EU Rush 2049 depends on DC internal flash/region?

Hi, this is a bit weird and may drag on for a while so please bear with me

I have a Japanese Dreamcast with one of Link83's unibios'es piggybacked for regionfree gaming. It has worked well ever since I installed it some years ago, even though my soldering techniques was noticeably worse back then

I recently bought the game San Francisco Rush 2049 on Ebay. Brand new and EU-version along with eight other band new EU-games. When the games arrived they all worked perfectly except for Rush 2049, which the Dreamcast would attempt to boot, but right after the SEGA-logo, return to the bios-screen. Once it reached the SEGA logo the drive would no longer attempt to read the disc at all, which is unusual for a bad drive as it will most likely make insane noises and attempt to load the disc for a long time before eventually giving up. In the Music option I could see that the disc was being recognized as Rush 2049 just fine, and I could try to launch the game, but every time the same thing happened. The game would return to the bios-screen after the SEGA logo.

Even though the disc drive worked perfectly fine for all other games, I decided that it must have been the reason why the game refused to boot.

So I picked up an unmodified EU Dreamcast with a perfectly working laser. It arrived yesterday and it immediately booted and played Rush 2049 just fine But, since my Japanese Dreamcast is one of those fancy red Biohazard-models I naturally wanted that one to be the working Dreamcast. I swapped the drives and was very surprised when I found that the JAP Dreamcast still wouldn't boot the game! Same story, Power ON > Attempt to load > SEGA logo > Bios screen.
I now tried the EU Dreamcast I just got, but with my old drive installed. Sure enough that booted the game like a champ... So the problem was motherboard-related for sure.

First I suspected the region-free bios to be the problem somehow. I took the EU motherboard (the one I just got) and removed the old bios and installed a pre-flashed unibios I got from bad-ad (thanks!). It turned out really well, and the Dreamcast powered on, no problems I expected that it would no longer boot the game since I just installed the unibios, but to my surprise (again) it did boot the game perfectly. I turned the power on and off a few times just to be sure, but it worked... which is good

I hadn't given up on the idea that it might be bios related, so I turned my attention to my old JAP motherboard with the piggybacked unibios install. I was sure something in the mod caused the Dreamcast to behave this way.
My old mod was a bit of a mess, so rather than trying to improve it I decided to remove both bios'es and install the original SEGA-one I pulled from the EU console instead. I figured this would work since the region setting is saved to the internal flash if I remember correctly.
Anyway I powered on the Dreamcast and i booted fine, still in JAP region, even though it now had the bios from an EU console This Dreamcast was no longer region-free so it wouldn't boot Rush 2049 without some help. I popped in DC-X and tried to boot the game that way. I was really sure it would work, but it didn't! Same thing happened. ...SEGA logo then bios screen. I tried booting my EU Sonic Adventure game using DC-X too and that worked.

Damn! What now? Well I had one perfectly working region-free Dreamcast so it didn't matter much. What annoyed me though was that I got a blue swirl on start-up on my Japanese system, so I thought it would be best to flash the consoles region to JAP for that matching red swirl instead. I popped in an old Region Changer 1.7 disc I had used some years ago. I flashed the DC to JAP region and removed the wire connecting R512 to 12V after I was done. All good, now my DC was JAP again
Time for some Rush 2049 after all that hard work, but shockingly the game refused to boot on this system now as well! Obviously the internal flash memory is causing this. What I didn't know at the time (yesterday) was that Region Changer 1.7 was buggy and it wouldn't allow me to change the region back to EU for me to test if the system had fried something internally or this problem could be fixed. I was all out of CDs so I couldn't burn the working v1.5 to revert back to EU

But today I got a few CDs from a friend. I burned v1.5 and thankfully I was able to switch region back to EU and as expected that meant that Rush 2049 would now boot again. This time I installed a switch between R512 and 12V so I could easily switch back and forth between flash-mode and normal play mode (I've heard it's bad to play some games with the wire attached), so I tried all sorts of flashing combinations to see if this was only a problem with the JAP region. I also tried clearing the flash (ISP and game settings) using the option in the menu. _Nothing_ but the EU region works with this game, and please keep in mind that my Dreamcast has a unibios installed and plays all regions fine.

Back to my JAP motherboard. I tried clearing the flash first, while leaving it in JAP mode like god intended. Booted the game with DC-X, but it just went back to the bios-screen like alway. I then flashed the region to EU and now the game boots fine on that console too.

Sorry, that dragged on, but I did warn you Hope it didn't get too confusing. What I would like to know is why Rush 2049 is depending on the region setting stored in flash when I have a unibios installed or using the DC-X on a JAP system? I read somewhere that Vanishing Point has a similar problem where it doesn't go past a loading screen if the internal ISP settings are corrupted(?) and requires them to be wiped clean to work. But clearly that's not exactly the same problem here as I tried, many times, to clear the flash while keeping the Dreamcast in either US or JAP region.

My Dreamcast works, it plays Rush 2049, which probably isn't even worth all the effort I wasted on this I assume that it will keep working fine for all my EU games now. But I'm a little bit worried if some of my other games will be affected by the flash like Rush have. I currently have 193 games for the Dreamcast. All originals of course and from all regions EU, US and JAP. I'd really hate it if I suddenly would experience something similar with one of my US or JAP games, and I don't really feel like testing them all, hence the question

Also, is it at all possible to keep the Dreamcast flashed to EU, BUT with a red swirl instead?

