Dreamcast GDEMU

Relikk

If anyone's interested, there is a new GD-ROM drive replacement device from Deunan (developer of the Makaron DC and Naomi emulator) about to be released that looks very promising which should make the SD card reader obsolete.

http://dknute.livejournal.com/

http://gdemu.wordpress.com/

He's only doing a limited run and is asking for €100 before postage and packaging.

Retr0gamer

Don't do this to me on april fools. I hope it's true.

Relikk

Retr0gamer wrote: »

Don't do this to me on april fools. I hope it's true.

He's been posting about it on his blog for a while now, it'd be a pretty lengthy April fools although the timing of him to post it is pretty poor.

I doubt it is, and I also hope it isn't as I'd look a right twat (if I don't already).

CiDeRmAn

Looks like a must have for all owners of Dreamcasts everywhere.
It'd be more convenient to use a hdd though.
I wonder if that will be doable.
Plus the menu system will be handy too.
But it's an amazing piece of work as it is.

Myrddin

Are the games stored on SD with this? Price tag is hefty...

Relikk

It's SD based, aye.

Steve X2

This + 3D printer(a much better one that what I have) = Dreamcast Super Slim edition

Steve X2

I've preordered 2 units from the guy. He says max 3 per person on this run.
Also, this might be the only run of these so if you think you want one then you better jump in quick.

Relikk

Steve SI wrote: »

I've preordered 2 units from the guy. He says max 3 per person on this run.
Also, this might be the only run of these so if you think you want one then you better jump in quick.

Wanted to ask him about that, myself. Think I'll grab two as I have 2 DC's. Just have to check and see if the spare one is a VA1, also.

o1s1n

Would love to buy one of these too but the price, eek.

Chris_Heilong

It seems like the device has memory slots that he selects by pressing a button, so there maybe a max limit to the amount of games per session.

Myrddin

Relikk wrote: »

Wanted to ask him about that, myself. Think I'll grab two as I have 2 DC's. Just have to check and see if the spare one is a VA1, also.

Does the GC have to be a VA1 to be compatible?

Chris_Heilong wrote: »

It seems like the device has memory slots that he selects by pressing a button, so there maybe a max limit to the amount of games per session.

That's just for that revision prototype, in the next one, that remote board will be gone & he's seemingly going to look at adding a menu system

Relikk

Myrddin wrote: »

Does the GC have to be a VA1 to be compatible?

Yeah. VA0 and VA2 have problems. I think VA0s were very early JP and US NTSC models. Don't know about the VA2s. He mentions the details about it here...

http://gdemu.wordpress.com/details/

Steve X2

Will be a nice little setup inside my candy cab. Can solder on a couple of buttons or re-use some that are already on the cab if there is no select menu.

80s Synth Pop

lots of nice things happening around disc emulation for different consoles. There is another Dreamcast disk emulator almost ready by some guys on assemblergames DCIO That's probably why dknuke has decided to get his out there before the others instead of sitting on it all these years


Then there is the sega saturn one and another for the ps1 (same guys behind the DCIO)

o1s1n

Steve SI wrote: »

Will be a nice little setup inside my candy cab. Can solder on a couple of buttons or re-use some that are already on the cab if there is no select menu.

Do you have a Dreamcast MGCD?

Was considering getting one of them to play the Dreamcasts vertical shmups on my cab. Would be really great with an SD loader like this alright.

Steve X2

o1s1n wrote: »

Do you have a Dreamcast MGCD?

Was considering getting one of them to play the Dreamcasts vertical shmups on my cab. Would be really great with an SD loader like this alright.

No I don't have that no. At the moment I just have a DC hooked up to my cab via hacked pads and a VGA switch. I've got the SD serial port loader on it as well but that's pretty slow so I usually just use discs.

o1s1n

Ah yes, of course! The oul VGA in on the Egret III. Really handy thing to have. Sometimes I'd love a more modern cab for that kind of functionality.

I've one of those Dreamcast serial port loaders too. They an interesting item for the idea, but a waste of time really as far as practicality goes.

Steve X2

o1s1n wrote: »

Ah yes, of course! The oul VGA in on the Egret III. Really handy thing to have. Sometimes I'd love a more modern cab for that kind of functionality.

