Dreamcast USB questions

[evil_ash_xero]

I'm interested in this USB drive, for the Dreamcast. http://www.stoneagegamer.com/dreamcast-usb-en.html

A couple of questions, for those who may be familiar with it. One, it says it has 100 percent compatibility. Does anyone know if any games have glitches, or something like that?
Sometimes compatibility, just means "it runs".

Also, this is listed as an internal mod. I think you no longer have a disc drive, when you install this. There is no option for an external version of this, although I believe one exists. Can anyone let me know where you can get an external version of this?

[eightbitminiboss]

I'm interested in this USB drive, for the Dreamcast. http://www.stoneagegamer.com/dreamcast-usb-en.html

A couple of questions, for those who may be familiar with it. One, it says it has 100 percent compatibility. Does anyone know if any games have glitches, or something like that?
Sometimes compatibility, just means "it runs".

Also, this is listed as an internal mod. I think you no longer have a disc drive, when you install this. There is no option for an external version of this, although I believe one exists. Can anyone let me know where you can get an external version of this?

The external one is no longer being made. The creator doesn't even sell them anymore either. It's all internal now.

[nem]

I never knew of such a thing. Very cool.

The annoying VMU beep and the drive noise are about the only things I don't like about the console.

[darcagn]

This is a GD-ROM emulator, so it replaces the GD-ROM drive. You must open your console, remove the GD-ROM, and replace it with this board. This is a really easy process as the Dreamcast is pretty simple to disassemble.

There is also another GD-ROM emulator that uses SD cards, which I have in one of my Dreamcasts (I have about 10 or so consoles ). Because these devices replace the GD-ROM and emulate its hardware, they have pretty much perfect compatibility. That having been said, a bug or two has cropped up with both the SD and USB GD-ROM emulators, but as I understand it, both developers have been quick to fix these bugs so I don't think you need to be concerned about it.

There was never a version of these boards that didn't require opening up the console and removing the GD-ROM drive. The "external" being referenced here means external USB port, that is, the drive emulator hardware is positioned in a way so that you cut your case so that you have an external USB port on the back. This is in contrast to an internal USB port, where you open the lid and plug in the USB drive on the inside of the console where the GD-ROM once was.

[emphatic]

Which is better, the USB or the SD one? Does one have faster loading than the other, or is it just down to media type?

[darcagn]

Which is better, the USB or the SD one? Does one have faster loading than the other, or is it just down to media type?

I don't know which one loads faster, but I would guess they're about the same. The SD one is way faster than the original GD-ROM for sure. No more listening to your Dreamcast drive scream while it's loading either.

The GDEMU (the name of the SD card one) has a menu written for it by a third party that looks great. The USB-GDROM menu looks like an old MS-DOS program.

The GDEMU has to have the files on the SD card formatted with a very specific file/folder layout that's kind of annoying, but there's a third party program available to help you do this. The USB-GDROM I think you can pretty much just dump your files on it and go.

SD cards are smaller than USB hard drives so with the GDEMU you can't just put the whole Dreamcast library on a drive and forget about it like you can with the USB-GDROM.

The GDEMU is like half of the price of the USB-GDROM at 110 euros.

Both are difficult to obtain though. The GDEMU you basically have to wait until he decides to make some.

[emphatic]

Cool, thanks for the info!

[noonan2678]

I have both the USB emulator and an SD card solution. The USB is superior in a few ways:

- Larger storage available for less $ - I have nearly everything I'd want to play on a 128GB USB Drive
- Faster load times - certainly this depends on the media speed, but I've found that the USB option does load faster with comparable media
- No more GD-ROM - really, no reason for it with this solution. I keep a couple other DCs just in case, but even with the SD, you still need to load software

I've communicated with the creator about supporting GDIs and he found a work-around while supposedly working on a software upgrade.

[darcagn]

I have both the USB emulator and an SD card solution. The USB is superior in a few ways:

- Larger storage available for less $ - I have nearly everything I'd want to play on a 128GB USB Drive
- Faster load times - certainly this depends on the media speed, but I've found that the USB option does load faster with comparable media
- No more GD-ROM - really, no reason for it with this solution. I keep a couple other DCs just in case, but even with the SD, you still need to load software

I've communicated with the creator about supporting GDIs and he found a work-around while supposedly working on a software upgrade.

Based on what you are saying about the advantages of "an SD card solution" it appears you are talking about an SD card serial adapter, that plugs into the serial port. I am talking about the GDEMU, a completely different type of device that replaces the GD-ROM drive just as your USB drive emulator does. The GDEMU does not require you to "load software" and does not keep the GD-ROM drive intact at all; it replaces it. And since the SD card serial adapter goes over the serial port, load times are not very good at all compared to the GDEMU solution.

