Dreamcast SD Card Mod - Play Homebrew And Games From SD Card

[jcrowley1985]

What's the easiest way to gain access to the serial port? I opened my dreamcast and removed the power supply board. But the metal shielding is still blocking the serial port. Seems I would have to remove the gd-rom drive as well. Is there any easy way to access the port without taking everything apart?

[97AlanD]

The next customized mod/hack/homebrew should be wi-fi for the Dreamcast. Someone needs to try putting a wi-fi antenna in one.

[MegaSonicdude10]

My mod won't boot Sonic Adventure 2 with Dreamshell 4.0

[jakeeenator]

Hey im just wondering what kind of wires do you have to use?

[theTIck197]

I have a 47 uF 10v capacitor. Do you think I will be able to get away with using this?

[ShenmueJKD]

is ther a video tutorial ?

[hitachi088]

what about if your dreamcast Cd drive dont work anymore?

[vip2oo4]

i have ModChip ... How to make SD card .. runner boot

[james42519]

so this is the same thing that you could buy made in a nice package then?

[endoes07]

any reason you couldn't use a usb instead of sd slot?

[cookiesrawesomee]

daaaamn, ur a hardcore dreamcast fan!!

[tigh]

Awesome!

But I have a question: Are there any software (Dreamshell or another) that make possible to backup VMU files on SD and recover back to VMU using this mod? Something like this could exponentially amplify the possibilities of this mod.

[MegaSonicdude10]

@tigh Just saw your comment. Probably already know this, but Dreamshell 4.0 has that feature. I copied some data from one vmu to another using it. The data is the type that won't let you copy it from one vmu to another but Dreamshell allowed me to do it. You can also copy them to the sd card.

[GamingHistorySource]

Hell if you can do that then You could very easily install an Solid State Drive on the system. Couldn't you ?

[GamingHistorySource]

is there a maximum size card it will take ? because I'm looking at this 32 gig card I have right here >:) hehehe

[JayPCyan]

@RetroGameTech

What SD card are you using? whats the Speed class as well?

Do you happen to know if SDXC works? cause I know SDXC has faster read speeds, so maybe its the read speed of the SD card when it comes to commercial games?

[AguFungus]

That's a great advance in modding. I wonder if this could even be achieved on the Playstation. It would be a lot cooler if it used USB port, too for external hard drives.

[gocrazy432]

Why is such a high resistor put before the LED? I calculated it out and it should be only 36 Ohms, otherwise the current will only be about 2-3mA.

I couldn't get that same led or Metal film resistor, i have one that 3v @15mA. So I calculated it to need 20 Ohms but according to yours it would need about 261 Ohms right?

[videogameobsession]

very cool!

So what exactly is the bottleneck that causes slowdown in certain games? I would think an SDcard would be multiple times faster than a GDROM.

Have you tried a faster Class SDCard?

It would be neat to have a 2.5" hdd interface for it.

[sirkillyou012]

@videogameobsession It would probably be the serial port itself, serial ports generally only have a bandwidth of 115 kbps. Which is about 11.5 KBps though I have no idea whether or not the dreamcast's serial port is a modified port or not.

[officialmashitup]

Can't you just do this with a sh*tload of wires? I know the stripboard is the simplest way to do this but i'd rather just use a bunch of wires connecting the components together...

[HaZaRdxScopeZ]

beautiful.

[capthowdy126]

so have they figured out how to use a flash drive... i know this is simple enough but still a usb flash drive would be nice

[sirkillyou012]

@capthowdy126 It would probably be impossible, to use a usb flash drive you will need to integrate a USB hub chip onto the board in order to use it.

[thatguyontheright1]

What about using a USB hard drive?

[FERRETMAN9]

so what kind of homebrew can you run, and where do u get it, is there like people that make homebrew games specifically for dreamcast and just post them on the internet for everyone? thanks in advance

[GamerMGO]

its cool that you can do this but running games off it is not efficiant as the access rate for an sd card is much lower that gd rom or cd-r

[OverruledDood]

im sorry but the stripboard layout you posted makes absolutly no sense. is there any other stripboard layouts for this mod?

[RetroGameTech]

@OverruledDood What part are you having trouble with? A stripboard/veroboard circuit is the easiest and tidiest way to build this. It can't be simplified much more than it already is. I also posted a diagram of the original schematic in the description.

[OverruledDood]

@RetroGameTech i apologize if i sounded rude, but i actually found what i was looking for searching through the comments, it makes perfect sense now.

but i have to ask, how does one cut tracks on a circuit board?

[ReeceBorn]

Do the SD cards run full GD rom dumps?

