Topic: So...I just bought a Sega Saturn..

[TJ Spyke]

Actually, Dreamcast games were not on CD's. They were a proprietary format called GD-ROM and could hold up to 1GB of data.

[NWR_insanolord]

Actually, Dreamcast games were not on CD's. They were a proprietary format called GD-ROM and could hold up to 1GB of data.

What he said. Also, I never had mine crash on me, so I'm not sure what you're talking about there.
The system's great because of its game library. There were a lot of really interesting, really inventive games made for it, and I don't think there has been quite as creative or batshit crazy a lineup since.

[Chozo Ghost]

GD-ROM is as much CD-ROM as Wii Optical Media is DVD. The difference is in the filesystem or whatever, but the physical discs are the same thing.

Any Dreamcast pirate can take a Dreamcast GD-ROM and make an exact clone copy of it on a CD-R and it will be exactly the same in all respects.

[NWR_insanolord]

You can't manipulate a file system into creating 300 MB out of thin air.

[Chozo Ghost]

You can't manipulate a file system into creating 300 MB out of thin air.

It isn't making it out of thin air. I remember people used to be able to format 1.44MB floppy disks in such a way as to get 2MB or more out of them. The space is there, but different file systems use the space differently. Some are more efficient than others.

[TJ Spyke]

Pirates were able to copy some Dreamcast games to CD-R's because many DC games were under 700MB in size, but GD-ROM's are still distinct from CD-ROM's.

[BranDonk Kong]

Chozo I hate to say it but you are completely incorrect there, and TJ you're not helping (that much). GD-ROMs are kind-of like CDs, but there are 100% incompatible with CD-ROM drives (aside from maybe the initial audio track). They have nearly twice the capacity of CD-ROM discs, and it has absolutely *nothing* to do with formatting, and is completely unrelated to the how Nintendo skirted paying DVD royalties with GameCube and Wii discs (which are DVDs). GD-ROM discs were invented for the Dreamcast.

Pirates weren't able to copy "some" Dreamcast games to CD-Rs because many games were under 700MB in size - *hackers* were able to burn *EVERY* Dreamcast game to a CD-R by downsampling audio and video files, or removing and re-linking videos, or by removing audio tracks. For instance Mortal Kombat Gold (and a great deal of other games) use the entire capacity of a GD-ROM, but the video was converted to a lower bitrate (which shows if you run the game from a CD-R) to make the game fit on the CD-R disc.

No - you cannot take a Dreamcast GD-ROM and make an exact copy onto a CD-R, because Dreamcast games are all over 1GB by default, they are just filled with "dummy data" (just like Xbox 360, PS3, GameCube, Wii, PS2, PSX) games are, which can be removed, or the video can be downsampled, etc.

Also, the Dreamcast did not run on WindowsCE - it could run some programs that ran on WindowsCE (like the web browser), but the console itself did not run on any type of Windows operating system. WindowsCE is not on the Dreamcast itself - any games or applications that used WindowsCE on the Dreamcast included the actual WindowsCE OS on the disc, which would be loaded before said game/app.

This thread has gone from respectful discussion about the Saturn (and Dreamcast, which may be my fault) to mindless rambling from people who have no idea what they are talking about (for the most part).

[Chozo Ghost]

But I've read the GD-ROMs can play on standard CD-ROM drives with nothing more complicated than a simple firmware change. There may be some difference between GD-ROMS and CD-Roms, but its not a huge difference, because apparently the same hardware is capable of processing both.

[BranDonk Kong]

There are a few CD-ROMs that can read and rip GD-ROM discs via swap tricks and stuff like that, but even then they typically cannot read the full disc. The tracks on a GD-ROM disc are "tighter" than those on a CD-ROM disc. You can read about it here - http://trash.greg2k.com/GD-ROM%20tutorial/ - this is how games were being ripped without using the actual Dreamcast console (but still most hackers, if not all, used the Dreamcast itself and the BBA/coder's cable to rip games). There are 99-min CD-Rs out there, but I'm fairly certain the Dreamcast can't read them, or at least can't read the entire disc, but even then a 99 min CD-R =/= a "GD-R." I take back the "100% incompatible with CD-ROM drives" part - that's pushing it a bit, but even then they're incompatible with probably 99.99999% of CD-ROM drives. This small blurb explains the difference a little bit too - http://www.cdrinfo.com/Sections/Glossary/Details.aspx?TermId=339.

