Toejam & Earl 3 - Dreamcast Beta

Very true, it's a shame the Dreamcast never reached that 'second phase' of software, it's really hard to judge if the DC could do some of the things the Xbox did from the get-go. I think the DC could have matched it in theory but I reckon the frame rate would have dropped dramatically. I just don't understand why Sega didn't release this on DC and make a GC or PS2 version in parallel rather than starting on Dreamcast and thinking 'look what we could do on Xbox.it would have made much more sense financially.

 

I cannot agree more, thank you for all of your efforts and sharing, we loooove you

 

This is amazing, anything Dreamcast related gets me all giddy thanks for sharing your findings, ZakhooiTM.

 

Hi everyone,

Thanks for your kind words, I've posted an update on the main post about the selfboot issue, donation plan and gameplay update

Best regards,
ZakhooiTM

 

Thanks for posting the gameplay vid, Really good to see it in action!

 

Just as a FYI, despite being difficult to find (I even had to check other sub forums to find it), fundraisers also have rules.

http://www.assemblergames.com/forums/showthread.php?35686-Fundraising-rules

 

PM sent

 

Looking forward to the multiplayer being shown.Hopefully the frame-rate wont chug.

 

I am not sure if I missed a post, but I have not seen mention of actually trying to boot it on real hardware, not just emulator?

Strange, I have tried some other Visual Concepts games, Ooga Booga as well as Floigan Bros.
Edit: The gdi dumps run fine in NullDC. The echelon release of Ooga Booga crashes NullDC, with an error "i-cache invalidation requested!". I have the same error with my dump converted to .cdi, but dont have any cd-rs to test on real hardware yet to say for sure.

I find it strange that they would implement such copy protections for a pre-production build. But I guess you cant be too careful these ( those ) days.

I noticed that both of those games use the 5 track layout, there may be something in that:
TuxTheWise, known for Frankenstein-style releases, posted a repack of Floigan Bros, I just found this nfo while googleing:

Echelon used session 1 for the game data, strange indeed...

Also, the binhack32.exe by FG and SiZ does not work on the 1ST_READ.BIN in either of those two titles.
It displays this error "Invalid binary file."
I looked at the source, and it appears that the function searchHackOffset does not find the string 'C', 'D', '0', '0', '1', and returns -1. Looking at the binaries in hex, it appears Visual Concepts might use some proprietary file system functions, as opposed to the standard gdFs functions used by most katana programs.
Are the echelon guys still around, lol?

 

You've read my source right, but echelon's binhack won't work either, there simply is not LBA45150 reference on that executable. Also, the number of tracks is irrelevant, Tux probably had to used ech's bootbin because he couldn't figure out the copy protection (not an insult, I could not either).


The builds we made don't boot on nullDC, but not because of unsupported calls. It wouldn't hurt to try on real hardware though.
@ZakhooiTM: you should try a .nrg made from my pack with the ip.hak i sent you, converted into cdi and burnt in a real dc (not devkit), just in case!

In any case, a friend of mine which is very knowledgeable, at least on par with echelon's guy back then, is working on making it works, so if it can be selfbooted, he will make it! It could take some time though.

Stay tuned!

 

Greetings from Russia! What kind version of Demul you used? Maybe you should try the last one?

Here the link:
http://www.mediafire.com/download/715rljjni39fs7e/demul0581.rar

This is last ver. with bioses included. (Use GrdImage plugin)

Here the official site: http://demul.emulation64.com if you wonder.

Maybe it will help somehow? Would be cool to play this game some day. Good luck with dump!

 

Hi FG!,

I've tried to boot it on the real hardware, and got an different response! however instead of showing an blackscreen it just goes back to the BIOS after hanging on a gray screen for a second just after the SEGA logo.
I've burnt 2 discs with 2 different selfboot methods, both failed.

Greetings from Holland! Welcome to AssemblerGames

I don't know what version I used (I'm on a other location at the moment) but I've tried the version you given me and it crashed at the same spot as the one I had when testing.
It crashes when the emulator wants to load 1ST_READ.bin as it crashes at the SEGA logo.

But thanks for the suggestion, it's always appreciated

 

This is awesome!! I knew it had to be out there somewhere when a russian site offered pre-orders (and still is btw lol) back in the day with a detailed description and screens and what not. Thanks a lot to OP for making the effort and good luck with completing the project!!

Offtopic:

IMHO of an outsider of the whole GF thing, it took a lot of time (being a w.i.p and all) and yet it was hurried out to delivery as the pressure from donators and spectators grew.

Basically we people need to be more patient. That way everybody can be happy.

 

Can you write how exactly now you trying to dump this files and create GDI? Step by step if it possible? Write anything you can know about those files (some protections or something like that, anything). And I will send this information to devs of Demul, maybe they will give some clue for solution?

 

I've tried to boot it with a CDI file as creating GDI files always fail with me (They dont even show the SEGA logo).
When I try to boot an GDI file, I see in NullDC the error "Sector conversion error" in the debug console when I try to play the 3rd track (data track) in the music player.

 

It sure would be nice with some kind of frankenbuild of this with added stuff from the xbox version. The gui and everything else that can be used for example.

 

2Player mode video is up

 

Is the urban zone level in the dreamcast version?

 

Nice! The 2 player mode is working
I remember back in days I watched everyday this website :
http://tjande.com/
to see if the was any news for the Dreamcast.

Unfortunately it didn't came on DC and that's one of the main reason I bought an Xbox.

 

2 player mode seems to run pretty well