Dreamshell 4 RC 2 ISO Loader reboot

This has been touched upon before I believe, but I don't see a lot of talk/solutions. Dreamshell 4 RC 2 is loading from sd card fine. Trying to load a backup iso from a class 10 SD prepared with ISO_make 2.2, dreamshell always crashes/reboots. Just want to verify my setup is working alright seeing as I'm booting DS from SD as well with piggybacked bios. Should I try an older version of DS? What about attaching a HD later on, I would need this latest version correct?

 

Get a class 6 or higher SD card for maximum compatibility.

 

Edited first post to say using a class 10 and worded a bit clearer.

 

I have had much better success when using DS from CD not from SD card and also are you building your images from GD dumps or CDI rips?

As for the DS you are using some games run better on BETA3/4 then the RC1/2 but the images are built different. Beta doesn't need the IP.bin while RC build requires IP.bin and if not there it will cause a reboot.

Also make he names of the games as small as possible and no spaces. Also make sure your SD card is not fragmented

 

Ok, thanks for the tips. Using GD dumps. Planning on doing the HDD mod as well. Need RC2 for that right?

 

I'm having the same problem!

I just recently had my Dreamcast BIOS modded, and all Dreamcast games that I try to load just make the thing reset. Homebrew programs (KalistiOS) don't have this issue (usually) for some reason, but official Dreamcast games don't work at all. I've tried formatting the SD card, reinstalling Dreamshell, all ISOs (some packed, some GD-ripped) and defragmenting the card, nothing works!

What really confuses me, is this is only a problem with the new bios chip. Whenever I boot to the old chip and use a Bootloader CD, everything works perfectly, same OS, same ISOs, same everything.

What am I doing wrong?

 

It isn't you, when bypassing the Sega BIOS completely you lose major compatibility. It is a new feature as until recently you couldn't load any retail binaries unless you first loaded the Sega BIOS and then DS. When you use Sega BIOS first the compatibility goes sky rocketing that is why I don't suggest loading the DS as a BIOS unless it is homebrew. DS is buggy but the best we have in this department. Swat is still working on fixing not needing the Sega BIOS at all but even the Dev suggest not using DS as your only BIOS.

 

I wonder if one could patch a retail bios to execute a file from sd-card on boot, keeping both retail compatibility and conviviality of DS.

 

That's what I was hoping existed at the moment I guess. I wanted to avoid using the gd-rom altogether.

 

Yeah, that's what I was hoping to do, as I have a launch console with a failing GD-ROM drive.

Well crap.
Hopefully development on DreamShell will continue (or the aforementioned SEGA startup patch). At least it makes for a good Dev-unit.

Thanks!

 

Which the BIOS you are using? You need G1-ATA(IDE) support for now? About BIOSes you can read here - http://www.dc-swat.ru/page/dreamshell/firmware/

For "SD only" + BIOS mod users best case is:
Flash boot_loader_wsc_bfont_sd.bios
Replace DS_CORE.BIN to SD_DS_CORE.BIN (rename it) (you can get SD_DS_CORE.BIN from github or from archive with bootloader or from SDK build directory)
Enjoy

For G1-ATA + BIOS mod users bad days for now, only works sd_loader_with.bios with some limits in compability (read link about bioses)
If you have working GD drive, just boot core (burn DS CDI and put resources to HDD, DS find it) or bootloader from CD, if not have working GD drive, then only sd_loader_with.bios...

 

I did Pemblem's mod for him. Pemblem, yours was installed with sd_loader_with.bios, but the DreamShell CD-R should have the other firmware on it, so just reflash it to boot_loader_wsc_bfont_sd.bios.

 

Thanks for the tips SWAT. I could have swore I already tried that combination, and switching sd_ds, but I'll give it another shot.

 

If you boot from sd_loader_with.bios then you need run most of games from IP.BIN mode, direct mode reboots console in most cases.
Also for "SD only" users not bad choise for flash ds_core_sd.bios but this bios not have syscalls and full bios font(for some games it's bad) as boot_loader_wsc_bfont_sd.bios

 

Hmm... When I use boot_loader_wsc_bfont_sd.bios the Dreamcast doesn't even boot into the SD card, I just get a black screen. I also tried boot_loader_wsc_bfont.bios, same problem.

I reinstalled sd_loader_with.bios and it works again, but I still can't get official games to run.

I'm going to try IP.BIN mode next, if that doesn't work I could intsall ds_core_sd.bios but I much prefer to have the OS on my SD card
XD

 

Is there a compatible flash chip larger than 2mb for the Dreamcast? Or are we stuck at 2mb?

 

DreamShell support chips bigger than 2mb, but there is no place to connect additional address lines from the chip to the G1 bus. So we can't use this space.
And in memory, immediately after the BiosROM placed the FlashROM.

 

IP.BIN didn't work either. Crap.

 

Yea, I'm having very little luck either. Is there a game confirmed to work with a specific bios which can be used to make sure things are loaded the way they should be?

 

You can use Dead or Alive 2 for check the work.