[Chozo Ghost]

Oh alright. I guess I didn't know as much as I thought I knew about the Dreamcast.

Maybe one thing Sega should have done differently is deliberately designed the Dreamcast to be unable to play standard CD-R discs at all. That way even though people could hack the GD-Roms and then burn them on CD-R the system would not accept them, so having them on CD-R would be pointless.

I doubt piracy was the worst problem the Dreamcast faced, but it was a big issue, and it might have been the straw that broke the camels back so to speak. Maybe if piracy wasn't so easy the difference that would have made might have been just enough to keep Sega alive as a hardware entity. We will never know for sure, but its possible.

[BranDonk Kong]

Piracy was not the reason for the fall of the Dreamcast - if it were the cause, then the PS2 would have died, the Xbox would have died, the GameCube, 360, Wii, PS3, etc. Most of the time I see people say the Dreamcast died because of poor marketing, which is probably true to an extent (never getting EA Sports onboard was a huge mistake too). Before 9-9-99 everyone was like "I'm getting a fucking Dreamcast!" Then, a year later, everyone bought a PS2 and forgot that the Dreamcast ever existed. What's kind of odd is that when it was released, the Dreamcast was basically competing with no one, but it just never picked up any momentum. The Xbox 360 launched a year before the PS3 and Wii, but Microsoft marketed it like a motherfucker and it didn't get killed by the PS3 like the Dreamcast was killed by the PS2. It also probably didn't hurt Microsoft that the PS3 isn't superior to the 360, unlike the PS2 to the Dreamcast, which technically blew it away.

[Chozo Ghost]

I know it wasn't the main reason for the Dreamcast's failure which I said in my post, but it could have been the straw that broke the camel's back. A straw is a fairly insubstantial thing, but if you have your camel loaded with a few hundred pounds of gold, frankenscence and Myrrh it might be struggling but able to get by, but then add a straw onto it and it gets crushed.

It is well know that during this time Sega had very little money available. I think I remember reading they were down to like $10 million or something at one point, which is hardly anything for a company that large. So it wasn't that they didn't want to market the console better, they just couldn't afford it. Piracy sure didn't help matters any. Whatever money was lost in piracy could have went into marketing if they had it, but they didn't. So like I said, who knows.

So yes, marketing may have been the biggest reason, but it does tie in with the issue of piracy because you need to have money in order to invest in that marketing. Microsoft has billions of dollars at its disposal and can afford to lose money on the xbox for awhile. A company like Sega which does video games and nothing else doesn't have that luxury.

Another thing which really hurt them was Sony's FUD about the PS2 which was on the horizon. The Dreamcast may have been competing against no one (except the PS1 and N64) but Sony was able to tell their lies about the PS2 being able to deliver Toy Story level graphics and things like that which people believed and held onto their money in anticipation. With more money available Sega could have done more to counter that FUD and keep their own product on the radar better so people didn't forget about it.

[TJ Spyke]

Not only did they only have like $10 million, but they were in debt by several hundred million dollars (even after the owner of Sega forgave the money they owed him, they still were in debt).

Dreamcast sales were strong for the first few months after the US launch, then tanked in January 2000 and stayed there. I never pirated it myself, but I had a friend who had a friend who did and had pretty much every DC game pirated on CD-R's (along with ROM's for NES and SNES games that could play on a DC).

[Chozo Ghost]

Any system can be pirated on, but the Dreamcast was hit especially hard by this because a person could pirate on it with no hardware modifications whatsoever. You didn't need to buy a mod chip or do soldering or anything like that. It was just immediately pirateable right out of the box. I remember this was also around the same time that Napster and other filesharing things started to appear and take off, so it was like a perfect storm for piracy.

Like I said, maybe that's the reason Morari loves the system so much, but ironically that could have been the very thing which killed it too. That's like loving Achilles for his Heel.

[SixthAngel]

Like I said, maybe that's the reason Morari loves the system so much, but ironically that could have been the very thing which killed it too. That's like loving Achilles for his Heel.

