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Chasing Embers

Captain of the Black Frigate
Nov 12, 2014
46,403
124,954
I have hopes they'll release it for PC eventually, possibly as a remaster for the PS6,
It's been 10 years and the closest thing we're going to get is the pseudo-sequel multi-player "The Duskbloods" on the Switch 2.


eventually lose them once someone perfects a homebrew PC conversion.
Sony won't let them. They had a fully running 60 FPS PC Bloodborne but Sony killed it back in February along with the PSX "demake". Once the last PS4s and PS5s cease functioning, Bloodborne will be gone forever.
 

karam

Lifer
Feb 2, 2019
2,644
10,088
Basel, Switzerland
Once the last PS4s and PS5s cease functioning, Bloodborne will be gone forever.
You reckon? There is a worrying trend with publishers pulling support for older games, and nowadays that no game is ever published in physical format anymore some games are indeed at risk of being lost. I don't remember what the specific games where the fuss was recently as I've been very busy, but it crossed my reddit feed at some point.
They had a fully running 60 FPS PC Bloodborne but Sony killed it back in February along with the PSX "demake".
Hmmm, I saw a video around Dec last year which purportedly described a step by step process to play Bloodborne on PC in a good state, but it was pretty detailed so I told myself I'll get to it at some point once more kinks have been ironed out, plus I don't have and didn't look for a pirate disk image. I really don't get it though, I haven't looked in detail but apparently it's a legal mire where a PC Bloodborne can't be made even if Sony wanted to. I still don't get it, feels to me like a lot of money is left on the table.

Look at Blizzard killing Vanilla WoW private servers for years and telling us (the community) "you think you want it, but you don't", and suddenly they woke up and realised how dumb it was to refuse money offered to them, made the "Classic" WoW rerelease themselves and it revitalised the franchise, still going very strong, total cash cow. Blizzard even had the gall to say that WoW Classic cannot be made because reasons...reasons as weak as "we no longer have the code". You even had the people running the private servers offering to work with Blizzard for free to make it happen, that's the love the community has for Vanilla WoW.

I get Blizzard's stance of not wanting to go back, as it sort of confirms that their current game is inferior to the old game (it is!), but in my limited understanding Sony doesn't have to do much, just adapt and release it for PC. I'd preorder it right now!
 
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Chasing Embers

Captain of the Black Frigate
Nov 12, 2014
46,403
124,954
nowadays that no game is ever published in physical format anymore
They're still made, just in limited quantities and usually only for pre-order. I won't do digital, they can be changed or deleted with no warning.
 
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Jun 27, 2016
1,289
149
Took a couple Dreamcast games to a local retro game shop who has a nice machine, & for a few dollars they came out pretty nicely. They weren't in bad shape to begin with, & one still has a mark on it, but that started as a heavier scuff to begin with. I asked him to run it again & it was still there afterwards, so I left it at that. Probably could buff it out after more runs, but I didn't want to run up the bill. I'll say that getting them buffed helped, but didn't solve my issues entirely. One of the discs almost never booted before, & after buffing I was able to get it to boot & play for a while until it locked up later on, trying to read. The other disc with the remaining mark would boot before, but would lock up sometimes when trying to read, & after buffing it seemed to run a little better. I can say that buffing didn't seem to make the condition worse, & seemed to improve things a bit, & at least I can rule out a lot of scratches that aren't there now.
One thing I might have mis-stated earlier is that the pot adjustment on the laser actually adjusts the value that the photo sensor decides to call a bit open or closed, it doesn't adjust the actual current going to the laser. Most of the time you read it adjusts the laser power, but there are a few posts out there saying it adjusts the photo sensor cutoff value, & I think they are right. It's just one of those things that I usually mis-remember. Anyway, I went back in & fiddled with the laser pot value some more & settled on 915 ohms, & it seems to be happiest anywhere from around 900 to 1000, but still having issues.
I did one more thing after that by raising the rail that the whole laser carriage rides on, bringing the whole thing a little closer to the disc. There's one adjustment screw with factory vibration-proof/ tamper-proof loctite over the head for that at the end of the rail. I raised it 1/4 turn which was too much, then backed it down 1/8 turn, so 1/8 turn higher than factory, & that actually seemed to help with making it easier for the laser to read in general. I started to notice quicker (closer to normal) load times in shenmue, & music tracks in the menu not skipping (as often) in F355. But, after all of that, it still doesn't always like to load that first disc I was talking about, & overall it will still lock up randomly sometimes or have issues that seem to be related to the laser.
I'm going to try re-capping the laser control board to see if that helps. Some people say that only helps if the drive motor spins backwards after opening the door, other people say it can help with disc read errors, so for $12 & however long it takes me to replace 11 smd caps, it might be worth trying that next. After that, there's a drive controller chip that people say to try, but I probably can't work that with my soldering setup. Also there are aftermarket lasers, but those aren't exactly drop-in & require fiddling with the spindle height on top of the other fiddling. From what I can tell, more people seem to think that the caps go bad & re capping the drive board is a good place to start for throwing parts at it. If that doesn't work I'll probably look at running a gdemu or something, instead of trying a questionable aftermarket laser.
 