 

There are a few EU games which show similar behaviour, I have a PAL dreamcast which has the region free bios and is set to NTSC-U it refuses to boot south park rally and I've not tried rush 2049 because my copy is sealed but there was at least one other game. I don't know of a way to have an orange swirl PAL region console, might need some bios coding somewhere? Regardless I don't expect it's an easy fix.

AFAIK you will only get this problem with a small number of PAL games, but then by and large I almost exclusively own PAL games haha

 

I assume every EU game I own should work now. I should try all US and JAP games I own just to be sure. That's only about a hundred to test

 

I have noticed any problems specific to JAP games, but I'm using a US console with modchip. None of that BIOS mumbo jumbo.

Don't yet own PAL games.

 

I'm 90% sure that the vast vast majority of japanese and US games should work, I've never come across a US game which didn't work on a PAL machine except EGG but I think that was the disc because it didn't work on the one set to NTSC-U either

My understanding of it has always been that these sorts of extra region lockouts are exclusive to PAL games, maybe soemthing related to the refresh rate?

 

EGG works on a PAL system. I used to have that game

Currently halfway through testing my JAP games. So far all games work except Pro Yakyo Team Wo Tsukurou! It's a Baseball-game. It boots to the SEGA logo, the screen goes black and then restarts the Dreamcast. So it's not exactly the same issue as with Rush... This game is also absolutely scratch-free.

EDIT: Scratch that. It doesn't work with RGB, but it does work with VGA

The search goes on.

 

Every single US and JAP game I own tested, and all of them work with the Dreamcast flashed to the EU/PAL/English settings in the region changer disc. My back is killing me now

I also tried a few PAL games that I thought could be problematic including Vanishing Point as previously mentioned.

A few years ago I did experience a similar problem with my US copy of Phantasy Star Online V2. I think it was using another Dreamcast, probably EU and with modchip installed. It had the exact same symptoms as the ones I had here with Rush. Back then it was solved by deleting my internet settings. So I guess that when a game goes back to the bios-screen after showing the SEGA logo it's probably caused by the internal flash somehow...

I think that flashing the Dreamcast to EU/NTSC/English also worked with Rush but I can't remember. I might try that tomorrow to get rid of the 50Hz bios-screen when using RGB. If it still works with Rush it should work with everything else I suppose. I'm not checking all my games again

 

Does it still boot like that even with a boot disc? I know it defeats the purpose of the bios but for one game it wouldn't matter.

 

You mean return to bios-screen when booting Rush 2049 on a JAP or US system with a boot disc? Yes it still happens. I tried with DC-X.

 

I was wrong. Tried every combination of region and output on the region changer disc but only EU/PAL works with Rush, so no 60Hz bios-screen for me when I'm using RGB
I decided that I can't stand looking at the blue swirl when my DC is JAP, so I'm changing the region to JAP/NTSC again. It turned out that my drive was fully working which means that I now have two operational Dreamcasts. I'll just keep the other one in EU/PAL and use that for Rush 2049

Another really strange thing about Rush 2049 is that the disc says "Compatible with all Dreamcast hardware bearing the x mark". This is the first time I've ever seen that :/ All other EU games says "PAL|E". Here is a picture for comparision:


I hope this problem can be fixed with a new bios at some point, but I'm not expecting any miracles. It's really a minor issue and probably not worth fiddling with just to get one game (possibly a few others) working on a US or JAP system.

 

I think the X is normal, I don't know why it's there but I have a pal dreamcast scans collection and the disc scan in that looks identical to yours
Perhaps it was a placeholder left there by the person who designed the cover and they forgot to put the Pal E symbol in

 

Sounds likely. It sure doesn't look like a bootleg otherwise

 

there were all sorts of mistakes like this with PAL dreamcast game packaging there's a list of some here:
http://www.gamefaqs.com/dreamcast/916412-dreamcast/faqs/23963

 

Its not a problem with the bios, its a check the game is doing against the flash. Dont think there will be much you can do...

I unprotected the boot sector of the flash in my DC - it means I can change the region without the 12v wire.

I had only come across 1 game that did this (I think it might have even been hedgeyourbets that mentioned it to me??)

 

Jet Set Radio and Rez give me these problems as well on two of my systems with a BIOS chip but I also have another system with a BIOS chip that works just fine with both of those. So what exactly it is I have no idea.

 

Its in the flash chip, the region is checked etc.

 

EU versions on US/JAP consoles? I have JSR in EU and it works fine on my JAP system.

 

It might have been me who mentioned it, I don't think many other people ever cared all that much about playing a PAL south park rally on an NTSC region machine. Didn't worry me particularly either, but I thought it was useful to know haha.

My suggestion of fiddling with the bios was only a suggestion for changing the colour of the bootup animation, somehow tricking it into showing the orange swirl on a console set to PAL but I don't really know what I'm talking about with regards to fiddling with the bios so.... *shrug*

Edit:
Just remembered something
I've never found a version of PBA bowling (that unreleased leaked bowling game) which will run on a dreamcast set to the PAL region, I had one person insisting that "there is definitely a version on the internet somewhere which does" but I've never seen any evidence of it. If I recall, it boots to the title screen then just dies when you press start.

 

PBA Bowling is the game I was thinking of - So I am pretty sure now it was you who mentioned it

 

Oh yes I remember telling you about PBA bowling actually
I must have discovered the south park rally thing later on