Joyride

gdemu 60 Comments

I’m almost done with the primary list of the 2nd run and even started with the backup list – so it all should be wrapped up soon. Turns out I got more black PCBs than I ordered so there will probably be a few spares left, I should be able to fulfill all preorders.

After that I’m taking a short break to work a bit on software and other projects but I will also attempt to assemble some more GDEMUs in case there is enough demand for the 3rd run. Assuming there is, the plan is to have a bunch of units prepared in advance and ready for shipping well before Xmas – so if you want to get one, keep an eye on this blog 🙂 I figure these will trickle out sooner or later anyway so might as well go ahead and make them.

In other news: Both Saturn and the prototype PCB survived connecting together, which is good. PCE is also moving forward, there should be a prototype ready soon. Two actually, one for the console and one to interface with the drive directly to continue analysis.

I’ve also recently decided to go ahead and try KOS for the GDEMU menu, it seems most/all of what I need is under BSD type license. If any problems arise later I can always revert to my own libs.

60 thoughts on “Joyride”

  1. Thanks for the updates :), Great news for the Saturn, and I’m really looking forward to the GDEMU menu.

  2. +1 for gdemu menu

    The day i see Saturn emu up and running i swear i’m going to have a heart attack.

    GO DEUNAN!!!

  3. I’m really happy about upcoming menu!
    Deunan, I would really appreciate if you give info in main site about future firmware updates since we don’t know when they are released 🙂

  4. Nice news ! I have received your mail and reply with my paypal account. I waiting on your payment request with a big impatience !

    really thanks for your job !!

    Regards

    Julien Cattin

  5. Great news about work on a Menu for GDEMU. Really delighted to hear you are taking an interest in the Saturn too, it’s been badly neglected over the years.

  6. I’m on the extended back up list for a GDEMU, so I’m really excited to hear about a potential 3rd run before Christmas! It’s encouraging to hear your making more progress on your Saturn project too!

  7. Great News!!, ill defo be wanting the Saturn and PCE CD ROM devices as soon as you have them up for sale!!!

    Regarding the GDEMU, does this mean we may see a custom menu screen for the device soon, so a nice GUI for selecting games?

  8. Congratulations I’m excited to hear this news, I’m also excited to see a Saturn ODE 🙂 Good Luck!

  9. Definitely happy to hear about a potential third run as I’m also on the extended backup list (and pretty low on it I’d imagine, so probably assed out this run). There’s interest, don’t ever doubt it!

    Also excited for the Saturn ODE, I don’t use my Saturn much but it’s mostly because I don’t have a backup console if the drive dies…

    • Thank you for your kindness trying to meet all of the demand. You have had alot of superstars in the Dreamcast community post positive comments! Congrats!

  10. I received my unit and love it. I have payment ready to go for a second unit for a friend as soon as orders open up again!

    Thanks for your continued work on this project, it’s great!

    • For a moment there i thought your head was going to explode.
      Awesome work, love your vid man.

      Nice alternative to the official one (when it gets release).
      @#$% yeah.

  12. Awesome work! I don’t necessarily need one now since my GDrom is still working perfectly, but I sincerely hope you will continue to sell these units and work on the firmware because one day my GDrom’s number will be up too, and I would hate that to be the end of my dreamcast gaming days.

  14. Great work here man, was directed towards from you after watching Adam Koralik’s video. I’d love one of your units. I hope I can be swift enough to apply and secure a unit once your next production run begins.
    Keep Dreaming People 😊

  15. Thank you for the superfast update on the firmware DK – Neuroacids menu system is now working perfectly for me 🙂

    • Awesome video batman. Looks like user interface is all sorted. Anyone have any idea if there will/are plans to be able to use a larger sized SD cards that will be/are compatible? As I have heard only up to 32GB sized SD HC Cards are currently supported.

    • Mr. Batman, if you press Y you go back to Dreamcast main menu, correct?

      Thanks 🙂

      SEEEGAAAA :p

  19. Will solder for GDEMU HW! 😉

    Only found out today.. will definitively be placing my order once I get the chance.
    Thanks a lot for this awesomeness!

