I guess experiences may vary . I destroyed 2 with burned games specifically but I played my most recent one with legit copies and never had an issue. I have had this one since 2010 and its good. HOWEVER I have played a bunch of the indie releases over the last few years on it and I haven't had an issue. I 100% fried the first two from burned games.
I'm a collector so i appreciate my legit copies, but i've also used backup/burned games regularly on DC since launch in 99, and my console runs the same as it did back then. For people asking how to make burned games somewhat safer, here's some tips: 1. Use name-brand media. People back in the CD burner days would buy 100 packs of no-brand crap since the media was expensive for a while. Some of the cheapest brands even had a top layer that would flake off (i owned some myself), basically leaving a disc with spots that light could shine directly thru. Damaged media is always tougher to read, so don't buy stuff more susceptible to damage. I mostly used Verbatim, Memorex, and Sony. 2. Find ISOs with file sizes that either fill or nearly fill the full disc. Many older rips like Adam mentioned made for poor burned discs, but it was mostly because it was just the compressed minimum data (often BIN CUE format), and people would not think to add a Dummy file on the disc to fill the remaining blank space. The less space your content takes up, the harder the laser will have to search during gameplay. If you have no choice but to use a small rip (usually more obscure games), research how to add a Dummy file. I recommend Discjuggler for ISOs, and Nero for Bin Cue files that also needed a Dummy. 3. Burn the game at the SLOWEST speed you can. This is probably your biggest issue in 2019 since if you have a burner at all, much of the software out there doesn't even allow 1x speed anymore. I burned all my games at 1x or 2x speed back in the day. 1x would take clear over an hour ( i forget how long). The fastest i've ever used i think is 4x speed. DO NOT burn at the max speed the disc advertises ( i personally wouldn't try over 10x speed). It's known to cause more problems for the Dreamcast to read the disc to burn at fast speeds. 4. Please note that some games are just stressful to the Dreamcast in general, even legit retail copies. Good example is Garou: Mark of the Wolves. It'll make any Dreamcast sound like a chainsaw revving up. I remember even reading some people swearing that game alone made their motor crap out, lol. I personally just play that game on other systems. It's not arcade-perfect on DC anyway, with extra slowdown and missing frames in animations 5. There are multiple revisions to the DC, and some have drives that are worse than others. You'll have to read which are the worst. Some of them just work harder on all games (retail or burned) and are more prone to failure.
This is probably the single most helpful comment I've read on this topic, a lot of the documentation I've read on burning CDs since I ordered my Dreamcast earlier this week has no concrete reasoning or explanation behind the methods offered so id like to make some questions about this so I can keep my DC in the best of conditions. 1:the part about garou is specially helpful to me, since I've been burning a bunch of fighting games, namely marvel 2, third strike and a project justice patch, all of which had rips that either exceded or nearly matched the media capacity. The one exception seemed to be a cel shaded 3rd person on rails shooter that would rev up constantly during the first level alone, and your comment matches my hypothesis that it would be less conducive to a well preserved disc reader, *I wanted to ask if there's anything else I should be looking for in fighting games in terms of noise, anything I could do to prevent unnecessary wear?* the disc will grind once at the start of every round from what I've played. 2: I followed the instructions shown on this video m.ruclips.net/video/e0_DcmBw3IY/видео.html which uses disc juggler, and would like to do as clean and safe of a disc burn as possible so I plan on using a slower disc burning solution since even at the slowest speed, discjuggler will finish a CD in about 5 minutes, *what would you personally suggest and why?* The guide I followed works but it's not helping me understand what's going on with my console and info on this conversation seems to begin and end on "you can burn discs on your Dreamcast and they will work" 3: the brands I'm using are verbatim and maxell. Out of the 2 maxell seems to be the better quality build overall, which I've used for burning most working games. I also put jet set radio on a verbatim disc with a printable top layer, which of the 3 of those that I've used, it's the only one that isn't nearly transparent from both sides, you mentioned something abt light shining directly through, *is that something I should be concerned about?* Either way I plan on investing in a pack of Sony CD-Rs soon but would like to know more. 4: going back to jet set radio, I got the reviveDC rip with stereo audio from CDromance. With this disc I've had the issue of a soft lock during one of the cutscenes and load times seem a bit noisy, *is the burnt image the issue? What else should I consider when getting rips online?* I've tried to get rips that are as new as possible as to avoid old super compressed files that I just assumed might be more harmful to my console. 5: somewhat unrelated question, aside from using Sony discs, I also intend on using the dreamshell bootdisc/SD adapter solution in order to preserve my console, as I read online that the GDEMU solution is prone to overheating and harming a nearby capacitor and straining the cooling fan. (I have a model 0) Anyways, so I wanted to know *if the dreamshell could cause a similar effect or harm the serial port. Is it worth owning?* As I understand the load times are worse but if it keeps my console alive I'll gladly use it. 6: *suggested reading?* As I've mentioned before finding good reliable documentation on this is a bit hard, though I've yet to lurk much on the Dreamcast junkyard and just going off shit I've found on gbatemp, reddit, message boards, y2k media sites and so on. The dreamcast i got is in beautiful conditions with basically no visible yellowing, i wanna do the best in preserving it and making as complete of a write up as possible in order to help other ppl like me with getting the most out of their dc in 2022, again thank you for this excelent comment.
I thought I might elaborate on how this damages the dreamcast because I find it likely some may not believe it. When you said "it sounds stressed out" that was a good analogy. A better one may be that it's like taking heroine and meth and then going for a run. If you listen closely you can hear the disc speeding up and slowing down over and over again, also you hear the laser lens moving back and forth over and over again. The reason is the dreamcast has to look all over the disc to find the data it needs, so the motors are always zipping around. This puts a ton of stress on all the mechanical and electrical components. These are all things that have a finite lifespan, and this kind of stress will shorten it greatly. This could be compared to the heart and these games raise the blood pressure and increase the heart rate. Thankfully I'm still using my original dreamcast. Knowing what I do now I'm amazed it still works. I'm not a boy scout saying don't play pirated games. I put my dreamcast through hell with them back in the day. If you do use burned discs and you love playing your dreamcast make sure you always have a backup system.
Thank you for writing out how it messes up the console, I also see alot of people not quite get how it actually kills the system, but hopefully people will see this. I personally have 2 Dreamcast's, one to play burned games, and one to play actual GD-Roms.
Bond Lohden I bought my last Dreamcast in 2009 when I got back into the community after 7 year hiatus. I burned over 500 optimized rips from groups like DcRes, Revive DC and others and never had issues with my laser. I played it for 6 years straight and it is a reliable machine. They way people optimize the layout of the game files on the disc stops laser strain. Many cases optimized backups run much better than their retail copies. If your laser is making loud sounds when playing games, you are doing it wrong and didn't go for an optimized iso from a reputable release group that knows what they are doing. I only play the backups that are silent when playing and it has worked out great for me for over half a decade.
Sega almost definitely knew about the risks of having MIL cd execute code on the dreamcast. They employed a use of a scrambler for mil cds, which was ti be pieced back together in the dreamcast ram and executed. Gd roms are different and are not scrambled so in theory shouldn't work. But even if you could Sega employed another trick of disabling the gdrom drive. Katana SDK (dreamcast dev kit) was stolen by the release group "Utopia" in late 1999. This allows them to reverse engineer the scatter program used by the dreamcast to protect it from booting gdrom from ordinary cds. It turned out that the scrambler was nothing more than security through obscurity. Meaning once you knew the secret you could easily get the dreamcast to run anything you wanted. Yes I agree it's quite ironic thats what kept the dreamcast alive. There's also some spectation this may have been a deliberate backdoor to ease development recordable gd roms where expensive and hard to get. But there's no evidence for this.
A lot of the older rips would beat on the laser because they were not filling up the disc and the laser would have to move into the inner regions to access the data. Alot of people realized that adding a dummy file to expand the disc data greatly reduced drive noise and wear. DCRES re-ripped a whole lot of DC games (and fixed them in more ways than one) over the years and they work great. I have had a DC since 1999 and have been pretty much playing backups (and real games obviously) since. Never caused any burn-out or any damage. Just get the right rips.
You don't need ANY special equipment to manufacture gdroms any cd factory can do it, in fact Sega quite often used emi to manufacture discs for them. The density of GD roms comes not from any special technology. All Sega did (yamaha really they designed the gigabyte disc) was slow the drive to about half speed that of a cd drive nearly doubling its density. This also means they could use off the shelf parts to make the drives. All though the drives are made from quality parts like motors Matsushita aka Panasonic. The drives where used in the katakana series (dreamcast and naomi) Sega chiro and triforce arcade hardwares.