[eightbitminiboss]

I have both the USB emulator and an SD card solution. The USB is superior in a few ways:

- Larger storage available for less $ - I have nearly everything I'd want to play on a 128GB USB Drive
- Faster load times - certainly this depends on the media speed, but I've found that the USB option does load faster with comparable media
- No more GD-ROM - really, no reason for it with this solution. I keep a couple other DCs just in case, but even with the SD, you still need to load software

I've communicated with the creator about supporting GDIs and he found a work-around while supposedly working on a software upgrade.

Based on what you are saying about the advantages of "an SD card solution" it appears you are talking about an SD card serial adapter, that plugs into the serial port. I am talking about the GDEMU, a completely different type of device that replaces the GD-ROM drive just as your USB drive emulator does. The GDEMU does not require you to "load software" and does not keep the GD-ROM drive intact at all; it replaces it. And since the SD card serial adapter goes over the serial port, load times are not very good at all compared to the GDEMU solution.

FYI, both the USB-GDROM and GDEMU plug into the same exact port on the Dreamcast's motherboard. They both replace the disc drive entirely.

Edit: Oh wait, were you talking about the Dreamshell SD loader thing?

[werk91]

I am very interested in the Dreamshell SD dongle because of it being very affordable and easy (for me at least) to obtain. Has anyone used it ? It all sounds good on paper but I want some hands on opinions

[darcagn]

I have both the USB emulator and an SD card solution. The USB is superior in a few ways:

- Larger storage available for less $ - I have nearly everything I'd want to play on a 128GB USB Drive
- Faster load times - certainly this depends on the media speed, but I've found that the USB option does load faster with comparable media
- No more GD-ROM - really, no reason for it with this solution. I keep a couple other DCs just in case, but even with the SD, you still need to load software

I've communicated with the creator about supporting GDIs and he found a work-around while supposedly working on a software upgrade.

Based on what you are saying about the advantages of "an SD card solution" it appears you are talking about an SD card serial adapter, that plugs into the serial port. I am talking about the GDEMU, a completely different type of device that replaces the GD-ROM drive just as your USB drive emulator does. The GDEMU does not require you to "load software" and does not keep the GD-ROM drive intact at all; it replaces it. And since the SD card serial adapter goes over the serial port, load times are not very good at all compared to the GDEMU solution.

FYI, both the USB-GDROM and GDEMU plug into the same exact port on the Dreamcast's motherboard. They both replace the disc drive entirely.

Edit: Oh wait, were you talking about the Dreamshell SD loader thing?

Right, they both plug into the same port and replace the disc drive.

I believe noonan2678 is referring to the SD card serial adapter which uses DreamShell to load files from the serial port in the back.

I am very interested in the Dreamshell SD dongle because of it being very affordable and easy (for me at least) to obtain. Has anyone used it ? It all sounds good on paper but I want some hands on opinions

It works, but has lots of problems (incompatibilities, etc.)

[BuckoA51]

What about the Dreamshell IDE hard drive mod? I think that works with most games now (except WinCE games).

[werk91]

I am very interested in the Dreamshell SD dongle because of it being very affordable and easy (for me at least) to obtain. Has anyone used it ? It all sounds good on paper but I want some hands on opinions

It works, but has lots of problems (incompatibilities, etc.)

This will be a little offtopic but what are the benefits of using SD cards to load backups as opposed to CD-R media? Does the Dreamcast have a flimsy optical drive that wears quickly ?

[ryu]

I am very interested in the Dreamshell SD dongle because of it being very affordable and easy (for me at least) to obtain. Has anyone used it ? It all sounds good on paper but I want some hands on opinions

It works, but has lots of problems (incompatibilities, etc.)

This will be a little offtopic but what are the benefits of using SD cards to load backups as opposed to CD-R media? Does the Dreamcast have a flimsy optical drive that wears quickly ?

Because all optical drives are going to be broken one day

[Lord of Pirates]

I am very interested in the Dreamshell SD dongle because of it being very affordable and easy (for me at least) to obtain. Has anyone used it ? It all sounds good on paper but I want some hands on opinions

It works, but has lots of problems (incompatibilities, etc.)

This will be a little offtopic but what are the benefits of using SD cards to load backups as opposed to CD-R media? Does the Dreamcast have a flimsy optical drive that wears quickly ?

No drive noise, no compression needed, faster load times. Presumably a DC should run cooler with the drive removed.

