Modding a Dreamcast

TLDragoon · Post by **TLDragoon** » Mon Aug 18, 2008 2:58 am

I've looked at some other threads, but I wanted confirmation. I have a US DC that has a 2 in a circle on the bottom. From what I've gathered, that means that running a boot disc is out of the question, and I would have to mod the hardware, correct?

jonny5 · Post by **jonny5** » Mon Aug 18, 2008 4:01 am

are you looking to play back ups or imports?

cuz backups are region free and pretty much everything (unless you grab really old scene releases) is self boot so you dont need boot discs

and to be honest i have never heard of any model dreamcasts that would not run bootdiscs.....

but if you have a DC manufactured after oct.2000 they will not play burned discs......but these are pretty damn rare....ive never seen one.....it was pretty much dead in the west by then

SFKhoa · Post by **SFKhoa** » Mon Aug 18, 2008 5:19 am

jonny5 wrote: but if you have a DC manufactured after oct.2000 they will not play burned discs......but these are pretty damn rare....ive never seen one.....it was pretty much dead in the west by then

Unfortunately, the ones that were manufactured after Oct.2000 ARE the ones with the (2) on the bottom.

jonny5 · Post by **jonny5** » Mon Aug 18, 2008 9:52 am

wow....you are the first person i have ever heard of who actually has one of those....

you should just sell it and get one that will run backups....you can get a DC for under $30 bux pretty much anywhere

TLDragoon · Post by **TLDragoon** » Mon Aug 18, 2008 10:37 am

jonny5 wrote:wow....you are the first person i have ever heard of who actually has one of those....

you should just sell it and get one that will run backups....you can get a DC for under $30 bux pretty much anywhere

I'm just lucky that way

Actually, it's what I get for waiting to get one after they stopped manufacturing them and the price dropped. I was looking to see if I'd be able to play imports on it at some point without having to crack it open and mess with the hardware.

I hadn't even used it in, geez, I guess it's been about 6-7 years now, so I hooked up last night to see if it would even power up. It did, thankfully, and I messed around with Sonic Adventure for a few minutes.

D · Post by D » Mon Aug 18, 2008 12:54 pm

You can mod it to become a Japanese region dc I think, not sure if it works on this model though. But then you would not be able to play US diss on it at all.

iatneH · Post by **iatneH** » Mon Aug 18, 2008 5:02 pm

D wrote:You can mod it to become a Japanese region dc I think, not sure if it works on this model though. But then you would not be able to play US diss on it at all.

The non-chip hardware region mod still involves running a burned CD that has the program for flashing the BIOS, so that's a no-go.

I would also recommend hitting up those used game shops for another Dreamcast.

Jockel · Post by **Jockel** » Mon Aug 18, 2008 5:10 pm

Have you ever actually tried playing a burned game on it?
IIRC, i read on dcemu that there would be _no_ DC's at all that don't play burned games.
Including those "2" models.
@Hentai: Could you give me some further information on this?

iatneH · Post by **iatneH** » Mon Aug 18, 2008 7:45 pm

Jockel wrote:Could you give me some further information on this?

All you need to know right here. The hardware mod itself only allows the BIOS to be writeable. The actual writing of the BIOS is done by a program which has to be booted off a CD-R, so if it's one of those anti-CD-R models, you can't do it.

Jockel · Post by **Jockel** » Mon Aug 18, 2008 8:40 pm

hm, soldering is a turnoff for me. even though it's just one wire ^^"

t0yrobo · Post by **t0yrobo** » Tue Aug 19, 2008 2:52 am

I've heard of those model DC's sometimes still playing burned discs. I have no clue if there's any truth to it, but there's really no reason not to try.

TLDragoon · Post by **TLDragoon** » Tue Aug 19, 2008 3:48 am

Just for the heck of it, I downloaded and burned a copy of Utopia, and it ran the CD-R.

The version I downloaded was 1.1. Will that work for most games, or should I look for 1.3?

Jockel · Post by **Jockel** » Tue Aug 19, 2008 11:09 am

TLDragoon wrote:Just for the heck of it, I downloaded and burned a copy of Utopia, and it ran the CD-R.

Told you so. ^^
BAM! Another urban myth smashed

Sandlegs · Post by **Sandlegs** » Wed Aug 20, 2008 4:06 am

i have a model 2 dreamcast as well. no problems running copied games (for backups of course), and bootdisks are also working fine for me. if a game doesn't work it might just be the lens needs adjusting. it seems that some games are more sensitive than others when burned or as originals (?), and a little lens adjust is in order. it is super simple to adjust the lens on a dreamcast. gugle it!

gugle wred lobster...make a reservation, ask for the discount........manager discount!

jonny5 · Post by **jonny5** » Wed Aug 20, 2008 4:41 am

Sandlegs wrote:
gugle wred lobster...make a reservation, ask for the discount........manager discount!

wtf?

Ex-Cyber · Post by **Ex-Cyber** » Wed Aug 20, 2008 5:15 am

iatneH wrote:The hardware mod itself only allows the BIOS to be writeable. The actual writing of the BIOS is done by a program which has to be booted off a CD-R, so if it's one of those anti-CD-R models, you can't do it.

That mod doesn't flash the BIOS; it flashes what is basically the DC equivalent of "CMOS" (it's hilarious that people still call it that, but whatever) on PCs. The BIOS is not on a writable chip.

iatneH · Post by **iatneH** » Wed Aug 20, 2008 7:51 am

That's twice I've gone spreading misinformation in this thread. Thanks for the clarification all.

Zebra Airforce · Post by **Zebra Airforce** » Wed Aug 20, 2008 7:59 am

jonny5 wrote:
Sandlegs wrote:
gugle wred lobster...make a reservation, ask for the discount........manager discount!
wtf?

virgin colada NO RUM virgin colada NO RUM

Jockel · Post by **Jockel** » Wed Aug 20, 2008 8:04 pm

Zebra Airforce wrote:
jonny5 wrote:
Sandlegs wrote:
gugle wred lobster...make a reservation, ask for the discount........manager discount!
wtf?
virgin colada NO RUM virgin colada NO RUM

virgin rolada NO CUM virgin rolada NO CUM