71–80 of 232 posts
I can't wait for him to start selling these! I would buy one in a hot minute. My Saturn is collecting dust and there are so many games I just can't get my hands on for my Saturn, and emulation in my experience hardly works. It's way too weird a machine.
There is already an SD card drive for the Saturn. https://gdemu.wordpress.com/ To achieve this did not require fully reverse engineering the cdrom controller but it is great someone did though.
I can't wait for him to start selling these! I would buy one in a hot minute. My Saturn is collecting dust and there are so many games I just can't get my hands on for my Saturn, and emulation in my experience hardly works. It's way too weird a machine.
In case it helps, there is actually a very low tech solution to booting copied games on Saturn hardware that works with the vast majority of games released (especially expensive/rare/hard to find games like the Treasure releases). Tape/wedge the drive lid sensor down, power up with a real game in (you don't need to close the lid as the sensor believes the lid is always shut) and allow it do the initial copy protectio…
Then I killed it trying to mod it. Got a PS1 instead, couldn't figure out the trick anymore.
It was funny that they kept on changing the points where the disc would read info, you had to swap multiple times at different points. They wouldn't stop either, just slow down.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Dreamcast games varied in size massively. Crazy Taxi was only around 100mb. So small in fact that when initially burnt to a CD the drive couldn't load files fast enough (as files were closer to the inner ring of the disc). Tools were then released to 'pad' the game files out to be closer to the outer edge with a dummy file. Files close to the outer edge can be read faster as the drive laser can cover more distance pe…
I believe they did no such thing(proof would be greatly appreciated). What they did was downsample the audio files and the pvr game textures. To achieve what you claim would more than likely mean game engine modification and without the source code I dont see that happening.
I have little reason to doubt their claims given their clear technical skill spanning multiple console generations (Echelon might have only been associated with the Dreamcast/PS2, but it's obvious that their 'group' were behind multiple other, very highly technically accomplished scene groups).
Access to the source code is even a possibility - at one point they routinely released games weeks or even months before street dates.
http://dcemulation.org/phpBB/viewtopic.php?f=34&t=97250 is worth a read for an indication of some of the shenanigans that were afoot back in those days.
I can't wait for him to start selling these! I would buy one in a hot minute. My Saturn is collecting dust and there are so many games I just can't get my hands on for my Saturn, and emulation in my experience hardly works. It's way too weird a machine.
In case it helps, there is actually a very low tech solution to booting copied games on Saturn hardware that works with the vast majority of games released (especially expensive/rare/hard to find games like the Treasure releases). Tape/wedge the drive lid sensor down, power up with a real game in (you don't need to close the lid as the sensor believes the lid is always shut) and allow it do the initial copy protectio…
Maybe you can shave the back of the shimmed wobble edge down, so that it won't stick out as much on the burned CD. This shimmed wobble can be your key for all the burned CDs you have.
Maybe double sided tape can keep the wobble shim attached to your burned CD while still allowing it to be removable for other CDs.
I've never had a Saturn, so I don't know what this wobble edge looks like in person. Am I missing something?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Dreamcast games varied in size massively. Crazy Taxi was only around 100mb. So small in fact that when initially burnt to a CD the drive couldn't load files fast enough (as files were closer to the inner ring of the disc). Tools were then released to 'pad' the game files out to be closer to the outer edge with a dummy file. Files close to the outer edge can be read faster as the drive laser can cover more distance pe…
> "Skies of Arcadia was I believe the biggest ever 'released' - 2x1GB" Bigger than Shenmue / Shenmue 2? IIRC both Shenmue games spanned 3 GD-ROMs.
He mentions archival as a motivation but can we trust the rest of the hardware to last more than a few decades? Isn't emulation the real archival solution?
long story short, it is the real solution, but its not a practical one by any means.