It's streamed. Streamed PSX games can't be ripped (if it's XA, then it sort of maybe quasi-can, but it's almost certainly not worth it). Though, FF4 (PSX) was streamed, and it's been ripped, but it uses a specific form of streaming data that most PSX (though PS2 games do sometimes) don't use. At least, that's my understanding of the situation. Mouser X over and out.
Aww but I want it ripped! It has songs on the game not on the OST!
Hey Mouser X by F3582 at 11:57 PM EST on January 17, 2006
Really???
You know, I can confirm the opposite, because I own the NTSC version. The point is that when playing it on a PAL PSX using a swap trick (which leaves the frame rate at 50Hz), the music sounds like crap, because the sequencing driver syncronizes the music to the frame rate and not to the clock.
Especially the battle tracks which have that drum'n'bass-like rhythm contain the drum track in nice long samples. Those get out of sync regularly, because the music is played slower than it is suposed to.
You can easily test it for yourself by playing it in ePSXe forcing PAL (or NTSC - depending on the game). It has to be sequenced.
BTW: FFIV (PSX) has exactly the same music as the SNES version, which is the reason why I listen to the SPCs instead. And as far as I know only the battle BGM is streamed (test it for yourself - PSMPlay only extracts battle tracks).
Well, I was told that it's streamed. I didn't try to test it for myself. As for FFIV, look at the PSF set. It wouldn't be 85mb if it wasn't streamed (check Zophar.net's PSF archive). As for being exactly the same as the SPC set, it might have the same songs, but if you listen closely, the samples are of higher quality (it's more noticeable for some songs over others, but generally, it's not a huge difference). Also, FF4 couldn't be ripped until Neill created the Streaming PSF2 driver. They used that game as an example of how it could be ripped, what formats can be ripped, and that it can even be used on PSX games, as long as they're of the right format. Almost all PSX games don't use that particular format for their streaming.
I recall Josh telling me that, when he pulled the Legend of Dragoon out of the system, the music stopped. 9 times out of 10, that's a sign that the music is streamed. Of course, I could be wrong, I might have misunderstood what he said (quite possibly. Chances are good that he emulated it). FireDivine asked a question, and I answered it to the best of my ability.
To quote information found at the PSF_Rippers yahoo group in the Unrippable games database:
Game: Final Fantasy 4 Format music is stored in: .stm (continuous interleaved stereo VAG stream (main music), .XA (battle and ending music)
Can any of these formats be ripped to MP3/WAV: .stm with PSound, .XA with any XA ripper.
Any ADPCM streamed music that can be ripped to psf2? Yes, *.stm files
I'm sorry I didn't verify the info better, I was only relaying what I had heard. Hopefully, you can see that I was trying to be helpful, and used FF4 as an example that LoD might be rippable, if it's of the right streaming type (which, if it is streamed, it might be of the right type). Perhaps you should download the PSF set of FF4 and see if you can tell the difference. I haven't listened to both of them very thouroughly, but I do recall that FF4 sounded better, it was probably not enough to make it worth keeping it over the SPCs though... (I do still have the RAR of it though) Mouser X over and out.
Okay, that explains a lot (regarding FFIV). You know, I always wondered why PSMPlay didn't find anything else. Furthermore ePSXe had (besides lots of graphical glitches) problems looping the towns bgm which makes sense, now. I still don't agree with you about the sample quality, because I didn't notice any difference between the game and the SPC soundtrack. It's one of the reasons why I didn't download the streamed version.
About Legend of Dragoon... Well, I know a lot of other games with sequenced music stopping entirely when pulling the disc out (Kingdom Hearts or MGS2 to name a few) - mostly as a safety measure to prevent crashing. Legend of Dragoon definitely has sequenced tracks from what I can tell.