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I have several games that don't need to be installed, but simply extracted (or not) to a location out of the rar or zip (or ace, of course) file. My computers hard drives are small (20 and 34 gig), and all of the games are small enough to fit onto a DVD (or CD).

What I am worried about is the fact that it may lag (or not work at all) because it may read a lot slower than the HD. What do you think? I don't want to waste a DVD, otherwise I'd test it out.

well, i have well over 600 blank DVD's so in that aspect i dont feel you :P

but i know all about small hard drives,

it will definately read alot slower than the HDD but if it's not like a highly graphics intensive game and you have a pretty speedy optical drive then it might be good.

It will work but you may have lag because of the slower read times.

Hey Mopar I here Western Digital Caviar SE16 500GB SATA-2 Drivers are only $90 on newegg. You should give one a shot...

Well, there is the problem. Even if I did have 90 dollars, I only have IDE. I need an upgrade extremely bad, but I can't get a job (yet) and we can't afford it. I only get about 30-40 fps anyway, do you think it'd make it worse?

Right, also just imagine the game exactly like CS:S............

Eh I used to do so I could play Far Cry at school, it should work.

Most of the time this will not work as many games try to write into the directory where the game files are located. Either as ini/config files or game save files.

You can likely test this by flipping a copy of the game on your HD for it's folder and all subdirectories to "read-only" then try the game. If it fails to launch or you cannot save/play, then chock that up as one title that wont play off DVD.

Just try it.

Try it on a rewritable DVD.

But why not use the original disk ? A copy might be rejected.
If the original works,make a DVD copy for everyday useage.

Please reply,where trying to help.

Err, right, well if I could check constantly I wouldve replied sooner. :P

Anyway, the problem is that I don't have a rewritable DVD either. Ok, yeah I thought about it and realized that it will be writing INI and CFG files.....like my last post pointed towards with the last comment.

Right, When I get home I will try making them read-only.

BTW, these are games that don't come with a CD, but are like Savage, a game that you download and just extract, not install. I also need to try running it from CD, but it downloads maps, also. I wonder if it is possible to make the games save save files and cfg's in another folder of your choice?

Ok, took long enough but I finally got around to doing it. I made it read-only, and played it. It come up with an error that didn't matter, so I burned it onto a DVD and tried it and it worked. Thanks everybody. (P.S, the reason I am bumping is so that anyone else who needs to know this will get their information)

All cd and dvd disks are read only
except to burn a formated blank once.
Both discs you have are "read only' Did you try to play the original "read only"
game disc just for our information ?
I played mine from a read only cd.I posted earlier.

I made all of the files from the game read only, then played it. I then burned the files onto the DVD. I know DVD and CD's are read only, as they can't have data added (nor taken away).

It is Memorex DVD+Rs, 16X.

Works for PC games but no console.

Yes, I learned that the hard way a long time ago.

Once you put a readable file on a disc,it can only be read,
even if it was burned as readable.Why waste a disc ?
Isn't your post about useing the original "read only" disc ?
Theres data on discs you don't see and can't copy to a hard drive.
Anyhoo is this problem solved to your satisfaction ?

I know it can only be read.

I didn't waste a disk.

No, my post wasn't about using the original.

I made them read only to test whether it would work or not, not so that I could burn them.

I didn't add data from a disk to the hard drive.

Yes the question is solved.