Written by Ali, References Taken from Pete's Documents

Version 1.0

Well I won't be starting the review, like this plugin is the best and stuff like that, because you are here to know how to configure this plugin. But one truth that we cannot neglect is that this plugin is actually one of the best, well there i go again. Let start the review with the image of the main configuration window.

1) Interface:
Through these options you will have to select your CD rom Interface. Windows 9x/ME would require you to select Aspi Interface, but if you are using Windows 2000 or XP then you can select ASPI (if Installed), IOCTL scsi commands and IOCTL raw reading mode. If you system doesn't support any one of these then the drive options will not show any drive for selection.

2) Drive Selection:
If you have more then one CD/DVD rom installed on your computer then you can make the selection of your desired device from here.

3) Read Mode:
Pete's CDr plugins has a huge compatibility with the CD rom drives, and that is because is supports seven reading modes. You will have to select the reading mode that your drive supports. There is an auto detect button, which will select the reading mode by itself, saving us all the trouble. But there can be a case where this feature would fail, in this case you will have to select the the mode manually and while selecting the modes your PC can also hang, and you will have to reboot your PC. Check all modes one by one and you will get the one you want. Here is a little hint to help you if the auto detect feature fail.The most common mode for ATAPI Drives is"BE_2" s and "28_1" for SCSI Drives .

4) Caching Mode:
These modes would allow you to increase the speed of data extraction from your CD rom There are a total of three modes,

• None: This mode will make no attempt to increase the speed. This mode is for those CD drives which do not support read ahead mode.
• Read Ahead: This mode will make the CD rom to read more sectors, which would increase the speed of data extraction from the CD rom There would be speed in Mdecs and if you are getting choppy XA audio then this mode might come in handy.
• .Async: Just like the previous mode, it read more sectors at once. This mode would give some more extra frames on Mdecs and better XA audio.

5) Speed Limitation:
Speed limitation is a very nice feature of this plugin, not found in any other. Speed limitation can result in nicer Mdecs and XA audio, but it is not supported by all CD roms. If your CD rom does not support speed limitation then you would get an error message on startup.

6) Don't wait till drive is ready:
By Default the plugin would ask the CD rom drive if the Disc is inserted and start reading the data. Some drives will not respond to this request of the plugin and the screen would turn black. In such a case enable this option, but there can be a error (BSOD) if the plugin starts reading and your drive has a problem

7) Error Handling
Very useful option for scratched CDs. Sometimes your CD rom would not be able to read a certain sector of you CD due to scratches or some other reason. The plugin can do re-reading of that sector. You can set the no of times you want the CD rom to make the retries. If you want the plugin to display error when there is a problem reading a certain sector then enable show message box on reading error. (can get very annoying)

8) PPF Patches:
Some games would require this patch to work, because of the game copy protection, if you have a PPF patch available, select that patch and enable use PPF patch file, but remember to disable it when running some other game. PPF patches are not provided over here (in this website! sorry for that)

9) Sub channel Reading:
Here is a very brief explanation of what these are. In compact Discs besides the actual or real data, there is some extra information stored about each sector. Mostly it is in the Audio CDs. Now we come to the data discs, well the software companies would always try to eliminate software piracy, there fore they use the sub channels to store copyright information, so that illegal copies of the disc are not made. This creates problems for the emulator when trying to boot game with such copyright protection information being stored there. The plugin would make an attempt to explore it and get these protected games to run. For this you have a sub channel reading modes.

• Don't Read: This would not make any attempt to read the sub channels
• Read Sub channels: This mode is not recommended as it can slow the CD rom access, but you can use it if you are having troubles with a game.
• Recommended Mode: Self explanatory mode? hehe

you would be wondering, what another window, well this would open up when you click on the Create SBI/M3S .

What this window would do is that it would create the file of sub channel information on your hard disk, and when you are running a game which requires the sub channel information then it would read that data from the hard disk (stored file), rather then the CD rom This makes the access to the hard disk quite fast.

How can you create sub channel files? all you have to do is to select the mode, what mode? You can either create sub channel file either directly from our CD rom or through the CD rom image created using clone CD. If you CD rom doesn't support sub channel reading then use clone CD to create image and then make the sub channel Information file. There are two file type SBI and M3S, M3S is usually recommended as it is sufficient enough to cover your game copyright protection problems.

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