  20. I’ve only recently discovered this project of yours. I’m suffering incompatibility and frame rate drops using the SD card serial adapter and Dreamshell. I’m super interested in purchasing one of your GDEMUs and impatiently await their return for purchase!

  21. The Saturn mod has me really excited, but it’s the prospect of a PCE mod that can connect directly to the console that really has my attention. Can’t wait to hear more about both projects.

  22. Just found out about this today, from watching Adam Koralik video and I will definitively purchase this, when available. Keep up your awesome work!!

  23. Great news about the saturn drive emu, also i want to know how to use a gameshark with the gdemu.
    And if in the future do you have any plan for a neo geo cd, drive emu?, that console would need one, because the atrocious and terrible loading times, makes the games almost unplayable.
    Take care.

  24. can’t wait for the pre-orders to open again!… I’m wanting to buy one of these little things a long,long time ago…

  25. Awesome news about the possible 3rd run before christmas missed the preorders list twice now so fingers crossed on the third run. Menus looking great just wish I could get my hands on one.

  26. Got mu device today, the installation was easy. But im noticing that the audio on the Dreamcast boot logo seems to stutter, whats causing this the GDEMU?

    • You get the animation at power-on? Did you install the card, what kind? Did you try without a card?

  27. Yeah the animation happens but the audio skips and freezes sometimes. Im use a 8GH SanDisk SDHC card…..but its only a Class 4. I have noticed the one game i was trying, Crazy taxi, that the music would cut out and would fail to load textures and the rest of the map in. I have however just ordered a 32GB SanDisk Ultra class 10 card with a read speed of 30mb/s so im hoping that will help?

    I have a few more questions if you could answer them…

    Will there be an update in the future to support large capacity cards that 32GB?

    Can you not play games from other regions, ie NTSC games on a PAL Dreamcast?

    If no to the above is there a way region free could be added or is there a program that can change the region of a NTSC disc image (.gdi) to PAL

    thanks for this brilliant product!!

    • Crazy Taxi is a good test – missing textures (in attract loop or in game) is a sign of a poor card. Class 4 is usually good enough, except this particular SanDisk might have too high latency.
      Before you start buying expensive cards reformat it with SDFormatter and/or try a different brand.

      • I also tried another 4GH Sandisk card and had the same issues. When i first power up the Dreamcast the status LED on the GDEMU flashes rapidly and the Dreamcast boot up audio skips (it doesnt do this all the time however) is this because its access the GDEMU??

        Dont worry 32GH SHDC cards arent that expensive in the UK, the 32GB class 10 card i got was only £12 delivered

        You you know weather the GDEMU will support high capacity cards in the future (64GB, 128GB etc)?

      • There should be no flashing, just 1 pulse at power on. Check if your GDEMU is installed properly and if it is, maybe the PSU in your DC has poor contact with the motherboard pins. This will cause voltage drops and unstable 3V3 will make GDEMU misbehave. Poor power quality is actually pretty common problem for Dreamcasts, if it gets any worse the motherboard will start to randomly reset as well. Solution: Remove PSU, clean the contact points, reinstall.

      • Kind of off-topic, but I had a Dreamcast unit with random resets. The voltages in the power supply were all different, with the biggest change being in 12V being 13.1V. I got surprised it was working at all.

        I replaced the power supply by another console’s, and I’m using the same unit without a problem.

        Additional to Mr. Deunan’s suggestion, I would measure the voltages after the procedure. It’s incredibly easy to do.

  28. Here is an answer to 2 of your questions,

    “Can you not play games from other regions, ie NTSC games on a PAL Dreamcast?”
    No you cant play games from regions other than the original console region.

    “If no to the above is there a way region free could be added or is there a program that can change the region of a NTSC disc image (.gdi) to PAL?”
    Yes there is a way, This fantastic piece of software called GDROM Explorer ( available here: http://japanese-cake.livejournal.com/5889.html ), will allow you to change the region code of a GDROM rip (.gdi). In order to use it,

    Download it from the link above
    Extract it with winzip, winrar or 7-zip
    Go to the folder where you extracted it,
    Double click the file called “GD-ROM Explorer”, (if it comes up with a secirty warning, just click OK or Run)
    At the top of the GDROM Explorer window:
    Click “Tools”
    Then click “Convert “GDI for GDEMU”
    Click the red “Open” button, and select your GDI file.
    The directly below the open button, Click the button that says “…” and select a folder where you want your game to be placed, Usually on your SD Card.
    Leave both the “Region free” and the “Force VGA” boxes checked.
    Click “OK”.
    When its finished, Click the close button and exit GDROM Explorer.