Really sad that the exploit was discovered so early on into the lifecycle of the console which heavily contributed to the death of the Dreamcast. That's why there are multiple hacking/modding groups out there who are actually able to crack systems early but don't want to release their exploits too early on so the console itself can grow for a few years and so they can dodge any copyright issues from companies for the time being. fail0verflow for example said that they had completely reversed the Wii U super early on but have held onto the hack because they wanted the system to succeed and they wanted to prove that it was possible, other people just had to be vigilant. I believe they said the same for the Vita as well and if it wasn't them it was another group. They had quite an extensive blog post about the Wii U as well here: fail0verflow.com/blog/2014/console-hacking-2013-omake.html
+MrMario2011 I think burnt dreamcast games were a minute issue, I mean it was the excess hardware they had stock piled up, not that games were not selling
yungwhye They sold the console at a loss expecting software to make money, that didn't happen once people saw how easy it was to burn off games. No modchip needed, no expertise, and even back then $200 for a burner an $1 or $2 per CD-R was so much cheaper than $40 per game.
unless I misinterpreted the video, I believe he said it was hard to rip the games? I thought and that they slowly ruined the system..maybe i misheard anyway, all i am saying is that burnt games on the DC played a minute part in the demise of the DC. it was mostly cuz of the ps2, distrust of fans becuase of saturn and 32x, no 3rd party from EA and squaresoft (enix) and poor internal communication
+yungwhye Ripping original GD-ROM discs is extremely difficult. Requires a lot of non-conventional components. Playing "burned versions" is a totally different thing.
Adam. I wanted to say this. Even if the games do kill your Dreamcast faster, you save literally thousands of dollars anyways. Some of those games, even the indies can cost more than the Dreamcast.
So this MILF format makes the Dreamcast stress out and break. I find MILF an exciting option for both myself and the Dreamcast when alone in need of some play. "lighting candles and inserting the MILF for some action, joystick away"
Thank you for making this video as it answered a lot of questions and concerns that I had. I knew the Dreamcast was capable of playing burned games but I kept hearing rumors that it would damage the system over time. I took this information as rumor because I couldn't find any solid explanation as to why this would damaging to the system. I've been playing burned games on my Sega CD before without any issues so I wasn't sure why the Dreamcast was any different. Now that you've given me this knowledge, I will no longer play burned games on my Dreamcast anymore.
Dude I have been such a fool. My dreamcast has been dying on me recently and it's all due to playing Soul Calibur on a burned disc. I would NOT have done that if I knew it hurt the dreamcast. Very informative vid :)
doalwa I tried to sell a burned copy of a dreamcast game on amazon. but the buyer realized it was burned and got mad. But I didn't know it was a burned copy when I sold it.
Why it damages the console? The laser need to focus on the sectors of the disc, the problem is that every single burn you do come with some errors on the disc, this errors causes the focus lens to burn out. In a original disc the focus move the lens up and down to keep up while the disc is spinning, with a burn disc and because the errors you can't avoid, it causes stress at the coil that makes this focus work. First it will heat up then that protective layer of the wire melt causing a short circuit at the end. Same will happen with any optical drive and also dirty and scratched discs.
Hey Adam, great video! Finally somebody on YT explains how the MIL-CD exploit works! Sadly, Dreamcast units manufactured in 2001 had the MIL-CD feature stripped out. However, if you put a region-free BIOS in those units, you can play burned games on them. These units were replacements issued to some customers in 2001.
I still remember purchasing my first Dreamcast around mid 2000. I remember when utopia bootcd came out. I know 4-5 people that traded in their n64 and psx's just to get the dreamcast.
back in the day my brother worked for "funcoland" he had all this piracy hardware for super nintendo and sega genesis where you can upload games to a floppy disc straight from the hardware and play them back on the floppies using some black market game genie like add on. we had pretty much every game cataloged on floppy. then came emulators for computers. anywho, i gotta hit the replay button this video kicks ass.
Hi Adam. To add information to your video. That I know of USA and EUR DC's before OCT/NOV 2000 can read MIL-CD. To spot those DC's when you are about to buy one is to see if they are revision 0 or 1, if it is rev.2 then MIL-CD playback is disabled, BUT the MIL-CD code is still there only the playback "option" is off :). Other ways need to be taken to read homebrew and indie games on those late DC's. Make the 0-11700/11702 track be "data" format instead of audio the code and trick it to ON the option...... ;)
I've seen 100s of your videos and still have no idea what the quick shoot series is, or even what figure it out productions is. Maybe you could do a video to explain why every video starts with that cryptic Windows 95 sound effected title screen?
Thank you so much for this video! I just found my Dreamcast and I was wondering how to rip a few games I found. I never thought it would be so complex! -Matt
This is so cool. SEGA included MIL-CD compatibility for like 5 games that probably 10 Japanese people in an unbelievably niche market actually took advantage of; and now, it's the reason why the Dreamcast is still breathing. And thinking.
I wonder if it's possible to stick in a laptop DVD drive inside a Dreamcast or something (providing it has the same connector), so that you can play burned DVDs instead without ripping the data.
Depending on how the data is put on the disc, depends on how efficient it is on being read on the console. This doesn't matter if the game was originally mastered on a GDR or not, if the data is well placed and the console isn't straining to load data, it will generally be fine in terms of how it plays on your console. Being a homebrew game doesn't change that fact. Though, using CD-Rs probably will kill your laser faster, but they will also kill any other CD based console faster, too. This is inherently from using non pressed media - in summary, using DCRES or ReviveDC etc. releases won't do any more damage than if you burned a recent homebrew release.
I own 5 dreamcasts for several years and never had any problems with the later games Adam. Jap usa and eur consoles..., none of them has never let me down compared to the copies of my originals. Maybe it depends on your cdr's. Besides that a dc is not expensive any more. Thats my experience. Keep up the good work :D
I'm still confused, isn't the gd-rom about 1.2gb? If I burn a game, I am pretty most of them will have more of the 734mb capacity of the regular CD unless the MIL part of it is the remainder or something.
***** Surprisingly, most Dreamcast games didn't go past around 700 MBs. Ones that did often contained things like videos that could be heavily compressed and reingested to make the total size smaller.
Good info to know. I'm about to get a Dreamcast and had some interrogations regarding it's ability to read burned games. This answered them all. Now I know that I need to be careful wich MIL-CD rom I get on the net. Will hunt more recent ones, and I'll try to find ones who got positive feedback. do a little research on each rom.
+FinalBaton Happy to help. Also, when it comes to disc based games, they're not "ROMs", they're "ISOs". Will make searching easier to use the correct term. Good luck!
Hey I was wondering if you could do a quick display of your newest dream cast games. In terms of release date and explain what they are about and where you got them. Thanks for the videos keep it up man.
I followed the DC developments very closely back then and I recall that the exploit was discovered after hackers figured out how the disc version of Datel's Action Replay / Interact's Gameshark worked. The Action Replay was also used to run GameCube backups on a stock, unmodified, GameCube (Samson's Loader) very much like FMCB on PS2. I recall suggesting this on Dextrose or IRC before the loader existed (when Viper BIOS was ripped and released for use with the PSO exploit).
You may want to look into the 99-min cd-r's. There are a few rips/isos that require these special discs and data on say shenmue, will not be lost or compressed. Just FYI.
I'm one of those (VERY) unlucky cunts that has a Dreamcast that won't play burned games. It's fucking weird. It has all the tell-tale signs of being an early revision model but has no MIL-CD function.
I like all the Dreamcast videos. I really liked Sega back in the day. I remember how excited I was when the Saturn was released. Playing Fighting Vipers & Bug. Good stuff.
I do remember those early Dreamcast rips I used to get off of WinMX that would take so man tries to get working only to find that the soundtrack was missing (Dave Mirra BMX and Guilty Gear are two that I remember fondly). My Dreamcast stills grinds like crazy, but at least with the more recent rips they are fine. I am surprised people haven't mentioned ReviveDC which had some quality rips, despite some guys on TIZ who claim most weren't quite as good as people reputed them as.
