Toejam & Earl 3 - Dreamcast Beta

Can you describe your method to selfboot the files? And what emulator are you trying?
Remember, GD-ROM's data session begins at LBA 45000, but most self-boot methods put the data session at LBA 11702, so if you are using LBA 11702 the main binary will need to be patched for LBA 11702.
Alternatively, the best way, is to make the self-boot session start at LBA 45000 instead of 11702 so there is no need to patch the binary.

 

I've tried multiple methods :
FamilyGuy's data/data kit, result : black screen
Bootdreams, result : black screen
img4dc, result is the same

I'm using NullDC and Demul (however that is crashing constantly.)
Does anyone know if NullDC has a GD-ROM fille access log of somekind, if I can see what it's doing maybe I can debug it better
(now it's like trying to shoot a duck in a pond 150 meters away blindfolded with a shotgun)

What I've also read that most games contain "CD001" in the binary, in this one nothing! also CDE4 436A or 1032 0D8B aren't there. (thanks LeGiT for the tip

 

If you need some help getting this to selfboot let me know and I might be able to help.

 

Ooga Booga and Floigan Bros are two of the hardest to crack Dreamcast games. No known way to crack either has been documented. I have done a side by side hex edit of the binaries and there is so many "fixes" applied by Echelon.

 

That doesn't sound good :/

 

It seems it was going to be pretty much the same game story-wise, yeah. ToeJam, Earl and Latisha are tasked by Lamont with travelling to planet Earth to funkify earthlings, collect the twelve "Sacred Albums of Funk" and fight the "Anti-Funk".

The core difference between the Dreamcast version and the later Xbox version, according to Greg Johnson, was on the fact that the Dreamcast version was going to be a straight-lined experience with sequenced levels (similar to the first ToeJam & Earl game) while the later Xbox version was retooled to be a hub-driven game that interconnects the levels with gates and keys. But unless Greg Johnson indicates otherwise, I don't think the plot would have been drastically different. It doesn't seem that way because aesthetically both versions seem to very similar each other.

I don't think that's easy to do without the game's source code.

 

I was curious because I remember reading somewhere that the Xbox voiceovers in Shenmue II had somehow been ported across to the Dreamcast version, it'd be interesting to see just how much graphically was changed in the XB version versus the DC one!

 

But that's different. Replacing preexisting content like voiceovers is always possible as long as you fit the files you are bringing over to the format of the original ones. Adding new content to a game is different story though, because you have to write new code for the game logic to make the new content work.

In this case, assuming that this beta has no proper code to load cutscenes files (if there's not any cutscenes like ZakhooiTM claimed, then it probably is that way), before you add any cutscenes files you would need to add the necessary code in the first place so the game would know how and when it would have to load those cutscenes, and this would probably require extensive hacking in order to achieve it. It would be easier if you have source code and you are able to understand and add the necessary code to the game, but we don't know if this possible with the content present in the devkit.

I like the idea because ToeJam & Earl III cutscenes on the Xbox are great, but it's probably not quite feasible to make it happen.

 

That's a shame, but I guess the game could not even be capable of playing on a proper DC yet haha! I'd love the game to be complete enough to be pieced together and can't understand why Sega cancelled it when it looks like it's in advance stages of development - I guess it begs the question, did this development kit come from Visual Concepts? If so, weren't they a Sega 2nd party so a find like this is amazing!

I wonder why Toe Jam & Earl III isn't featured on the yellow 'coming in 2001' booklet put in all PAL DC games from Jan 01 - Oct 01 it's almost like Sega knew they weren't releasing it bearing in mind that Jet Set Radio 2 and House of the Dead III are listed.

 

Well, that's a Sega Europe advert. Didn't all of Visual Concept's games (floigian bros, ooga booga) only come out in the US anyway? Maybe it was up to Sega Europe/Big Ben to decide what titles to invest money in to localize and bring over, and this was deemed one with too limited an appeal for the Euro market.

 

Floigan Bros came out in Europe some time after the North American release. It was included among the several Dreamcast titles that were jointly released in Europe by Sega and BigBen Interactive during the late 2001/early 2002 period, a release schedule which included some games that weren't released in North America like Shenmue II, HeadHunter and Rez.



The reason for ToeJam & Earl III's cancelling for Dreamcast is something that would be best asking to Greg Johnson himself. But had ToeJam & Earl III been finished and released for the Dreamcast, it's quite possible it would have been picked up for release in Europe by Sega and BinBen Interactive, even if at a later date. Unlike the other Visual Concept games, in this case the previous titles on the Mega Drive would have been enough appeal for releasing the game in Europe IMO.

 

Yes, though technically you have something better.

You have the files and to play it safe you already have them all backed up. You also have a Katana hooked up, you just need to install the SDK and voila, you have your file access log.

Make a new GD Workshop project, place the data into the relevant tracks and launch emulation mode. You will now see the file access log in GD Workshop just below the emulation mode/disc mode button

 

That's true, however on the devkit it works and on the emulator it doesn't and I don't know why.
Here is an log when starting the game though
I wished that DC emulators also spit out these sort of logs.

Edit :

I've confirmed that the game code is infact running inside the emulator and that it tries to access \DATA\BDL\_PRESENT.FUNK with it can't find and locks up.
The method I used to jump to this conclusion is by comparing memory dumps of the emulator and the devkit without the assets.

So my question still is, why the hell can't the game access it's data on the GDROM ?

 

Simply because it is not in GDI format and when in CDI it expects those binaries to be properly cracked for a Mil-CD version to boot. If you canuse the SDK to make a proper mode GDI file set the emulator will load up fine but until you properly hack the binaries it is going to crash. I have a hacked version of NullDC that will show you the file access logs but only works for GDI files not CDI.

 

So it's basically the same game as the xbox release? or is there any difference?

 

Scroll up and read the previous posts

 

Oooops xP my bad.

 

Can't wait to play the dreamcast version.

 

Well, not much to add right now, but just wanted to rule out a few simple possibilities...

1.) Have you tried to burn to disc and test on real hardware? Emulators are not 100% and may well not be compatible.

2.) Probably not worth asking, but when you build the cdi, are the files from this screenshot placed in the seperate directory named "data" on the root of the disc? Or are these files placed in the same directory as the 1ST_READ.BIN?

 

This is kind of reminiscent of the problem with Geist Force, though one would expect the solution to one of the first and last Dreamcast games to be different, given all of the changes to procedures in between.

That makes no sense lol. A CDI version won't work as intended on the modified nullDC but it isn't a case of one format vs another as both CDI and GDI will likely fail to load on the standard nullDC if not cracked properly.

The GD Workshop log kind of answered that already. 1st_Read.bin and the Data folder containing everything else should go in the root directory. It is a little weird and I would have thought otherwise but I guess they just liked their root tidy lol