Modded Dreamcast - VGA, SD Reader in the back and Region Free

Hey this ones for a good friend of mine but does anyone have a Dreamcast modded with VGA the SD reader in the back and completely region free for sale? I'm guessing its going to be the case of someone may have to make one since finding one with all three has been challenging. If no one can do it on here is there a site someone can point me to that does it in the UK or can ship to?

Cheers,

James

 

If it's the SD card that goes through the serial interface and uses Dreamshell, I wouldn't bother. Way too difficult to get anything to run with that.

 

I've got three of those on the table I'm working on now and possible a fourth.

 

Disappointing to hear. I have only a modchip, no other upgrades.

 

It's not that bad, although the compatibility is certainly rather hit and miss. It's certainly a lot better with the latest version of Dreamshell. One mistake I made early on was to try and use the modified BIOS that directly boots Dreamshell but is supposed to still have the retail BIOS functions in it - this caused me a lot of compatibility problems that went away when I flashed the original or region-free BIOS into the machine.

The poster that seems to know the most about this stuff is Atreyu187 (sp?)

 

Isn't it possible to have the SD reader installed internally with a gap either on the front or back for the SD card to pop in to? My friends asked for that if possible.

Also I've heard the results are a bit better having it installed rather than through the serial interface is that correct?

 

Yeah, you can install it internally - one of my friends has cut a slot in the housing at the front and put the SD card reader there. I guess the wires are about six inches long, but I can't see any effect on performance compared to my DC (which has the SD card adapter plugged into the external serial port).

Electrically, it's exactly the same - even if it's internally installed, the wires are still soldered to the serial port pins.

 

Anything going through the serial port will be terrible on games that use CD audio (Streaming) and FMV, simply not enough bandwidth. That's why we need one of the GD-ROM (IDE) emulation devices to come to fruition. As for Dreamshell, the problem is that most all the "SD" prepared ISO's on www.theisozone.com were done for Dreamshell 4.0 standard. About 2 years ago the Russian team released Dreamshell 4.0 RC1, because the previous release had tons of bugs and ran most games badly if at all. RC1 is much better, but now there are few ISO's converted to work with it, since the SD-ISO's done for the previous version do not. I've tried to follow the steps to make my own SD-ISO and failed. The instructions and tools are simply a mess. I've tried many of the old arcade games converted, and they are buggy as hell too. Can't forget the serious SD card compatibility issues either. Just simply not a viable solution at all, far more headaches than the payoff you get.

 

Actually SD mod uses some pins to serial and if you want to use serial port you need to remove the cables from the pins. Better get an reader than do a mod.