Another factor to take into consideration when playing burned games. A consensus shows that Verbatim is the best media, and burning at the slowest speed (perhaps 2X-4X) with something like ImgBurn tends to help things along. Adjusting your laser (look up proper videos on RUclips for tutorial) also helps read cd-rs if your DC can't seem to read them well. But that also shortens the lifespan of the laser.......as you will be raising the strength of the laser by adjusting the resistance via the potentiometer.....(the light that burns twice as bright lasts half as long, as an analogy -Blade Runner). Even after all of this, your DC will still live longer with originals of course :) Grab a second DC or third off of eBay like I did. Got a console only myself from eBay just for that purpose (since I already have cables and controllers) for $20. Happy gaming.
Some people have taken Japanese only games and done some translation work on them for use on a burned CD, too. Not to mention they can be used for stuff like VMU editors! Even if you're a 100% in box, original collector, don't completely write off the burned disks. Not to mention, like Adam said, all new releases are burned. Personally I keep a separate, cheaper console for running my burned disks that's also got a region and SD card mod on it, so if the lazer burns out I'm not so afraid of replacing it since I did all the work. Then I run all my other, licensed GD roms on my SEGA Sports edition console, 'cuz it's so pretty. Especially next to my saturn.
You miss 1 point of the protection system of the dreamcast, and that is the ring that separates the low and high density area. The system reads that to look if its a legit copy, Saturn uses that too and that also uses regular CD's but with that ring at the outer disk area. The modchip of the saturn just signals the console that the firmware of the disk reader has confirmed the disk is legit. The GD-ROM format itself isnt that hard to mimic, its based on the CD-ROM tech (to keep the system low priced) Some CDrom drives can even read the GD's with a few tricks, the main problem the normal CD reader doesnt know that there is a other region on the disk because it has its own TOC and the low density hasnt a pointer to that area. The ring is also the reason that you cannot use a GD-R on a regular dreamcast until you use the System Disk 2 to boot it. Also, it shouldnt be a problem with using a burned MIL-CD, the file order is key here. As you also know, in GD-Workshop on the katana the developer can analyse what files are read when playing the game and optimize the resulting disk, so that information is quickly accessible for the game and doesnt stress the drive too much, this is also true to some extend to the burned CD's in the early days. As you said people made dumps, didnt know that the disks where optimized so they just dumped it on there a let it boot. The later conversions are better optimized and should be nearly as good as the original GD, it's only that the data is more spread because of the lower density. -ZakhooiTM (Releaser of the ToeJam & Earl 3 beta for the dreamcast)
soap dropper There probably wouldn't have been much piracy on it if it wasn't for how fragile the UMD cases were. Those things would constantly break , it would be more feasible to just get a huge memory card with custom firmware and use the UMD dumper.
It's not just the DC, playing burned games for any old console is bad for the laser. CD-Rs now have larger capacity than CDs from bitd, so the data is much finer and harder for the lens to focus on. It did a number on my Sega CD and PS1.
I just have a question (by the way, love your videos): How hard is it to swap out the laser assembly on the DC? Mine doesn't work very well, for example ChuChu Rocket doesn't even start. I tried recalibrating the laser, using you videos, but the previous owner already did that, so i couldn't make it better. But i saw lasers for like 20 bucks which would be a good deal, as Dreamcasts are really expensive in Hungary.
Fun fact: Sega did fix the MIL-CD exploit in the later, less common revision of Dreamcast that is usually called "Model 2" by taking out MIL-CD functionality entirely. Look at the back of your DC - if it has a "2" in a circle on it next to the region name, then it won't play burned games. If it is a "1" - then MIL-CD will work. Another fun fact: did anyone who ever used a burned DC games notice that if you launch them from the console's menu they always reboot the console and then start up, unlike legit GD-ROMs that don't do that and load right away?
For those of you who want to burn Dreamcast games - look for releases by DCRes or ReviveDC - these are the group that does higher quality game rips that preserve as many features as possible and optimise the load on the DC's disc drive so the games load faster and not damage the drive like bad rips do. But tbh, the best way to play backups is via a mod, like soldering an IDE cable to the system to use stuff like old HDDs or memory cards via adapters, or buying stuff like GDEmu. Look these up if you have a spare DC that has trouble with its disc drive :)
+AdamKoralik thanks man I was looking through your playlist to see if you already had But I guess I must've missed it. I've always been big on Nintendo and Xbox but I tell you Dreamcast is the first and only Sega system I've ever owned and I love this system more than I all my other ones. Keep doing what you're doing man again you have an awesome channel.
Does using a bleemcast boot disc fall in this category? Sure its not playing burned games but it is playing PS1 games in a system it wasn't designed for and it also makes a God awful sound when the disc starts reading.
Hey Adam do you think there may be a possibility of a new handheld sega system at Tokyo games show? Something not so groundbreaking or expensive and would be a Nintendo or a Sony competitor? Just thought about it I would like to hear what you think
I always intend on buying games I enjoy. That being said, some are too expensive and its easier to play imports as a burnt disc. I don't feel too bad considering the developers don't make money off the games anymore.
Hi. Great article Adam. There should be a history category (like The Gaming Historian). Thanks. The software and hardware hackers and MIL-CD formate are a blessing in disguise. Who created the MIL-CD format by the way and where does Windows CE come in, in being able to play MIL-CD if there's a connection. I think Dreamcast 2 will become real coz' we all thought Shenmue 3 won't become real but God works in mysterious ways (in that case, it was Kickstarter, Suzuki, fan clamor and it was God's time coz' Kickstarter exists, it was ripe of fully baked to happen) SEGA Sammy's market cap (the perceived value people see it as which is reflected in people buying their stocks as the main indicator) is very good. I think if we can just get hold of the data on Dreamcast active users (those who play it once every so often or have working Dreamcasts they are ready to play), it could convince companies that it's still viable to support and still perform well with games that are a must have and are fun (bring the family, enemies, friends together as a great distraction) much like Ubisoft is still supporting the 10 year old Wii with their Just Dance 2015 (which I just bought for my brother and parents - exercise, it is tiringly fun. It's an example of a game that should be supported indefinitely with consoles with internet built-in coz' it doesn't require the most realistic graphics & can be updated with content, in this case songs) Wii is becoming the next Dreamcast, I think Dreamcast is passing the baton to the Wii (I like it too coz' it's like a diamond, small but powerful, still very capable coz' of the wifi and build-in SDCard reader) when it comes to indefinitely being supported. The wifi and e-Shop is a big reason, just the demos alone on the Wiiware if you want legit has cool games like The Art of Balance and an easy and safe for the system way to play homebrew apps via the boot2 no messing with the Wii's firmware install of it's Bootmii (it usually requires the first batch Wii and usually the older purely big SD Card which isn't an adapter for the microSD, usually Sandisk brand). I've been playing the Wii homebrew latey (Helio Boy is fun, a homebrew game and there are engine to make your own for homebrew). But I think if we have the data on those who have Dreamcasts they can still take out and play, I think Ubisoft could bring games like Just Dance franchise there maybe using the fish controller:-) though maybe not coz' that's wired unless it's really long. If that happens other publisher would too and there might be a revolution in big companies supporting disc based retro consoles. If the sales are good, of course people would make broadband adaptors for the Dreamcast again and probably official repositories not by SEGA but by the companies. I think Ubisoft could take that lead. How many Dreamcast users are there I wonder besides us and those subscribed in your channel? God bless. Rev. 21:4
pretty fascinating. so, usin burned games breaks your DC.. since there's no contact, why is that? does the laser have to work harder to read the discs? i did used to play burned games on my a dc.. that was the same dc that wouldn't play my official shenmue past the hazuki residence.. coincidence?
shenmueso The motor literally goes into overdrive... You just hear it churning up inside the DC... Thankfully, I've not needed to play many burned games (unreleased titles like Half life and Propeller Arena being two) so my original UK launch day Dreamcast is still in perfect working order :)
Im a bit confused over this honestly. I remember there was a gmae called Sega Swirl that Sega.net had released, and they released a Dreamcast version of it, however the only way to get that game was by burning it to a CD-R and playing on the dreamcast, and it was actually a very easy and simple process, not much more involved than burning a standard music cd. Also I had a friend that had a dreamcast back in the heyday whose dad burned him a shitload of games, and he wasn't aware of any other stuff like that. Then again, maybe he didn't know everything that was involved for his dad to be able to do that, I dunno, he made it sound simple like that he just rented the games from Blockbuster and ripped them, but I never could get it to work myself for commercial games, I figured something else was involved. As far as what brought the Dreamcast down, I heard a lot of it was actually due to Sega.net, namely how much Sega had to invest in it versus the very tiny payoff it had. It seems like a big reason why Microsoft charged for Xbox Live. Piracy was definitely an issue, but given the complications you mentioned I am not convinced that piracy was that big of a reason. If it was, I think the hardware sales would have been a lot better, people would have been up and down about paying only $150-200 for a game console with the latest hardware that they wouldn't have had to buy any games for due to being able to pirate games. It was something that most gamers probably weren't even aware of at the time, I didn't know about it until the tail end of the Dreamcast's lifespan myself.
