Do JPN DC's play cross other backups?

Do JPN DC's play other backups?

see title

are there protections in the jpn system that prevent playing backups? especially if they are pal or ntsc releases?

 

No.

And, just FYI, all DC games are PAL or NTSC.

Japan uses NTSC.

-hl718

 

ah ok, so even if I buy an original jpn dc release I can play it on my US system or vice versa?

 

No, the games are still region locked. PAL and NTSC are the two standards the video output adheres to depending on region.

Really, the Dreamcast is seperated into PAL (Europe and Australia), PAL-M (South America), NTSC-U (North America), NTSC-J (Japan). There may be more. NTSC-U is a Dreamcast that follows the NTSC standards and is region locked to North America whereas NTSC-J also follows the NTSC standard, but is region locked to Japan.

 

Brazilian Dreamcast units (PAL-M) use the same region as USA (even thought they actually made a specific region for Brazil it was never used.)

PAL-M is a 60hz variation of the PAL standard. It was created to allow the use of PAL color encoding on top of the M (USA) broadcasting system.

PAL color encoding with a color subcarrier frequency of 3.575611mhz plus 60hz vertical sync.

 

Original release games are region locked. But if you burn a MIL-CD copy you can have your copy boot on any system.

If you use an import boot disc (such as DC-X or the GameShark), you can boot just about any original on your system.

-hl718

 

The IP.BIN file used by game pirates have flags for all regions. That's why it boot on any DC compatible with MIL-CD.
(BTW, the SATURN uses this same kind of "flag" system for it's region encoding.There's HK silvers for the SATURN with hacked IP.BIN that boot on any region of SATURN without any kind of region mod.)

It's possible to make a CD-R that boots only on one or more specific region of Dreamcast but I don't think that were interesting or useful for anyone but SEGA itself.

Edit: Why you don't try a copy of the Sonic Adventure 2 DEMO that came with the first version of Phantasy Star Online ? That GD-ROM disc boots on all regions of Dreamcast.

 

I wonder if any of the "special" systems like the Hello Kitty one have protections against backups or if they're basically the same system with a different case

 

It depends on manufacture date.

The vast majority of DC units can play MIL-CDs.

The last manufacturing revision fixes the hole (and MIL-CDs won't play) but that came late in the DC's life and is a relatively small number of all systems.

-hl718

 

In addition to that there is AFAIK are no PAL units that don't boot MIL-CD. One of the special releases is supposed to have the "new" MIL-CD free BIOSes: Sakura Wars.

 

Isn't there also PAL-A or whatever the Asian (Mainly Chinese) systems are. Or did the DC not see a mainland Asia release?

 

These systems are a myth. I've never heard of a reputable source with one. It has been fueled by things like Bleemcast's warning that it may not play on all DCs (which was to protect them in case any such DC were released), people incorrectly burning MIL-CDs, and people whose DC's are broken. All the hypotheses I've seen around this give relatively odd information such as 'oh, it's only Hello Kitty/Sakura Taisen/refurbished Sega-Direct DCs'. There was a hardware revision done at the very end of the DC's life, released somewhere starting in Q3/Q4 of 2000 which had the GD board integrated into the motherboard, why wouldn't they have updated the bios at this time? Over the past 7 years I've seen no concrete evidence that there ever was such a thing (what, did they only make 100 of this sort?). Although, I would LOVE to be proved wrong.

I've heard of these systems only in passing. A reference somewhere that DC's released in mainland Asia did not come with a modem built in for various reasons (instead simply had a terminator).

 

Dito. I've tried to find one for years, but I've never heard from anyone that has one. All the ones that supposedly doesn't play MIL-CD I've got my hands on have had a fixable laser adjustment problem.

The Sakura Taisen reference is the only constant I've heard from everyone I've asked. But that might well be part of the myth too. I'm tempted to pick one up just to check, but I don't really feel like spending a lot of money on it.

I have pictures of the terminator somewhere on my HDD that I could probably dig up if your interested.

