That sound is one thing. Ever heard when that 52x speed drive tears open that invisible crack in that ultra rare copy of <insert favourite rare game>?

No, but I HAVE had some games have minor hairline cracks in the spindle area and had that weird tck tck tck sound as the system tries to read the discs.

Some games

a) Present information on loading screens
b) Stop showing loading screens the second everything has loaded.

With modern technology, you can read approximately 3 words of a paragraph before it disappears.

Call of Cthulthu: Dark Corners of the Earth is an example of a game that does this.

One solution: Screenshot tool...that might work better than getting a special program to slow down games for some.

Or one could use a cpu slowdown tool, perhaps.

True. I suppose I was stretching for a reason other than the one that would get me banned.

Well some users want that authentic feel. Granted it is floppy disks and not CDs if you look at the official Amgia emulator it emulates the sounds of an actual floppy disk drive being read and it has the same speed as the original.

Yes, but those are usually rare cases and for most of them the actual hardware is desired more than a program that does such...and usually they want the sights and sounds of such, and not so much the "minuses"(slow speeds, etc).

As to this....I think that user was being sarcastic/joking when saying such and not being serious with that reply.

Very true they would turn to original hardware. Very possible that user was being sarcastic but who knows because he never responded back.

True, but the timing(when it was posted), the wording, etc....all make me get strong sarcasm/joking vibes from it...know what I mean?

I am still searching a CD drive emulator for Linux with "CD extra" support, too, and I found none.

Sure, DOSBox has "CD extra" support (full), which is a great thing, but for other OS emulators like Sheepshaver and Basilisk, it's only partial because music tracks aren't played and some old games used the music tracks' list as some kind of copy protection, so if only the data mounts, the game fails to load.

That's pretty anoying that that old kind of media support (CD extra = data + music tracks) is still missing on Linux.
I am currently forced to use Qemu and to emulate full Windows OS and then install a Windows CD drive emulator then, instead of using Wine.

The problem is, of course:
* Needing to get a real drive, this generally requires a bit of money and for a physical object to be picked up or shipped
* Needing to actually burn a CD to use it, which requires a CD-R (consumable) or CD-RW (which still wears out after a while)
* The drive and CD have to be stored somewhere physically, and connected each time they're required (which, of course, requires an actual USB port)

So, while that option is not completely unrealistic (the drive can be had for around $20 and last time I checked disks weren't expensive), there are still reasons one might want an emulator, especially for situations like testing a live CD.

I once had an ISO which wouldn't work with WINCDEMU, I had to switch back to Daemon Tools to be able to read it. So WINCDEMU is not 100 % perfect for some disk images.
So in case WINCDEMU fails on some image, it is not necessarily corrupt, so then, give DT a try.

Maybe you could try not being so frugal/etc and/or be so quick to find flaws in a good number of things people propose?

(Also everything people do has some flaw or negative, no exceptions...that doesn't mean people shouldn't try anything ever)
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(Addition: Sorry for venting, everyone/OP, but sometimes I wonder why you/she ask/asks for help with such things if you're/they're just going to shoot down most ideas with exceptional/rare flaws or find reasons not to try them. It is both daunting and off-putting, then, for people to even bother once they see the pattern emerge)
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Counterpoints to this post I replied to:

1. One can save up for such, in most cases, and wait for it to be shipped(or pay 10 bucks or so more and get it rushed out).....I assume you/op don't/doesn't need it right away for some urgent reason?

2. Make multiple backups, then.....writable media is very cheap compared to other things especially if bought in bulk.

3. A portable drive would take up little space....which shouldn't be a problem unless you live in a shoe box size home/apt. Also connecting them takes very little time, and most if not all PCs have USB ports.

It turns out that there's another drawback to a physical drive; you (generally) can't change the speed. An emulated drive could easily implement an option to set the drive speed, as well as other things, like whether it can read DVDs (perhaps including setting the region if DVD-video is supported) and perhaps even whether it has known hardware bugs that I would expect some optical drives to have had over the years.

Also, pointing out flaws or drawbacks is a good way to get discussion going, provided it is done in a civil manner (which is my attempt here).

Here's the thing: Many solutions can cover 99% of use cases just fine (Linux's ability to mount iso files works well, and I use it (and fuseiso when I don't want to become root) a lot. I am, however, looking for solutions that could cover the remaining 1%. (Note that there's a possible error in these percentages, of at least 1% I think.)