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Games Entertainment

Sega to develop Dreamcast PCI Card 113

Posted by CmdrTaco from the now-that-would-be-sweet dept.
Fervent writes "Sega plans on developing a PCI card to put in your box that will play Dreamcast games." The bit is pretty much a total rumor with no evidence at all, but it sure would be nifty.
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Sega to develop Dreamcast PCI Card More

Sega to develop Dreamcast PCI Card

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  • Who cares what the format is? Just spin the platter and read the entire spiral of bits to the hard drive (a few GB should handle the CD). Then "play back the spiral" to a CD writer. No data or tracks or sectors is interpreted at all. Why bother? The only issue is the size of the bits. Increase the "sampling rate" to get more accurate bit lengths (at the cost of more disk space). Yes this would result is "bit stretching" leading to generational copy errors, but it would copy that original CD with no problems REGARDLESS OF DATA FORMAT. No CD would be "uncopyable" (HFS, CDROM, PHOTO CD, PSX, GD-ROM). It would even copy that text burned into that ring halfway along the Dreamcast CDs!
  • If it's a hoax it has to be doubly as impressive that the user managed to hack into PCGamer's web site to post it. :)

  • Re:3DO Blaster (Score:5)

    by ewhac ( 5844 ) on Saturday November 04, 2000 @09:27AM (#649254) Homepage Journal

    I worked for 3DO when this product was developed. The idea was to tap into the PC gamer market which (it was thought) was more willing to pay >$400 for a gaming peripheral. Unfortunately, as conceived by the executive staff at 3DO, the idea was a non-starter.

    Here are the bone-headed moves Sega needs to avoid to increase their chances of success:

    • Don't require the user to install a particular CD-ROM drive.
      The 3DO at that time only had drivers for a particular bug-ridden 2X CD-ROM drive from Matsushita. Fortunately for Creative, this was the same drive they were already offering. Customers who didn't already own this drive either had to buy one or were SOL.
    • Don't misrepresent the features the add-on board offers.
      Though the claim was never made outright, the PR for the 3DO Blaster hinted very strongly that the Blaster would offer its services to the PC, like any other PC peripheral. That is to say, 3CO/Creative left the impression that the 3DO Blaster would accelerate your PC games. This was not true (nor, as best I recall, was it ever intended to be). The 3DO Blaster card was a world unto itself; all it "shared" was your PC display, CD-ROM drive, and power supply.
    • Allow programs/data to be loaded from the PC's hard drive/memory.
      3DO was intensely paranoid about "piracy", but for different reasons. 3DO executives saw the Multiplayer machine (we called it Opera) as their "property" and, in order to execute code on their "property", you had to sign a manufacturing/licensing agreement whereby you paid $3/disc (later raised to $6). This was ostensibly the licensing fee for the operating system (Portfolio) we provided. But what if you loaded in all your own code and/or data, such that nothing running in Opera's memory was copyrighted by 3DO (so you didn't have to pay them a fee for it)? 3DO was intensely paranoid this would happen, and went to extraordinary technical lengths to make certain that not one single byte of data entering the machine hadn't been paid for. Thus, the only way data entered the 3DO was through the CD-ROM drive off a licensed 3DO disc. Period. All other channels were sealed off. Thus the 3DO Blaster offered nothing over a stand-alone unit, except more complicated PC configuration. (It originally shipped for Windoze 3.1; I don't know if it ever got updated for Windoze 95.)

    All in all, though it gave us some practice dealing with the PC architecture, I felt the project was a waste of resources. Of course, 3DO was wasting a lot of resources back then, but that's another flame entirely.

    Disclaimer: I am a former 3DO employee, with a total tenure of 4.5 years, laid off in one of their countless "reorganizations" (though, to their credit, they were nicer to me about it than they were to almost everyone else). I felt, and still feel, betrayed by the executive staff's failure to capitalize on what we had created by the blood, sweat, tears, and love we had poured into those machines.

    Schwab

  • dreamcasts can use (s)vga monitors. just have to buy the adapter.

    DRACO-

  • If this isn't a hoax it will be interesting to see if it will run NetBSD [slashdot.org]
  • Noone would do it.
    Emulators do a perfectly fine job of imitating NES hardware, and the cost of using old stock parts for the NES and sticking them on a PCI card isn't justified on a 486 or better PC. The thing I would like to try is to just build an interface to read the cartridges. I already built a PS Memory card reader/writer , shouldn't be much tougher ;)
  • That would only happen if Microsoft actually intends to _ship_ any X-Box. If they are simply using it as the code name for buying up any company that might support Playstation 2, taking them out of the market, and confusing people with demos rendered on SGI workstations, then the last thing they're going to want to do is buy a hardware maker- particularly one competing with Sony.

    I think there's no way they're going to want to buy Sega. We'll see.

  • >Umm, the NES has 3.5 MHz processor. You should >have no problem emulating it on a PC. Hell, you'd >have no problem emulating that on my TI83!

    The point isn't that i can't run NES games on a PC.

    the point is:

    1) To gain knowledge of the PCI specification
    2) Style points (how many ppl have an ACTUALY nes in their computer?)
    3) To be able to say i've done something somewhat original....
  • That if this was real people would know about it? Its not exactly like these companies keep secrets they have to hype their products...

    Jeremy


  • I only remember actually seeing it once in an ad, but I know there was a 3D0 PCI card waaay back in the day. No word on how it worked, but it must have. AFAIK, the package consisted of one (rather large) PCI card, a gamepad, and some DOS drivers.