I had a littlebox attachment for my PS1 that I got from LikSang back in the day. It plugged into the serial port in the back of the console It was something like a game genie/shark and you could use cheat codes in games. Also you could boot the cheat menu with a real disc in the machine, change discs to a burned copy and then click "play" or whatever on the cheat menu and it would load the copy. I think other cheat devices might have done this as well. CD Burners were pretty expensive back then, so I'm not sure how widespread this was done.
I purchased my Dreamcast from my cousin back in '02 and I remember that his burnt copy of Sonic Adventure would take as more than twice as much as the original version I ended up buying, sadly I now don't have any original games for it and still play burnt copies most of the time, I'm worried about the copies I download but other than they being no older than 2007 I haven't found a way to ensure they are ripped to the best possible quality.
Very interesting video! I don't think the piracy aspect contributed as much as people think to the downfall of the Dreamcast. I was really into the Dreamcast when it first came out here in the states until it's demise and I didn't know anyone who was playing burned games, let alone hear about bootleg games until years later. Usually I find that people that play only emulators or bootlegs probably wouldn't have bought the game anyway.
Just a hypothetical and I think I may have asked you this already a while back but could the Dreamcast have survived without the PS2 and/or the PS2's mind blowing success? Or were there other factors that were too much even without the PS2?
Hopefully there will be better Digital I/O solutions for loading game data into the console than the existing SD Adapter solutions. Good, but it could definitely be better.
Hi Adam! I want to ask you if you know something about the custom bios 1.030. It has a lot of improvement for the console! Would be awesome if you do a video about it :D
Dreamcast and Gamecube were the hardest consoles to play pirate games on, as far as i remember for the gamecube you needed some kind of hardware to run pirated games,as for the dreamcast, you needed to run a cd so that cd could boot the dreamcast in order for you to run the pirated game (i dont support piracy)
I just got my Dreamcast and I got into the Unreleased Games and Homebrew Games and I genuinely enjoy playing Propeller Arena but it's going to be hard to enjoy those Games knowing that they are slowly killing my Dreamcast.
Extremely great topic Adam. I think you go into huge detail on this and it has helped me alot. Now I never want to ever run Burnt Dreamcast Discs on my console ever again, but I am a fan of piracy on other machines only due to digital media. I.E. Homebrew Channel / USB Loader for Wii, Original Xbox running games from HDD, PS2 and ESR-Loader etc so I was just wondering.... When I finally get lucky enough to get my hands on a GD-EMU Console or something similar, will these still damage the console or is it just the GD-ROM Drive that tends to fuck up?
SXGi1b0 PS2, XBox, GameCube (Panasonic model only obviously), PS3, XBox 360, XBox One, PS4. The XBox One won't play burned Blu-Rays though, PS3 and PS4 will.
Hey Adam I have a question. I just got a dreamcast,now my question is yes I know about the 0 or 1 on the bottom as mine is a 1. Now my question is can you use a laser drive off any dreamcast and it still play copies or does it have to be out of one labeled 0 or 1? Didnt know if the change up from 1 to 2 consisted of changing the laser or hardware modifications to do away with the burned disc play
All three versions should work, mostly. It's only the VERY last batch of 2's that don't. Most 2's can. That said, I'm not sure about swapping parts from each version.
@@AdamKoralik ok,yeah I found a laser drive on eBay thats supposed to be in very good condition. But it doesnt say what model its from. The system came with some burnt discs and I have tried them. A few needing utopia which was also included. There is a couple games when being played sounds rough! The smoothest running is marvel vs capcom. I dont wanna run the others because I dont wanna mess up the laser. New to the dreamcast so I dont know much about it.
Not completely against running burned discs but only if its done right. The laser set up on eBay is $26,so not really out much but was just wondering if it was worth the time to buy and have on standby.
Adam nice video I was just doing reading on this! You missed a few points in how to rip a Dreamcast game to a computer and apparently Dreamcast games were the first type to have additional security on the disc which is interesting! I was curious how did you find out that older burnt copies damage the Dreamcast i'll my information on this issue is heavily debated and how did you find out how Indie developers are using the MIL CD format and are programming it right! Personally I won't get burnt copies especially for the Dreamcast because the process does seem to be to much of a hassle and knowing it can damage my system, i'm staying far away! Just wonder if I get a modded Saturn would that be the same issue!
Why would a proper rip cause damage? AFAIK they're optimized the same way new indie releases are, i.e. basically padding the data with zeroes to push it towards the outer (or inner, I forget which) edge of the disc so that the laser doesn't have to seek as much.
I've been playing burned games on the same Dreamcast for 15 years and it still works no problem.
Same here plus 5 years since 99👍😎
I guess experiences may vary . I destroyed 2 with burned games specifically but I played my most recent one with legit copies and never had an issue. I have had this one since 2010 and its good. HOWEVER I have played a bunch of the indie releases over the last few years on it and I haven't had an issue. I 100% fried the first two from burned games.
No problems here
Big facts
Can you tell me what model of dreamcast can play burnt games.
I'm a collector so i appreciate my legit copies, but i've also used backup/burned games regularly on DC since launch in 99, and my console runs the same as it did back then. For people asking how to make burned games somewhat safer, here's some tips:
1. Use name-brand media. People back in the CD burner days would buy 100 packs of no-brand crap since the media was expensive for a while. Some of the cheapest brands even had a top layer that would flake off (i owned some myself), basically leaving a disc with spots that light could shine directly thru. Damaged media is always tougher to read, so don't buy stuff more susceptible to damage. I mostly used Verbatim, Memorex, and Sony.
2. Find ISOs with file sizes that either fill or nearly fill the full disc. Many older rips like Adam mentioned made for poor burned discs, but it was mostly because it was just the compressed minimum data (often BIN CUE format), and people would not think to add a Dummy file on the disc to fill the remaining blank space. The less space your content takes up, the harder the laser will have to search during gameplay. If you have no choice but to use a small rip (usually more obscure games), research how to add a Dummy file. I recommend Discjuggler for ISOs, and Nero for Bin Cue files that also needed a Dummy.
3. Burn the game at the SLOWEST speed you can. This is probably your biggest issue in 2019 since if you have a burner at all, much of the software out there doesn't even allow 1x speed anymore. I burned all my games at 1x or 2x speed back in the day. 1x would take clear over an hour ( i forget how long). The fastest i've ever used i think is 4x speed. DO NOT burn at the max speed the disc advertises ( i personally wouldn't try over 10x speed). It's known to cause more problems for the Dreamcast to read the disc to burn at fast speeds.
4. Please note that some games are just stressful to the Dreamcast in general, even legit retail copies. Good example is Garou: Mark of the Wolves. It'll make any Dreamcast sound like a chainsaw revving up. I remember even reading some people swearing that game alone made their motor crap out, lol. I personally just play that game on other systems. It's not arcade-perfect on DC anyway, with extra slowdown and missing frames in animations
5. There are multiple revisions to the DC, and some have drives that are worse than others. You'll have to read which are the worst. Some of them just work harder on all games (retail or burned) and are more prone to failure.
This is probably the single most helpful comment I've read on this topic, a lot of the documentation I've read on burning CDs since I ordered my Dreamcast earlier this week has no concrete reasoning or explanation behind the methods offered so id like to make some questions about this so I can keep my DC in the best of conditions.
1:the part about garou is specially helpful to me, since I've been burning a bunch of fighting games, namely marvel 2, third strike and a project justice patch, all of which had rips that either exceded or nearly matched the media capacity. The one exception seemed to be a cel shaded 3rd person on rails shooter that would rev up constantly during the first level alone, and your comment matches my hypothesis that it would be less conducive to a well preserved disc reader, *I wanted to ask if there's anything else I should be looking for in fighting games in terms of noise, anything I could do to prevent unnecessary wear?* the disc will grind once at the start of every round from what I've played.