[cokabears]

hey, i found one like this made to plug into the serial port. its great cause you dont need to solder anything. there like under 20$

[jacobramlow]

the kit would almost be pointless to someone who is looking for an easy fun mod because soldering the wires to the serial connectors is the hardest part

[jacobramlow]

i finnished the circuit and installed it to my Dreamcast then moved on to downloading the software but so it turned out it is much more advanced than i had expected. for the most part i understand it its just scrambleing the DS_Core.bin file that im stuck on and since the creaters are russian some of the translations are very misleading as well as confusing so as a sugestion you should make a how to on making the software to continue off of this

[TheSoulless]

If you start selling kits I will gladly buy one. Let me know if you come up with a price.

[Retrogamer71]

yes yes yes. copy my bought GD rom to sd to play.  You awesome son you!!

[nathanallan1]

Still awesome and I am bragging about it to people :)

[gtmtnbiker]

Nice video. Thanks for making it. I'll have to try this project one of these day.s

[nathanallan1]

So in theory this could be done externally, which is awesome. I will follow the information, I have a few of these SD card readers I can use as donors. Beautiful mod!!

[RetroGameTech]

@nathanallan1 Thanks and yes, some people have used the Dreamcast coders cable (very expensive and hard to find nowadays) to create an SD card reader dongle. It's effectively the same as what I did but can be detached/unplugged when not in use.

[nathanallan1]

@RetroGameTech Watching this makes me want to retrofit the serial port of the DC with a 9-pin connection and make an external one.

A very nice mod on your part, kudos!!

[CellularProductions]

what are the blue and red marks in the schematic?

[RetroGameTech]

@CellularProductions those indicate jumpers and cuts on the stripboard. Where there's a red square you cut the track. Where there's a blue line you connect the two points with a wire.

[leerz25]

@RetroGameTech thx for clearing that out, I've wondered about those stuff for the past 3 months.

[briafromxbox]

@RetroGameTech can you mod my dreamcast

[OverruledDood]

@briafromxbox as long as you have basic soldering skills, this mod really isnt that hard or expensive.

[Mindviolence1]

Sweet dude... Thank you

[techromancer1]

wow i got to try this mod out but i really love my dreamcast in fact i am still dreaming awesome vid tech:D

[clashed13]

dude your vids are amazing

[CFAMediaV7]

Could you make one for me and ship it out to me?

Ill pay for it and the shipping as well!

Through PayPal too

[RetroGameTech]

@CFAMediaV7 Just out of curiosity how much would you be willing to pay for a presoldered Dreamcast SD card reader kit?. You'd still need to solder 7 wires to your Dreamcast but other than that everthing else would be done for you.

[7991rellik]

@RetroGameTech 20 to 30 bucks each and u could have a bussness srry for bad spelling im in a hurry

[leerz25]

@RetroGameTech and in all honesty, the remaining 7 is the most hard!

now only if the serial cable is easily obtainable.

[DLiberator78]

Wow this is an awesome mod. I would definitely give this a try as The DC has some fantastic homebrew software and a good community for this homebrew. I wonder if a similar mod could be made to allow connecting a Hard Disk drive. Great vid.

[MaximumRD]

OK that is a cool idea for a mod!

[RetroGameTech]

@xTHExSTIGx I've put together a diagram showing my stripboard design and where to solder everything in the description :).

I bought all the components from Maplin (apart from the card reader which was from Poundland). I'll add the part numbers to the description later tonight. Just go into Maplin and show them the codes and they'll find the bits you need. It's a pretty straight forward mod. Just post a comment if you get stuck :).

[vulgarscreams]

i know what i'm going to do.

i'm getting a second Dreamcast ASAP!!!!!

this is awesome!!!

[wadie1987]

Ahh well might try in the future gonna get another dc console ATM I have a fully working one and one with a totally busted gd drive saved it though for spairs

[wadie1987]

This is absolutly amazing I ruined my gd drive from playing copied games so I have a dc with no gd drive lol but I have a second one wondering if you can boot staight from the as without the gd drive? And what's the biggest size card you can use? Any help would be brilliant!

[RetroGameTech]

@wadie1987 Currently you still need to use a CD to tell the DC to boot from the SD card. So you need to use the drive for the first couple of seconds during start up but after that you can just remove the disc.

I tested mine using a SDHC 4GB card and it works fine. I've read that it can support up to 32GB though. Hopefully the devs will continue to update Dreamshell and it'll become more user friendly/less buggy + get more features. Thanks for watching!.

[crouts0]

cant wait till part two. Im going to do this on my spare dreamcast. Nice to hear a fellow scotsman doing this stuff. p

[RetroGameTech]

@crouts0 Thanks!. I totally recommend trying it. Very simple mod and parts needed cost next to nothing.

Part 2 should be up in a couple of hours. It's taking ages to render.

[djaaron444]

looks really good, keep up the great work.

Gr.Aaron

[RetroGameTech]

@djaaron444 Thanks!