MagicEngine

wugenius · Visitor Joined: 20 Jul 2004 Posts: 2

I want to play Dracula X BADLY and am thinking about buying the game off ebay. But alas, I have no PC Engine to run the game. Will the magic engine emulator run the game fine? What system requirements do I need for my comp? If I DL magic engine will I be able to just run Dracula X by loading the cd or do I have to configure anything? (I am not very good with computers so I hope I don't need to do anything else) What is this business with loading cards?
And finally....is this game worth buying?

Tomasz · Regular Joined: 29 Oct 2003 Posts: 89

Currently, Magic Engine plays the game fine with some minor graphical defects (search these forums for details).

System Requirements are not very high. Any modern computer should be fine. Even my old Pentium III 600 MHz with a 32MB Matrox G400 MAX video card was good enough.

Magic Engine will play DraculaX directly off of the CD. However, you must keep these requirements in mind:
1. You need to copy a PC Engine System 3 Hucard image file into your Magic Engine folder.
2. To hear the game's CD Audio, you will need to have an analog audio cable running from your CD drive to your sound card or motherboard.
3. Ideally, you should have a CD drive that can run at a slow speed via Nero Drivespeed (up to 8x). If the CD runs faster, the disc will take a while to spin up when data is requested, and the game may stutter from time to time.
4. You will need to register Magic Engine for $16 US, after downloading it to remove the 5 minute gameplay limitation.

Is the game worth buying?
Well, it's a pretty good game, but it is a bit dated now. If you liked other games in the Castlevania series, and can find a good deal on Dracula X, then by all means buy it. However, don't spend a ridiculous amount on it.

wugenius · Visitor Joined: 20 Jul 2004 Posts: 2

Magic Engine will play DraculaX directly off of the CD. However, you must keep these requirements in mind:
1. You need to copy a PC Engine System 3 Hucard image file into your Magic Engine folder.
Where do I get this? What is a System 3 Hucard Image and can I get it off this site?
2. To hear the game's CD Audio, you will need to have an analog audio cable running from your CD drive to your sound card or motherboard.
?????How do I do this? It wont play the cd audio without this?
3. Ideally, you should have a CD drive that can run at a slow speed via Nero Drivespeed (up to 8x). If the CD runs faster, the disc will take a while to spin up when data is requested, and the game may stutter from time to time.
Hmmm.....What is nero drive speed? WHat if my cd drive runs fast?
4. You will need to register Magic Engine for $16 US, after downloading it to remove the 5 minute gameplay limitation.
Man this is the easiest part!

Tomasz · Regular Joined: 29 Oct 2003 Posts: 89

1. Try here (under the RX-Files section):
http://namida.com/kaminarimon/

2. Don't worry about this yet. First get the system card working and then try to boot it with Magic Engine using a normal standard audio cd. If music plays, then you're all set. If not, then you'll have to troubleshoot.

3. Nero Drivespeed, read about it here: http://www.cdspeed2000.com/go.php3?link=nerodrivespeed.html
It takes some time for a very fast CD drives to spin up to full speed. Also, to prolong the life of the drive's internal hardware, it stops spinning the disc after some period of inactivity. As a result, whenever the game requests data, and the CD is not spinning, the game will have to pause/stutter, until the disk spins back up to full speed.

Big Bear is back · Visitor Joined: 27 Jul 2004 Posts: 1

I have a question too.
Apparently, I don't have a cable running from my CD-drive internally. I don't have much of a problem with that, because I simply plug ear-phones into the CD-drive's front. I can hear the music, but it sounds horrible! It's off-key and there's a lot of interference.
Anyone encounter this before?
Could it be my drive's speed? It's an 48x, I don't know how slow it can go... Maybe it's in the image I used? It was the full-size ISO (no MP3).

Tomasz · Regular Joined: 29 Oct 2003 Posts: 89

Big Bear is back,
Sounds like a poor connection or just a problem with your cd drive's output (noisy electronics?). It could also be a bad image (check with CD emulator software).

Does this also occur if you play a regular audio cd?

You can somewhat avoid problems with analog CD audio playback by using CD images with CD emulator software (daemon tools, alcohol 120%, etc.) However, I usually hesitate to recommend this because audio emulation will not be perfect. This is because there are some instance where certain games mute the CD audio (e.g., intro of Ys 1&2). Magic Engine emulates this by muting your sound card's CD Audio output line. CD Emulators just use the Wave output line, so the sound will not be muted and some extra music will be played. This is a minor issue, which does not affect too many games, but it should be kept in mind while using CD emulators.

Sibhod · Visitor Joined: 09 Aug 2004 Posts: 3

Dracula X is most certainly worth buying, especially if you're a fan of the series. Konami really took advantage of the huge storage space that CDs offer. Great animation, anime cutscenes, different game paths, different characters, and what I remember most, the amazing music. Yes, this is indeed dated by now, about as dated as most SNES games... but with a much higher quality than games of its time.

So standing alone, Drac X is a very enjoyable, very replayable and memorable game. For fans of the series though, it's a must-have... a lot of things in this game made it into Symphony of the Night (even the last boss, which is exactly the same as the opening scene of SOTN).