I've one of those Dreamcast serial port loaders too. They an interesting item for the idea, but a waste of time really as far as practicality goes.

Ah the SD thing is ok. But it is a novelty more than a reliable game loader. I got a nice torrent a while back with all the games that currently work with it. So I just dumped them in the SD and they work fine, only prob CDDA isn't supported so no music etc on a lot of games. Most of the shmups work fine on it, just without background music.

Relikk

Small update...

http://gdemu.wordpress.com/2014/04/02/hot-stuff/

Chris_Heilong

so tempted, but thats 100 I dont have at the moment, shame these are limited run.

Relikk

So, I got mine today. It works flawlessly and the load times are virtually nil on anything I've tried, so far. A GUI would be nice but, only to make it handier as the way games are selected now isn't much of a problem.

Steve X2

Still waiting on mine
There really isn't much to the DC when you remove the GD-ROM drive. I wonder how it'd look in another case? Now that the drive isn't needed it opens up some pretty interesting modding possibilities.

Relikk

Steve SI wrote: »

Still waiting on mine

I know he sent one more to Ireland along with my order, was thinking it was yours but, obviously not. Even though I was more or less next on the list, the only reason I got mine now is probably due to the fact that I offered a bank transfer to help him out because PayPal froze the money in his account for 60 days.

CiDeRmAn

Steve SI wrote: »

Still waiting on mine
There really isn't much to the DC when you remove the GD-ROM drive. I wonder how it'd look in another case? Now that the drive isn't needed it opens up some pretty interesting modding possibilities.

Dreamcast Portable perhaps?

KeRbDoG

Steve SI wrote: »

There really isn't much to the DC when you remove the GD-ROM drive. I wonder how it'd look in another case? Now that the drive isn't needed it opens up some pretty interesting modding possibilities.

CiDeRmAn wrote: »

Dreamcast Portable perhaps?

The main board is still the width/length of the bottom of the case - under the metal plate the GCEmu is sitting on. Runs fairly hot, would be 'interesting' to try to cool it in a smaller case

Relikk

Only thing left to do is to find out how to patch GDI's to make them region free or the same region as the console.

Myrddin

Relikk wrote: »

Only thing left to do is to find out how to patch GDI's to make them region free or the same region as the console.

Region free bios chip

80s Synth Pop

Relikk wrote: »

I know he sent one more to Ireland along with my order, was thinking it was yours but, obviously not. Even though I was more or less next on the list, the only reason I got mine now is probably due to the fact that I offered a bank transfer to help him out because PayPal froze the money in his account for 60 days.

that was my one and it arrived safe and sound

Steve X2

My one should be coming next week I'm told. I ordered two of them but seems like he's having some problems getting all the parts, so we agreed to just 1 for now and another a bit later.

Relikk

Myrddin wrote: »

Region free bios chip

Seems like a pain to do but, I'm enquiring about getting some chips for it right now.

80s Synth Pop wrote: »

that was my one and it arrived safe and sound

Nice.

Steve SI wrote: »

I ordered two of them but seems like he's having some problems getting all the parts, so we agreed to just 1 for now and another a bit later.

Ordered two myself and agreed on one for the time being, also.

Steve X2

So for the guys who got one, how is it going with the GDEmu? My one should be here tomorrow and I'm looking forward to giving it a spin

I see there is one button on the board in the pics, is this just a "Next" button to move folders or is there some other way of doing it?

Cheers

Relikk

Steve SI wrote: »

I see there is one button on the board in the pics, is this just a "Next" button to move folders or is there some other way of doing it?

It is, indeed. Folders are numbered... 01, 02, 03 etc. 01 autoloads on startup if you have that option enabled in your dash, so the button shifts up a folder with each press and loads whatever is in those folders. It's like opening the lid and changing a disc as you would with the optical drive still installed.

It's perfect. No issues so far, faster loading too (and that's even with a low class SD card). Only problem is that while using backups on your optical drive you can do multiregion no bother. This needs strict GDI rips so only games that are the region of your console will load, unless you have a region free BIOS.

