mostly Pyra-related questions

[ImmaculateChimp]

Can DreamCast discs be fully/properly/completely (reliably) ripped without a DreamCast, or that one particular old pc dvd rom drive? If so, how, and will the .bin + .cue format work for the emulator we will have for Pyra?

I believe I read something about in the future the Pyra will maybe get 4G functionality, how might that be accomplished?

Does anyone yet know if the d-pad will be glued onto the keymat like with the Pandora or will it have a bit of a flange to keep it in place, sort of like with the action buttons?

Also, I hope all the sd card slots read and write speeds will be limited less by the speed of the sd controller chip and more by the speeds of the cards themselves.

 

[spud42]

isnt this a bit premature? your asking how to do something for a non existing emulator on a nonexisting OS for an as yet nonexisting product??????

 

[levi]

1. Dunno, but I've not heard of it. Dreamcast uses double density CDs basically, so you probably need a modified drive to do it.


2. By adding a 4G chip instead of a 3G one


3. Dunno, we haven't even seen the first prototype keymat yet.


4. Hopefully. I think the SD controllers are wired directly in to the CPU package, so hopefully whichever one ED plumps for has fast SD controllers in it.

 

[ImmaculateChimp]

isnt this a bit premature? your asking how to do something for a non existing emulator on a nonexisting OS for an as yet nonexisting product??????

No, it's not. As you may or (apparently) may not be aware, there's this thing some people out there are calling Linux. I hear that it may, somehow, have something to do with the Pyra (possibly this other thing called Pandora as well). People have somehow been ripping DreamCast games for quite awhile now, the process by which one would rip DC discs would likely, be the same regardless of what you intend to do with it. Also, yeah, have you not heard of DC emulators? They usually have a list of compatible formats; I figured somebody on these forums might have experience with them, seeing as how MANY people here are retro enthusiasts. Lastly, the physical product (Pyra) has little to nothing to do with my question about DC game ripping........ Also, also, check the repo...it has a thing called REICAST if that works even remotely on Pandora, it will likely be even more useful at some point on Pyra...

In conclusion, I guess what I'm trying to get across is this: please go be an as*hol* somewhere else, I asked some perfectly legitimate questions, if you have nothing useful or, gee, I don't know, positive to say, then don't waste the space on a thread that is trying to ask for help....

 

[God Ginrai]

Can DreamCast discs be fully/properly/completely (reliably) ripped without a DreamCast, or that one particular old pc dvd rom drive? If so, how, and will the .bin + .cue format work for the emulator we will have for Pyra?

No, you have to use a Dreamcast or a Sega Katana dev kit to rip it. I think the Katana GD-R burner also allows you to do it.

For ripping it from the Dreamcast, there's a way to send it throught the network adaptor. This is why most people who want to rip their Dreamcast disks will buy a Broadband Adapter, because of the faster data transfer rate.

-God Ginrai

 

[levi]

I believe there's also a fairly straight-forward hack to wire in an SD port to a Dreamcast, and presumably with the right boot disc you could transfer GDRs to SD.


Here you are:


http://imgur.com/bV7vT7d


Apparenly dreamshell includes facilities to rip GCRs to SD.

 

[Majin Wamu]

gone

 

[God Ginrai]

I believe there's also a fairly straight-forward hack to wire in an SD port to a Dreamcast, and presumably with the right boot disc you could transfer GDRs to SD.

Oh yea, I forgot about the SD adapter. I haven't looked into it too much, but that might also allow ripping, as Levi suggests. Here's where you can buy one premade: http://dc-sd.com/

It plugs into the Serial port on the back of the Dreamcast. However, because the serial port is slow on the Dreamcast, it is probably still slower than using the BBA.

-God Ginrai

 

[levi]

Hmm http://dc-sd.com/t/aboutus

 

[frefol]

I bought an SD adapter from eBay and was meaning to try ripping a game to it but I forgot until I read this post.  I just tried ripping Re-Volt and it only took 35 minutes with a program called DC SD Ripper.  From what I read online it is way faster than ripping the disc from Dreamshell.  Plus I found out that the ripper could dump my bios, which I was trying to figure out how to do.