[mrsmiley381]

The USB-GDROM is a nice little drive but I hear D2 has trouble because it's a multi-disc game and queuing up the extra discs requires you to install the door-open switch and even then it might not work. USB drive compatibility has also been a little finicky as well, so there's no guarantee any USB stick you use will work properly. I had Street Fighter IIX running at terrible speeds with a USB 3.0 drive. Weird stuff.

I also hear you need to remove a resistor and the 12v regulator or it will run at 14 volts and overheat. Fans and heatsinks have been recommended. Bonus points to anyone that can confirm or clarify anything I've mentioned since I've only found bits and pieces of the info and haven't worked out all the kinks with my unit yet.

[gusmoney]

I too heard about the need or at least good practice of adding fans when using the USB solution.

I went with the GDEmu and am very happy. Bought a 128gb SD card to go with it and have all the games and I went and some room to spare.

[darcagn]

I am very interested in the Dreamshell SD dongle because of it being very affordable and easy (for me at least) to obtain. Has anyone used it ? It all sounds good on paper but I want some hands on opinions

It works, but has lots of problems (incompatibilities, etc.)

This will be a little offtopic but what are the benefits of using SD cards to load backups as opposed to CD-R media? Does the Dreamcast have a flimsy optical drive that wears quickly ?

Dreamcast games were published on GD-ROMs, a proprietary format that holds 1GB instead of 700MB. So most games don't fit on a CD-R without modification. In order to fit those games onto CD-R media, hacker groups had to do things like lower the quality of audio and video files, remove languages, remove certain features, compress files, etc.

Loading from the SD cards means that you can play the real, unaltered games. You also get faster load times, no drive noise, and can stick a bunch of games on 1 card without having to mess with burning discs, etc.

A lot of Dreamcasts are finicky with CD-Rs as well. Of my 10 or so Dreamcasts, most will only load up burned discs if I use Taiyo Yuden high quality CD-Rs. I'm not sure if this is because the Dreamcasts are aging or if CD-Rs are made crappy these days. Either way, I don't remember the console being this picky when I was younger.

What about the Dreamshell IDE hard drive mod? I think that works with most games now (except WinCE games).

I have modded one of my Dreamcasts with the IDE hard drive mod and found it to be better than the SD serial adapter, but ultimately I abandoned that mod when the GDEMU SD card board came out due to its 100% compatibility. Getting games onto an IDE hard drive was kind of a pain. Although if I got one big enough I suppose I could just load all the games up and forget about it.

[werk91]

A friend that has a Dreamcast told me that its only really the Shenmue games that suffer considerably from the compression methods. Hence why he has bought the retail copies of those. A slightly compressed audio track or a missing language that I will never use are minor if at all inconveniences. The every optical drive will die one day mindset is nice but with how much free time I have for games now its the last thing on my mind. If I do wear a console's optical drive then I'll probably be happy that it got its good use as opposed to sitting on the shelf all the time. I think I will wait to see how I like the Dreamcast generally after I get one and then consider the GDEMU SD card mod or the other options. Thanks everyone.

[darcagn]

There are plenty of other games that suffer from losing all that disc space. Shenmue is certainly not the only one.

[eightbitminiboss]

Yeah, there's a small number of ripped games that even have missing game modes in order for it to fit on a standard CD-R. The Dreamcast scene was a strange beast back in the day.

[werk91]

In this case I will try to find a list of all games that are too big to fit on a CD. If such a list exists it should give me an indication of whether a mod will be worth it. For example I've seen Shenmue go for ~£20 on ebay. It's a similar situation with the Gamecube some years ago. Many people didn't chip theirs because of the few really good games that were not that hard or expensive to find/buy. Except Ikaruga obviously

[ckong]

Hm, this USB GD-Rom Emulator looks like a nice enhancement for a DC, but what makes it so damn expensive? Has the board special components (doesn't look like it, it's pretty empty)? Or a special profit margin?

[darcagn]

In this case I will try to find a list of all games that are too big to fit on a CD. If such a list exists it should give me an indication of whether a mod will be worth it. For example I've seen Shenmue go for ~£20 on ebay. It's a similar situation with the Gamecube some years ago. Many people didn't chip theirs because of the few really good games that were not that hard or expensive to find/buy. Except Ikaruga obviously

I don't believe a list exists. For the majority of time, only ripped discs (as in, converted to CD-R format) existed on the internet, until a few years ago when I started a project to dump the GD-ROMs and catalog them so that they may be preserved in their original format. That project merged with TOSEC and now the vast majority of games (including 100% of NTSC-U and PAL titles) are cataloged and available. Many games in ripped (CD-R) format exist in multiple versions released by different pirate groups, basically some released years later with new/better compression formats and able to fit more stuff by doing things in a different way. The original pirate groups were in a rush to beat each other to a release, years ago, so they often cut corners to get a release out there and didn't focus on quality. Basically, to find out the information you're looking for, you're going to have to read through hundreds of NFO files to put together that information.