Steve X2

Relikk wrote: »

It is, indeed. Folders are numbered... 01, 02, 03 etc. 01 autoloads on startup if you have that option enabled in your dash, so the button shifts up a folder with each press and loads whatever is in those folders. It's like opening the lid and changing a disc as you would with the optical drive still installed.

It's perfect. No issues so far, faster loading too (and that's even with a low class SD card). Only problem is that while using backups on your optical drive you can do multiregion no bother. This needs strict GDI rips so only games that are the region of your console will load, unless you have a region free BIOS.

Cheers for the info. I'll region free the bios at some stage.
But I got a complete set of PAL GDI's just there today. Of course I own every single PAL DC game there is so this just saves me ripping them

Now, do you think it'll be handy enough to solder on some external buttons or has he made the headers tiny?
My plan is to use an SD extender to place the sd slot on the front of the DC and have buttons somewhere handy as well.

Relikk

Steve SI wrote: »

Now, do you think it'll be handy enough to solder on some external buttons or has he made the headers tiny?
My plan is to use an SD extender to place the sd slot on the front of the DC and have buttons somewhere handy as well.

Should be handy enough. The button and the SD card are already easily accessible under the lid/case if it proves to be any trouble.

TotallyEpic

I need to get me one of these, the optical drive on my modded Dreamcast (VGA + BIOS) is starting to go, so this will do perfect.

How easy is it to install? Just flip out the GD-ROM drive and attach the GDEMU?

Relikk

TotallyEpic wrote: »

How easy is it to install? Just flip out the GD-ROM drive and attach the GDEMU?

Yep. The plate that the drive sits on, four screws, lift it out and that's it.

moonlighting

Got mine today. Works perfectly.

Steve X2

My one arrived eventually today.

Nice and neat little PCB.



I might 3D print some little legs for it or do something with Sugru maybe. Even though the pads included do the job fine.

Steve X2

Had an issue getting games to load, seemed to be related to the VGA box i was using to hook it up to the candy cab. Swapped for another one and all is well. Weird!
Load times are pretty awesome

TotallyEpic

Ah, I really want one of these

Steve X2

Quick loading speed test of the GDEMU vs the GD-Rom drive. I should have used a game that's a slow loader to show it off.
Anyone know the slowest loading DC game?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j_cXpJP1tC0

The Last Bandit

Wouldn't be worried about the speed, in the bloody noise of the GD-Rom I'd be looking forward to getting rid off !!

o1s1n

Impressive load times!

The loading screens in Shenmue are starting to annoy me with their length. This would be a great solution to that.

Steve X2

The Last Bandit wrote: »

Wouldn't be worried about the speed, in the bloody noise of the GD-Rom I'd be looking forward to getting rid off !!

Yeah, its a big plus alright.
The fan is also a bit noisy on them so I think I'll look into modding or replacing that.

Steve X2

So the GDEMU doesn't currently have any on-screen disc/game select interface.
But the DC already has one built in

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7LQ_FMdEbfE

TotallyEpic

Steve SI wrote: »

So the GDEMU doesn't currently have any on-screen disc/game select interface.
But the DC already has one built in

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7LQ_FMdEbfE

That loading time...you don't have a spare by any chance do you? :P

Steve X2

Anyone else with the GDEMU notice the DC gets super hot around the PSU after about 2-3 hours of use??
How hot does a normal DC get? I know the PSU gets hot but this seems extreme. It was left running Crazy Taxi for 2-3 hours so was pretty much in constant use as the demo kicks in pretty quick.




This seems really hot to me, or is it normal?


Temp around the GDEMU is fine:

Relikk

Haven't had mine on for that length of time to notice. Only way to find out if it's drawing more power and overheating is to do it with the GD drive back in place with a disc copy.

Steve X2

Relikk wrote: »

Haven't had mine on for that length of time to notice. Only way to find out if it's drawing more power and overheating is to do it with the GD drive back in place with a disc copy.

Yeah, I might give that test a go and see what the difference is. You can actually smell the electrical heat from it as it is!

I've a few DC's I can swap parts from if its a dodgy PSU, just don't want to damage the GDEMU itself.

The Last Bandit

68 is way too hot, the electrolytic caps in the power supply won't last long at those temps.