As much as I loved the Dreamcast, and I really loved those games, it was DOA.  Piracy had nothing to do with its downfall.  The fact is that Sega was too deep in the **** from previous mistakes and needed something like PS1 level success too keep it going.

[BranDonk Kong]

The Dreamcast didn't get backups (also they required the boot disc at this point) running until 9 months after it was released in the US, which was also about 1.5 years after the Japanese release. The Xbox and Wii were hacked faster than that, and the Dreamcast was dead in the water long before DC piracy became as "mainstream" as it did (with self booting discs, etc). The camel's back broke long before that straw was placed on it's decomposing corpse.

[leroypantweather]

Was Princess Crown mentioned, import the **** out of that if you like Muramasa or Odin Sphere ....I still have my saturn but honestly its the only system I dont keep hooked up or play regularly. 

[noname2200]

Welcome to the relatively small, exclusive, and overall limited club! If you enjoy SRPGs, but don't enjoy the depth that most of the games in the genre demand of you, look into buying Dragon Force: great game, widely available still, and an easy entry in the genre.

Oh, and don't make the same mistake that I did of not realizing that your system's built-in memory runs on a watch battery, so it will die after a few years if you don't replace it!

[ThePerm]

Today's Sega probably couldn't make decent hardware to save their life since they struggle to make decent anything.  They're not really Sega anymore.  They're Sega like the current Atari is Atari.

But back before the Sega Sammy merge if you had Sega and Nintendo morphed together and played to the strengths of both companies, you would have something really awesome.  Of course to do this you need a overlying filter that can recognize what each company is better at and what they suck at.  Overwise it would either just be Nintendo turning Sega into Nintendo or a bitter rivarly like the one between Sega of Japan and Sega of America that more or less sunk the company in the first place.

Though Nintendo makes good hardware, they're just embarassingly conservative in regards to technology.  But they make reliable hardware that runs well.  They just need someone with veto power to say "no, that's stupid" when they decide to not include the very thing that is going to take off next generation because at that exact moment in time it isn't yet widely adopted but will be six months after launch.

they need the Toshiba guy! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9JyN6Obi7eI

I'm thinking if Nintendo did buy Sega those that left would come back. Most escaped Sega directors have small startup companies that make decent games. I'm sure they left because the corporate culture there sucks at the moment. No Yuji Naka, No Yu Suzuki, no Mizuguchi, ...not Sega

also to get gdroms to work correctly you had to get a program that made your cd rom act differently. Instead of reading your disc like a disc is normally read it photographs the disc with the laser. Writing its the same though because when you burn a disc your just drawing an image on the disc with the laser.

if you dont think piracy had anything to do with its downfall you are mistaken. Its sad really. I knew so many people that pirated dreamcast stuff rampantly. It was easy. I knew 20 people who each had 80 burned dreamcast games. I don't thini they were the most exceptionally smartest people around either, but take this microscopic sample and apply this to the macroscopic mainstream, and you'll see a picture that it was the worse case of piracy caused profit loss ever.

[jrlibrarian]

And so we go..


I got my Saturn and the 11 games in the mail a few days ago, but I haven't had much time to devote to it just yet. One of the first things I did when I got it, however, was to replace the battery, which unsurprisingly was dead. Thankfully, my guitar tuner came with a backup battery that is the ideal Saturn battery.


Virtua Fighter 2 is kicking my ass, but I'm enjoying every minute of it. I decided to focus on just two of the characters, Jeffry and Jacky. My name is Jeffrey, so of course I had to go for Jeffry, and it's fun to play with Jacky, in my opinion. I don't have much experience with fighting games outside of playing modern games at friends' houses, but this has a brutal learning curve. Less than half way through Arcade mode, you better know what the hell you're doing, or you;re gonna get shitcanned almost immediately. I'll have updates on this one soon. Hell, I might even throw together a blog to talk about my Saturn experiences. Thoughts?


Daytona CCE: I'm liking this one. What I'm going to be doing for racing games is to try to set some world records on Twin Galaxies. This way I have some motivation to come back to them after they would have otherwise gotten old. I didn't have my camera going, but I already beat the National Park Speedway single-lap record by 1/100th of a second. I'm going to try to get proof of it sometime tomorrow if I can. While it only has 5 courses, they're varied enough that it's fun.


