Broadband Adapter Dumping Tutorial (httpd-ack) *RAW*

[Nameless Mofo]

Hi Maddog, thanks for the reply. I'm sure I'll have more questions as I go along, hopefully you and the other regulars will be patient with me. Of course I'll share my results although it seems like you guys already have most of my games in the "verified" column. for me, for you. I'm familiar with emulation and gd-rom format so I'm not a total n00b.

So after I dump a game, what should I expect to see in the directory I dump to? Can you compare results from single-track games vs. multi-track?

Thanks again for educating me. If you have a tutorial/faq written up already, feel free to PM/email it.

[Maddog]

At the directory you are dumping to, you should have (at minimum) track01.bin, track02.raw, track03.bin and disc.gdi
Of course, any game with more than 3 tracks (usually CDDA games) will have more .raw tracks and the .bin tracks will be 3 in this case: track01.bin, track03.bin and last track of the disc.

You can't go wrong, since httpd-ack will present each track on the disc as a link in your browser. As long as you click in all these links, the dump will be complete.
I am not sure what you are referring to by "comparing results from single vs multi track games". The same game always has the same number of tracks (and the minimum amount is 3 tracks, not 1). If the game is different, there's nothing to compare. If I didn't understand you, please explain better.

[Nameless Mofo]

At the directory you are dumping to, you should have (at minimum) track01.bin, track02.raw, track03.bin and disc.gdi
Of course, any game with more than 3 tracks (usually CDDA games) will have more .raw tracks and the .bin tracks will be 3 in this case: track01.bin, track03.bin and last track of the disc.

Ok, got it. Is there any way to re-package these 4 files into one single image file? I ask for file organization reasons. If you don't know of any I'll research on my own.

I am not sure what you are referring to by "comparing results from single vs multi track games". The same game always has the same number of tracks (and the minimum amount is 3 tracks, not 1). If the game is different, there's nothing to compare. If I didn't understand you, please explain better.

You answered my question already. I was referring to games that have 1 data track in the high-density area versus other games that have multiple data/audio tracks up there.

Thanks again for patience with all my Q's!

[Maddog]

Ok, got it. Is there any way to re-package these 4 files into one single image file? I ask for file organization reasons. If you don't know of any I'll research on my own.

Well, it could be done in theory, but it would be needlessly complicated.
It would involve merging the .bin and .raw together to a new .bin, adding padding for the sectors of the low density area that don't exist as actual tracks on a GD-ROM and making a new 1-track .gdi pointing to the new .bin and starting at LBA 0. Even this would probably not work properly for games with CDDA. .gdi can NOT be merged, so you'd end up with a minimum of 2 files (think of it as a .bin/.cue dump, both files are needed to describe it properly)
Too much fuss for minimal gain if you ask me.

You can always use ClrMAME Pro with our dats to rebuild the dumps to nice, properly named zips. IMHO it's equally good for file organization and involves mimimum extra fuss. Just store the .zip and unpack it anytime you want to use it with an emulator.

[MOONLiGHT]

I'm signing in to say that PlanetWeb Browser is NOT working with httpd-ack.

I was using the 3.0 version and it NEVER worked.

The only solution is to use the included disc of Broadband Passport in order to set up the IP address correctly.

[Iggi]

You can also use XDP (which is in turn based on the Dream Passport engine) to set the static IP for httpd-ack. This is especially useful if you can't read Japanese, as XDP has an English GUI

[tiago_rh@hotmail.com]

I just bought my 2nd dreamcast and Im ready to backup my japanes and american games

While waiting for the console + bba to arrive Im already doing some research to make the whole thing easier for me

As Nameless Mofo, i am familiar with emulation, gd-rom format and all the pain that comes within

So Maddog said one should expect "at minimum track01.bin, track02.raw, track03.bin and disc.gdi" and that it would be complicated to merge all the files into a single image file

1) Is there any advantage on merging a single image file besides being more organized?
We can emulate these files that comes separately, right?
I usually get .cdi files but I suppose that ppl who dumped these games converted them to .cdi?
do I need to convert them to .cdi to emulate or can I just use these raw files that will be in the output directory?

2) When I upload my games here (I am aware of the protocol before posting, gonna read untill i understand completely) these files Maddog mentioned will be the only ones I need to upload?

3) I dont intend on downsampling and burning all over again these files, but just in case I need to do that in the future, these files maddog mentioned as the ones that will be in the output directory are enough / more than enough to do that, right?

My interest is in backing up games entirely, no downsampling, no burning on cd-r
and once I have these files on my pc, using an emulator just in case the game doesnt work anymore (which will happen eventually as these gd-roms scratches will become trouble as always)

thanks for your patience

[Maddog]

1) no advantage by merging the files. Emulators that support .gdi format (which is a full GD-ROM image) expect the files as separate .raw and .bin files
.cdi are converted files intended to be burnable to CD-R and have their content hacked or even downsampled. All recent Dreamcast emulators work great with .gdi, so you don't need to convert to .cdi

2) you won't need to upload any actual files here, only file information (checksums of all files, disc ringcodes, gdi content etc). We do not require that dumpers share any files (remember, these are still considered copyrighted)

3) correct, having the .gdi, .bin and .raw files is enough -and exactly what you need!- to start working (they amount to a complete GD-ROM dump)

Anything still unclear, feel free to ask.

[tiago_rh@hotmail.com]

thanks a lot!

can anyone give me a link to a tutorial on backing up dc games using the bba method?

[tiago_rh@hotmail.com]

I found 2 nice tutorials....

anyway I was wondering if theres some sort of list of games that are CDDA and the ones that are data-only gd-r...

[Shoometsu]

thanks a lot!

can anyone give me a link to a tutorial on backing up dc games using the bba method?

the first post in this thread, in fact, is a tutorial itself.

[tiago_rh@hotmail.com]

yeah i know it was pretty stupid of me...
anyway I found another one ppl here might already know (.pdf format) very good as well