region free DC Question

A custom bios as already been made by Sir Dan Potter a long time ago:
http://gamedev.allusion.net/hdwrprj/navi/

However it's extremely complicated to do so and I don't know if it's compatible with the dual chip design.

FG

 

Its not complete either and it doesnt do what he was asking =/

 

Just pointed it out to say it's possible to do.

 

..*sigh* that was my point, he actually replied via PM... and that was the whole reason of asking over there at 'his' forum, because I knew he had done so...
I never stated that something along the lines of my proposal was ever done before, it just surfaced in my mind when reading this thread, so nevermind, but thanks though.

 

I believe Potter was going to attempt to use 4mb instead of 2mb chips as well. Great potential but it would require plenty of time and dedication to achieve something like this. If Dan Potter didn't finish it knowing how dedicated he was to the Dreamcast at the time I don't think anyone else will for the time being.

Then again I've been side swiped by news that came out of nowhere before on such topics.

 

So from what I have been reading the dev bios color comes from the color of the swirl you have on your DC. So if you have a PAL blue swirl the dev BIOS is blue but if you have a NTSC orange swirl thew dev BIOS would be orange.

So has anyone tried to flash a black swirl to the stock BIOS chip then see if the dev BIOS would be black?

 

region is set on a different chip to the bios.

 

Raziel, will try it out this weekend if I get a chance and will report back.
It should work but I don't think it would look good in black.

 

I am more less curious at this point but can one make a stock DC region free by simply flashing it? I ask as I have two spare sports edition DC's lying around I would like to have region free as well as I don't think any of the program's SWAT put out are region free. Their latest one 1.8 is the one that has the black BIOS option but I don't think it is region free.

 

There is no way to make it region free unless you use a modchip or piggyback/replace a new BIOS chip

 

The bios chip is a read only maskrom. The region is stored in a writable chip (as I said above, 2 different chips).

 

I know, however there is a Region Changer Disc and has the ability to change the Swirl Colour [Orange, Blue, Black]
They might be a possibility to use a Black swirl with the DEV BIOS.

 

It was in reply to RaZiel's "can I flash the stock bios". I know you know

And yeah, if the swirl colour is based on a region flag and black is say a "dev flag" if the bios ignores all that and acts are region free - maybe the black swirl will work.

 

Cool thanks I look forward to it to bad it is near impossible to get to the bottom of my DC now after APE installed the VGA, SD card, and overclock mods. Maybe I can send it back to have the mod done if this goes right and looks good.

 

Im actually doing VGA and SD mods on my DC too. fortunately I can replace the bios before I do it.

But I am trying to find a way to make it easy to take apart still - looking at using a small PCB with a header, then the VGA and SD cables can be removed and the casing come away.

 

Ok I dumped my DEV BIOS as I am going to try out the black stock swirl that way in case i don't like it I can go back to the nice one I had hacked for me. Looking forward to seeing what happens with the black DEV swirls in theory it should work.

 

I was contemplating doing something similar to that but I don't yet have the experience to come up with any decent looking designs. There isn't much room inside a Dreamcast either which makes adding anything of any real size an exercise in slamming your head against one's desk.

In order for me to take everything apart and put it back together successfully, it'd likely take a considerable amount of time. Probably on the order of 2-3x more than it took originally given it has to be deconstructed, the wire added, reconstructed, color changed, deconstructed, wire removed and finally reconstructed again.

And I have classes coming up in just over 2 weeks. While a lot of the other work we've discussed I can handle during the down time I will have this would be a huge challenge to accomplish before December.

 

You know me man I am never in a hurry and this would be at the bottom of my to do list. I might just black swirl my current one and have it get a sd and vga mod as I don't need this one overclocked.

 

:crying:

 

Why the tears my ReviveDC team mate? Sorry I haven't been on IRC or anything much as I am stuck with cell tethering for the next month but I will return will four new RDC rips I just can't upload them without it costing me $$$$$$$ as I can only use 5gb each month.