DC GDEMU: How to load games onto SD Card?

[Dochartaigh]

I have the chinese knock-off GDEMU - supposed to be IDENTICAL to the real thing (even uses it's GDmenu software). Tons of reviews of people using these to good success...nearly no posts I can find (unless my google-fu has failed me...I'm even on my ~20th YouTube video/tutorial...) that tell you exactly how people were able to successfully load games onto the SD Card so they can be launched in GDmenu.

Only 12 out of 54 games work. ALL the others say "UNSUPPORTED DISC / EMPTY FOLDER" in the GDmenu launcher. I'm using 'official' files from Redump and TOSEC from Pleasuredome so they files should be all fine and dandy. From the working games, 6x are .CDI's, 6x are GDI's - no rhyme or reason to file naming conventions of the games which actually work. Seems like you DON'T have to name everything like the official directions say anymore:

An example of correct filenames for GDI image:

track01.bin
track03.bin
disc.gdi
track02.raw

Any help?




**EDIT**

Been reading some more and it seems like people are using "SD Memory Card Formatter for Windows" to format the card. Problem there is that program ONLY formats ExFat, where the GDEMU directions (which could again be out of date) say to format Fat32? ...so I'm back to using ApplePi Baker on my Mac to format the Sandisk 128gb card as Fat32.

Then people say to load games onto the SD card using Madsheep's "SD Card Maker v1.10", but I can't even launch SD Card maker without getting a "Could not find file F:\02\" error... (which the F drive is my SD Card, and there is a 02 folder...which contains a game - 01 contains the GDmenu program I believe).

[AndehX]

Have you made sure that 128GB SD card is really 128GB? If you bought it on ebay, I would highly suggest running Hwtestw on it to verify the capacity. Alot of ebay sellers will sell fake SD cards.

[Dochartaigh]

Have you made sure that 128GB SD card is really 128GB? If you bought it on ebay, I would highly suggest running Hwtestw on it to verify the capacity. Alot of ebay sellers will sell fake SD cards.

Sold by Amazon (i.e. hopefully official/real) Sandisk Ultra 128gb. Worked on SSDS3, and I believe one of my Everdrives before. Runs those 12x games fine...just not ALL the others... I also found some posts with people using this EXACT card and it's working for them.

[AndehX]

If it's a fake card, then it's likely something like a 32GB card reformatted to (fake) 128GB. Meaning whatever is in the first 32GB of the card, will work normally, anything after that obviously won't.

I would highly recommend running it through the Hwtestw program to verify its actual capacity, then you can rule out the SD card being the issue.

[Syntax]

I have 2tb and 1tb fake sandisk cards I've been wanting to capacity test but could not find a suitable program.
Thanks a tonne for this!

Also fyi dont HDMI mod your DC. It wont work with clone gdemu as they have the wrong crystal.

[AndehX]

Also fyi dont HDMI mod your DC. It wont work with clone gdemu as they have the wrong crystal.

This only applies if you're not comfortable with replacing the crystal with the appropriate one, of course.

[Syntax]

Yup, I'm just trying to scare all the guys that got one and fear soldering irons.

Some clones have the correct crystal also sorry.

[AndehX]

I got one coming this week. Let's see if I get one with the correct crystal or not

[nmalinoski]

While it very well may be the SD card, I think it's more likely that the GDIs you're using are bad. I don't recall whether it's TOSEC or Redump, but I know one of them puts pregap info in the .gdi file in the form of overlapping tracks, which goes against the GDI format; so anything that follows the GDI format strictly, like SD Card Maker for GDEMU app seems to, will consider those .gdi files as invalid.

[Syntax]

Use tosec format to rip your games.
Redump format does not work

[Dochartaigh]

So I don't know how or why, but doing this made it start to work: turned on all the options, saved, rebooted. Turned off all the options, saved and rebooted. After that I did have to switch out 15ish games to the TOSEC versions like Syntax mentioned (I'm assuming the others were Redumps?), and of course rename everything properly and edit the GDI files (CDI's still work with default non-"disc" names which is weird). 56 games are now working properly I'm happy to say.