Sega Rally: Pretty much the same situation as CCE, except with fewer cars/tracks. So far there are only variations on two cars (manual/auto transmission) and three tracks. However, TwinG lists a 4th track, but I haven't done any research on how to unlock it just yet.


Need for Speed: Only put a couple minutes into this one. Overall, I'm not liking it as much as the other two, mostly because it just feels a lot slower, and I prefer fast racing games. Maybe I just need to give it some time. We'll see.


I'm really happy with my purchase decision. I have a nice collection of sports games which will probably never be touched, but that's how it goes. In regards to further purchases of ACTUAL GAMES, I grabbed Galactic Attack, because who doesn't need a brutally difficult space shooter in their life? NiGHTS will probably be next. It is worth it to find the 3D controller too? Or does the game play fine without it?


I'm considering getting into thrift/pawn shop running and selling some of the games/systems I find on eBay. Maybe make a bit of a profit and use it to supplement my high school senior/soon to be college freshman budget.

[BranDonk Kong]

I'm sure piracy is a small problem for all game consoles (nowhere near as large as companies make it seem though), but again, the Dreamcast was on its way out as soon as it was released in the US. SEGA formally announced its death on January 31, 2001 - just over 14 months after it was released here. Backups didn't didn't start to get released until June 2000 (which were not self-booting). Lack of sales hardware sales is what killed the Dreamcast - largely due to the release of the PS2, and because or poor marketing (which apparently they couldn't afford). Piracy...not so much.

I don't know where you got that part about taking a photograph of the disc, but it's both untrue and impossible. A laser is not a camera, nor is it a printer (not talking about those labelflash or lightscribe drives). I think you may be confused about what a disc image is, but that is completely inaccurate about how people ripped DC games with a PC (which again, hardly ever worked back in the day)...

[ThePerm]

by laser i meant laser/lens combo

its not untrue or impossible, quite the opposite, if you're using a very broad term of the word "photo-graph". Photo means light, Lasers are light. When the disc is spinning it shoots the laser light onto the cd which bounces onto the lens. The lens is only capable of seeing tiny light differences. Still at a microscopic level. However, that still makes it a very basal camera. Photodiodes don't work too differently than ccd image sensors. A cd or gd-rom have pits that are used to determine digitally if theres a 1 or a 0. A graph is any recording of data. It doesn't have to have to take an accurate picture it just has to determine if there is or isn't a pit. When cds are burned they are burned in a spiral, and in old optical devices when they spun the spun at different speeds depending on where they were in the spiral. Dreamcast and newer optical drives spin at the same speed regardless of where it is in the spiral. This makes your Dreamcast era PC incapable of reading the disc normally.

 What you could change is how much you move the laser back and forth along the spiral. This would allow it to gather information differently. It would take forever. It would still be a digital input though. There are multiple tracks and stuff like that, but those are readable by a regular CD-rom drive. Anyways, nobody ever got that to work, but its possible. Long story short if you wanted a rip you had to get it from someone else with more time and resources then you. They probably usually built their own gd-rom drives.

Though, you probably could put an optical disc into a scanner and run it at its highest dpi setting, and create an image analysis program, but this was years ago, and that would suck, and I would be scared to put anything that reflective in my scanner. I would say you could use film to make a copy, but that would be expensive as all ****.

on to burning, when your burning your making little pits, and making little pits is graphing, engraving, pressing, priniting, enscripting, scraping, scratching  use any interchangeable English words. I used the word Write. Burning it you still have to make your cd rom burn differently, after to have a program like old nero version 3 or alcohol afterburner, discjuggler.

Anyways screw my explanation..i don't have to use exacting terms, it was 10 years ago.  My simplified explanation works well enough as a Bohr atomic diagram.

also it would be cool to make a bmp/png/jpg/gif to iso coverter if only to burn this image

[BranDonk Kong]

I commend you on your trolling sir, you have bested me.

[ThePerm]

you too sir are a gentleman and a scholar

[Chozo Ghost]

I think there is a way to digitally copy Vinyl records by putting them on a scanner and then scanning it and there is software which can analyze that and spit it out as an MP3 or other audio format.