[Help calling] About Sega Dreamcast current preservation situation

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diego-rbb
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[Help calling] About Sega Dreamcast current preservation situation

Beitrag von diego-rbb »

Hi everyone! First is first: Im really sorry for not being able to write this in german, but im spanish and i have no idea your language. I would rather try to use english instead of making a terrible Google-translated post.

My name is Diego and i come from a platform called VideoGaming Preservation Collective.

https://www.preservegames.org/

You may have seen me opening across Reddit different posts asking for help for gaming preservation:
Our platform works as a nexus for lot of different videogaming preservation groups and different people from the community. Since my platform was created, Dreamcast has been one of the platforms that has benefited the most.

The main DC preservationists inside the "TOSEC" and "Redump" groups have been working really hard to deliver for the Dreamcast 20th anniversary, in order to compile the whole Dreamcast fullset across all regions (NTSC-USA, PAL and NTSC-J/Asia). This doesnt include the whole White Label compilation, all the Demos/Taikenbans and all re-releases/reprints/alternative editions... But we arent that far from there! Lot of work has been done in all these zones, so the situation is really good.

[Note: In case you dont understand the difference, TOSEC dumping method is the one that generates the game dump in GDI format. Redump method generates Bin+Cue format, and is a more complex dumping method, therefore, Redump is still lacking some games across all regions, plus Redump started dumping years later than TOSEC]

The reason i came here is to call for help and check if finally, after 20 years, any collector is interested in giving us finally a chance to make sure no Dreamcast content is lost, as Disc Rot is becoming a real thread these days and in the years to come.

If you are wondering about how things are going, a few days ago we finally finished the whole PAL fullset for TOSEC after submitting the "71" version of Evil Dead (that led us to discover there was a release containing french dub and another containing german dub) and Sydney 2000 Australian release, a really weird exclusive release that has given us some terrible stories in order to finally dump it. Even most of the Dreamkey releases across Europe, Australia and even India! were dumped or will be soon.

The USA set was finally completed with some interesting revisions added, and the NTSC-J is extremly closer, as only those JP revisions for NBA 2K2 and World Series Baseball 2K2 remains to be dumped... But these are going to be really difficult to find, and worse, not that worthy (for the moment, all the 2K japanese releases are identical to the USA versions, we think they just changed the internal serie ID and run).

The most interesting part of TOSEC was not only how close they are to finish the fullsets, but the quality: TOSEC doesnt add a game to the public Dats if it doesnt get verified with a second dump from a different dumper. So yeah, only a few days ago, TOSEC finally managed to get more than 1400 discs verificated and added.

My friend Maddog is the main TOSEC responsable for Dreamcast, and he has been building for more than 15 years all an astonishing database datting every single release for any GD-Rom released for Dreamcast, catch some proofs of it:

Japan

Bild PAL:

Bild


As you can see, they include Barcode, Ring Codes, Serial ID, packaging identification, shows if version is different, etc.... If the name is in green, it means it was verificated with two different dumps. If its white, it was dumped only once, unless one of the squares says "UNDUMPED".

These databases will be public for the 20th Dreamcast anniversary in USA (9.9.19), and yeah, we still adding all the info we can. This rule of having a verification in order to release a dump will be broken too. For the 20th anniversary we are planning to make public every single dump avaliable, even if it wasnt verificated. This rule was created long ago to avoid problems but Maddog has decided its not needed at this point anymore.

More information about all this will be published in a Reddit report im writing right now, expanding details about all this, but it wont be published till the anniversary.

So, going back again at my task... Why im here? Im here, because i still want to raise the bar and only the community can help us right now. You these three for sure:

F1 World Grand Prix for Dreamcast 'Red Bull Demo' (White Label) 950-0041-50 UNDUMPED
Half Life Video (White Label) 950-0124-50 / 952-0117-50 9D-0017-0410SS NOT FOR SALE UNDUMPED
Sega Extreme Sports (alt) (White Label) (AKA Milka version) 833-0023-50 UNDUMPED

Yes. These three are probably the most rare discs around the PAL region with MSR Opel Challenge (dumped and verified already) and yeah, most of them only belongs to collectors. Seeing them popping up on eBay or other second hand platforms is really strange. Months ago a Half Life disc appeared near of the place i live in Spain, selling for 300 euros. I told the community about this and i was in talks with the seller trying to coordinate everyone in order to afford it but it was just impossible as the price was just too high. The seller really wanted to help us, but at the end nothing was done.

For me, is not easy to ask around for these discs to be dumped, as i know there are people owning then being really reticent to help as they really dont want them to lose value. So i wont be pushing anyone around here, and i know ive seen some collectors here having them.

But it's truth that i would like to make you understand that lot of people have been wasting lot of money and resources and time for years to make sure all this stuff got preserved avoding the risk of losing it.

These arent the only White Labels remaining, we were able to find a lot of them, but still a bunch remains (i will post the list this afternoon).

However, i just wanted to say this: Even if you dont want to share the dump, owning dump hashes and posting all the info around the disc is still really valuable for us. An example:

https://dcemulation.org/dumpcast/viewto ... f=5&t=4032

This user has never shared a single dump, but all his game dump info always allowed us in time to rebuild or confirm good dumps. Ofc, there's more weird stuff around pending to be dumped, for example, Grauen no Torikago Kapitel 6, last Kapitel undumped, which we have already collected 350 euros to buy one copy but this bastard is still being too expensive for us.