As far as I know, there are no English games that weren't put on CD-R. Several games, however, are missing features, have compressed audio/video, mono audio, missing voices or languages, or have the data split onto multiple CD-Rs and you need to know when to save/turn off the DC/swap for the other CD-R before the game gets to an area that is missing files on the disc you had inserted.

[darcagn]

I didn't see this posted anywhere on this forum so I wanted to bump with this awful news: Stone Age Gamer is discontinuing offering the USB-GDROM after being treated downright awfully by the creator, Mnemo. If you are considering getting a USB-GDROM, I would highly suggest to not give Mnemo your business and get a GDEMU instead. And to the previous poster who asked why the USB-GDROM is so expensive, this answers your question quite well.

http://www.stoneagegamer.com/dreamcast-usb-en.html

Dear Stone Age Gamer Customers,
Unfortunately, we must announce that we will no longer be carrying any product created by the developer known as Mnemo.

After over a year of dealing with Mnemo we have found him to be impossible to do business with. We normally would not attempt to cause any drama, but in this case we feel without explaining our reasons because it may be hard for our customers to understand why we would stop selling a product that seemed to be in such high demand.
We originally reached out to Mnemo to sell his 3DO USB-CDROM Adapter mods. Although we did sell some units, his production was completely erratic so for awhile we stopped selling the 3DO adapter.

Eventually we found out Mnemo had finished development on a similar modification for the Dreamcast. We were very excited at this prospect because the Dreamcast is a vastly more popular system. So, we reached out to Mnemo again in late 2014 and made a much harder push for this product.

We were shocked by his wholesale price; it was basically what we thought the MSRP price should be. We suggested that by lowering the price it would allow both of us to sell way more units. He refused. Although we did not agree with his decision, we weren’t going to beat him up on the price.

Using our normal retail mark-up, we began selling the Dreamcast adapter at $219.99. However, it quickly became apparent that his issues with 3DO adapter production carried over to the Dreamcast adapter as well. Production was sporadic and unpredictable.

Over the year of 2015 it was hard for us to get any sustained production from Mnemo. Late Summer 2015 he alerted me that he would be significantly raising the price of each unit by almost $50/ea. because he only had a few hundred Molex connectors left and he could not find any more so this will probably be the last few hundred he sells.

I told him to hold off on the price increase and I would see if I could find some of the connectors. After much searching, I found most places would only sell me them in batches of 17K at about $4/ea. So basically $68K, which was out of the question. Eventually I found a company that brokered an agreement between another company and I. This company had tens of thousands of these connectors for their own production. That company agreed to sell me 1,008 connectors for $4.57 ea. I asked Mnemo if he was still committed and if I should purchase these connectors. He told me to purchase them. So with shipping I paid about $4,700 out of my pocket for the connectors.

After receiving the connectors, he asked me to ship him about 300. So I shipped him 324 (they came in tubes of 18 units/ea.). He said he would just credit me more for them once he received.

With our new found connectors and an agreement to increase production I told him we were going to start taking back orders on the Dreamcast adapter. Eventually we got to 50 back orders and yet units we still very slow to ship. So we halted all back orders to not further dig anymore of a hole.

After his initial shipment of 20 units for the back orders he tells us from this point on he will now be increasing the wholesale price of each unit by $30/ea. Even though he knew we still had another 30 back orders to fill, back orders that were already paid for. There is no way we are going to go back to customers and ask for more money, but this price raise essentially destroyed our profit margin. So, we begged him to at least fill the remaining 30 orders under his original price and we would talk about new price after the rest of the back orders had shipped. He did eventually agree.

We received another 15 units at the original price. However, before sending the last 15 units he e-mailed us saying that he has the 15 units ready. However, he is raising the price, even though he agreed not to until all 50 had shipped. He said if we want them he will give us our credit for the 324 connectors and we would just pay the difference. Yes, you heard me right, he told us he would credit us for the connectors, but then raised the price by $30 per unit and here’s the kicker: he said if we would not buy at that price he would just sell them himself or to someone else. So he essentially exploited our position and forced us to pay more per unit and effectively making our credit for the connectors worthless, not to mention destroying our profit on the 15 reminaing units we already took money for.

Really, hindsight being 20-20 we should have cut off all business relations with him at this point. He obviously had no respect for us or his customers. After the dust settled I said if the new price means we will get much more consistent production then, we would accept it. So we had to raise retail price significantly.

