CD or ISO?

[chilitsagame]

which runs faster, using the actual CD or ripping it into an ISO file? Does one have better quality (im thinking no) or is it different with each game?

[chaves]

"ISO Image" for sure!
Rotate the CD is very slow!
Regardless of the game!

[Dadaluma83]

ISO for sure. Playing from the CD you get big drops in framerates during loading scenes and it is pretty annoying. Playing from ISO there is no frame rate drop in loading scenes. If you have plenty of space on your hard drive I would suggest ripping all your PS2 games to an ISO, or the ones that are at least halfway decent playable with PCSX2 at least.

[antonioh]

how do you make an iso

[Urisma]

Making an iso is easy. heres a quick tutorial
1. download Magic Iso
2. Install
3. Insert your game into your DVD drive
4. click tools > make ISO from CD/DVD-ROM
5. Under output file, name your ISO
5. Under output format, click Standard ISO image[.iso]
6. Click OK, and then wait until its done.
7. locate your ISO and play!

[andyqkw]

ISO for sure

[CardsOfTheHeart]

*echoes the sentiments everyone else has made about ISOs vs CDs

I hate MagicISO. AFAIK, MagicISO can't rip both layers of a dual-layer disc. It's not usually a problem, but it's annoying to start a New Game in Xenosaga Episode 1 and end up in a black screen with a radar wondering what the heck you did wrong.

I would suggest something else like DVDFab Decrypter. I've never actually used it, but I don't see it giving you any problems. It's apparently very popular.

[Dadaluma83]

My favorite is Alcohol 52%. When making an iso there you can even select the data type as a playstation 2 disk. It has worked great so far for me.

[zero29]

*echoes the sentiments everyone else has made about ISOs vs CDs

I hate MagicISO. AFAIK, MagicISO can't rip both layers of a dual-layer disc. It's not usually a problem, but it's annoying to start a New Game in Xenosaga Episode 1 and end up in a black screen with a radar wondering what the heck you did wrong.

I would suggest something else like DVDFab Decrypter. I've never actually used it, but I don't see it giving you any problems. It's apparently very popular.

the freeware aspect helps alot with popularity

redump.org's got a guide to create "good dumps" of ps2 games (to use the goodtools jargon). they use isobuster: http://redump.org/guide/ps2dumping/
but alcohol52/120% works fine for me, too.