Jun 27, 2016
1,289
149
I was able to get Shenmue running long enough over the past few days to complete my mini-quest of trying to get Nozomi to join in a battle. Someone figured out the requirements around five+ years ago by now on the ps4 version, but it works on the Dreamcast as well. Funny thing is, I'll swear up & down that I got this to run somehow back in the early 00's, & I mostly attribute it to playing Front Mission 3, which also had a 'secret' button combo in it right before any battle to increase the odds of activating a combo, & I used to try stuff like that on other games back then. Plus I remember my buddy stopped by right after it happened, & I described the battle to him but could never get it to happen again. For a while I even kept a save right before the battle trying to get her to join in again, but never could get it to go again. I had no idea why it happened in the first place, so half the time I figured it was just random. But now we know there's a button combo, & a few other requirements that need to be met. Reviewing the other requirements, & they aren't out of the ordinary. Recently I didn't have a save early enough in the storyline to just start trying, so I started a new game & decided to 'speed run' through to where I would be able to save right before triggering the fight & hopefully enter the button combo correctly.

One requirement is that the kitten needs to be well-fed.
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Lots of Sliced Fish is the best.
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One requirement is that the secret battle can't be unlocked until after Ryo goes to Heartbeats Bar & gets into a couple of brawls, so I played through to that point.
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Another requirement is that you can't advance the storyline past this point, which is finding out about some guy named Charlie. You want to avoid the tattoo parlor, or talking to the guys in front of the motorcycle shop, or you've gone too far in the game.

Not a requirement, but if you can sink a shot at the MJQ Bar, you can stay out later than usual, as long as you don't go down to the Heartbeats.
IMG_6869.JPG

The next requirement is that I have to trigger the normal battle at the park before 7pm on a sunny or snowy day after the Heartbeats brawl, without having progressed the storyline.
It's hard to tell in-game what is sunny, or what would be considered to be sunny enough to trigger the secret battle, so I decided to wait for snow since it was already December.

Here's where the weather report comes in handy.
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Rainy, so I went to the Arcade & played some Hang-On...
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Still Raining, Still Dreaming...
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Watching the fish & waiting for snow...
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A few days later & it looks like a storm rolling in,
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& the forecast says snow predicted!
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After sleeping, it was snowing the next morning & all day!
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Time for the attempt. I let the clock run until around 5:45 & made a save to play from, since the next step would be to trigger the fight & try to unlock the secret Nazomi tag-team battle royale at the park. You're supposed to go to the park to trigger the normal cutscene for the normal battle, then hit top button twice, right button, left button, & then the bottom button three times, all within five frames of each other, & within the first eight seconds of the usual fight cutscene.

