im an owner of a pal dc from 2000 (complete unmoded) but the last year the lens died. at first i was looking for laser replacement but i found the existince of dreamshell (personly i dont like it i beleve dc must load games from the place of gdrom and not from any serial port)usbgdrom and gdemu im planing to buy around september (income from the gobs are very little here in greece because of the economic crisis) anyway gdemu? or usb gdrom? also all my games exept the modded code veronica are pal.
Both are basically good devices. The choice depends on your needs. Gdemu uses Sd-Cards and so can hold less games/$, but it is very small and it has a nice looking menu (from @neuroacid) with more features on the way. It's also less expensive IIRC. Usb gdrom supports USB HDD to put all the games you dream about on the same support, but it's bulkier with a subpar menu and it's more expensive. Also, mnemo (usb gdrom) seems to be harder to deal with than deunan (gdemu), with StoneAgeGamer stopping to deal with him and him posting childish biased comparison between usb gdrom and gdemu. Not that it affects your experience with the device though.
va1 is totally the more common motherboard (va0 is only common in Japan I think). There can't be any "in-place" gd-rom replacement for va2.1, as the gd-rom daughter-board is integrated in the motherboard.
I'd say get one which ever you can. I've been trying to get a v5 usb gdrom, sent Mnemo and email over a month ago. Haven't heard anything. Both are in limited supply and Mnemo lacks in communication which makes things difficult.
I would say USB GDROM. But I am know GDEMU would be fine too. I chose usb gd rom because I like that I dont need to create a folder system on storage media. I just drag and drop games, then play. Also, I could never catch the ordering time for GDEMU, while USBGDROM is in stock more often and easier to get imo.
but i heard mnemo starting to ruin his job by ignoring, or really late to give answers to people requests for his product. his policy make the people to distant from him
I think the language barrier is an issue. I never had a problem with him, but I also never tried to ask any questions or anything. I just sent an email with name, phone#, address, paypal account, items wanted. He replied within a few days and sent a paypal invoice. After that I got the board in 3 weeks.
I did the same, asked no questions, he hasn't sent an invoice. I have his icq number because that's how he originally took orders. I sent him a message yesterday asking if he got my email from July 11th. He just replied with "yes". I've talked to him fairly often in the past. I can tell you that there is no language barrier.
If you're in the market to play some of the new developed Dreamcast games the GDEMU is the only way to go, seeing that the USB GDROM doesn't support these games with it's current firmware release.