 

Japanese sellers of the Sakura Taisen DC will state that it Will not play CDR discs or MIL-CDs. I'm sure it states on the box as well. So these units do exist.

Yakumo

 

I own 3 . It was in searching for information on it that I found the mention of DCs in mainland asia. The only other info I've found is that it was used with some rental DCs.

From experimenting with it in software, the only thing I see is that with one attached, reading from G2 bus space returns inverted values (00s instead of FF or visa versa).

Again, I've only heard that in the way of rumour. I've never seen a picture of the box saying it won't play MIL-CDs (with translation, hell someone could post any chunk of the box and say that's what it says but I havn't seen that either). I would very much love to see such a thing though, and would greatly appreciate any guidance as to a place to find any actual information.

 

My personal experience with PAL Dreamcasts is similar, I haven't find any PAL DC's that are incompatible, only DC's with a laser problem.

According to famitsu, all dreamcasts build from & after the Sakura Taisen version are not compatible:
http://www.famitsu.com/game/news/2001/01/16/n09.html

(although according to this post, it could be made mil-cd compatible: http://www33.atwiki.jp/pentagon/pages/19.html)

A way (at least for the japanese DC's) to see when your Dreamcast was built can be found here:
http://sokonuke.chu.jp/distinction.html
-> look at the serial nr, the first two digits indicate the manufacturer, the next digit the year. 11/2000 would be the start of the not-compatible DC's.
If you look at the Sega logo under the modelnr, it is said to have changed in 11/2000, from "Sega enterprises" to "Sega corporation", so that would give an extra indication.
The same guy has an exhaustive list of the dreamcasts & an indication if they are compatible or not:
http://sokonuke.chu.jp/package.html

Refurbished Dreamcasts are a case apart, since you can't really know what they are made of...

I haven't tested any of the above, so take it as info to be checked...

As a side note, I think nobody has ever tested if the dreamcastko model is MIL-CD compatible...
http://sokonuke.chu.jp/dc/Dreamcasko.jpg
(although it's indicated as "compatible" in the list )

 

Rise from the grave !

Just got my hands on a Sakura Taisen DC, and did some tests:
- yes, the box clearly mentions that it's not compatible with MIL-CDs
- original GD-Roms: no problems
- original MIL-CDs: don't play, you get the DC audio player screen
- original Feet of Fury / Bleemcast GT2: don't play, you get the DC audio player screen
- original DC-X: don't play, you get the DC audio player screen

I didn't test it with a data-data CD-R, might try it some day....

 

Media seems to be another reason why DCs won't boot certain "Back Ups" for example...

I have 4 Dreamcasts...

The game Dux (on it's original media) refuses to work on two of the machines.
Burning on TDK media seems to work on all of them
Burning on low quality bargain brand media seems to basically work on one of them.
Burning on Sony media seems to work on three of them with one of them requiring to be turn on and off several times before it boots, but then it works perfectly without a glitch...

 

Yes, that is, I believe, one of the reasons why people started to think that some EUR or US DC's were locked against MIL-CDs...
Some Dreamcasts are just more sensible to the quality of the media...
As-is, some would not launch a philips CD-R, but had no problems with a TDK CD-R...
I guess fiddling with the laser adjustment might have done the trick, but I never tried this... I always preferred TDK anyways
..That is, until the moment when they started to sell CD-Rs not made in one of their factories under their brand...
As a general rule, I always went for Taiyo Yuden or Mitsui CD-R... but they are extremely hard to find here in Belgium...

 

Sorry to slightly bump this thread, but I found this quite interesting :nod:

T-chan, is there any chance you could take any pictures of the box where it states its not compatible with MIL CD's? and perhaps a picture of the bottom of the Dreamcast console? Just thought it would be nice to finally have 'proof' that these non-MIL CD Dreamcast's existed.

Also, is there any chance you could dump this Dreamcasts bios at all? I am just curious to see what changes Sega made. I hope you dont mind me asking.