line interface which has equal chance of being slow and painful...
When in mortal danger,
When beset by doubt,
Run in little circles,
Wave your arms and shout.
BattleTag: Schrau#2386
Posts: 32
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Joined: Feb 2003
I tried using the daemon-tools method two or three times, but couldn't get it to work. I finally tried and am very happy with something called Diablo II Loader. It's a small application that essentially fools the system into thinking the disc is in by providing the minimal information it needs at startup, and once you've copied the .mpq files into your D2X folder on your hard drive, you're good to go. You do not need the CD at all, you don't need to clone the CD, and you don't need to create an image. I had it installed and working in less than ten minutes, and my CD has stayed in its box ever since.
I'm not quite sure of Bolty's feelings regarding cracks (yes, it's a crack, not a hack), so for now I'll just mention that I have a copy of it on my website. It should be easy to find.
Orbert
Liza Bow 83, Polgara Tri-Sorc 82, Jane Jav 81, Kathryne Sassy 79, Bellina Xbow 78
Alfredo AxeBarb 81, Bob Pal 80, Zachary Necro 78, Merrick Werewolf 78
There are 10 types of people in the world: those who understand binary and those who don't.
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Thx guys!
I don't mind having the CD in the tray when starting the game, I have one CD more than
I have jewelcases, so one of them have to live in the tray anyway :)
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03-18-2003, 10:34 PM
(This post was last modified: 03-18-2003, 10:34 PM by Orbert.)
In that case, WarBlade's solution is the best. It'll just spin when the game first starts, but with the .mpq's on the hard drive, it won't need to go to the CD for them at all during gameplay.
Orbert
Edit: typo
Liza Bow 83, Polgara Tri-Sorc 82, Jane Jav 81, Kathryne Sassy 79, Bellina Xbow 78
Alfredo AxeBarb 81, Bob Pal 80, Zachary Necro 78, Merrick Werewolf 78
There are 10 types of people in the world: those who understand binary and those who don't.
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Copying D2xvideo.mpq (or "D2video.mpq" for classic players) will prevent CD spinning during the cutscenes too, although one would have to really want that minor improvement to such a small facet of the game considering the 100MB of drivespace needed for the file.
Heed the Song of Battle and Unsheath the Blades of War
Posts: 1,269
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Yes, but to today's big, modern hard drives a 100MB is but a mere drop in the ocean. Hell, I had a 2GB swap file running at one time, but then I wanted to play Baldur's Gate 2 :P
When in mortal danger,
When beset by doubt,
Run in little circles,
Wave your arms and shout.
BattleTag: Schrau#2386
Posts: 772
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Joined: Feb 2003
True, but some of us can't be bothered buying the extra headroom when it's not needed. I've only got 30GB or so myself and that's half gone already.
Heed the Song of Battle and Unsheath the Blades of War
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