Which Dreamcast emulators can play legit DC games?

[Lupin]

Which Dreamcast emulators for P.C. can play the legit, non-pirated DC games?
Chankast .25 says it only plays self-boot isos

[StarCreator]

If you mean actually inserting a GD-ROM into your optical drive, that's quite impossible without doing crazy things like modifying optical drive firmware as far as I know. If you have a game that was actually pressed to a CD-ROM though, that's a different story.

This is just off the top of my head, I've never had a need to look into it. It would help if you listed what games exactly you're trying to run though...

[Lupin]

Oh right, because of the GD-rom shenanigans ;). I wanted to play some gigawing maybe, and then try and take some screen shots and stuff. tear. Too bad software can't just make the disc player read them.

[Ghegs]

Moved to Off Topic.

[PC Engine Fan X!]

You can pick a cheap Dreamcast console for a mere $25-$30 USD these days. And if you pick up an Innovation produced DC Super Game Convertor, you can play the original DC import GD-Roms. Even the DC Game Shark CDX or DC Gameshark Lite will allow you to boot up orginal DC GD-Rom imports as well.

The DC port of Gigawing and Gigawing 2 are ace. GW-2 looks beautiful/stunning when played on a DC console with an DC VGA Box adapter setup in 640 x 480 resolution @ 60 fps arcade spec framerate.

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

[ASK]

If you own the original, what's your qualm with downloading a copy?

[lewisit]

You can pick a cheap Dreamcast console for a mere $25-$30 USD these days.

sure you can, but how long before a used dc will quit working? i'm on my fourth(!) dc already and even that one shows signs of dying pretty soon

i guess i need a pc-solution for my dc-love in the near future, 'cause i ain't buying a fifth one - so if there would be a way to play my gd-roms (or backups of them if necessary) perfectly on a pc, i'm totally in

[kengou]

NullDC works great with a lot of disc images. True, it won't play GD-ROMS, but disc images are trivially easy to find anyway.

If your DC has died, you might also consider fixing it. Mine has died quite a few times but there's a simple procedure to fix it if it is no longer reading discs but is still running (i.e. it boots up to the menu always):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HTMSRfEqWAU

I've done this procedure several times now and it does work. Only takes a few minutes. Unfortunately I don't know any solutions for worse problems.

[PC Engine Fan X!]

You can pick a cheap Dreamcast console for a mere $25-$30 USD these days.

sure you can, but how long before a used dc will quit working? i'm on my fourth(!) dc already and even that one shows signs of dying pretty soon

i guess i need a pc-solution for my dc-love in the near future, 'cause i ain't buying a fifth one - so if there would be a way to play my gd-roms (or backups of them if necessary) perfectly on a pc, i'm totally in

I have two DC consoles, one bought brand new & the other, used, from a local Gamestop. The second one is primarily for a backup in case the 1st one fizzles out. Both haven't bit the dust yet and still keep on ticking. Plus it's fun to play linked up sessions of VO and Ferrari 355 Challenge with a DC Link-Up cable setup (playing a linked-up session of F-355 on the twin player panoramic arcade cabinet is surreal).

Sounds like the cooling fan isn't adequate enough for cooling issues or is it the laser lens/motor drive going out? Even gaming consoles have a MTBF lifeshelf, that is to be expected.

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

[lgb]

If you own the original, what's your qualm with downloading a copy?

better yet, make your own copies

[ASK]

If you own the original, what's your qualm with downloading a copy?

better yet, make your own copies

Wouldn't that bring him back to the issue of his CD-ROM drive not reading GD-ROMs and thus the need to use a downloaded copy in the first place?

[lgb]

no, I "mean make your own copies" as in "create the backups yourself" because most scene releases adhere to the rule that their backups are going to be burned to CD and you don't really need that limitation.

[Ex-Cyber]

If you own the original, what's your qualm with downloading a copy?

It's pretty widely accepted that downloading a copy (rather than ripping it yourself) is still technically illegal even if you own a legit copy (although I don't know of any case that has tested this in court).

[lgb]

that's mostly coming from Nintendo though I don't doubt Sega does the same (proprietary disc format hello)

[ASK]

no, I "mean make your own copies" as in "create the backups yourself" because most scene releases adhere to the rule that their backups are going to be burned to CD and you don't really need that limitation.

How do you backup a GD-ROM if you don't have something that can read a GD-ROM?

[MX7]

no, I "mean make your own copies" as in "create the backups yourself" because most scene releases adhere to the rule that their backups are going to be burned to CD and you don't really need that limitation.

How do you backup a GD-ROM if you don't have something that can read a GD-ROM?

