VMU archiving project

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streeker
fragger
Posts: 254

Re: VMU archiving project

Post#71 » Mon May 11, 2020 3:30 pm

Concerning "Beam Force" I took one last shot:
I downloaded the official VMI file from here https://web.archive.org/web/20070331081 ... cas.ne.jp/ , took the circulating VMS, renamed it to match the VMI, opened the combo with VMIwriter and got... an error message: according to the VMI the game should be 12126 Bytes in size, but the actual filesize is only 11776 Bytes.

To sum it up, all available copies of "Beam Force" including the ones on BlueSwirl, Dreamcast Live and the Dream Explorer/VMU Tool CD are corrupted and obviously haven't been uploaded fully back in the day. So, unless someone comes around with a fresh dump of the minigame, this one kinda seems to be lost forever...
:(

colgate
Doom
Posts: 185

Re: VMU archiving project

Post#72 » Tue May 12, 2020 3:30 am

Here it goes, 12126 bytes in size.
Attachments
bf.zip
(5 KiB) Downloaded 312 times

streeker
fragger
Posts: 254

Re: VMU archiving project

Post#73 » Tue May 12, 2020 12:44 pm

Thank you! Thank you!! THANK YOU!!! :)
This one finally works! And we're now one step closer to a full romset.

Out of curiosity: have you actually download the minigame back in like 2000 and kept it save on a VMU until now?

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Rolly
letterbomb
Posts: 158
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Re: VMU archiving project

Post#74 » Tue May 12, 2020 1:58 pm

So, only NBA 2K1 VMUv was left (https://web.archive.org/web/20010608121 ... vmuv.shtml) ?
Or are you still looking for some mini games / DLC ? Let me know, I'll try to search all my archive CDs and demo disks.
Last edited by Rolly on Tue May 12, 2020 3:57 pm, edited 1 time in total.

streeker
fragger
Posts: 254

Re: VMU archiving project

Post#75 » Tue May 12, 2020 2:51 pm

- "NBA 2K1 VMUv" is the only minigame/animation that is completly missing.
- Then there is "Mothra Dream Battle", which has to be resetted or in the best case dumped once again from a Special Edition Mothra VMU, that hasn't been activated yet.
- And finally it came to my attention yesterday, that there are still 132 character animations missing for the "Shenmue Goodies" minigame. I am working on a complete list of all missing characters right now.
Last edited by streeker on Mon May 18, 2020 3:32 pm, edited 2 times in total.

colgate
Doom
Posts: 185

Re: VMU archiving project

Post#76 » Tue May 12, 2020 5:45 pm

I crawled all the websites I could back in the day, unfortunately I lost some of them in a hard drive wipe long time a go but I still have a good number.

streeker
fragger
Posts: 254

Re: VMU archiving project

Post#77 » Tue May 12, 2020 6:08 pm

colgate wrote:I crawled all the websites I could back in the day, unfortunately I lost some of them in a hard drive wipe long time a go but I still have a good number.


Kudos, sir!
Do you possibly happen to have any of the items mentioned above? Any of the stuff, that is still missing?

colgate
Doom
Posts: 185

Re: VMU archiving project

Post#78 » Tue May 12, 2020 8:57 pm

Unfortunately not. Funny that I got almost all Sega US games but nba2k wasn't one of them...

Sent from my Moto G Play using Tapatalk

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megavolt85
Developer
Posts: 1786

Re: VMU archiving project

Post#79 » Wed May 13, 2020 8:41 pm

streeker wrote:- "NBA 2K1 VMUv" is the only minigame/animation that is completly missing.

animation?
may be you find this?
vmuv.gif
vmuv.gif (9.85 KiB) Viewed 6209 times
Attachments
NBA2K1.LCD.7z
(15.46 KiB) Downloaded 278 times

streeker
fragger
Posts: 254

Re: VMU archiving project

Post#80 » Thu May 14, 2020 1:50 pm

Unfortunately no. Your file is 260316 Bytes - that's like twice the size a normal VMU can handle. The file/animation we are looking for has to be exactly 36864 Bytes.

... But wait. I managed to convert the .LCD file of yours to .VMS - and afterwards it almost matches the filesize and runs like a regular minigame. So, in a way I guess this is what the downloadable animation had looked like. The difference in size might derive from a custom icon that reads "LCD Anim" instead of what SEGA originally wanted it to look like. Does anybody know a way to alter icons from VMU files (like savegames, minigames, etc.)?

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