2: I followed the instructions shown on this video m.ruclips.net/video/e0_DcmBw3IY/видео.html which uses disc juggler, and would like to do as clean and safe of a disc burn as possible so I plan on using a slower disc burning solution since even at the slowest speed, discjuggler will finish a CD in about 5 minutes, *what would you personally suggest and why?* The guide I followed works but it's not helping me understand what's going on with my console and info on this conversation seems to begin and end on "you can burn discs on your Dreamcast and they will work"
3: the brands I'm using are verbatim and maxell. Out of the 2 maxell seems to be the better quality build overall, which I've used for burning most working games. I also put jet set radio on a verbatim disc with a printable top layer, which of the 3 of those that I've used, it's the only one that isn't nearly transparent from both sides, you mentioned something abt light shining directly through, *is that something I should be concerned about?* Either way I plan on investing in a pack of Sony CD-Rs soon but would like to know more.
4: going back to jet set radio, I got the reviveDC rip with stereo audio from CDromance. With this disc I've had the issue of a soft lock during one of the cutscenes and load times seem a bit noisy, *is the burnt image the issue? What else should I consider when getting rips online?* I've tried to get rips that are as new as possible as to avoid old super compressed files that I just assumed might be more harmful to my console.
5: somewhat unrelated question, aside from using Sony discs, I also intend on using the dreamshell bootdisc/SD adapter solution in order to preserve my console, as I read online that the GDEMU solution is prone to overheating and harming a nearby capacitor and straining the cooling fan. (I have a model 0) Anyways, so I wanted to know *if the dreamshell could cause a similar effect or harm the serial port. Is it worth owning?* As I understand the load times are worse but if it keeps my console alive I'll gladly use it.
6: *suggested reading?* As I've mentioned before finding good reliable documentation on this is a bit hard, though I've yet to lurk much on the Dreamcast junkyard and just going off shit I've found on gbatemp, reddit, message boards, y2k media sites and so on.
The dreamcast i got is in beautiful conditions with basically no visible yellowing, i wanna do the best in preserving it and making as complete of a write up as possible in order to help other ppl like me with getting the most out of their dc in 2022, again thank you for this excelent comment.
I thought I might elaborate on how this damages the dreamcast because I find it likely some may not believe it. When you said "it sounds stressed out" that was a good analogy. A better one may be that it's like taking heroine and meth and then going for a run. If you listen closely you can hear the disc speeding up and slowing down over and over again, also you hear the laser lens moving back and forth over and over again. The reason is the dreamcast has to look all over the disc to find the data it needs, so the motors are always zipping around. This puts a ton of stress on all the mechanical and electrical components. These are all things that have a finite lifespan, and this kind of stress will shorten it greatly. This could be compared to the heart and these games raise the blood pressure and increase the heart rate. Thankfully I'm still using my original dreamcast. Knowing what I do now I'm amazed it still works. I'm not a boy scout saying don't play pirated games. I put my dreamcast through hell with them back in the day. If you do use burned discs and you love playing your dreamcast make sure you always have a backup system.
Thank you for writing out how it messes up the console, I also see alot of people not quite get how it actually kills the system, but hopefully people will see this. I personally have 2 Dreamcast's, one to play burned games, and one to play actual GD-Roms.
Tony Matarrese Occasionallly my Dreamcast does that when reading GD-ROMS... wiping off the disc usually fixes it tho. IDK
Is this video part of quick shoot series?
I have about 50 burned games and only a couple retail games. my dreamcast runs like a champ, late 1999 model.
Bond Lohden Yeah, you should probably stop doing that man.
If I could find some games I love in my area I'd love to. I still love my dreamcast and If I ever mess it up I'll grab me another.
Love your vids by the way. I'm a sega fan boy too!
Bond Lohden
Bond Lohden I bought my last Dreamcast in 2009 when I got back into the community after 7 year hiatus. I burned over 500 optimized rips from groups like DcRes, Revive DC and others and never had issues with my laser. I played it for 6 years straight and it is a reliable machine. They way people optimize the layout of the game files on the disc stops laser strain. Many cases optimized backups run much better than their retail copies.
If your laser is making loud sounds when playing games, you are doing it wrong and didn't go for an optimized iso from a reputable release group that knows what they are doing. I only play the backups that are silent when playing and it has worked out great for me for over half a decade.
Sega almost definitely knew about the risks of having MIL cd execute code on the dreamcast.
They employed a use of a scrambler for mil cds, which was ti be pieced back together in the dreamcast ram and executed. Gd roms are different and are not scrambled so in theory shouldn't work. But even if you could Sega employed another trick of disabling the gdrom drive.
Katana SDK (dreamcast dev kit) was stolen by the release group "Utopia" in late 1999. This allows them to reverse engineer the scatter program used by the dreamcast to protect it from booting gdrom from ordinary cds.
It turned out that the scrambler was nothing more than security through obscurity. Meaning once you knew the secret you could easily get the dreamcast to run anything you wanted.
Yes I agree it's quite ironic thats what kept the dreamcast alive. There's also some spectation this may have been a deliberate backdoor to ease development recordable gd roms where expensive and hard to get. But there's no evidence for this.
A lot of the older rips would beat on the laser because they were not filling up the disc and the laser would have to move into the inner regions to access the data. Alot of people realized that adding a dummy file to expand the disc data greatly reduced drive noise and wear. DCRES re-ripped a whole lot of DC games (and fixed them in more ways than one) over the years and they work great. I have had a DC since 1999 and have been pretty much playing backups (and real games obviously) since. Never caused any burn-out or any damage. Just get the right rips.
You don't need ANY special equipment to manufacture gdroms any cd factory can do it, in fact Sega quite often used emi to manufacture discs for them.
The density of GD roms comes not from any special technology. All Sega did (yamaha really they designed the gigabyte disc) was slow the drive to about half speed that of a cd drive nearly doubling its density.
This also means they could use off the shelf parts to make the drives. All though the drives are made from quality parts like motors Matsushita aka Panasonic.
The drives where used in the katakana series (dreamcast and naomi) Sega chiro and triforce arcade hardwares.
Really sad that the exploit was discovered so early on into the lifecycle of the console which heavily contributed to the death of the Dreamcast.
That's why there are multiple hacking/modding groups out there who are actually able to crack systems early but don't want to release their exploits too early on so the console itself can grow for a few years and so they can dodge any copyright issues from companies for the time being.
fail0verflow for example said that they had completely reversed the Wii U super early on but have held onto the hack because they wanted the system to succeed and they wanted to prove that it was possible, other people just had to be vigilant. I believe they said the same for the Vita as well and if it wasn't them it was another group.
They had quite an extensive blog post about the Wii U as well here:
fail0verflow.com/blog/2014/console-hacking-2013-omake.html
+MrMario2011 I think burnt dreamcast games were a minute issue, I mean it was the excess hardware they had stock piled up, not that games were not selling
yungwhye They sold the console at a loss expecting software to make money, that didn't happen once people saw how easy it was to burn off games. No modchip needed, no expertise, and even back then $200 for a burner an $1 or $2 per CD-R was so much cheaper than $40 per game.
unless I misinterpreted the video, I believe he said it was hard to rip the games? I thought and that they slowly ruined the system..maybe i misheard anyway, all i am saying is that burnt games on the DC played a minute part in the demise of the DC. it was mostly cuz of the ps2, distrust of fans becuase of saturn and 32x, no 3rd party from EA and squaresoft (enix) and poor internal communication
+yungwhye Ripping original GD-ROM discs is extremely difficult. Requires a lot of non-conventional components.
Playing "burned versions" is a totally different thing.
and the "burned versions" are the ones that are detrimental to the console?
Adam. I wanted to say this. Even if the games do kill your Dreamcast faster, you save literally thousands of dollars anyways. Some of those games, even the indies can cost more than the Dreamcast.
My whole collection of 200+ games of Dreamcast games is all burned and the Dreamcast rules.
Riz2336 can you save games normally like with a legit game ?
Raiyoku Yup, saves exactly like a legit copy. I have a burnt copy of Unreal Tournament and it saves just fine. Just be careful and compile them right.
Yarr Harr Matey
If it wasn’t for the Dreamcast’s ability to read MIL CDs, the Dreamcast would have the greatest copy protection of all time for any disc based system.
The best Dreamcast rips have been made by a guy named Atreyu187. Always make sure you know exactly who a rip is by before you burn and use it.
Mr .357 ^ This
Where can you find these rips?
Mr Know Nothing I didn't want to advertise on Adam's video, but go to TheISOZone.
Mr .357 Go ahead.
I love how passionate you are towards the Sega Dreamcast. It also is my favorite console. Thanks for sharing this video. Very informational!
The Dreamcast is the Altered. Beast of consoles, WISE FUOM YUR GWAVE!
