Dreamcast-Talk.com

I am technical-adjacent; time absent.

I purchased a SD card serial adapter; one of those open-source V2 models with both the microSD and SD.

I do not want to run retail Dreamcast games on it.

I do not have a GDEMU, I have no interest in this for my buildout. GDROM, region free bios, Pixel DCHDMI, might grab a Dreamport - but still using the good ol' laser and backup stock for the foreseeable future.

I know about VMU save swaps, and I look forward to Chris' VM2 making this use-case null.

I do, however, want to do cool things with with this SD serial adapter tool.

So now what...

1) Are there ready made emulators I can run? Ideally, I would like to use it as a Genesis/Saturn/NeoGeo EMU. Having a tough time finding anything of relevance here.

2) Is there a way to use it to auto-connect to PSO server, but then play PSO via GDROM? Perfect world - skip disc swap.

3) What else is Dreamshell good for? Fun midi controllers or the like?

4) What about use as a tool for Pop-N/DDR?

Honestly, any and all suggestions of how to best make my $20 the most useful $20 possible would be appreciated.

crosspost dc-swat: http://www.dc-swat.ru/forum/thread-4037.html
crosspost reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/dreamcast/comm ... l_adapter/

You want Ives' CDI instead, the GD-R wreaks havoc on lasers

You should ask your question here :
http://www.dc-swat.ru/forum/forum-27.html

Two Emulators running under Dreamshell:
https://www.dreamcast-talk.com/forum/vi ... 00#p171331
https://www.dreamcast-talk.com/forum/vi ... 51&t=16642

Edit: GENS4DREAMS - Download and extract CDI to get at the ROMs. GD-ROM Explorer is a good extraction tool.
https://www.dreamcast-talk.com/forum/vi ... 20#p173371

Edit: And some Atomiswave goodness:
https://www.dreamcast-talk.com/forum/vi ... hp?t=15062

mistamontiel wrote:You want Ives' CDI instead, the GD-R wreaks havoc on lasers

Off-topic but what do you mean. GDROM in general, or specifically the PSO v2 GDROM? Still kitting everything out at this point so haven't booted up.

fafadou wrote:You should ask your question here :
http://www.dc-swat.ru/forum/forum-27.html

Thanks. Crossposted there and linked in OP in case anyone stumbles across similar questions in the future.

MoeFoh wrote:Two DreamShell Emulators:
https://www.dreamcast-talk.com/forum/vi ... 00#p171331
https://www.dreamcast-talk.com/forum/vi ... 51&t=16642

Awesome - for the gens4all_SD_HDD_native.7z - is there a particular ROM pack to coincide?

Also - I haven't started playing around with this. What are the differences between Dreamshell and RetroDream?

Specifically the PSOv2 genuine disc. I strive to play discs all my systems two of my casts do

state_product wrote:1) Are there ready made emulators I can run? Ideally, I would like to use it as a Genesis/Saturn/NeoGeo EMU. Having a tough time finding anything of relevance here.

3) What else is Dreamshell good for? Fun midi controllers or the like?

In regards to 1) - I've run Gens4All (Mega Drive/Genesis) and MAME4All (arcade) using my SD adaptor without issue. I'd specifically recommend looking up the Gens4Dreams compilation of the former on this forum if you're looking to go for that. I've heard that Atomiswave games can work over SD adaptor too, but the only one I wanted to play was Metal Slug X, which as far as I know doesn't work with Dreamshell.

With 3), I've also used Dreamshell to transfer DLC from my PC to my VMUs, run import GD-ROMs, try out certain games before buying physical copies (there's a big compilation of Dreamshell-optimised games on Archive.org if you wish to do this) and run games that I can't afford that work perfectly over SD. I don't tend to do any of this as much now, since I now have a DreamPi to download DLC and my physical Dreamcast collection is pretty much where I want it, but it's been a brilliant and cheap option to do all of this in the past.

Oh what else is Dreamshell good for SD in the serial, my only use case is whatever save I DL from GameFAQs.. 2017 you were able to surf in XDP Dreamcast browser and DL directly but their site has modernized too much since

So I have to bootdisc Dreamshell, that is hardcore grind but I believe avoidable, for me I did once n done, I forgot what I put in the serial SD but then totally loads from there

I got a third Dreamcast specifically for a MODE specifically to play Atomiswave

OlivusPrime wrote:

state_product wrote:1) Are there ready made emulators I can run? Ideally, I would like to use it as a Genesis/Saturn/NeoGeo EMU. Having a tough time finding anything of relevance here.

3) What else is Dreamshell good for? Fun midi controllers or the like?

In regards to 1) - I've run Gens4All (Mega Drive/Genesis) and MAME4All (arcade) using my SD adaptor without issue. I'd specifically recommend looking up the Gens4Dreams compilation of the former on this forum if you're looking to go for that. I've heard that Atomiswave games can work over SD adaptor too, but the only one I wanted to play was Metal Slug X, which as far as I know doesn't work with Dreamshell.

With 3), I've also used Dreamshell to transfer DLC from my PC to my VMUs, run import GD-ROMs, try out certain games before buying physical copies (there's a big compilation of Dreamshell-optimised games on Archive.org if you wish to do this) and run games that I can't afford that work perfectly over SD. I don't tend to do any of this as much now, since I now have a DreamPi to download DLC and my physical Dreamcast collection is pretty much where I want it, but it's been a brilliant and cheap option to do all of this in the past.

Awesome, thanks - Gens4All / MAME4ALL look exactly what I'm looking for. These just run on Dreamshell OS, or are there better / other ways to do this?

On running imports, is there a specific region bypass or is it just the OS? What's the advantage of doing that over a boot disc out of curiosity?

mistamontiel wrote:Oh what else is Dreamshell good for SD in the serial, my only use case is whatever save I DL from GameFAQs.. 2017 you were able to surf in XDP Dreamcast browser and DL directly but their site has modernized too much since

So I have to bootdisc Dreamshell, that is hardcore grind but I believe avoidable, for me I did once n done, I forgot what I put in the serial SD but then totally loads from there

I got a third Dreamcast specifically for a MODE specifically to play Atomiswave

What do you mean bootdisc dreamshell?

Got to burn Dreamshell to launch it