For the crystal being the slightly wrong type, could that make the picture a little more dirty? Still looks beautiful on my CRT's (which really do tend to mask things like this), but via OSSC or Extron DSC 301 HD (or through both of those) on my flatscreen, I am seeing more dirt in the image, VERY noticeable on the white Dreamcast screen (actual gameplay looks decent still). Now I did have to switch to another DC than the one I was using before (other couldn't take the GDEMU), and I re-wired everything through a new HDMI switcher last night as well so this is a crappy non-controlled test, but thought I'd ask. If so, which one to get? I can install it and see if it helps (have to place an order for caps soon anyway).

[Syntax]

Here more info on the matter if you want to check the number on your crystal.
https://twitter.com/citrus3000psi/statu ... 7803078658

The HDMI mod takes video from the digital lines, whereas the OSSC processes the analog signal into digital.
So id say any effect would be less noticeable via the analog output. Purely a guess.

[Forcemultiplier]

I just got my XBERSTAR GDemu clone from Amazon. Downloaded Sonic Adventure from Vimm's Lair but I'm getting all the exact same issues Dochartaigh descibed in his original post. Is it because Vimm's Dreamcast roms are all Redumps? Is there way to convert to TOSEC? I would appreciate any help.

03/19/19

Nevermind. I got my hands on a torsec version of SA...worked like a charm.

[hbard]

For redump I see there is a tool to convert to general GDI, not sure if it will help with compatibility as I stuck with .gdi:

https://assemblergames.com/threads/wrot ... mat.66263/

[Bassa-Bassa]

GDMenu question: can I fill the SD card manually without any card manager (by carefully following the naming convention)? GDMenu readme implies you can, but I can't find anybody not using the sd card manager, so I don't know (and I'd really prefer to do it manually)...

Without the card manager, could I retrieve the game list later as a txt file or something (once it's generated by GDMenu the first time I use the card with the device)? How does it create the game names, by reading the images headers? Are the game names editable afterwards?

Also, is Open Menu better than GDMenu if you don't care about cover art?

New Clone GD Emu 5.15b user here willing to also try the Atomiswave conversions.

Thanks.

[fernan1234]

Yes you can fill the SD card manually without a manager. The most important part are the numbered folders in the root of the card, and of course that the GDI or CDI files are the right format.

I actually just keep a single game at a time in folder 01, that way it loads automatically like a real GD disc game would without having to go through a menu or game list. Feels more authentic that way and saves time. So can't comment on the other questions but I assume you should have no problems if using GDMenu or Open Menu.

[Bassa-Bassa]

Thanks. Looking forward to try it this weekend. Hopefully the game names are manually editable as well.

[fernan1234]

Thanks. Looking forward to try it this weekend. Hopefully the game names are manually editable as well.

If I recall correctly, you can just put a text tile in the corresponding game folder with the game you want in the text file, and that's what GDMenu uses.

[Bassa-Bassa]

Do you mean as the text file name or as text in the file when you open it? Official instructions say "a file named as...", but it's just talking about "organization" to compensate the fact they force you to name the image file and folder in an abstract way.

[fernan1234]

Pretty sure the game name goes within the text file itself. Don't remember what the file name of the text file needs to be, or if it needs to be anything specific at all. The manager utility creates them so you could just run it for one or two games to see how it does it.

[StrzxgvNuvWvfld]

For a long time I didn't like the idea of using a menu maker either and used to do everything manually, but then I gave GD Menu Maker a go and found it really easy to use and actually far better/less hassle than doing it yourself.

[Bassa-Bassa]

Many reports there of the card manager failing at properly set your images, though. I still need to mount the ODE. Found out that I had no screwdriver I could use for the DC!

[Bassa-Bassa]

Managed to get me the necessary screwdriver. Too bad the console seems to be a VA0 (Japanese, 5V?) model. Fortunately the other unit I have seems to be a VA1 (NTSC-J, as welll) as it says 3.3V, though its PSU is in bad condition. Some Google hasn't served to confirm if you can swap a VA1 unit's PSU for the PSU from a VA0 unit (both Japanese). Anybody would know, please?

Also, if VA0's drive is 5V and VA1's is 3.3, how's VA2's?

[Bassa-Bassa]

It indeed seems the DC PSUs are interchangable no matter the console type. I ended up purchashing a Rexus PSU and so far, all well. A bit noisy, but seems it's a common issue with all these hobbyist PSUs.


Bumping this anyway to ask again a simple question in case anyone here recalls - can you place a name.txt file in the image folder with the game name as the text inside for GD-Menu usage (so that it retrieves the game name from this file for its launch menu)? Is name.txt the file name it needs?

Does it serve for Open Menu as well?