So this MILF format makes the Dreamcast stress out and break. I find MILF an exciting option for both myself and the Dreamcast when alone in need of some play. "lighting candles and inserting the MILF for some action, joystick away"
Lmao 😂😂😂😂
Thank you for making this video as it answered a lot of questions and concerns that I had. I knew the Dreamcast was capable of playing burned games but I kept hearing rumors that it would damage the system over time. I took this information as rumor because I couldn't find any solid explanation as to why this would damaging to the system. I've been playing burned games on my Sega CD before without any issues so I wasn't sure why the Dreamcast was any different. Now that you've given me this knowledge, I will no longer play burned games on my Dreamcast anymore.
***** Thanks for watching.
Dude I have been such a fool. My dreamcast has been dying on me recently and it's all due to playing Soul Calibur on a burned disc. I would NOT have done that if I knew it hurt the dreamcast. Very informative vid :)
trentwearsfape Thanks for watching!
I love your videos man, I learn so much
keep making them!!!
Another very interesting video, thanks Adam!
doalwa I tried to sell a burned copy of a dreamcast game on amazon. but the buyer realized it was burned and got mad. But I didn't know it was a burned copy when I sold it.
Some idiot purposely tried selling English Modded copies of Shenmue 2 (he called them repros), they weren't even on 99 minute discs.
Some idiot purposely tried selling English Modded copies of Shenmue 2 (he called them repros), they weren't even on 99 minute discs.
Some idiot purposely tried selling English Modded copies of Shenmue 2 (he called them repros), they weren't even on 99 minute discs.
Awesome video Adam, love the way you bring these topics to us all. Keep up the good work.
Carlos José de Souza Junior Thanks for watching.
Aww man i had no idea those old rips could be damaging. Ima definitely need to look at those newer rips
Why it damages the console? The laser need to focus on the sectors of the disc, the problem is that every single burn you do come with some errors on the disc, this errors causes the focus lens to burn out.
In a original disc the focus move the lens up and down to keep up while the disc is spinning, with a burn disc and because the errors you can't avoid, it causes stress at the coil that makes this focus work. First it will heat up then that protective layer of the wire melt causing a short circuit at the end.
Same will happen with any optical drive and also dirty and scratched discs.
Hey Adam, great video! Finally somebody on YT explains how the MIL-CD exploit works! Sadly, Dreamcast units manufactured in 2001 had the MIL-CD feature stripped out. However, if you put a region-free BIOS in those units, you can play burned games on them. These units were replacements issued to some customers in 2001.
Great video AdamKoralik
This is right up my alley!
I also missed hearing the entire "Quick shoot, aid the dreamcast community" intro!
James Reiner Thanks James.
anytime!
I still remember purchasing my first Dreamcast around mid 2000. I remember when utopia bootcd came out. I know 4-5 people that traded in their n64 and psx's just to get the dreamcast.
Very interesting. Never knew about the MIL-CD format. Great Video bro!
DashawnJizzle Thanks!
Out of the years of watching these videos, you haven't ever talked about the Hello Kitty Dreamcast console.
I'll always be waiting for the day...
back in the day my brother worked for "funcoland" he had all this piracy hardware for super nintendo and sega genesis where you can upload games to a floppy disc straight from the hardware and play them back on the floppies using some black market game genie like add on. we had pretty much every game cataloged on floppy. then came emulators for computers.
anywho, i gotta hit the replay button this video kicks ass.
Hi Adam. To add information to your video. That I know of USA and EUR DC's before OCT/NOV 2000 can read MIL-CD. To spot those DC's when you are about to buy one is to see if they are revision 0 or 1, if it is rev.2 then MIL-CD playback is disabled, BUT the MIL-CD code is still there only the playback "option" is off :). Other ways need to be taken to read homebrew and indie games on those late DC's. Make the 0-11700/11702 track be "data" format instead of audio the code and trick it to ON the option...... ;)
I've seen 100s of your videos and still have no idea what the quick shoot series is, or even what figure it out productions is. Maybe you could do a video to explain why every video starts with that cryptic Windows 95 sound effected title screen?
Thank you so much for this video! I just found my Dreamcast and I was wondering how to rip a few games I found. I never thought it would be so complex! -Matt
Sure thing.
This is so cool. SEGA included MIL-CD compatibility for like 5 games that probably 10 Japanese people in an unbelievably niche market actually took advantage of; and now, it's the reason why the Dreamcast is still breathing. And thinking.
I wonder if it's possible to stick in a laptop DVD drive inside a Dreamcast or something (providing it has the same connector), so that you can play burned DVDs instead without ripping the data.
Very interesting topic! I had heard about the possibility of damage to the DC through copied games but now I know why.
Depending on how the data is put on the disc, depends on how efficient it is on being read on the console. This doesn't matter if the game was originally mastered on a GDR or not, if the data is well placed and the console isn't straining to load data, it will generally be fine in terms of how it plays on your console. Being a homebrew game doesn't change that fact. Though, using CD-Rs probably will kill your laser faster, but they will also kill any other CD based console faster, too. This is inherently from using non pressed media - in summary, using DCRES or ReviveDC etc. releases won't do any more damage than if you burned a recent homebrew release.
I own 5 dreamcasts for several years and never had any problems with the later games Adam. Jap usa and eur consoles..., none of them has never let me down compared to the copies of my originals. Maybe it depends on your cdr's. Besides that a dc is not expensive any more. Thats my experience. Keep up the good work :D
Mario Coelen same here!
I'm still confused, isn't the gd-rom about 1.2gb? If I burn a game, I am pretty most of them will have more of the 734mb capacity of the regular CD unless the MIL part of it is the remainder or something.
***** Surprisingly, most Dreamcast games didn't go past around 700 MBs.
Ones that did often contained things like videos that could be heavily compressed and reingested to make the total size smaller.
***** A lot of the games that did use more than 734 MB, were ripped of some files sometimes.
Could you talk about the wiiu hardware, more specifically the discs like in this video, your videos are awesome, entertaining, and educational
Techno Niko I would but I don't know much about the Wii U's disc format, just that it's a mutant version of Blu-Ray.
AdamKoralik alright, thanks man :)
Good info to know.
I'm about to get a Dreamcast and had some interrogations regarding it's ability to read burned games. This answered them all.
Now I know that I need to be careful wich MIL-CD rom I get on the net. Will hunt more recent ones, and I'll try to find ones who got positive feedback. do a little research on each rom.
+FinalBaton Happy to help.
Also, when it comes to disc based games, they're not "ROMs", they're "ISOs". Will make searching easier to use the correct term. Good luck!
Hey I was wondering if you could do a quick display of your newest dream cast games. In terms of release date and explain what they are about and where you got them. Thanks for the videos keep it up man.
Great video. Always enjoy the information you share.
TheReaIOptimusPrime Thanks for watching!
I followed the DC developments very closely back then and I recall that the exploit was discovered after hackers figured out how the disc version of Datel's Action Replay / Interact's Gameshark worked. The Action Replay was also used to run GameCube backups on a stock, unmodified, GameCube (Samson's Loader) very much like FMCB on PS2. I recall suggesting this on Dextrose or IRC before the loader existed (when Viper BIOS was ripped and released for use with the PSO exploit).
You may want to look into the 99-min cd-r's. There are a few rips/isos that require these special discs and data on say shenmue, will not be lost or compressed. Just FYI.
I'm one of those (VERY) unlucky cunts that has a Dreamcast that won't play burned games. It's fucking weird. It has all the tell-tale signs of being an early revision model but has no MIL-CD function.
I like all the Dreamcast videos. I really liked Sega back in the day. I remember how excited I was when the Saturn was released. Playing Fighting Vipers & Bug. Good stuff.
I read somewhere that it was the Bleemcast source code that trained companies and fans how to work with Mil-CD.
I do remember those early Dreamcast rips I used to get off of WinMX that would take so man tries to get working only to find that the soundtrack was missing (Dave Mirra BMX and Guilty Gear are two that I remember fondly).
My Dreamcast stills grinds like crazy, but at least with the more recent rips they are fine. I am surprised people haven't mentioned ReviveDC which had some quality rips, despite some guys on TIZ who claim most weren't quite as good as people reputed them as.
Dr. Steve Brule For your hell!
Mind = blown. Great video as always!
weegeesoul Thanks for watching.
Hey Adam, a bit off topic but have you ever done a video giving your personal favorites on the Dreamcast?
