Dreamcast USB Loader Coming Soon

[Heran Bago]

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It's a Dreamcast USB Adapter. For those who don't understand why this could be a good thing, here is my personal list of how it'd be nice:

1. The Dreamcast's disc drive is really loud.
2. Dreamcast backups on a CD-R are limited in file size since the original GD-ROMs are bigger. Some Dreamcast ISOs have to get clover to fit on a CD-R with lower quality audio, video, voice acting, or removing some of these altogether.
3. GDIs on the real hardware
4. The Dreamcast drive will die eventually. You can tune the laser strength to give it a little extra life but a busted drive is the eventual fate of most disc based gaming consoles.
5. Dreamcast emulation isn't perfect. The Dreamcast owns and playing stuff on the real hardware owns. Just Emulate It is a bad attitude for retrogaming.

There was an attempt at a Dreamcast SD card loader earlier. It turned out not to be very good. The big downside to this is that it altogether replaces the disc drive in a Dreamcast. This is great for units with broken drives, of which there are plenty. Also noteworthy is that it doesn't appear to reduce load times much. It's probably going to be super expensive and Stone Age Gamer kind of sucks.


Here's the announcement with my comments in bold.

From the creator of the 3DO USB Adapter (the what?) comes the Dreamcast USB Adapter.

Features:
- USB 2.0 Host
- support USB Flash Stick, SATA/IDE HDD(tested only 3.5''), SD up to 2 TBytes
- support FAT32 (no NTFS?)
- Game selection menu system (updatable?)
- 100% compatible (good)
- CDDA supported (you just said 100%...)
- Format: GDI & ISO
- Region free (You can launch any GDI images on your console)
- excellent design (really?)

We have been working with MNEMO (creator) over the last couple months trying to acquire a few hard-to-find parts for this project.

The good news we have accomplished this. So we hope later 2015 or very early 2015 we will begin to carry the Dreamcast USB Adapter. Unlike the GDEMU this adapter has a built-in menu system and can handle drives up to 2TB.

But SAG, I can't mod a system to save my life! Well we have good news for you. These mod is virtually plug and play. No soldering, de-soldering or wiring needed. You just unplug and remove your GD-ROM and connect the USB Adapter. Its a simple PCI-style connector. The only modification is a simple cut to the back of the shell. (Cutting or dremmeling a nice hole is not that easy)

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We currently do not have any final pricing on this product, but obviously once we do we will post about it in FaceBook. A long with any news about pre-orders, etc.​

http://www.stoneagegamer.com/

 

[Thomas83Lin]

Nice, but it looks like I would have to desolder and move the Usb socket, I'd prefer just to keep it inside the console at all times. instead of it sticking out, and having to cut the case.

edit: Heres a better quality Img, hmm that usb doesn't look to bad

 

[WiiCube_2013]

Eh, would have been more ideal if the USB port was at the front than at the back.

 

[loco365]

Eh, would have been more ideal if the USB port was at the front than at the back.

Wii says hello.

 

[Hyro-Sama]

Haven't most of the worthwhile games for the Dreamcast been ported now anyway? No reason to go buy a USB loader for the one "definitive" game that was overlooked.

 

[WiiCube_2013]

Haven't most of the worthwhile games for the Dreamcast been ported now anyway? No reason to go buy a USB loader for the one "definitive" game that was overlooked.

My favourite series of Dreamcast (PowerStone) was ported to PSP and while they remastered it nicely for the system it looks awful because the screen's so small.

 

[Foxi4]

If streaming content works then this is ideal. Using the serial port is hit and miss and burning CD's only takes you so far. As far as NTFS support is concerned, that'd be completely useless since no Dreamcast disc image goes beyond 1.2GB as far as I know, the system used GD-ROM's (derrivative of CD-ROM).

 

[FAST6191]

Consider my interest piqued. I will still bet on emulation in the mid to long term (even if the texture replacement people are not doing as much as the N64 and GC lot) but this could help a few things along.

 

[Armadillo]

Want. Want it now .

 

[Bladexdsl]

a little late

 

[kristianity77]

I'm still waiting on one for the PS2!

 

[Necron]

I'm still waiting on one for the PS2!

You already can?

 

[endoverend]

I don't want to remove the drive though...

 

[Foxi4]

I'm still waiting on one for the PS2!

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.

 

[VashTS]

I mentioned a DC ODE a while back. Glad to see its coming to life. Probably will be to pricey but still nice.

 

[kristianity77]

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.

Whats the compatibility like then these days? As when I tried it a few years back it was quite hit and miss with what it worked with and a fair few games I tried were quite glitchy. I'd say my success rate was about 80% at best previously. Cant remember what I used though HD loader or something but it wasn't much good.

 

[cvskid]

I don't want to remove the drive though...

You don't have to remove the drive though, you can either copy the games themselves from the ps2 right to the harddrive which takes a while to finish, or you can FTP games through a ethernet/crossover cable to put games on it without having to remove the harddrive for a ps2.

 

[endoverend]

You don't have to remove the drive though, you can either copy the games themselves from the ps2 right to the harddrive which takes a while to finish, or you can FTP games through a ethernet/crossover cable to put games on it without having to remove the harddrive for a ps2.

Was talking about the DC adapter. I use Ethernet for PS2 loading, in case you're curious.
How did DC serial port loading ever work? I heard nothing about that.

 

[cvskid]

Was talking about the DC adapter. I use Ethernet for PS2 loading, in case you're curious.
How did DC serial port loading ever work? I heard nothing about that.

Ah ok, and for me personally using the serial port for dreamcast games are hit and miss. Some work fine while others have heavy lag.At the very least emulators work alright through the serial port. Still sort of convient to have around though.

 

[cdoty]

My favourite series of Dreamcast (PowerStone) was ported to PSP and while they remastered it nicely for the system it looks awful because the screen's so small.

Buy a Playstation TV, it can play PSP games on your TV. I think the PowerStone collection is available in the Playstation Store (it is in the Asian store).