Cast at Last

Welp, there it is. The GDEMU I've been waiting the better part of a month to get, installed in my Dreamcast and working pretty well. It didn't start out that way, though! Let me explain why.

There are a set of pins in the Dreamcast which connect the power supply to the motherboard. Putting it in simple terms, those pins are what keep the system fed, and if they're not doing their jobs, the Dreamcast gets hungry... and cranky. Lightly scrubbing the pins with alcohol keeps them clean and allows the free flow of electricity to the motherboard. 

I had done this once before when the Dreamcast first arrived back in February, but somehow, the pins got dirty again, and the system started doing strange things. Sometimes it would start games, only to crash shortly afterward. Sometimes I'd be sent back to the official Dreamcast menu, with the system failing to find a drive. Sometimes when I hit the power button, the Dreamcast boot intro would play, but half the sound effects wouldn't, leaving you with an eerie howling wind that would be more at home in a low-budget horror film.

I originally blamed all these problems on the GDEMU, but a couple hours and several tufts of torn out hair later, I decided to take apart the Dreamcast, pry out the internal power supply, and work at the power pins with an alcohol-soaked Q-tip. I put the Dreamcast back together, and the problems ceased... now the boot sequence plays as it should, and you're sent to the GDEMU's menu screen shortly afterward. You can only imagine my relief.

I've got to give my mother props for encouraging me to keep working with this Dreamcast, because I seriously thought about retiring it to the shed or giving it the Office Space treatment on at least two occasions. Don't let frustration get the better of you! Stay calm, look online for solutions, and keep at it until it works. (Or just let someone who knows what they're doing take care of it for you.)

Image from YouTube

This is how the menu looks, once you've installed the software on an SD card. Games have to be arranged in numbered folders, from 01 to 99, and given eight letter names with three letter extensions, similar to MS-DOS files. There's an SD card maker utility by Mad Sheep that handles all this for you, so don't sweat it. Games (usually) have an image of the disc which appears in the bottom right hand corner of the screen, so you know exactly what you're getting before you start it. After you start a game, you can reset it by pressing all the buttons on the controller together, and if you need to change discs for the longer games, you press a button on the GDEMU to make the switch. (Note that the first and second discs have to be arranged in order on your SD card for this to work.)

Using the GDEMU, the games function just like they would on a disc, without unwanted stuttering but also without noticeably faster access time. The biggest improvement over a stock Dreamcast (aside from not having to fight with a dying GD-ROM drive) is that you can stick multiple games onto a single SD card. I've got about thirty-five titles on a 32GB card, with room for a few extra. I can also remove games I no longer want to make room for more, which of course wouldn't be an option with a disc.

In short, the GDEMU helps modernize the Dreamcast, giving it access to readily available solid state media alongside more recent systems like the Wii. Just know that this aging console won't go into the 21st century without a fight. It's not as easy as plug and play, although if you're a fan of the system, it's probably worth the headache.