Looking for Dreamcast advice

[Alucard1191]

Alrighty,

I have a small amount of spending money that I'm thinking about using for my Dreamcast.

I will be buying a small amount of games off of Etsy, (burnt reproductions) and I'm thinking Crazy Taxi and either Skies of Arcadia, (since the GC version has gotten so damn expensive) or House of the Dead 2.

Now, I love light gun games and would love to play HOTD2, but looking at the lowdown of the lightguns on the light gun special it doesn't seem like getting HOTD2 and then spending 80 bucks on a lightgun that at best has a C- rating seems really crummy.

I know there is a saturn controller adapter for the dreamcast, any chance the stunner works through one of these?

Any thoughts? Maybe some other suggestion I haven't thought of?

[Matchstick]

I think you might be out of luck using the controller converter for the light gun, Alucard. Those things used to be pretty cheap, but I haven't seen a Saturn-to-Dreamcast controller converter sell for less than three figures for years now. And believe me, I have been looking!

I love 2D fighters. To that end, I believe the Japan-style Saturn controller is one of the best pads ever made, right along the original six-button Genesis controller. Though I do like the Dreamcast controller, in general, having to use the analogue triggers in a 2D fighting game is a bit of a deal-breaker. That controller is just not designed for six-button 2D fighting games - even though the Dreamcast is know for its bounty of such titles.

I think you would actually be saving money by buying a true Dreamcast light gun, instead of the controller converter. The Stunner is an excellent light gun in its own right, and it bites we never got an official Sega-brand light gun for the DC. I'm not sure the Stunner would "convert" between the two systems, either.

Also, be sure to shop around. eBay seems to be the go-to for so many retro gamers, but don't sleep on Mercari as an option. I've been selling on eBay for over 20 years now (!) but I've been slowly migrating my business to Mercari, due to their more-favorable selling fees. It can be hard to find exactly what you're looking for, but the average selling price of items on that site seems to be a good deal less than eBay. Plus, you can make offers!

Lastly... you don't happen to already have a Saturn-to-Dreamcast controller converter, do you? DO YOU?? It's kind of a "Holy Grail" item for me. If you do have one, and you don't use it much, um... feel free to PM me about it. I'll be glad to trade you for any and all Dreamcast reproduction games you want. Seriously.

[Nevermind]

Spending money: Dreamcast arcade stick, if you enjoy 2d fighters. Purchased one from eBay and I don’t regret it.

Cheap fun: freecycle CRT TV and/or VGA monitor. I got some cheap unbranded DC-vga and DC-scart cables from eBay. The only problem with the latter was slight image displacement on a modern HD tv and the need to use scart 1 input on the CRT. Seems scart 1 input detects signal better than scart 2.

It’s lovely to use DC with VGA, but not all titles are compatible. Compatibility lists are kicking around online.

Soul calibre is great value as a used title.

[Nevermind]

PS: if you’re buying burnt copies, note some versions had sound quality changes or problems due to the size of originals - they’re not exact copies. Some versions were better compiled than others. Likewise some versions are VGA patched and others not.

Guides and software are available online for home burning, just be sure to use quality CDRs - verbatim or similar AZO dye discs.

If you’re dabbling in burnt copies, the DC can emulate a lot of Neo Geo titles.

I think the DC reviews on this site are very fair. Some good titles are not overly expensive used purchases.

[Matchstick]

Sound observations, Nevermind.

I don't want to get too far off Alucard's original topic, but let's just say he already has a pretty boss A/V setup, with a nice, large CRT and his game consoles hooked up through S-Video. There's some big, booming floor speakers in that mix, too. It really is an ideal, realistic setup for pre-HD consoles.

I do agree with your advice - shop local, and you can get plenty of old (but working!) tech for next-to-nothing.

Myself, I was disappointed with the Sega-branded DC arcade stick. I felt the buttons were too mushy and the joystick was too loose, and neither had that "click" that true arcade hardware does.

For what it costs to track one of those down these days, I would recommend that people consider building their own. Seriously! I've had a good time over the years building joysticks for my older consoles, using a genuine controller as the internal board and buying quality arcade hardware from HAPP. I prefer the "bat-style" joysticks and concave buttons from my youth, and all of my custom joysticks feature those parts.

I'll never really like "ball top" joysticks or smooth convex buttons from most Japanese equipment. Then again, I'm American, and grew up playing games in American arcades, so I'm attached to that style of hardware.

(Too bad I don't know how to make my own light gun - that would solve Alucard's problem in a jiffy!)

I have no issues with people buying reproductions of classic games, but when it comes to games for disc-based consoles, especially, I do encourage people to look into making them, themselves. You mentioned Verbatim, but I've had issues with those discs on some of my consoles - Sega CD, in particular. They are very thin, lightweight discs these days - so thin, you can see right through them when you hold them up to a light source.

I tend to use Maxell discs these days. They have a "Max Data" brand that sells for about $20 for 50 discs. They're about twice as thick as comparably-priced Verbatim discs, and have near-perfect compatibility with my own consoles. There's also the option of buying vintage blank media - and for that, I recommend Memorex.

I also agree with you that there is still plenty of cheap fun to be had on the Dreamcast. Soul Calibur is still pretty affordable, and most legitimate games can be had for a fair price if you are looking for just the disc. I always advocate for buying legit copies of games when possible, but when your only option for a certain title is paying an eBay seller hundreds of dollars, um... a reproduction will do just fine!

Dreamcast homebrew is pretty great, isn't it? The newer Neo Geo titles are fun to try out, faults and all. King of Fighters XI has a pretty competent DC version, as do some of the later Metal Slug titles. And I know quite a few people are partial to the "Beats of Rage" series that have cropped up over the years.

