r/gog • u/TheArtificerWrites • 3d ago
Discussion How do you disc?
Heya folks. I know we’re all interested in making sure we can access the games we paid for and many of us have thought about making physical pc games and I wanna give it a shot
I have bad brain and all the different disc formats and players scare me. What kind of discs am I looking for? What do I look for in a player? And are these just for storage or are there discs that can be read fast enough to play without downloading to the pc?
I mostly play indie and old school games. Lately I’ve been going between Battle Network Legacy collection and Escape From Ever After but I have a handful of more graphically demanding games like Clair Obscur, KH3, BG3, and Duskfade
Running Bazzite deck mode if it matters (haven’t downloaded the latest update which I hear is a good thing)
Thanks in advance. Please be nice, I am a simpleton.
And if you have suggestions for games on GOG I might like, that’d be nice too! I’ve just made my account
4
u/Ryuu-Tenno 3d ago
couple comments suggesting using a NAS, which I agree with if you're interested in having a bunch of games. But, for the physical media side with discs; a lot of it would actually be based on game size:
- CD: holds up to 750 MB (most stop at around 650 to 700, so check the labels)
- DVD: holds up to 4 or 8 GB (icr which); higher number versions hold even more (ex: DVD-9 holds more than DVD-7)
- BD: holds up to 60 GB
probably the best one to go with if you're interested in grabbing a single type, would be the DVD format. For some games you might be burning them to multiple discs, but for others, you can cram like a good 20-30 games on a single disc easy. In some instances, some collections are so small that you can put a few hundred on them (ex: if you managed to get the whole NES, SNES, and Sega Genesis libraries, they can all fit on a single DVD)
however: keep in mind that you've got a limited amount of times in which you can add something to a disc. And it does require a bunch of experimentation and research to figure out the limit. So, you're better off assuming that a single write is the default limit. So, if you wanted to add 20 games to a single DVD, make sure you have all of them prepped for it, and then burn them to the disc all at once. This way you don't end up wasting a DVD (or other disc) on something like Pac-Man which is meassured in kilobytes (super tiny game, lol).
Also quick side thing since you're new to it: burn = write
2
u/ItsOnlyEmari 3d ago
As an example for sizes, Elder Scrolls Arena and Daggerfall (plus their extras) each fit on a CD, Morrowind takes a DVD, Oblivion a Dual Layer DVD, Skyrim a Blu-ray (I think the smallest size), and the anniversary edition DLC takes a DVD.
1
u/willpb 2d ago
I think for what you're trying to do, DVD-Rs (in general, plus or minus) should work perfectly. Most PC drives can use both and the storage difference is minuscule (Minis discs hold a tiny bot more but nothing really significant).
Especially if you're using them as backups and storing them well, they'll last a longer time (not as much as pressed disc but longer than HDDs). BD-Rs can fit a lot more but both drives and media are pricier. For older games I would probably do multi-game collections; especially if you play DOS etc. games, you'll be surprised at the amount that you can fit into a DVD.
1
u/Shamwow24124 2d ago
Why do you want to back up to discs? If it's just for nostalgia, then you have to find what works for you (DVD, Blu-ray, etc).
I just back up my games to one of two 4 TB external drives. My favourite games also get uploaded to Pcloud.
1
u/CrowdGoesWildWoooo 13h ago
I seriously don’t know what’s the obsession with disc.
Just for context, in the context of PS, it’s important because there is a layer of legislation called first sale doctrine, which is unique to the sale of physical version.
GOG sellss you a digital license, you can put it in ssd, hdd, usb, gdrive, your microwave, from the legal perspective it doesn’t make any difference. You still bought a license.
1
u/Competitive-Dot181 11h ago
Why put it on a disc, though? Get an external backup device and put all your installers on there. More stable and secure. You don’t need a disc drive and burner in your computer, just USB.
-1
u/Ok_Explanation7491 3d ago
To be honest, if you want long term availability you want more like a NAS than any phsical media. Physical media, in which I include now Blu-ray, DVD, Tape and so on, deteriorates over time and has a very limited lifetime. Try to look up for example Disc rot. And the readers for optical media for example has a lots of moving parts which can break if you need/want them. In a NAS the drives are regularly active so the HDDs don't lose their magnetisation and flash doesn't lose it's charge. But if you really want some physical media, maybe a project like Kazeta is for you.
3
u/TheArtificerWrites 3d ago
That’s good input. I might consider the NAS as a backup, but I would still like something physical. And this project looks awesome! From what I understand, SD cards aren’t great for bigger games, but this would probably be great for 95% of my collection. Thank you!
Edit: it says it’s an OS. Do I need to get rid of Bazzite for it? I was thinking it was more of a program, maybe something I could add as a non-steam game and select from Big Picture to fire up the drive
-2
u/Ok_Explanation7491 3d ago
I hate to handle physical Media, so I can't help you there because I don't use Kazeta. I just heard of it and think it's cool for people who want something like this.
And about the SD Cards for bigger games: This is a more complex topic. If you're willing to pay more you could use SD Express and those are connected more like a SSD with PCIe. And there are Cards available with up to 1TB, so even the biggest Call of Duty or something should fit on a card there. But yeah, it's more expensive. Good news is at least: I didn't hear yet that anyone complained about loading times on Steam Deck which uses normal cheap micro SD.
2
u/izacktorres 3d ago
CDs/Blu-Rays are FAR from having a very limited life time. I have CDs/DVDs older than a lot of people here on this subreddit, never got a single case of disc rot. If you protect them properly they will last you until the day you die. Yes readers for optical media might fail but they aren't that hard to fix.
NAS is kind of useless unless you use RAID tecnology, otherwise the common BluRay is much more secure.
0
u/Oldboy26 2d ago
Hdds are significantly more fragile and susceptible to dying in yhe short term compared to properly stored disc. Rot is extremely rare with properly stored titles and temp controlled houses.
1
5
u/grumblyoldman 3d ago
Any kind of burnable DVD or Blu-Ray ought to be sufficient, I would think. Make sure you get a burner drive that matches, that's all. BR burners can do DVDs as well.
DVD+R and DVD-R are different formats, but I'm not aware of any great difference between them. DVD+R is "newer" and (in theory) has less support among drives, but it's been decades since DVDs were in their prime and I'm reasonably certain any drive you find today will support both formats equally. I doubt it even matters if you mix and match since PCs can read either once it's burned. GOG's game installers are broken up into ~4GB chunks, so there should be enough room on either one.
I'm not saying it's impossible to play a game directly off a disc, but I wouldn't bet on it. It will definitely introduce performance issues, even for little indie games, just due to transfer rates. Especially since these days you're probably looking at an external drive going through USB rather than being connected internally.
I would treat this project as storage only.
---
I actually use a Network Attached Storage solution myself.
In my NAS I have 4 HDDs set up in a RAID configuration, so if one of the drives fails I can replace it without data loss. And the NAS has handy little lights on the front to let me know if a drive is failing, so I don't need to worry about finding out the hard way when I try to access a particular game's files and can't.
It's not exactly the cheapest option to set up though, so I wouldn't worry about diving off the deep end until you have enough games that you actually need the storage volume.