Another factor to take into consideration when playing burned games. A consensus shows that Verbatim is the best media, and burning at the slowest speed (perhaps 2X-4X) with something like ImgBurn tends to help things along. Adjusting your laser (look up proper videos on RUclips for tutorial) also helps read cd-rs if your DC can't seem to read them well. But that also shortens the lifespan of the laser.......as you will be raising the strength of the laser by adjusting the resistance via the potentiometer.....(the light that burns twice as bright lasts half as long, as an analogy -Blade Runner). Even after all of this, your DC will still live longer with originals of course :) Grab a second DC or third off of eBay like I did. Got a console only myself from eBay just for that purpose (since I already have cables and controllers) for $20. Happy gaming.
Another awesome video Adam. Keep it up, and keep dreaming :)
ChunkyBunny2 Thanks!
+AdamKoralik Do you still use your Sega Dreamcast as a CD player?
Dominic Trofa I do not.
AdamKoralik Okay.I still use it as a primary CD player to this day,but for me is the best '2 in 1' multimedia player I own.
AdamKoralik Aswell as playing games on it.
Some people have taken Japanese only games and done some translation work on them for use on a burned CD, too. Not to mention they can be used for stuff like VMU editors! Even if you're a 100% in box, original collector, don't completely write off the burned disks. Not to mention, like Adam said, all new releases are burned. Personally I keep a separate, cheaper console for running my burned disks that's also got a region and SD card mod on it, so if the lazer burns out I'm not so afraid of replacing it since I did all the work. Then I run all my other, licensed GD roms on my SEGA Sports edition console, 'cuz it's so pretty. Especially next to my saturn.
Really interesting video. Thanks for posting!
But what was up with the audio? Lots of audio cut-off and noise. I've noticed it in a number of videos.
You miss 1 point of the protection system of the dreamcast, and that is the ring that separates the low and high density area.
The system reads that to look if its a legit copy, Saturn uses that too and that also uses regular CD's but with that ring at the outer disk area. The modchip of the saturn just signals the console that the firmware of the disk reader has confirmed the disk is legit.
The GD-ROM format itself isnt that hard to mimic, its based on the CD-ROM tech (to keep the system low priced)
Some CDrom drives can even read the GD's with a few tricks, the main problem the normal CD reader doesnt know that there is a other region on the disk because it has its own TOC and the low density hasnt a pointer to that area.
The ring is also the reason that you cannot use a GD-R on a regular dreamcast until you use the System Disk 2 to boot it.
Also, it shouldnt be a problem with using a burned MIL-CD, the file order is key here. As you also know, in GD-Workshop on the katana the developer can analyse what files are read when playing the game and optimize the resulting disk, so that information is quickly accessible for the game and doesnt stress the drive too much, this is also true to some extend to the burned CD's in the early days. As you said people made dumps, didnt know that the disks where optimized so they just dumped it on there a let it boot. The later conversions are better optimized and should be nearly as good as the original GD, it's only that the data is more spread because of the lower density.
-ZakhooiTM (Releaser of the ToeJam & Earl 3 beta for the dreamcast)
Just got into dreamcast collecting. What better place to start than Adam's channel? :)
Gen 3 consoles adam? I love your vids they're not bias etc. Continue reviving the retro inside of you!
Nintendo64_Lover Thanks.
the psp is so easy to pirate games for it was one the reasons it sold well yet it was plagued by it
soap dropper There probably wouldn't have been much piracy on it if it wasn't for how fragile the UMD cases were. Those things would constantly break , it would be more feasible to just get a huge memory card with custom firmware and use the UMD dumper.
It's not just the DC, playing burned games for any old console is bad for the laser. CD-Rs now have larger capacity than CDs from bitd, so the data is much finer and harder for the lens to focus on. It did a number on my Sega CD and PS1.
If you play real copies of DREAMCAST games does the GDrom drive make noises?
Any updates on Dreamshell? or any other methods of playing the games without using the disk? Thanks.
I just have a question (by the way, love your videos): How hard is it to swap out the laser assembly on the DC? Mine doesn't work very well, for example ChuChu Rocket doesn't even start. I tried recalibrating the laser, using you videos, but the previous owner already did that, so i couldn't make it better. But i saw lasers for like 20 bucks which would be a good deal, as Dreamcasts are really expensive in Hungary.
László Lajos If you have a working replacement GD-ROM unit, it's easy. Swapping the laser itself...not so much.
It's gonna be the whole unit, so I guess it'll be alright. Thanks :)
Which site has that "indie Dreamcast worth your time" article shown very briefly?
Fun fact: Sega did fix the MIL-CD exploit in the later, less common revision of Dreamcast that is usually called "Model 2" by taking out MIL-CD functionality entirely. Look at the back of your DC - if it has a "2" in a circle on it next to the region name, then it won't play burned games.
If it is a "1" - then MIL-CD will work.
Another fun fact: did anyone who ever used a burned DC games notice that if you launch them from the console's menu they always reboot the console and then start up, unlike legit GD-ROMs that don't do that and load right away?
Don't forget, the Tri-Force, Chihiro, and NAOMI2 arcade hardware also used GD-ROMs.
I never knew that. Well I guess its interesting that games like Mario Kart Arcade GP use GD-Roms instead of normal Gamecube discs.
For those of you who want to burn Dreamcast games - look for releases by DCRes or ReviveDC - these are the group that does higher quality game rips that preserve as many features as possible and optimise the load on the DC's disc drive so the games load faster and not damage the drive like bad rips do.
But tbh, the best way to play backups is via a mod, like soldering an IDE cable to the system to use stuff like old HDDs or memory cards via adapters, or buying stuff like GDEmu. Look these up if you have a spare DC that has trouble with its disc drive :)
i'm loving your channel👍👍👍
I have a question would you consider making a video of your top favorite indie Dreamcast games?
Kind of did that here: ruclips.net/video/fH0hqOiMLYI/видео.html
+AdamKoralik thanks man I was looking through your playlist to see if you already had But I guess I must've missed it. I've always been big on Nintendo and Xbox but I tell you Dreamcast is the first and only Sega system I've ever owned and I love this system more than I all my other ones.
Keep doing what you're doing man again you have an awesome channel.
Does using a bleemcast boot disc fall in this category? Sure its not playing burned games but it is playing PS1 games in a system it wasn't designed for and it also makes a God awful sound when the disc starts reading.
***** That one I'm not sure of. Bleemcast was...brilliantly coded. It wouldn't surprise me if it's harmless. But, I don't know.
Hey Adam do you think there may be a possibility of a new handheld sega system at Tokyo games show? Something not so groundbreaking or expensive and would be a Nintendo or a Sony competitor? Just thought about it I would like to hear what you think
I always intend on buying games I enjoy. That being said, some are too expensive and its easier to play imports as a burnt disc. I don't feel too bad considering the developers don't make money off the games anymore.
Hey Adam, where'd you get that shirt? Jealous!
I used to use the boot disc and then swap into a directly copied game.
I always thought the Gamecube had better copy protection. don't the disc spin in the opposite way or something?
Hi. Great article Adam. There should be a history category (like The Gaming Historian). Thanks. The software and hardware hackers and MIL-CD formate are a blessing in disguise. Who created the MIL-CD format by the way and where does Windows CE come in, in being able to play MIL-CD if there's a connection.
I think Dreamcast 2 will become real coz' we all thought Shenmue 3 won't become real but God works in mysterious ways (in that case, it was Kickstarter, Suzuki, fan clamor and it was God's time coz' Kickstarter exists, it was ripe of fully baked to happen) SEGA Sammy's market cap (the perceived value people see it as which is reflected in people buying their stocks as the main indicator) is very good.
I think if we can just get hold of the data on Dreamcast active users (those who play it once every so often or have working Dreamcasts they are ready to play), it could convince companies that it's still viable to support and still perform well with games that are a must have and are fun (bring the family, enemies, friends together as a great distraction) much like Ubisoft is still supporting the 10 year old Wii with their Just Dance 2015 (which I just bought for my brother and parents - exercise, it is tiringly fun. It's an example of a game that should be supported indefinitely with consoles with internet built-in coz' it doesn't require the most realistic graphics & can be updated with content, in this case songs)
Wii is becoming the next Dreamcast, I think Dreamcast is passing the baton to the Wii (I like it too coz' it's like a diamond, small but powerful, still very capable coz' of the wifi and build-in SDCard reader) when it comes to indefinitely being supported. The wifi and e-Shop is a big reason, just the demos alone on the Wiiware if you want legit has cool games like The Art of Balance and an easy and safe for the system way to play homebrew apps via the boot2 no messing with the Wii's firmware install of it's Bootmii (it usually requires the first batch Wii and usually the older purely big SD Card which isn't an adapter for the microSD, usually Sandisk brand). I've been playing the Wii homebrew latey (Helio Boy is fun, a homebrew game and there are engine to make your own for homebrew).
