Dreamcast USB Loader Coming Soon
- Thread starter Heran Bago
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The notion of a full DC library intrigued me so I went and did the usual "best ?? games" but for the Dreamcast. Between the PC, the other ports and remakes we saw on the likes of XBLA over the last few years I am not sure how much there is to warrant me wrestling with one of those controllers. Mind you I am discounting a lot of the fighting games and a lot of the driving games on the basis of being early 3d and thus probably best avoided.
As ever there are likely to be a few shmups that I want to play, Mars Matrix and Armada being two I only just found out about, but I am not feeling it as much as I might for a Saturn one (for which I believe there are some credible rumblings).
As ever there are likely to be a few shmups that I want to play, Mars Matrix and Armada being two I only just found out about, but I am not feeling it as much as I might for a Saturn one (for which I believe there are some credible rumblings).
I have a Dreamcast that I got from an anime convention for $40, I'll get it if it's not too expensive.
This invention is cool, but seems about 10 years too late... They should have made it back when the Dreamcast was starting to die out, that's where the cash-in would have been. They'll be lucky if a hand full of DC collectors even bother picking this thing up. The Dreamcast doesn't even have a very big software library, nor many GOOD games out of it worth this solderless hardmod. I give them a generous 8/10 for effort. (They lost two points for being late to the party.)
I haven't owned or played a dreamcast before. I guess it's time to own one and get this loader. Nothing beats playing retro games on a CRT tv. 
I just hope it won't be that expensive.
I just hope it won't be that expensive. 
You sir are insane.
The Dreamcast has a massive fan following and a sizable homebrew scene, people still develop "retail" games for it. As far as being "10 years too late", that's not the case either - 10 years ago ODDE's weren't "a thing" yet, manufacturing such devices was not cost-effective.
I still think an ODDE could have been built fairly cheap back then, since U3 drives managed hardware emulation of ISO mounted images back then. I still use my U3 drive as a custom "USB CD-ROM". I keep the latest MS Office "burned" to it. So if a freaking USB stick could emulate a CD-ROM drive for cheap back then, I don't see why the dreamcast couldn't have this made cheap then too.
The downside is that it only supports USB 1.1 instead of USB 2, affecting game compatibility. Another downside is PS2 Slim owners. Also, USB support for PS1 games, anyone?The PS2 has plenty of loading alternatives - SMB, USB and HDD loading isn't hard to achieve and doesn't require any chips at all. With the Dreamcast, the only alternative to burned CD's is the serial port, and even that requires a boot disc.
There's no USB support for PS1 for pretty obvious reasons - the PS1 had no USB. Your best bet is emulation, but that's hit-and-miss. As for USB, 1.1 is indeed a bottleneck, which is why I go for SMB instead - the Ethernet port is much faster and the compatibility is superb. Every Slim has the Ethernet port built-in, so it's a great alternative.
Man, I really wish someone developed a hardware based USB loader for slim PS2's (not everyone has the privilege to connect a PS2 to a PC).
Edit: PS1 may not have a USB loader yet, but there is a SD loader on the way: http://ps-io.com/
It's really easy though, you can just hook it up to your home network or any PC at all. It's super-convenient.
I'm interested in PS-IO as well, looking forward to it.
It's really easy though, you can just hook it up to your home network or any PC at all. It's super-convenient.
With SMB, i found that direct connection to PC is the best (unless you have high end router). I'm actually thinking about buying Beaglebone Black or Raspberry Pi and set it up for PS2 SMB use (that'll free up PC independence).
That's true - the throughput tends to be better if you connect directly. That being said, using a router is also an option if you don't want to connect your PC directly to the system or it's just nowhere nearby.
U3 drives launched in 2004, the Dreamcast was released in 1998. U3 technology was developed by Sandisk and M-Systems, two huge corporations that had the money to fund R&D, your average household hacker or a small bootleg operation didn't have the funds or the resources for anything of the sort. That, and emulating a drive on a PC where things can be easily virtualized is a whole different can of worms than on a console where you have to hook up to the drive ribbon directly. There's a reason why ODDE's started popping up last generation - that's when the technology was viable to manufacture by small-time operations.
No thanks.
Like PS2PSXe, POPS (PS1 emulator written by Sony for PS2) is crappy in terms of compatibility. I don't consider PS2PSXe and POPS to be a viable alternative for running PS1 game on PS2.
Just use an emulator, with the cynical air included. Damn, even a freaking Android phone... which kind of obscure games are you trying to play, anyway?
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We have seen the Wii loading Gamecube games through SD and USB, and IIRC the Gamecube doesn't have any of those options.
the real reason the PS2 can't do PS1 through USB is because the USB controller is the old processor of the PS1, and thus unusable in any other way when the PS2 is on BC mode.
Too bad I through away my original 1.0 Playstation a long time ago. Its a wonder it's disc drive lasted as long as it did. There is a reason Sony started using a different disc drive in the playstation only 4 months after the north america launch.
What can I say, the DC was in desperate need of something like this, to save it from the hypocrisy of "more accurate" dumps that only run on emulators. There's actually only a tiny handful of CDIs that aren't 100% complete. The only thing most GDIs bring to the table are a bunch of empty sectors. Still, 2 TB MyBooks are cheap, so, if they want to waste gigs of space on marginal improvements to 5 or so games, no skin off my back.
