usb gdrom incompatibilities?

[Wolf_]

So I'm thinking about buying a usb gdrom but I heard it may have issues running some games. There have been several firmware revisions since the article that said this was written and the sales page claims 100% support so I was wondering if anyone here could tell me if they are aware of any bugs caused by the usb gdrom?

(Also is there a way either with the usb gdrom software or with dreamshell to backup and write data to vmus from/to the flash drive?)

[ShootTheCore]

I own a USB GDROM, and it’s played every game I’ve thrown at it so far. I haven’t tried every Dreamcast game with it, but I have played most of the popular ones.

[citrus3000psi]

IIRC don't think it supports Bleem games. Also it had trouble with Disc swapping games like D2. Was fixed and than broken again. Not sure what the current status is on that.

[opt2not]

I own a USB GDROM, and it’s played every game I’ve thrown at it so far. I haven’t tried every Dreamcast game with it, but I have played most of the popular ones.

^This.

[djc5166]

I wasted a lot of time figuring out that usb-gdrom did not work with redump verified rips. It might just be that the .raw files actually need to be .raw instead of .bin. I had better luck with TOSEC.

[BuckoA51]

Some of the music in Gunlord seems to stutter and not play correctly on mine. Everything else has worked perfectly.

[darcagn]

So I'm thinking about buying a usb gdrom but I heard it may have issues running some games. There have been several firmware revisions since the article that said this was written and the sales page claims 100% support so I was wondering if anyone here could tell me if they are aware of any bugs caused by the usb gdrom?

Both USB-GDROM and GDEMU are 100% compatible with the Dreamcast library except for the 3 retail bleemcast! discs. And japanese_cake is currently hacking those to make them compatible.

(Also is there a way either with the usb gdrom software or with dreamshell to backup and write data to vmus from/to the flash drive?)

No, this isn't possible. The closest thing would be to get an SD card reader for the serial port of your Dreamcast and use Dreamshell to back up/restore VMU saves. But Dreamshell cannot write to the USB flash drive connected to USB-GDROM.

I wasted a lot of time figuring out that usb-gdrom did not work with redump verified rips. It might just be that the .raw files actually need to be .raw instead of .bin. I had better luck with TOSEC.

Hi, TOSEC Dreamcast dumper here. It's not .raw vs. .bin that's the problem. TOSEC dumps using Dreamcast consoles and uses the GDI format. Redump dumps using hacked PC drives because hacked PC drives are able to read a few more bytes off of the discs that a Dreamcast cannot read. These bytes are not part of the GDI format but Redump includes them anyway, which throws everything out of alignment and thus their dumps don't work. They've actually recently abandoned putting their games in GDI format and now use a custom CUE format for Dreamcast GD-ROMs, but alas nothing yet supports that custom CUE format.

Redump does this so that the dumps are "more complete" but it doesn't really matter since obviously if a DC drive can't read these bytes, they're not important to gameplay.

[Wolf_]

So I'm thinking about buying a usb gdrom but I heard it may have issues running some games. There have been several firmware revisions since the article that said this was written and the sales page claims 100% support so I was wondering if anyone here could tell me if they are aware of any bugs caused by the usb gdrom?

Both USB-GDROM and GDEMU are 100% compatible with the Dreamcast library except for the 3 retail bleemcast! discs. And japanese_cake is currently hacking those to make them compatible.

(Also is there a way either with the usb gdrom software or with dreamshell to backup and write data to vmus from/to the flash drive?)

No, this isn't possible. The closest thing would be to get an SD card reader for the serial port of your Dreamcast and use Dreamshell to back up/restore VMU saves. But Dreamshell cannot write to the USB flash drive connected to USB-GDROM.

I wasted a lot of time figuring out that usb-gdrom did not work with redump verified rips. It might just be that the .raw files actually need to be .raw instead of .bin. I had better luck with TOSEC.

Hi, TOSEC Dreamcast dumper here. It's not .raw vs. .bin that's the problem. TOSEC dumps using Dreamcast consoles and uses the GDI format. Redump dumps using hacked PC drives because hacked PC drives are able to read a few more bytes off of the discs that a Dreamcast cannot read. These bytes are not part of the GDI format but Redump includes them anyway, which throws everything out of alignment and thus their dumps don't work. They've actually recently abandoned putting their games in GDI format and now use a custom CUE format for Dreamcast GD-ROMs, but alas nothing yet supports that custom CUE format.

Redump does this so that the dumps are "more complete" but it doesn't really matter since obviously if a DC drive can't read these bytes, they're not important to gameplay.

Thanks very much for the detailed reply. Is there any way to remove the extra data and get the redump set to work with the dc?

[darcagn]

Thanks very much for the detailed reply. Is there any way to remove the extra data and get the redump set to work with the dc?

Yes it is. I collect both sets, and when one set verifies a disc I can convert them from one set to another by hand with a hex editor and get them to match byte-for-byte to the other set. That's how I've been doing it for a long time, but I think there are more automatic converters out now. But to be honest, you might as well just get the TOSEC version. And TOSEC has more discs, although they might be even these days. Just this past week I prepared a 400GB SD card for use with GDEMU and out of 375 games on the list (including every game released in the western market and over 50 Japanese titles) only 2 were titles I had to source from Redump.

[opt2not]

FYI, the USB-GDROM supports .gdi rips. Once I found that out I stopped messing with raw rips and replaced the ones I could with gdi. Some gdi’s dont work though. I think it might have something to do with games with extra audio tracks. But there’s a lot that do.