Request: GDROM extract / Future City Demo

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tomszirtes
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Request: GDROM extract / Future City Demo

Post by tomszirtes »

Hi,

I used to work at Sega many years ago. I developed along with artist Iain Nichols an early Dreamcast tech demo called Future City (reference here http://www.thedreamcastjunkyard.co.uk/2 ... -demo.html) and was featured in Dreamcast Magazine but never finished or released. To be honest it didn't do much other than look quite pretty - we used it to court developers and publishers in the early days.

Just cleared out the attic and amongst about 80 Dreamcast games (I got given preview copies), system disk, a broken Dreamcast (black screen when on), is a GDROM entitled Future City Demo. I've no idea whether this GDROM still works - but does anyone have the equipment/know-how to try and extract it? Would be curious to see what it looked like even on an emulator...

Let me know.
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Re: Request: GDROM extract / Future City Demo

Post by BlueCrab »

I would suggest contacting the admin, |darc| by PM. He'd be one of the more trusted people that could help you out.

That said, with the System Disk 2, I'm pretty sure anyone could extract a GD-R assuming they have a means to run code on their system and get the data back to a PC (i.e, a broadband adapter, lan adapter, or serial cable)...
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Re: Request: GDROM extract / Future City Demo

Post by mrneo240 »

I hear if you have a retail Dreamcast gdrom you can swap it during boot from the disc to the gdr and not need a system disc 2.
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Re: Request: GDROM extract / Future City Demo

Post by mrneo240 »

In other news, at one point I was rewriting this for dreamcast because the original set4 demo doesn't run on retail dreamcast hardware.

https://vimeo.com/332273017
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Re: Request: GDROM extract / Future City Demo

Post by tomszirtes »

oh that's pretty crazy you have it already (minus the ship and Fx textures) - where you get that from?
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Re: Request: GDROM extract / Future City Demo

Post by tomszirtes »

I have a GDRW. I forgot I never adapted from Set 4.... mmm.
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Re: Request: GDROM extract / Future City Demo

Post by |darc| »

tomszirtes wrote: Sun Jun 07, 2020 7:21 am Just cleared out the attic and amongst about 80 Dreamcast games (I got given preview copies), system disk, a broken Dreamcast (black screen when on), is a GDROM entitled Future City Demo. I've no idea whether this GDROM still works - but does anyone have the equipment/know-how to try and extract it? Would be curious to see what it looked like even on an emulator...

Hi Tom,

I have the equipment and set up to do it if you'd be able to trust me. I do own this site and have been here for about 19 years so I don't really have anywhere to escape to if you wanted to track me down ;)

Other dumps I have done for people over the years include the following protos (all of these you can see I am listed as dumper but not owner) :
https://hiddenpalace.org/Rez_(Jun_1,_2001_prototype)
https://hiddenpalace.org/Frame_Gride_(M ... prototype)
https://hiddenpalace.org/Sonic_Adventur ... prototype)
https://hiddenpalace.org/Sonic_Adventur ... prototype)
https://hiddenpalace.org/Sonic_Adventur ... prototype)

I also dump discs for TOSEC/Dumpcast and for that we regularly dump and return games for people online.

Feel free to PM me if you want to set something up with me.

If you want to do it yourself though I can help you. Since you have a System Disc, you can dump this disc with a serial SD card adapter (plugs into the serial port on the Dreamcast). You can get these on eBay for like $15-$20. Software here: https://dreamcast.wiki/SDRip

BTW, some Dreamcast dumping groups use PC drives and swap tricks/hackery to dump GD-ROMs, but don't even attempt that for this disc -- no one has ever gotten the PC drive method to work with GD-Rs, only retail pressed GD-ROMs.

Even if this disc doesn't work on a real DC and only works on a Set 4 I'd still be interested in dumping it.

mrneo240 wrote: Sun Jun 07, 2020 11:28 am I hear if you have a retail Dreamcast gdrom you can swap it during boot from the disc to the gdr and not need a system disc 2.
Well, he did say he has a System Disc, so we shouldn't need to do this. However since I wrote this all out before I saw he had a System Disc, I'll just keep this written for anyone else reading: this is true but the GD-ROM and GD-R need the high density track layout to be the exact same or even more creativity is required. So 3-track only games are easy (just swap one 3-track game for another and dump the high density track) but for games with CDDA tracks in the high density zone, you need find GD-ROMs with audio in sectors in the same position on the disc. And then you also need a Broadband Adapter because the SD card dumping software (SDRip and Dreamshell) only lets you dump entire discs or tracks, and you need to specify specific sector ranges which only httpd-ack can do at this time. httpd-ack also can be commanded to ignore the TOC returned by normal syscalls and instead independently go by the track layout contained within the swapped disc's IP.BIN instead.
It's thinking...
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Re: Request: GDROM extract / Future City Demo

Post by mrneo240 »

I'm excitedly subscribed to this thread.
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