Dreamcast Question

[Blanka789]

Exactly how do you get an emulator to work onj your dreamcast? I downloaded a neo geo emu, but I don't have any idea of how to make it work. I'm not sure if this is the right forum to put this in, but any help would be GREATLY appreciated. Thanks!

[Flack]

Exactly how do you get an emulator to work onj your dreamcast? I downloaded a neo geo emu, but I don't have any idea of how to make it work. I'm not sure if this is the right forum to put this in, but any help would be GREATLY appreciated. Thanks!

The easiest way is to download pre-made disk images which have the emulator combined with a boot disk. If that's the case, you simply burn and go. If you downloaded an image without any roms, you will need to supply your own roms and probably copy them into the directory before you burn the disc.

Lots and lots of info here: http://www.dcemulation.com

[poopnes]

Just wanted to add something since I just ran into this problem. I have two burners a 4x DVD+R drive and an old 4x CD-R drive. The DVD+R drive will not burn CD's any slower than 16x, which my Dreamcast will not read. I had to use my old drive (good thing I kept it) to burn at 4x so my Dreamcast would read the CD. Just something to keep in mind.

[njiska]

Just wanted to add something since I just ran into this problem. I have two burners a 4x DVD+R drive and an old 4x CD-R drive. The DVD+R drive will not burn CD's any slower than 16x, which my Dreamcast will not read. I had to use my old drive (good thing I kept it) to burn at 4x so my Dreamcast would read the CD. Just something to keep in mind.

Whoa that's suprising my Pioneer AO5 burns CDs at 4x without any trouble, but that is the bottom speed for it too.

[Trebuken]

I've heard of people havinf problems with the burn speed, and also with certain media.

The most common problem is not having the correct Dreamcast. You have to have one that was made during certain dates whcih I do not recall.

Try Here
http://www.dcemulation.com/dcemu-nesterdc.htm

That's where I learned the little I know..


Trebuken

[jonjandran]

I've heard of people havinf problems with the burn speed, and also with certain media.

The most common problem is not having the correct Dreamcast. You have to have one that was made during certain dates whcih I do not recall.

Try Here
http://www.dcemulation.com/dcemu-nesterdc.htm

That's where I learned the little I know..


Trebuken

That's not true. It's been found out that ALL Dreamcast will play burned discs.
If you have one that doesn't it has a laser that is dying or the media wasn't burned properly.

[Trebuken]

Cool. Took some effort to find correctly dated systems too...

Good to know. Glad I picked up another unit. Maybe I can make them emulator specific now....get a couple more dirt cheap somewhere...

Haven't tried much emulation of late on a Dreamcast. Been thinking of making the leap to an Xbox modchip, but I cannot decide on which one...want to have to component output...

Trebuken

[Maxx]

Thanks for aksing this question. I was wanting to know myself....

[poopnes]

Just wanted to add something since I just ran into this problem. I have two burners a 4x DVD+R drive and an old 4x CD-R drive. The DVD+R drive will not burn CD's any slower than 16x, which my Dreamcast will not read. I had to use my old drive (good thing I kept it) to burn at 4x so my Dreamcast would read the CD. Just something to keep in mind.

Whoa that's suprising my Pioneer AO5 burns CDs at 4x without any trouble, but that is the bottom speed for it too.

After googling your drive it seems your Pioneer will not burn CDRs faster than 16x so that might be why. Mine will burn at 40x max.

And its just a good tip, don't burn your CD's faster than 4x.

[goatdan]

That's not true. It's been found out that ALL Dreamcast will play burned discs.
If you have one that doesn't it has a laser that is dying or the media wasn't burned properly.

Actually, you are wrong on that. Not all Dreamcast's will play burned discs -- at the end of the lifecycle, Sega redesigned the Dreamcast to lock out CDs. Fortunately (if you want to play emulators or new games ;) ), they made barely any of these systems... and then when the Dreamcast sold really well and Sega re-started their factories for a short while to manufacture more consoles for Japan, they used the spare parts from the originals.

Chances are there are less than 100,000 Dreamcasts that cannot play burned discs, and almost all of them ended up in Asia. I have seen and know people with them, but of the 100 or so consoles I've had my hands on within the last three years, I have never found one myself.

By the way, if anyone has one, I'd be happy to trade for the other type :D

[poopnes]

That's not true. It's been found out that ALL Dreamcast will play burned discs.
If you have one that doesn't it has a laser that is dying or the media wasn't burned properly.