I haven't been there in years, but The ISO Zone used to be my go-to for Dreamcast hacks and homebrew. Each release was described in detail, and in the case of retail games, changes from the original disc were defined clearly. It did seem that downsampling the audio data of the game was the preferred way to make a GD-ROM fit onto a CD-R. My favorite thing was when a retail game was "optimized" by removing dummy files, consolidating data, and producing a disc that could fit on a CD-R while offering faster loading times as a result.

It's pretty amazing how quiet the Dreamcast can actually be when it is reading an optimized disc. It's also nice to know that the mechanical parts of the console aren't working as hard as they would with the retail disc.

[Alucard1191]

Oh wow, I had no idea this thread got some action! That and as my lack of posts lately attests, I've been really busy lately.

I'm going to go with a repro Skies of Arcadia and just leave it at that, but I can certainly speak to other stuff on here.

I do have a really awesome old school setup that's honestly perfect. I love it frankly too much, as we want to move at some point and I want to bring it with us, but the TV alone is easily 150 pounds. And big. And 4 speakers. All of them big. The sound if great, the image big and nice... ahh but I digress.

Matchstick, I unfortunately don't have a converter. I feel like I saw a site that had them imported for something reasonable... but then I actually looked after reading your comment and yeah, really expensive. Sometimes the memory of time can be off, it might have been like 4 years ago or something that I'm thinking of and remembering it as last year. Wouldn't be the first time I've mixed up time lengths. Doing research into whether or not the lightgun would work also yielded nothing I could consider an answer, so I don't think I'll be doing that any time soon.

While I am going to just get skies of arcadia as I said, an arcade fighting stick is a great suggestion. The main game I play on there is Marvel vs Capcom 2, which I honestly play pretty regularly, or Soul Caliber. Though my Soul Caliber skips pretty bad now a days. That disc has gotten a lot of play over its lifetime. I've never built a controller before. With how expensive some of those are online though, maybe it is better to make/have one made new?

At some point I will want to get a lightgun for the ol' dreamcast. I enjoy that genre and having the huge CRT is like having a big arcade at home. And they're also some of the only games I can get my wife to play with me, so HOTD2 would be great. (I need to get a repro of HOTD for my Saturn at some point too.... maybe christmas? I dunno. Probably before I get a DC lightgun though, lol)

Though honestly it's looking like longterm learning how to just do this myself, and make it nice and proper to display on the shelf, is the way to go. I looked at Etsy and it has removed all it's repro sellers. They were on there as recently as last Christmas, because I bought some games then. (And replaced my scratched up MvC2 disc with a fresh one.) They look original, and display well. So it has made finding games more difficult. I've already found a website with a Dreamcast selection that has it on there so finding Skies of Arcadia was easy enough, but I haven't found Crazy Taxi or HOTD2, and both of those were easy to find on etsy, for instance. I've done all kinds of emulation over the years, so I know finding ISO's isn't overly difficult, and I have a small amount of computer know how, so I could probably figure out how to do all of it, especially with a guide.

lol, so I guess the conclusion is that at some point I'll need to learn how to do repro games and cases, and make controllers.

[Matchstick]

With how expensive some of those are online though, maybe it is better to make/have one made new?

I would ballpark the cost of building your own to be between $60 - $120, depending on the materials you already have on hand. Thankfully, the Dreamcast controller doesn't have many buttons, so for arcade hardware, you'd just need the joystick as well as seven buttons (A, B, X, Y, L, R and Start).

The rest of the materials may be things you already have around the house. A soldering iron and wire are a must. A "donor" Dreamcast controller would be needed, as well as one or two VMUs. Scrap wood can build a pretty nice joystick base, and I would recommend a 1 1/8" spade drill bit for boring out the button holes.

The rest is just glue, paint, and patience. I also like to make joysticks with a removable hatch on the underside of the base, as they sometimes need to be serviced. For this, i just use velcro, and make the base a "drop-in" wooden panel that can be pulled off by hand, if needed.

(I haven't built one of these in a while, but I'm starting to feel a bit inspired... )

As far as tracking down Dreamcast files online, you're right, some are almost impossible to find. For example, I have never found an ISO copy of Sega Rally 2 that properly plays the in-game music during the race. Crazy Taxi is also tough to find, especially with the original soundtrack intact.

Thankfully, neither game is all that expensive to track down in retail form. While I know Sega Rally 2 is a little love-hate for some, Crazy Taxi is an all-time classic. It deserves a spot in every Dreamcast collection - and since it's affordable, nearly everyone who wants a copy is able to get one. I wish more games were like that!

[Nevermind]

I miss the ISO zone. The advice and detail, as stated, was very useful.

Discs wise I have experience of Sony and verbatim, both of which never let me down. Tesco discs (supermarket) played once before starting to fail. Big mistake.

Could a light gun workaround be a European ‘official’ gun with a backup copy of the light gun title? I may be wrong, but I think the official gun won’t work with US GD-Rom, but would work with a backup version. Someone might be able to confirm from direct experience.

I only know I’ve used backup Japan only releases on my PAL DC. No arcade stick, pad or other hardware problems. I still plan to treat myself to a light gun at some point (probably when my wife is oblivious to the purchase).

[Alucard1191]

You know Matchstick, you said Crazy Taxi wasn't that expensive, and you were right!

Reproduction Skies of Arcadia are actually pretty easy to pick up, so I figured I better nab an original Crazy Taxi before the prices on dreamcast games starts doing what other retro systems are doing.