Dreamcast Devbox Bios on retail Console!

That's so awesome! Thanks a lot DarthCloud!

Downloading now

 

Hmm. Have you tried this on your Dreamcast? It doesn't boot on mine. No DreamShell logo when the SEGA logo appears and just black screen after that.

 

It work on nullDC at least (It's normal that you don't see the DS logo on the SEGA screen since I made an image from scrach), I can't test it on real hardware cause my DC can't read the header of the very-first track (long story). (No big deal since all game have a useless low density track at the beginning but DS put his file on that track)

What I do to get around this was using DreamLoader to boot a normal mutisession disk (first session with a big file and the second with DS files).

1DS_CORE.BIN is scrambled so you need to presse Y before pressing A to start it correcly.

DreamLoader: (called DChacker)
http://www.dcevolution.net/index.php?id=dchakker

 

I didn't understand much of that but it sure did work! My Dreamcast is now totally regionfree. Thanks again

Would it be possible to make the bios try to force non VGA games into VGA like the DC-X does?

 

Good news!!

No idea if the BIOS can force VGA, but that would be cool for sure.

 

Ok, going to do this mod soon and just wanted to be sure:

On the original DC-Swat Schematic, for "normal" DC, I only need to lift pin 12 from the original bios and pins 1, 12 and 44 of the MX chip? Both 23 are linked together and I can get the 3.3V from somewhere else than pin23 for the resistors ?

Thank you,

FG

 

Yeais, you're right!

 

If i change the text in the bios file with a hexeditor will it then show on the Dreamcast if i flash?



I guess the new text mustn't take up more space than the old one and if it's shorter the remaining space should be filled up with blanks somehow.

Not that it would serve any real purpose but i could think of slightly more useful texts to be shown when a game doesn't support VGA

I have no experience using a hex editor but there is a first for everything right What are the "ÿ"'s?

 

The text on the right is the character equivalent of the hexadecimal shown on the left. The "ÿ" character is decimal 255 or (&FFh). You are correct about being able to replace only as many characters as there were originally. If you want to use shorter text, you must end the line with a null character (decimal 0). It's good practice to null pad the entire length, but not necessary.

 

The y symbol is used as a new-line character.

 

I tried editing it with a hexeditor in windows and the "ÿ" didn't show up in that but now that you mention it, it does make sense. Guess i'll edit it in Linux next time

It seems to be very flexible and easy to edit. Here i changed the Italian language to Danish (since Italian is an almost dead language these days and the date/time format matches the danish one):



After a while though i decided it wasn't worth it. I really hate menus in Danish, they are always translated so poorly and it turned out i couldn't do a much better job myself... :/

But it was still fun to try

 

Did anyone with a modified bios tried to run a GD-R(ecordable) without using the System Disc 2? If so, did you succeed? If this works I guess this is the most easy way to dump GD-R's with a BBA and HTTP-ACK

 

What is GD-R's? Unfinished games or finished games that can't run on a normal Dreamcast?

 

GD-R's are official writable discs used in the development of Dreamcast games. A stock Dreamcast can only run a GD-R when the 'System Disc 2' bootdisc is being used (or when executing a swap trick).

 

That's what i thought. Are there a lot of GD-R's out there that differs from the retail versions of games? There must be right, otherwise i don't really see the point

 

Most Beta/Alpha DC games come on GD-R.

 

Makes sense of course. Don't know why i didn't think of that when i wrote it

 

bios mod dreamcast

Hello all,

My first post here !

I just made the bios mod and want to flash the bios of my dreamcast.
I do not have a sd card adaptor.
I would like to flash directy from a cd with the bios from link83.

How can I modify the DreamShell_4.0.0_Beta4_(CDI_image) to include his bios ?

Or could someone upload a modified cdi image of Dreamshell including link83 bios?


EDIT : I didn't see at first that this cdi image was already posted in post 140. Thanks
Thanks very much in advance.

Thanks to DarthCloud for the schematic, I have a old Jap dreamcast....

 

Any way to "unlock" the extra 128k by removing the ground? Or is every single pin wired to gnd ... {-_-}

A "DanPotter's Navi"-like custom bios would be really cool, with 256k it'd be even better!

FG

 

You would need an extra pin on that bus to drive that pin. Didn't check but I don't think it's the case.