Look at these goons:
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The first day I tried entering the code a handful of times, always resulting in only myself fighting the goons. I figured I'd try again the next day, & hit it within the first two or three attempts.
Let's go!
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If Nozomi falls, you can still win the fight. If you both lose, it re-starts with both of you. But apparently if you fall first, then whoever is remaining just stops fighting & you have to restart the game. Nozomi can handle herself, she got one of these guys into an armbar & broke it with a loud crack!
IMG_6899.JPG
Now I can't get it to go again, ha ha. I've tried a handful of times more, but I have the save ready to go & I know how to do it, unlike the random time it happened to me almost 25 years ago. There's got to be some other people who triggered this back in the day, but it seemed like a big surprise to everybody when the guy discovered it in the ps4 source code & figured out how to get it to run around 5 years ago. You guys ever get this to happen randomly without knowing about it back in the day?
 
Jun 27, 2016
1,289
149
Installed a cap kit for my Dreamcast optical drive board.
Before...
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...during...
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...after:
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Did it help? Well, no. No, it didn't. It didn't make anything worse, but didn't help with the disc read errors. It was still a good excercise, & the next day my "backup" plan showed up:
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Subbed the 8GB to a 128GB card, though.
Installed...
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...and running:
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Did it help? Hell yeah it did! Is it awesome? Hell yeah it is!

Got to work loading my sd card...
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...all TOSEC GDI files...
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Except for Wipeout at the bottom, which was released as a CDI file.
What's that you say? Wipeout isn't on Dreamcast?
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It is now!
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Let's Go!!!!
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Hoping for a Dreamcast Wipeout XL port now!
 
Jan 8, 2013
7,963
6,069
After clearing Dark Souls 2 - a great game getting a ton of undeserved hate - I started up Lies of P, as if I didn't have enough of FromSoftware and soulslikes. It is great, it's almost if it took everything that's good about Dark Souls, Sekiro and Bloodborne and put together in a polished final offering.
Lies Of P looked interesting. I may yet try that one.
 
Jun 27, 2016
1,289
149
Really loving my Dreamcast with the GDEMU! Everything is running so smoothly. It's weird not having the old GDRom drive ratcheting away in there, just a little bit of fan noise now. I can also play games without fearing wasting time on game crashes due to disk read errors.

Happy with the outcome & with everything confirmed still working, I went back in for a full tear-down to replace the heat pads (1mm thick for the two squares on the bottom metal plate, 1.5mm for the two on the processors):
IMG_6940.JPG

Another 'pro' of the Gdemu is that it can force VGA-output from games that can do it, & I found only a handful of games that wouldn't do it, & in those cases I switched to an s-video cable to see if they were good games or not. But I've only found one non-VGA game so far that I might ever bother to do that for again (Ms. Pac Man Maze Madness).

Been curating my games-list:
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I've tried out maybe half of these & still need to look at Tech Romancer, Star Lancer, Rayman, Gundam, Cannon Spike, some of the shmups, the billiards & pinball games, but they all look like they are worth a look at least. Everything else on the list I either already like, or tried out over the past couple days & thought were worth some more testing time. There were also bunch of titles not shown that I tried & deleted, & also a bunch of stuff that I didn't choose to get.

One pleasing surprise has been 'Tokyo Xtreme Racer 2'. I'd always been aware of it & knew that a lot of people liked it, but I had never tried it. I didn't think that I would like it. But so far it seems like it could be a lot of fun & addictive. I only have a few miles on it, but I want to go back & play it more. The handling is driveable & tuneable, & the game doesn't look too bad. Better-looking than PS1 Gran Turismo games, not quite as good-looking as PS2 GT4, but it is also four years older than GT4. It's absolutely more of an arcade game than a driving simulator. It has a cool vibe to it. I guess I'd call it an open-world arcade street-racing fighting game. I had to turn down the music. Usually I turn music completely off for driving games, but this one is good with just a little in the background. The menu music is pretty bad & doesn't have a separate volume control, but at least it's low now.