This resolves the main problem with the GDI format. The inability to test its accuracy. For an emulator-only format to become dominant is dangerous. I suppose it was hard to avoid with the Dreamcast using a custom disc format. But accuracy has a tendency to suffer when verification is not possible. The Dreamcast emulators that use GDI were at risk becoming their own platforms, just like Nesticle. This will ensure that the GDIs, the emulators that use them, and the translation patches for them, are accurate. Just like the N8 and Powerpak keep modern NES emulators and the iNES format true to real hardware, and cheap SNES carts like the Super Everdrive have finally led to bad translation patches like the one for "Ys IV - Mask Of The Sun" being corrected.
I didn't know they made something for the 3DO either. I'll have to check that one out as well.
Hopefully they'll do the PC Engine/Turbografx, PC-FX, Saturn, and Neo Geo CD eventually as well (as for Sega CD, the 10 or so titles worth playing aren't unmanageable, but if they make the device, I'll probably buy it just for the sake of completion).
For PSX, I'm currently using the PS3's PSX emulator via Multiman/Webman. You have to have folders for each letter (PSXISOA, PSXISOB, etc.), and rename so that it doesn't try to list all the games at once. Still, it's the best solution I could find for now. Much better than anything for the PS2. I will definitely go for the PS-IO when it's out though.
These ODDEs are coming at a good time for me -- my flash adapter collection's nearly complete (we're all still waiting on Harmony 2, and I'd pick up an Ultimate 5200 SD if I could find reasonably-priced 5200 controllers, but I'm using my XEGS to run most 5200 games already, courtesy of The!Cart and the SIO2SD I'm using to program it). My ultimate goal is to have every system where you can just turn it on, select any game ever made for it from a menu, and play it. No compromises, all 100% genuine hardware.
That's a short-sighted bet if you ask me. Emulation is the Windows ME of retro-gaming. I wouldn't bet on it hanging around much longer, personally. Emulators were cool when I discovered them in 1996, but they just don't light my fire anymore. Super Road Blaster on a PC, yawn, cheap trick, PCs have relatively infinite resources compared to the SNES. Seeing it play on a real SNES, now, that was actually fun. Don't forget, for most people the priority is re-creating the original experience, not graphics hacks that won't even run on real hardware. Only "hard-core" PC gamers blindly sacrifice gameplay (not to mention their right to privacy) for graphics. Have a look at DICE, the only circuit-level-accurate emulator, and see how slow it is running even a game as simple as Pong. Emulation is at an impasse. FPGAs are the future. Only they can end the compromise, offering both circuit-level accuracy AND full speed. They can add extra resources to the reconstructed console too though. So, people who's thing is graphics hacks won't be left in the cold either. Not that I could recommend a device like the MiST at this time, because it's a bit too early in the game. Most of the cores still need a lot of work. That said, I may never play Pac-Man in MAME again (that's one damn good core).
This resolves the main problem with the GDI format. The inability to test its accuracy. For an emulator-only format to become dominant is dangerous. I suppose it was hard to avoid with the Dreamcast using a custom disc format. But accuracy has a tendency to suffer when verification is not possible. The Dreamcast emulators that use GDI were at risk becoming their own platforms, just like Nesticle. This will ensure that the GDIs, the emulators that use them, and the translation patches for them, are accurate. Just like the N8 and Powerpak keep modern NES emulators and the iNES format true to real hardware, and cheap SNES carts like the Super Everdrive have finally led to bad translation patches like the one for "Ys IV - Mask Of The Sun" being corrected.
I didn't know they made something for the 3DO either. I'll have to check that one out as well.
Hopefully they'll do the PC Engine/Turbografx, PC-FX, Saturn, and Neo Geo CD eventually as well (as for Sega CD, the 10 or so titles worth playing aren't unmanageable, but if they make the device, I'll probably buy it just for the sake of completion).
For PSX, I'm currently using the PS3's PSX emulator via Multiman/Webman. You have to have folders for each letter (PSXISOA, PSXISOB, etc.), and rename so that it doesn't try to list all the games at once. Still, it's the best solution I could find for now. Much better than anything for the PS2. I will definitely go for the PS-IO when it's out though.
These ODDEs are coming at a good time for me -- my flash adapter collection's nearly complete (we're all still waiting on Harmony 2, and I'd pick up an Ultimate 5200 SD if I could find reasonably-priced 5200 controllers, but I'm using my XEGS to run most 5200 games already, courtesy of The!Cart and the SIO2SD I'm using to program it). My ultimate goal is to have every system where you can just turn it on, select any game ever made for it from a menu, and play it. No compromises, all 100% genuine hardware.
That's a short-sighted bet if you ask me. Emulation is the Windows ME of retro-gaming. I wouldn't bet on it hanging around much longer, personally. Emulators were cool when I discovered them in 1996, but they just don't light my fire anymore. Super Road Blaster on a PC, yawn, cheap trick, PCs have relatively infinite resources compared to the SNES. Seeing it play on a real SNES, now, that was actually fun. Don't forget, for most people the priority is re-creating the original experience, not graphics hacks that won't even run on real hardware. Only "hard-core" PC gamers blindly sacrifice gameplay (not to mention their right to privacy) for graphics. Have a look at DICE, the only circuit-level-accurate emulator, and see how slow it is running even a game as simple as Pong. Emulation is at an impasse. FPGAs are the future. Only they can end the compromise, offering both circuit-level accuracy AND full speed. They can add extra resources to the reconstructed console too though. So, people who's thing is graphics hacks won't be left in the cold either. Not that I could recommend a device like the MiST at this time, because it's a bit too early in the game. Most of the cores still need a lot of work. That said, I may never play Pac-Man in MAME again (that's one damn good core).
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