http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/276916/Sega_Saturns_DRM_cracked_almost_23_years_after_launch.php Does this mean we can soon play backups without a modchip? It wasn't clear to me, as the article only mentions USB.
We can already play backups without a modchip - have a look at the pseudo Saturn thread: http://assemblergames.com/l/threads/saturn-proof-of-concept-bootloader-pseudo-saturn.52526/
Thanks for the links. I promise I searched site:assemblergames.com on google but I used the keyword "DRM" which messed up my results. Curious, what advantage (if any) does modchip gives you now that there is pseudo Saturn? (I didn't read all of that thread, sorry.)
The primary advantage of using a chip is that it leaves the cart slot free, and there also seem to be some games that don't like pseudo Saturn. Incidentally, jhl (the guy that's designing that movie card slot ODE) is also the person that contributed the workaround to pseudo Saturn that allows it to boot unpatched discs.
Doesn't mean anything to me as it's been possible to perfectly play backups without a mod chip since day one thanks to the disc swap. And before anyone starts, that doesn't damage the drive. I've got a day 1 Saturn that's still going strong now. I'm sure those in to mass piracy will love it due to the possibility of USB or hard drive loaders though. But to me, doesn't make any difference. Man, I sound like a miserable old git
There are plenty of perfectly working systems with optical drives out there, both old and new. However the laser and it's assembly do deteriorate overtime and break down, it's not a matter if, but a matter when. So solutions like this have a great advantage over mod chips, it makes the optical drive obsolete. And to answer the OP question, with this solution you can't play backups from CD-R, seeing the whole CD drive is being bypassed and everything gets played from USB. So you can play backups, but only in digital copied form. Now you only need to say that quarkxpress and wordperfect are the greatest of all times to complete it
I NEED THIS Saturn collecting is way WAY too expensive now that there is no way I can afford to collect for it.
You need this? You mean you don't have a modchip and a spindle of CD-Rs? I want this to become a product I can buy because of the downsides of CD-Rs. Not having to burn a disc for each game as well as not having to worry about moving parts wearing out are very appealing. But CD-Rs can get you by.
I agree, as long as your careful when you do the swap there should be no reason for damage to happen.
Since he's hijacking the SH1 in the CD Block, there is absolutely no reason it couldn't also play backups - the most obvious approach would be simply to set the flag that the system disc uses so that it doesn't check the security ring on the media. I have no idea if he will actually implement this, but it would be an easy thing to do.
DRM is kind of a new term. The Saturn's security is usually referred to as "copy protection", which is kind of the same thing I guess, depending on how you define it. No one would've referred to it as "DRM" during its lifetime.