So please, understand we arent just a bunch of casual rom collectors going around. We really want to contribute to Sega Dreamcast preservation in the best possible way. Thanks so much for your atention and again, sorry for not being able to provide a post written in german.

Finally, in case you are interested in helping, you can always join us in VGPC Discord: https://discord.gg/AHTfxQV (note: in this Discord, rom sharing is totally forbbiden, this is a place to work actively for gaming preservation, and we take this serious). If not, you can always write here.

Thank you all!
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Stardragon
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Re: [Help calling] About Sega Dreamcast current preservation situation

Beitrag von Stardragon »

I am very sorry, I don‘t own any of the games you are searching for. But I wanted to say, this is an awesome project and a very well written starting post. I hope you find, what you are looking for and keep this small community informed. :)
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diego-rbb
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Re: [Help calling] About Sega Dreamcast current preservation situation

Beitrag von diego-rbb »

Stardragon hat geschrieben:I am very sorry, I don‘t own any of the games you are searching for. But I wanted to say, this is an awesome project and a very well written starting post. I hope you find, what you are looking for and keep this small community informed. :)
Thanks for your support, i really apreciate it. Im not sure which users could have these discs in their collection.

Ive seen for example the user Acrid having a Milka disc, but as always, ill wait for answers from the different users.
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Stardragon
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Re: [Help calling] About Sega Dreamcast current preservation situation

Beitrag von Stardragon »

diego-rbb hat geschrieben:Thanks for your support, i really apreciate it. Im not sure which users could have these discs in their collection.

Ive seen for example the user Acrid having a Milka disc, but as always, ill wait for answers from the different users.
Many users, including Acrid, aren’t active here often. Maybe it would be better to ride a PM and asking humble for their help.
Gamer aller Arten. Egal, ob auf dem Bildschirm, auf dem Tisch, in Gedanken oder in Wald und Flur. Gelegentlich gebe ich Einblicke in meine Gedanken und mein Tun auf Twitter:
https://twitter.com/DracoAstris

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diego-rbb
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Re: [Help calling] About Sega Dreamcast current preservation situation

Beitrag von diego-rbb »

Stardragon hat geschrieben:
diego-rbb hat geschrieben:Thanks for your support, i really apreciate it. Im not sure which users could have these discs in their collection.

Ive seen for example the user Acrid having a Milka disc, but as always, ill wait for answers from the different users.
Many users, including Acrid, aren’t active here often. Maybe it would be better to ride a PM and asking humble for their help.
Thanks so much for the advice!
mstar
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Re: [Help calling] About Sega Dreamcast current preservation situation

Beitrag von mstar »

Kudos for your and your groups efforts, keep it up!
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staR-Kron
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Re: [Help calling] About Sega Dreamcast current preservation situation

Beitrag von staR-Kron »

diego-rbb hat geschrieben:These databases will be public for the 20th Dreamcast anniversary in USA (9.9.19), and yeah, we still adding all the info we can. This rule of having a verification in order to release a dump will be broken too. For the 20th anniversary we are planning to make public every single dump avaliable, even if it wasnt verificated.
I'm glad that there are more and more (semi-)professional projects trying to preserve the gaming history and all the work of the developers but it is kind of a thin line between preserving history and piracy. There are legal and moral reasons why we don't promote piracy on this board and thus I'd like to know what exactly we're talking about. Are you going to release the actual data/dumps to the public so that people will be able to create playable copies or just information about what has been dumped etc.?
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diego-rbb
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Re: [Help calling] About Sega Dreamcast current preservation situation

Beitrag von diego-rbb »

staR-Kron hat geschrieben:
I'm glad that there are more and more (semi-)professional projects trying to preserve the gaming history and all the work of the developers but it is kind of a thin line between preserving history and piracy. There are legal and moral reasons why we don't promote piracy on this board and thus I'd like to know what exactly we're talking about. Are you going to release the actual data/dumps to the public so that people will be able to create playable copies or just information about what has been dumped etc.?
Yes, this is a problem we will always be struggeling to act till some day legislations change. Look, as it's, my group, VGPC doesnt promote piracy or rom sharing under any circunstances. Our main objetive is to dat and catalogue all the stuff we can. For this reason, we dont force any user willing to help to share the data, but the hashes and all the documentation around the game and the disc.

However, at the end of the day, obtaining hashes without data is useless, and so, me and my partners, behind the court and outside the group officialy, we try to make sure the data is avaliable for the user, specifically, with Archive.org

With that said, Sega is one of the few gaming developers that hasnt condenmed or pursued rom sharing as actively as Nintendo and, Dreamcast is one of the platforms struggeling the most with dozens of games non rereleased for new generations.

Plus... GDRom discs sooner or later will die, thats a reality that cant be denied.

We face that the line between piracy and history is enough thin to not be able to distinguish where our steps are. But, that cant stop us from acting us retrogaming (and Dreamcast is going to suffer this for worst in the times to come) is becoming too expensive for preservationism to catch some particular games or items.

And, as i said, we arent forcing absolutely anyone to share game data that is not related to clean dump hashes or disc documentation (barcode, ring codes, artwork edition, Serial Id....)
diego-rbb
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Re: [Help calling] About Sega Dreamcast current preservation situation

Beitrag von diego-rbb »

Tomorrow ill post the 20th anniversary report, which I'll link here.

I hope you can read it and give a hand over the missing stuff we lack. I hoped that Jenkins could help, but he's been completely missing since the last time we talked. :(

Anyway, one of the most interesting things about this is that the whole Dreamcast TOSEC fullset will be avaliable for everyone. We hope you enjoy it!
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