Would GD-R's of this ever be possible?

Please if this is out of line I understand but would it be possible and kosher with the community to sell/request of those these? Not sure how all that stands as I have been seeing copies of Shenmue v0.400 and Hell Gate floating around to certain people as gifts from friends. Well I don't have friends but I do have money and a love for my DC.

 

I think it was discussed early on but it was deemed unfeasible. It would make it too expensive and Assembler would be out more than he would if he were to just produce regular CDR's. As long as your DC reads it and it looks professionally produced it is good enough for my tastes, as I understand the rarity and expensive nature of blank GDR's.

It would be nice if there where a limited edition version GDR they were to sale for a bit more to help cover production cost's however.

 

Look at this another way, recordable media degrades over time right? The last GD-Rs to be produced would've been what 2002, 2003? 8 years old and stored in who knows what state. No way the burns produced would be considered stable for any real length of time. At best it'd be a novelty.

On top of that from what I can recall in order to burn a GD-R you have to let the kit run through a test burn which takes about an hour. Once it has deemed it successful it takes another hour to burn the disc. You'd be looking at a serious investment of time for each one of these guys which unless the asking price was $50-100 wouldn't really be worth the effort.

 

A colour pressed disc is way better than a GD-R anyway. Ir will run in a stock DC (milCD compatable) and no need for disc swaps or boot discs.

Yakumo

 

APE, are you referring to the GD-Workshop method through a Katana? I think the process might be able to be expedited using a GD-X (supports up to four GD-R units).

 

Yes I was. Never read the documentation on the GD-X but I wouldn't be surprised if it went faster given what it was designed for.

 

This wouldn't be for playing just to store it, I could care less if it gave out over time.

 

Then what would be the point in having it? You may as well just source yourself any blank GD-R from somewhere, Isopropyl the exiting name off and write 'Geist Force' on it yourself if that's the case. If it's not gonna be played and it doesn't matter if the disc 'dies' then what would it matter what was on the disc?

 

if the GF disc hasn't had to be stripped at all to fit on a cd-r then I can't see much point personally

 

Retail Dreamcasts won't boot GD-Rs, but dev kits will read them. So making GD-Rs would be limited to those with dev kits.

Maybe someone could make a bootloader that is a CD-R that lets the Dreamcast then boot a GD-R. I do not know if this is possible. I have the dev kits but am still in the learning process on those.

 

I want to say the Utopia Boot Disc will boot GD-Rs but I can't confirm that.

The only reason the DC doesn't boot GD-Rs is because that magic barcode is missing from them that the DC requires to boot GD-ROMs. I've been curious if burning a Mil-CD image to a GD-R would be possible and if it would be bootable in a retail Dreamcast but something was pointed out that negated that as a possibility.

Modifying a retail Dreamcast to boot GD-Rs is a possibility though. You'd have to modify how the GD-ROM looks at discs but I'd imagine it is at least *possible*. At this point in time anyone with the skills to manage that are likely busy doing other projects for their doctorate in EE/CS or something a bit more lucrative financially speaking.

 

Utopia disc won't boot GD-R as it look for data in a session starting at LBA0, with binaries hacked to LBA0. And gd-roms (or gd-r) got their game data at LBA45000, with LBA references to the related addresses.

A swap trick, or a SystemDisc2 can be used to play GD-R on a retail Console. A custom bios should be feasible, albeit hard, but nobody did it so far.

FG

 

I think that Link83 BIOS do support direct boot of GD-R.

Untested but that is what the readme say IIRC.

 

IIRC, he said it might boot GD-R as it was based on the DevKit bios, but he has not tested it.
I think that if the authenticating routine is in the gd-rom firmware, no bios could "fix" this. However if it's in the bios it should be doable.

FG

 

I guess I'm gonna try to get a cheap GD-R to tryout on mine.

 

I thought someone tried it and it didnt work?

 

Best I can recall it didn't because the authentication of the barcode type structure on the discs is done by the GD-ROM drive itself. Same deal with the Saturn hence why removal of checks didn't do anything for CD-Rs in the region free BIOS.

 

Well I could try as Ape did the dual BIOS to my Dreamcast.

 

Unscrupulous people would try to sell it as original and make money. It's happened before. You're unlikely to find anyone willing to copy a sought-after GD-R as a result.

 

Very true as seen recently with the Shenmue BETA