I'm no expert, but aren't 'reading' and 'dumping' very different things? So I suppose a DVD drive can rip the GD-rom image without necessarily being able to run it. Hopefully someone with a more rounded knowledge on this subject will add something concrete.

[jonny5]

no, I "mean make your own copies" as in "create the backups yourself" because most scene releases adhere to the rule that their backups are going to be burned to CD and you don't really need that limitation.

How do you backup a GD-ROM if you don't have something that can read a GD-ROM?

I'm no expert, but aren't 'reading' and 'dumping' very different things? So I suppose a DVD drive can rip the GD-rom image without necessarily being able to run it. Hopefully someone with a more rounded knowledge on this subject will add something concrete.

i believe the issue is a dvd drive cant read or do anything with a gd-rom....it would be like putting a dvd in a cd drive....

to do anything you have to be able to access the data, which in this case, you cant....if you put the gd in a dvd drive, it would just give you an incompatible disk message, if it even showed up at all

im assuming the people who do the GD dumping have those dev rigs that can read and write GD's

[Specineff]

They do it through either the broadband adapter or dreamcast serial cable to a PC. How? That I don't know.

[antron]

Right, almost every DC is a dev rig. that's why you can bypass the security like a developer would; epic fail by sega.

Ripping may be as simple as loading Windows CE and ftping the image over, like on an xbox1.

The hard part was "scambling" the image to load from a CD, but once that was figured out it was easy for everyone else.

edit:
i'm wrong, the DC had real dev units. don't know where I got that story from.
why can a DC even run code from a CD-R at all, even if it was supposed to be a secret?

[null1024]

Right, almost every DC is a dev rig. that's why you can bypass the security like a developer would; epic fail by sega.

Ripping may be as simple as loading Windows CE and ftping the image over, like on an xbox1.

The hard part was "scambling" the image to load from a CD, but once that was figured out it was easy for everyone else.

edit:
i'm wrong, the DC had real dev units. don't know where I got that story from.
why can a DC even run code from a CD-R at all, even if it was supposed to be a secret?

IIRC, I think they just forgot the bios routines for this in, because they were put in so secretly.
[all my info comes from the Dreamcast article on SegaBase]

[antron]

thanks, here is the page:
http://www.eidolons-inn.net/tiki-index. ... st+p6&bl=y

great read:

Back up if you will to the spring and summer of 1998. Sega of Japan's R&D divisions are finishing up their work on the Dreamcast. For their convenience and in order to speed up software development on the console, Sega's programmers hide a series of special routines inside the code of the master console BIOS that will eventually be duplicated and burned into every single Dreamcast console produced for all markets. Mind you, this hidden code is buried fairly deep inside the Dreamcast BIOS. You would have to know where it is and for what you were looking in order to find it. "What was this hidden code?" you eagerly ask. It was the ability for a stock Dreamcast console to boot and run software using standard CD-ROMs instead of Sega's proprietary GD-ROMs.

I just don't get the "speed up software development on the console" thing, if there were official dev kits that the software was actually developed on.

[Mortificator]

Maybe because they could burn and test their games on the console themselves, rather than sending a build to Sega and waiting to get GD-ROMs back.

[antron]

Maybe because they could burn and test their games on the console themselves, rather than sending a build to Sega and waiting to get GD-ROMs back.

the official devkit included a GD-ROM burner:
http://www.dreamcast-scene.com/index.php/Main/Katana

[Mortificator]

Oh. Beats me, then.

[null1024]

Just reread that SegaBase article, apparently they added that [cd-rom support] before official devkits were sent out.

[nZero]

I had always heard that the feature was included due to Sega pushing their Mil-CD format, which by nature was a hybrid CD-ROM that contained extra multimedia data to be read specifically by a Dreamcast.

[Ex-Cyber]

that's mostly coming from Nintendo

Nintendo's stated position is that even copying your own legit copy is illegal. They're insane that way.

i believe the issue is a dvd drive cant read or do anything with a gd-rom....it would be like putting a dvd in a cd drive....

to do anything you have to be able to access the data, which in this case, you cant....if you put the gd in a dvd drive, it would just give you an incompatible disk message, if it even showed up at all

The difference isn't that extreme; the GD-ROM format is basically a hacked/tweaked version of CD-ROM. They carry a "low-density" area that is readable by normal CD-ROM drives (and even sometimes contains e.g. wallpaper images). Most of the data is stored in a "high-density" area that the drive isn't told about by normal means, and therefore won't attempt to read because it expects nothing to be there. It's actually possible to use a swap trick to dump GD-ROMs with certain drives (and a bit of physical modification to facilitate the swap), but IIRC there are some limitations/quirks of that method that make it unfavored.