Finally! We started to receive somewhat consistent shipments. From December 2015 to mid-March 2016. We were receiving about 34 units a month.

On March 25th he then dropped another bomb. The next two batches he was going to charge us $12 more per unit and also I would need to pay for his PayPal withdrawal fees. Now I send money to him as a Friend/Family so I pay his PayPal fees. So I am not sure why he is also getting charged to withdraw money, but as far as I am concerned that was not my problem. So no warning, nothing, just raises the price for no apparent reason.

So now I am very unhappy. I explain all the stuff I have done to help him, much of which I never even mention in this letter so far, and I tell him I want a good explanation for why he is charging me more for the next two batches. He replies back ending each one of his responses with “LOL.” So he is essentially laughing in my face and basically down-playing anything I did for him. He explains that a full explanation would take too long, but he basically said he was not going to produce any more units until June 2016, so these are his last 34 units until then. So basically, again he was attempting to exploit more money from me, however this time by apparently creating a false demand by halting production for a few months.

At this point we cut all ties with Mnemo. There were a lot of details which I left out of this letter, but here is some of them:

• He had the audacity to insult my employees in one conversation, telling me to hire better people.
• Never once during our whole correspondence did he ever thank me for anything I did for him. He was arrogant and rude, treated me like I was an idiot.
• He thought our mark-up should only be 10% to 15%, anyone who knows retail know this is ludicrously low margin.
• I offered to help him with branding and logo design and offered to make a logo for free. He thought that was a stupid idea.
• Since he did not seem interested in increasing production I actually talked to KRIKzz to see if he would be interested in manufacturing the Dreamcast adapter and just pay Mnemo royalties. Similar to his agreement with Ikari_01 and the SD2SNES. KRIKzz agreed, but Mnemo absolutely refused. I took a big risk by doing this because if Mnemo agreed I would essentially lose my exclusivity over the product, but personally I just wanted the product to exist and for us to be able to sell it, so I was willing to forfeit that for increased production.
• Mnemo was having trouble getting PCBs made, so I actually asked dbElectronics where he got his PCBs made to help Mnemo. He told me, which I passed on to Mnemo and I believe he ended up using this company to produce his PCBs. No gratitude ever given.
• And the list goes on...

His business plan (or lack thereof) appeared to be not using the money he made to buy equipment and/or hire employees to increase production, but was to continue to create a demand with low production and just raise the price to milk the market for as much money as he could with this false demand. We sent him well over $30K by the way, would have been way more if he actually produced more.

I have experience with this kind of business arrangement. KRIKzz and dbElectronics for example. Both of these guys have been nothing but excellent to deal with. I would even consider KRIKzz a friend at this point and I hope to soon be meeting him in person. Even dbElectronics had to raise his price at one time, but he wrote me an e-mail explaining why, it was completely understandable and we offered no objection to it.

I understand that to some people this all may seem like petty drama. However, we tried and tried to work with Mnemo and we could have continued to just go with the flow and keep raising our prices to compensate for his price increases, but we felt we had to draw the line. We personally feel the guy was exploiting us and essentially using us like his personal bank account and we had enough. We will never do business with Mnemo again.

We are still sitting on over 600 Molex connectors for the Dreamcast. So if some other developer out there is working on a Dreamcast adapter we would love to do business with you, please contact us.

We will continue to look for new products to offer the community and we would like to thank our customers for all their support.

Sincerely,
Ryan Cross
President
Stone Age Gamer LLC

[Einzelherz]

The GDEMU guy's stuff looks great but the price is hard to eat

If'n I wasn't one of them stingy broke ass collectors, I'd order that and the Saturn one.

[BuckoA51]

It's a real shame when there's people like that in our community. Anyone fancy making an open source USB GD-ROM emulator?

[philexile]

Hello,

I also had a very bad experience with this guy recently. I'm heading into work and will post about it in detail later.

One thing to note: in order to get a refund from him (he said the 3DO adapter was out of production as of February but refused to issue a refund) I had to file a claim. PayPal settled the dispute and issued the refund on 3/25 — so I don't think it's a coincidence that he asked for payments to be issued as a gift after that.

In my opinion: he is just trying to screw people at this point. Stay away from him!

For DC the GDEmu is available from a respectable seller. I own one and it's great! Hopefully something else comes out for the 3DO.

[BuckoA51]

I actually considered approaching him myself at one point as I'm always looking to try and grow my business, but (fortunately as it turns out!) I decided against it in the end as at the time he was only taking Western Union or some crappy expensive payment service and I don't have a lot in the bank to invest in 100s of units. Sounds like I dodged a bullet.