But I think if we have the data on those who have Dreamcasts they can still take out and play, I think Ubisoft could bring games like Just Dance franchise there maybe using the fish controller:-) though maybe not coz' that's wired unless it's really long. If that happens other publisher would too and there might be a revolution in big companies supporting disc based retro consoles. If the sales are good, of course people would make broadband adaptors for the Dreamcast again and probably official repositories not by SEGA but by the companies. I think Ubisoft could take that lead.
How many Dreamcast users are there I wonder besides us and those subscribed in your channel?
God bless. Rev. 21:4
pretty fascinating. so, usin burned games breaks your DC.. since there's no contact, why is that? does the laser have to work harder to read the discs? i did used to play burned games on my a dc.. that was the same dc that wouldn't play my official shenmue past the hazuki residence.. coincidence?
shenmueso The motor literally goes into overdrive... You just hear it churning up inside the DC... Thankfully, I've not needed to play many burned games (unreleased titles like Half life and Propeller Arena being two) so my original UK launch day Dreamcast is still in perfect working order :)
It's exactly the same for it
Cd or GD is the same
If it killed the drives Sega wouldn't out a CD capability
The Console that Never Dies
Im a bit confused over this honestly. I remember there was a gmae called Sega Swirl that Sega.net had released, and they released a Dreamcast version of it, however the only way to get that game was by burning it to a CD-R and playing on the dreamcast, and it was actually a very easy and simple process, not much more involved than burning a standard music cd. Also I had a friend that had a dreamcast back in the heyday whose dad burned him a shitload of games, and he wasn't aware of any other stuff like that. Then again, maybe he didn't know everything that was involved for his dad to be able to do that, I dunno, he made it sound simple like that he just rented the games from Blockbuster and ripped them, but I never could get it to work myself for commercial games, I figured something else was involved.
As far as what brought the Dreamcast down, I heard a lot of it was actually due to Sega.net, namely how much Sega had to invest in it versus the very tiny payoff it had. It seems like a big reason why Microsoft charged for Xbox Live. Piracy was definitely an issue, but given the complications you mentioned I am not convinced that piracy was that big of a reason. If it was, I think the hardware sales would have been a lot better, people would have been up and down about paying only $150-200 for a game console with the latest hardware that they wouldn't have had to buy any games for due to being able to pirate games. It was something that most gamers probably weren't even aware of at the time, I didn't know about it until the tail end of the Dreamcast's lifespan myself.
I had a littlebox attachment for my PS1 that I got from LikSang back in the day. It plugged into the serial port in the back of the console It was something like a game genie/shark and you could use cheat codes in games. Also you could boot the cheat menu with a real disc in the machine, change discs to a burned copy and then click "play" or whatever on the cheat menu and it would load the copy. I think other cheat devices might have done this as well. CD Burners were pretty expensive back then, so I'm not sure how widespread this was done.
I purchased my Dreamcast from my cousin back in '02 and I remember that his burnt copy of Sonic Adventure would take as more than twice as much as the original version I ended up buying, sadly I now don't have any original games for it and still play burnt copies most of the time, I'm worried about the copies I download but other than they being no older than 2007 I haven't found a way to ensure they are ripped to the best possible quality.
wouldn't that gmu chip you reviewed work at playing rips?
This is a wealth of information. Great vid.
CampingMIG Thanks for watching.
Very interesting video! I don't think the piracy aspect contributed as much as people think to the downfall of the Dreamcast. I was really into the Dreamcast when it first came out here in the states until it's demise and I didn't know anyone who was playing burned games, let alone hear about bootleg games until years later. Usually I find that people that play only emulators or bootlegs probably wouldn't have bought the game anyway.
Excellent video bro!
SegaCDUniverse Thanks!
What killed it... is what keeps it alive.
Just a hypothetical and I think I may have asked you this already a while back but could the Dreamcast have survived without the PS2 and/or the PS2's mind blowing success? Or were there other factors that were too much even without the PS2?
SondoSoft If Sega had more cash they could have held out.
Hopefully there will be better Digital I/O solutions for loading game data into the console than the existing SD Adapter solutions. Good, but it could definitely be better.
Dreamcast units produced in October, 2000 or later have the MIL-CD exploit removed.
doctor345678 A lot of people say that, but I've never found one where that's actually true.
Hi Adam! I want to ask you if you know something about the custom bios 1.030. It has a lot of improvement for the console! Would be awesome if you do a video about it :D
Dreamcast and Gamecube were the hardest consoles to play pirate games on, as far as i remember for the gamecube you needed some kind of hardware to run pirated games,as for the dreamcast, you needed to run a cd so that cd could boot the dreamcast in order for you to run the pirated game (i dont support piracy)
I just got my Dreamcast and I got into the Unreleased Games and Homebrew Games and I genuinely enjoy playing Propeller Arena but it's going to be hard to enjoy those Games knowing that they are slowly killing my Dreamcast.
I wish it were possible to get an actual pressed, nice copy of Propeller Arena.
Extremely great topic Adam. I think you go into huge detail on this and it has helped me alot. Now I never want to ever run Burnt Dreamcast Discs on my console ever again, but I am a fan of piracy on other machines only due to digital media. I.E. Homebrew Channel / USB Loader for Wii, Original Xbox running games from HDD, PS2 and ESR-Loader etc so I was just wondering.... When I finally get lucky enough to get my hands on a GD-EMU Console or something similar, will these still damage the console or is it just the GD-ROM Drive that tends to fuck up?
Charlie Ward GD-Emu is harmless.
AdamKoralik That's cool. I can't wait to see more digital development on Dreamcast.
Hi Adam. Where did you get the Sega sign and Sonic toy? Also, what are the robot toys on the bottom?
Joe Budd Both were given to me by viewers.
AdamKoralik
Is the robot a transformers toys?
Joe Budd Yes, I did videos on each of them.
Forgot to say the released MIL-CD's did show whole there was to be done to produce unprotected content.. :/
Actually. MIL-CD was a Format that was similar to the CD+G, a format used in alot of CD Based consoles from 1991-98.
11:42 Which console allowed you to play burned DVD movies out of the box/no mods?
SXGi1b0 PS2, XBox, GameCube (Panasonic model only obviously), PS3, XBox 360, XBox One, PS4.
The XBox One won't play burned Blu-Rays though, PS3 and PS4 will.
Hey Adam I have a question. I just got a dreamcast,now my question is yes I know about the 0 or 1 on the bottom as mine is a 1. Now my question is can you use a laser drive off any dreamcast and it still play copies or does it have to be out of one labeled 0 or 1? Didnt know if the change up from 1 to 2 consisted of changing the laser or hardware modifications to do away with the burned disc play
All three versions should work, mostly. It's only the VERY last batch of 2's that don't. Most 2's can. That said, I'm not sure about swapping parts from each version.
@@AdamKoralik ok,yeah I found a laser drive on eBay thats supposed to be in very good condition. But it doesnt say what model its from. The system came with some burnt discs and I have tried them. A few needing utopia which was also included. There is a couple games when being played sounds rough! The smoothest running is marvel vs capcom. I dont wanna run the others because I dont wanna mess up the laser. New to the dreamcast so I dont know much about it.
Not completely against running burned discs but only if its done right. The laser set up on eBay is $26,so not really out much but was just wondering if it was worth the time to buy and have on standby.
Adam nice video I was just doing reading on this! You missed a few points in how to rip a Dreamcast game to a computer and apparently Dreamcast games were the first type to have additional security on the disc which is interesting! I was curious how did you find out that older burnt copies damage the Dreamcast i'll my information on this issue is heavily debated and how did you find out how Indie developers are using the MIL CD format and are programming it right! Personally I won't get burnt copies especially for the Dreamcast because the process does seem to be to much of a hassle and knowing it can damage my system, i'm staying far away! Just wonder if I get a modded Saturn would that be the same issue!
Do burned cdi file games break your dreamcast?
where can I find more specific informations of how the dreamcast exploit works?
Why would a proper rip cause damage? AFAIK they're optimized the same way new indie releases are, i.e. basically padding the data with zeroes to push it towards the outer (or inner, I forget which) edge of the disc so that the laser doesn't have to seek as much.