Actually, you are wrong on that. Not all Dreamcast's will play burned discs -- at the end of the lifecycle, Sega redesigned the Dreamcast to lock out CDs. Fortunately (if you want to play emulators or new games ;) ), they made barely any of these systems... and then when the Dreamcast sold really well and Sega re-started their factories for a short while to manufacture more consoles for Japan, they used the spare parts from the originals.

Chances are there are less than 100,000 Dreamcasts that cannot play burned discs, and almost all of them ended up in Asia. I have seen and know people with them, but of the 100 or so consoles I've had my hands on within the last three years, I have never found one myself.

By the way, if anyone has one, I'd be happy to trade for the other type :D

And actually you're wrong about that. Check out this page: http://dreamlover.tecbox.com/#6.1

[goatdan]

And actually you're wrong about that. Check out this page: http://dreamlover.tecbox.com/#6.1

That article is mentioning systems that were manufactured in 2000. The ones that don't work come from 2001 and were probably only released to the Asian market. Of the two people that I know with one, one lives in Japan and the other picked his up on a visit there. Unlike the Dreamcast's the article mentions, these ones lock out all CD functionality (meaning you can't play an audio CD either).

My 100,000 number is probably higher than what really came out by a lot. For all I know, maybe a few prototypes of the system were packed up and shipped out when Japan started their lines up the final time. I do know that they do exist though.

[poopnes]

...

[poopnes]

And actually you're wrong about that. Check out this page: http://dreamlover.tecbox.com/#6.1

That article is mentioning systems that were manufactured in 2000. The ones that don't work come from 2001 and were probably only released to the Asian market. Of the two people that I know with one, one lives in Japan and the other picked his up on a visit there. Unlike the Dreamcast's the article mentions, these ones lock out all CD functionality (meaning you can't play an audio CD either).

My 100,000 number is probably higher than what really came out by a lot. For all I know, maybe a few prototypes of the system were packed up and shipped out when Japan started their lines up the final time. I do know that they do exist though.

Thanks for pointing that out and proving me wrong! =) I didn't realize that there were DC's that totally locked out CD's--even CD playing functionality. Learn something new everyday, you do.

[goatdan]

Thanks for pointing that out and proving me wrong! =) I didn't realize that there were DC's that totally locked out CD's--even CD playing functionality. Learn something new everyday, you do.

No problem :) Don't worry about it -- I don't think that too many people actually know about this revision, but a few people that I know of were actually consulted about it. It seemed that a certain company liked having a platform out that smaller developers could work on without having to buy an offiical dev-kit, but not one which could have all of its games pirated easily. They didn't want to lock out the legal things that were going on, but they felt that they had too...

In the end, it all basically ended up moot, as Sega killed the Dreamcast just as they were changing over the line.

[poopnes]

Thanks for pointing that out and proving me wrong! =) I didn't realize that there were DC's that totally locked out CD's--even CD playing functionality. Learn something new everyday, you do.

No problem :) Don't worry about it -- I don't think that too many people actually know about this revision, but a few people that I know of were actually consulted about it. It seemed that a certain company liked having a platform out that smaller developers could work on without having to buy an offiical dev-kit, but not one which could have all of its games pirated easily. They didn't want to lock out the legal things that were going on, but they felt that they had too...

In the end, it all basically ended up moot, as Sega killed the Dreamcast just as they were changing over the line.

Do you have a screen shot of the main menu of these Dreamcasts or at least do you have a rough idea of how they looked. Curious as to how it was changed.

[goatdan]

Do you have a screen shot of the main menu of these Dreamcasts or at least do you have a rough idea of how they looked. Curious as to how it was changed.

I don't, but apparently you put in an audio CD, and the Dreamcast does the same thing that it does when it can't read a disc that is put into it. Beyond that, everything looks the same.

That's why I don't believe these ever went into big time production. Sega would've at least cleaned that up a bit, at least, I would have hoped so.

[dj898]

just pick and flip it over.
if you see number "2" circled in the big sticker on DC bottom the chances are it won't play CD...

[jonjandran]

just pick and flip it over.
if you see number "2" circled in the big sticker on DC bottom the chances are it won't play CD...

This is NOT true and please stop repeating thingsthat aren't true.

I have 7 with the 2 circled and they all read CD's.