It lets you order a plate. Not sure why my car would have a Cali plate in Japan, but there it is. I checked the PAL version to see if they get Euro-plates since they look cooler, but it has Cali plates too. Here's mine for now =)
IMG_6954.JPG

Also, Wipeout is amazing on the DC! Thing is just DEALING frames-per-second!!! There's an optional fps counter & I've never seen it dip below around 80. Sometimes it's doing 200. Game speed runs normally & looks so good.
 

username

Lifer
Dec 24, 2014
2,348
16,607
Tucson Az
Got friends losing their minds over the Oblivion remake. then theirs me in the corner plugging away at my backlog of Visual Novels. Started You me and Her a love story which i've been wanting to read/play since Dan Salvato (creator of Doki Doki Literature club credits it as a inspiration) and I really liked DDLC
 
Jun 27, 2016
1,289
149
Check it out, Dreamcast Aquarium! =)
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Look out, a big Pirhana!!! =O
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I'm having some fun. Got some more stuff for the Dreamcast:
Thumbcovers for the analog stick, a couple diodes (one blue, one slow color changing), a usb-c power board, usb-c cable, & a power supply (not shown).
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Installed the board & tested it before buttoning it up & removing/replacing the power cable. (Original orange diode still in place.) I don't really need the power board. The old one was working fine, & I'll keep it in the shelf. But I need to get some USB-C power gear anyway, so, may as well. It will get a lot of heat out of the case, since the transformer rectifier thingy will be on the power strip instead of inside the dreamcast.
IMG_6970.JPG
It's got a couple extra headers (3.3V iirc) for fans, diodes, etc.

I won't get to the diode replacement today, but I tested them in the light-pipe when I had the top shell off. The blue one:
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Tron vibes:
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The color-changing diode slowly rolls through a number of colors.
I like both. I also like the original orange one, & I might try to find a slightly brighter one of those & try that too. It's easy enough to get to, even though it's solder every time, if I want to 'roll' them to see what I want to stick with.

Power supply & everything seemed good, so put it all back together.
Nice & clean filler piece comes with the power board:
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Plugged into a new power supply with three USB-C ports, & one older usb port.
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There are two zones, & one can't do as much as the other. Also, the ports within each zone will cycle off/on, if the other port in the same zone activates or deactivates when the original port is active. This is to allow for proper voltage regulation. So you could accidentially power-cycle the dreamcast that way. I plan to dedicate one zone (high-power zone) to the dreamcast & not use the other port in that zone, so it should be fine. I'm able to plug my M-Classic into the older usb port in the other zone, & I have another charging cable coming from the usb-c port of that zone for something else (maybe, if it will do it, haven't tested that yet). Having something else in the same zone as the m-classic means that I could accidentially power-cycle the m-classic or have it cycle unexpectedly if I have something else charging on that other port & it either stops charging or starts charging again, that maybe could do it, but cycling the m-classic is less of an issue than unexpectedly rebooting the dreamcast, & I could always just temporarily clear that plug before playing if I was worried about it.

Popped on the silicone analog cover over the stock plastic cap, & it might be ideal! Haven't had any real play-time on it yet, but does not interfere with the travel, seems like it wants to stay in place, & seems comfortable & grippy. Seems much better than the stock plastic cap. These are for the Switch joy-con thumbsticks meant to cover over the existing cover (not to replace a missing cover, those are much too small for this).
IMG_6958.JPG

Did some more work on my library:
Added 240p Test Suite, very helpful for dialing in the display.
Also found out that Bangai-O has a VGA patch now, so loaded that up.
'Fish Life' is the aquarium game. Is this related to Dream Aquarium in some way? I tried to search & "a.i" says 'no', but I'm not so sure. I have Dream Aquarium on my PC, & they seem very similar.
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-( #21: Marvel Vs. Capcom II )
-(NBA Hoopz & NHL 2k2 should have been shown last time.)
-Found a Mega-Man collection, which seems pretty cool.
-Also found a Castlevania collection but it didn't run very well, so I got rid of it.
-Wipeout release got an update to 2.2
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-Played some Sturmwind, Sturmwind still gets it...
-Still having fun with Tokyo Xtreme Racer 2...

One thing I wanted to mention about the GDEMU is that it cuts most load times in half. Any time where the system would have been reading from the disc, takes about half as long now.

Going to chill with my new Dreamcast aquarium for a while, bloop bloop
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=)
 

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