    All done, your game is now region free, and it will try to force VGA compatibility if its not natively compatible.

    Hope the answer helps, Also, have a look around this site, i think its mentioned on here somewhere about the GDEMU not being region free, but also mentions GDROM Explorer.

    Have a nice day.

    • Hello.
      Has anyone tested the region hack with GDEMU?
      I’m asking because I think it only changes IP.BIN flags. I tried that manually, and although it worked for VGA-Box (game will boot, although some will not output image), it had no effect for region (game is still not recognized as a game disc and will not boot).
      Thanks.

      • I tested GDROM explorer and the region patch DOES WORK.

        Maybe when I patched myself I made a mistake, or maybe the fact I didn’t corrected the checksum/error correction data messed the image up.

        Sorry about the bad information.

  29. I’m interested in this Region Free patching as well, though granted, there are not that many EUR or JAP games that I want to play. I was wondering about using a Gameshark CDX, Codebreaker or DC-X disk image to boot imports through the GDEMU menu, as I have those to work with already; but patching would be better.

    If I use GDROM Explorer or GDEMU_SD to patch the gdi files, do I even need to use “Force VGA”, since I’m using s-video out from my VGA box? And does that force PAL games without a built-in selector to 60hz? If not is there a way to do that via patching the gdi?

    Thanks in advance…

    • Your VGA box probably has internal s-video encoder, so yes, you still need to enable the flag.
      All games capable of VGA output will always use 60Hz, PAL region or not. But do keep in mind that if the game has some stuff hard-coded for 50Hz but will be forced to use 60Hz, weird things might happen. Like audio desyncs for example.

  30. Hmm, im still having issues with Crazy Taxi, i have gotten a Sandisk Ultra class 10 micro sd card, and crazy taxi still seems to lose all textures and audio after leaving the demo running for like a few minutes. Any ideas why this happens?

    • Also Gauntlet Legends also crashes once you start playing and shows the message…

      “There has been a file error. please check that your disk is clean and unscratched”

      Do i have a faulty device?

      • First of all, if you have issues please conctact me by email. I cannot provide reasonable support via comments.
        Second, please do try another SD/SDHC card, something you can buy in any shop for cheap. Anything but those C10 Sandisks. Go for full-sized SD to make sure it’s not an issue with poor adapter quality (or at least try a different brand adapter).

  31. Just read you comment a few posts up, about the psu unit and dirty contacts. I removed PSU board and cleaned the 5 pin contacts with an eraser. There was loads of dirt that came off on the eraser which the naked eye couldn’t see, not sure how it got soooo dirty!?. Anyways fitted the PSU back in the DC and now Crazy Taxi has been running the demo for 20 minutes now without issue. Would of never though of dirty contacts on the PSU unit would cause this issue in a million years

    • Well, that’s not the usual symptoms for poor PSU contact but I suppose if the power is not stable the card might misbehave even before GDEMU does.

  32. I finally got my GDEMU installed today, works flawlessly so far. I did need to update the firmware to get the GDMenu working however (previously it would just show the name of the disk in folder 02 over and over again) No issues with a Lexar 32GB SDHC Card (LSD32GCRBNA133) I picked up a few years ago during an Amazon Goldbox Deal. If you’re doing another run I’d be in for another one 🙂

    • Received mine saturday.
      Great piece of hardware. Hope everyone gets a chance at this.
      Thanks , Deunan!

  33. Hi Joyride I have been trying to message you for awhile but couldn’t find how to , I am interested in buying gdemu dc board if you could please back to me thanks

  34. Hi Joyride I have been trying to message you for awhile but couldn’t find how to , I am interested in buying gdemu dc board if you could please back to me thanks

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