Dead Or Alive 2: Final (RELEASE!)

[Indiket]

Hi Green Ranger!

Thanks for releasing this mod for DoA2, wow it looks terrific!!
I have a question: is there any option to release this mod without downloading the original game? I mean, something like a XDelta patch or similar. I would like to publish on other dreamcast sites without violating copyright issues, just to be more legal.

Greetings!!

[sheath]

I recorded this while I was testing my on again off again working HDPVR. I thought it might be nice to have some HD video of this awesome Mod. I can't get some of the pictured new outfits to work, do I need to play through as each character to unlock them all?

https://www.youtube.com/embed/nRaQcWc1gb4

[Green Ranger]

I recorded this while I was testing my on again off again working HDPVR. I thought it might be nice to have some HD video of this awesome Mod. I can't get some of the pictured new outfits to work, do I need to play through as each character to unlock them all?

https://www.youtube.com/embed/nRaQcWc1gb4

Just watched your video, glad you're liking the Mod. But yes, there's costumes you haven't unlocked yet. You'll have to clock in some time to unlock them for each character.

Hi Green Ranger!

Thanks for releasing this mod for DoA2, wow it looks terrific!!
I have a question: is there any option to release this mod without downloading the original game? I mean, something like a XDelta patch or similar. I would like to publish on other dreamcast sites without violating copyright issues, just to be more legal.

Greetings!!

Hi Indiket! I'm unsure as to how to create a patch for this. If you could direct me to the appropriate information on how to make a patch file for Dreamcast games I'll see if I can release it in patch form. I've looked into it myself, and am unable to find information on that.

[Indiket]

Should be quite easy using Xdelta GUI. Take an example of this Youtube video (its a NDS game but will work with any file).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gz9-EfJrxJ0

Just need the original image and the edited one. Then you can distribute the patch but you have to say which release is your original image (still, could be improved but seems more elegant, isn't it)

[Aleron Ives]

Being able to make a patch like that depends upon how large the changes were, though. Since this mod contains skins, you'd have to replace many textures in the original image, so the patch file might get pretty big. It also would require Green Ranger to have applied the patch to a GDI of the game (to get the changes), so that other people could apply the patch to their GDIs, too. He would also need to make three separate patches if he wanted the mod to work on J/U/E releases of the game.

Depending upon how many files were changed and how easy the game is to patch for selfboot format, it might be better if he just released the files he patched in a pack, so that you could swap the patched files into your own dump of the game before building a CDI of it. That way, it would work on any region of the game, assuming the files he modified are the same between each region. This would also give users the flexibility to apply the patch regardless of whether their target format is GDI or CDI (as most users who want to play the mod on a real Dreamcast will have to burn a CDI to a physical disc, so a GDI patch is useless to them if they've dumped their disc in a different format than Green Ranger used when he built the patch).

[Green Ranger]

How to patch a non VGA game to VGA:
Open the 1ST_READ.bin/main binary with a hex editor and search for "JUE" if it finds the correct position there is a 7 number string 5 bytes after it (if not use find next also you might want to use a match case search), change that string to "0799A10"

You will have to bin hack the 1ST_READ/main binary after changing any values to make it self bootable again

Hope this helps, worked for me with Dino Crisis. Don't know if Seven Mansions is one of the few games that won't work even when patched...

Hope your talking about SGGG/Segagaga!!! Works for me with DEMUL so probably not...

Seven Mansions is one of the few Dreamcast Games that won't work when patched, which is infuriating
And no, I wasn't referring to Segagaga. Though isn't someone else working on that project?

Should be quite easy using Xdelta GUI. Take an example of this Youtube video (its a NDS game but will work with any file).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gz9-EfJrxJ0

Just need the original image and the edited one. Then you can distribute the patch but you have to say which release is your original image (still, could be improved but seems more elegant, isn't it)

Though the download link in that video is to one that works with only NDS files, I found a version of the program that should be able to create and apply patches to most file formats. I'll test it and get back to you. Aleron Ives brings up a lot of good points however, the file size will be large and it might be easier to just provide all the modified files in an archive so that users can swap/copy and paste over their originals.


***UPDATE***- As Aleron Ives predicted, the patch file size is large as it's over 200mb. For the best convenience, if users already had a CDI version of the original game (such as Echelon's DOA2 Limited Edition CDI file for instance) they *could* apply the patch to it and get themselves the modded game. I do feel users would much rather download the fully modded game versus downloading the large patch file and then applying it to the CDI image. But, the option is there for people who genuinely want it. If so, I could zip the patch and Xdelta into an archive and upload it online as an alternative.

[Anthony817]

Downloading now thanks for working on this!

[Jetstor]

That's great, Green Ranger! Already downloaded it and looking forward to play.
(also made a post to spread out your work: https://goo.gl/kc0fMr)

[Aleron Ives]

the patch file size is large as it's over 200mb. For the best convenience, if users already had a CDI version of the original game (such as Echelon's DOA2 Limited Edition CDI file for instance) they *could* apply the patch to it and get themselves the modded game.

Indiket wanted to be able to link to the patch without having to support piracy, so making a patch for an Echelon release doesn't work; you'd have to make a patch for a GDI rip, so that people could patch their own GD-ROM dumps, for it to be legal. As such, I think the only way to achieve Indiket's goal is for you to release the patched files by themselves so that users can build their own copy of the modded game after swapping out the original files (from their own dumps) with yours. That's about as close as you can get to making the project legal, unless the textures you replaced are inside AFS archives with other, unmodified textures. In that case, you could release each PVR file by itself to avoid distributing any of the original files, but then users would have to merge the files into the archives by themselves. I think releasing the patched texture archives is the way to go.

[Indiket]

the patch file size is large as it's over 200mb. For the best convenience, if users already had a CDI version of the original game (such as Echelon's DOA2 Limited Edition CDI file for instance) they *could* apply the patch to it and get themselves the modded game.

Indiket wanted to be able to link to the patch without having to support piracy, so making a patch for an Echelon release doesn't work; you'd have to make a patch for a GDI rip, so that people could patch their own GD-ROM dumps, for it to be legal. As such, I think the only way to achieve Indiket's goal is for you to release the patched files by themselves so that users can build their own copy of the modded game after swapping out the original files (from their own dumps) with yours. That's about as close as you can get to making the project legal, unless the textures you replaced are inside AFS archives with other, unmodified textures. In that case, you could release each PVR file by itself to avoid distributing any of the original files, but then users would have to merge the files into the archives by themselves. I think releasing the patched texture archives is the way to go.

I can only agree with Aleron words , if its possible, try to release the patched texture archives and a little tutorial to obtain a final modded version. Plus, a user can really customize their build and decide to add or not a model, etc...