Read this article and look in the column under "Non-Working Models" and notice it says "It has been determined all models, that were previously thought un-working, infact do work that were in this list. So this concludes that so far, all DC's work :)"

http://www.dcemulation.com/article-supported.htm

This was proved a couple of years ago. :roll:

[Muscelli]

use DC factory to burn ur stuff... either that or discjuggler

BTW dan, do your games work on those select "non compatible" DCs... I dont think they are on GDR, are they?

[goatdan]

BTW dan, do your games work on those select "non compatible" DCs... I dont think they are on GDR, are they?

No, due to the fact that you have to be a licensed Sega group to use their GD-ROM facilities, our unlicensed releases go on regular CDs -- as did the GameShark as well as bleem!Cast.

I found out about these two machines during testing for FoF. No, our games do not work on them.

That having been said, after selling thousands of copies of games -- mostly in Asia -- we have yet to hear of a game not working properly in anyone elses system. Just those two.

[goatdan]

Oh yes, as one more point to make with this...

If anyone comes across a system that can't play CDs legitly (not a broken Dreamcast), I would be happy to trade for it or buy it off you. We wanted to get our hands on one for extended testing (and possibly finding a way to make the games boot) but we haven't seen any...

[smork]

One thing I've been wondering and can't seem to find -- can you use a boot disc and emulator to play Neo Geo CD originals? And do the games actually load at a decent rate, unlike the Neo Geo CD?

[s1lence]

See, I've always avoided getting one of the black Dreamcasts because I thought they didnt play cd-rs. Since I see thats not the case, I think I'll pick one up.

[Amy Rose]

One thing I've been wondering and can't seem to find -- can you use a boot disc and emulator to play Neo Geo CD originals? And do the games actually load at a decent rate, unlike the Neo Geo CD?
Yay, I was about to ask this also! I've never found anyone that could give me a straight answer. :(

[SegaAges]

A couple of things:

1.) I have burnt dc games at 8x and had them play on my dc without any problem.

2.) I am on my second dc, both are from completely different dates, and both have played burnt games properly

If you burn something and it doesn't seem to play, than you need to try and burn it again, because that means you burnt it wrong.

As for emultion, the easiest way is to do what I like to call the double swap. Read the readme for the emu to find out if games have to be in a specific folder. If they do, burn all your roms onto a disc by themselves but make sure that when you burn them they are in the folder they are supposed to be in (if no folder is needed, you can burn to the root). Then burn the emulator with the program you are supposed to burn it with (if downloading from dcemulation.com, they usually tell you which program you need to burn it with). If you burnt the non-bootable version, then you need a boot disk. Boot the emulator, than when it is loaded, pop it out, put the rom cd in, and then go to the games and it will work 99% of the time.

[Elusive]

Just to provide my tuppence: My DC I assumed was broken is in fact fine; my sole game that came with it was actually faulty. A cheapo sealed new copy of Quake 3 proved me wrong.

What's important is my unit - a PAL 'blue swirl' DC - will not play any CD-Rs. None. The only music CDs that it will play are genuine audio CDs, not burnt CD-Rs. Is there a way to tell the manufacturing date of the console without having the retail box?

[jonjandran]

J

What's important is my unit - a PAL 'blue swirl' DC - will not play any CD-Rs. None. The only music CDs that it will play are genuine audio CDs, not burnt CD-Rs. Is there a way to tell the manufacturing date of the console without having the retail box?

It's printed on the bottom of the console on the "Shock Hazard" sticker.

Oh and ALL Pal Dreamcasts will read CD-R's , yours probably just has a laser that is weak or going bad.

[Elusive]

I wouldn't think it's the laser's problem. After all, it's the console that interprets the data sent to it by the laser; as Quake 3 and the genuine audio CDs I own play fine I guess it must be my unit's manufacturing that's the problem, not the laser itself.

[jonjandran]

I wouldn't think it's the laser's problem. After all, it's the console that interprets the data sent to it by the laser; as Quake 3 and the genuine audio CDs I own play fine I guess it must be my unit's manufacturing that's the problem, not the laser itself.

That's a common misconception. But as anyone with a PS2 could tell you, the laser when it is going bad will be able to read cd-r's but not DVD or vice versa. Or it will read a PS1 disc and DVD but not PS2 Dvd but it will read PS2 CD.

It's the same with a Dreamcast. The CD-R is the hardest medium for it to read , so when it starts to go bad , CD-R reading is the first to go.

[Elusive]

Well anyway, my model's a HKT-3030, and the bottom reads (1) PAL E. Who knows.