  • Food for thought (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    The DC pirate groups use a plain ol' scsi yamaha cdrom drive and some funky custom cable to extract the gdrom images. Considering that slow ISA sound cards were onced used as CDRom controller cards, the idea of a PCI card being used to control a cdrom drive (and perhaps have an IDE pass-through) isn't that far fetched. Also, the DC runs a slimmed down version of Windows CE.

    I think the REAL trick here is shoving the 3D power of the dreamcast into a crummy PCI slot. I own a GeForce II 64mb AGP card and some of the games on my DC put it to shame. Not to mention that the PC requirements would have to be over 400mhz.

    But then again, Sega officially annouced that they are getting OUT of the hardware business so this would make no sense, unless it is already in the late stages of development (and we would of heard something by now if that was the case).

  • This comment I just posted isn't *particularly* true, and is better explained by a few posts below. sorry.
  • With the addition of a BT848 TV card and a cheap PSX/ PS One console, i can play all the latest playstation games in a window under X.

    I find this solution quite workable. No CPU usage (aside from the minimal impact of the BT848). Works on linux, windows, the BeOS and probably most other OSes too.

    Plus i can just unplug it and carry it downstairs if i want to play games with my friends on my TV.

    This is one of the more important aspects of console gaming as opposed to PC gaming.

    PCs are largely limited to single-user input, while consoles are designed specifically to allow multiple people in the same location to play - all with a standard interface i.e gamepads as opposed to one person on keyboard, one on joystick.

    Two people crouched over a keyboard is hardly comfortable, and while USB should allow you to chain as many controllers as you like together, you still need hubs, extra power supplies to run them and its generally a big pain in the ass.

    Even if this PCI card sported multiple controller connections, who wants to reach around the back of the machine to connect and disconnect them?

    PCs excel with regard to multiplayer gaming over the internet, but this is aspect relies solely on their ability to take ethernet and broadband connections. Modem play was fun back in the days of Quake 1, but it was the LAN parties that were the real deal.

    This PCI-card approach was also tried with the Sega Saturn i believe, but i don't think anyone actually bought the thing.

  • Give it away and I'll take one. At that point it is worth the price!

    Why would I want to step down to television resolution on my 1024 x 768 computer display to play these games?

  • I think that far from putting a stop to the development of a Dreamcast PC card, Sega should be putting all their effort and marketing might behind it.

    Consider, for a moment, Sega's financial position. They've been losing money for the past four (count 'em four) financial quarters and they need the money. A Dreamcast PC card would dramatically increase the revenue Sega gets from games sales would help their financial woes and would open them up to a whole new untapped market. I mean, the PC market would benefit greatly from Sega's gamemaking expertise.

    So if Sega were smart, then they could save themselves the uphill battle against the marketing and corporate juggernaut of Sony and give themselves an edge selling to the PC market who are fussy about quality of software and hence would take to Sega's longstanding history of making great games. So what I'm saying is Sega - use this opportunity because it will give you the advantage like nothing else. Because if there's anything Sega needs right now, it's an advantage.

    Self Bias Resistor
    "Honestly, babe, the world is being FedEx-ed to hell in a package." -Nicolas Cage, The Rock

  • As someone that has been interested in emulation of older consoles, the only problem I've noticed is that the computer display is too clear, leading to a crispness in the image that they original designer didn't expect. Its playable, and it looks okay, just different from the image on television. I'm told some emulators such as bleem try to mimic the television look, and I'm not seeing a reason why this isn't possible, so with the right code, it should be possible to get an image very simular to television.

    There are other reasons why this is probably a bad idea, and that is mentioned in other comments (such as GD-ROM), but resolution isn't one of them.

  • writing on the inner part of the CD

    If someone clones DC disks and these enter the retail channels, Sega can point out to customers how easy it is to spot a fake, look for the "(c) (tm) Sega Enterprises" message. [I don't have a disk to hand, don't nitpick the wording]. If the pirates reproduce the wording, IANAL, but Sega can use legal arguments to stop distribution such as trademark infringement. The point being, even a non-techie judge can read the writing, no need to go into subtle stuff about patents, clean room code and so on

  • Another reply to the parent post complained about it being upped to +3. All the parent post is doing is "karma by association". It's so elite and cool to pirate stuff? B-ll-cks. Sure someone is doing it, it's bound to happen, and whoever did it gets my respect for their skills if not their morals, so where's the content in the post moderators?

    Also, Sega make good games. Even the Sony fanboys admit that. So go kill the goose that lays the golden egg with more DC piracy. Then go for broke onn the playground social ladder and crack the Nintendo why don't you? Let Sony and MS slug it out and we'll all be the worse for it, bland sames, movie and sports tie-ins for ever.

  • Hey "crackhead beeyatch" (learn how to spell bitch, moron), I tried out other CDs, and they worked. This was on an antiquated 24X CDROM drive as well.
  • if you have 3 times the resolution spare, i guess you could use 3 (vertical, perhaps) pixels instead of one, and just use each pixel for just r,g or b.
  • Why not build the controller interface up front like the SB Live Drives?

  • Hooray! Now you can play all of those resource-limited console games on your PC, without those pesky things like user-friendliness and being able to hook it up to the TV! Yes, now you can enjoy all your favorite Dreamcast games with the joys of installing infuriating, unstable Windows drivers, solving hardware conflicts, and everyone getting to huddle around your computer desk to play 4 player games! All for about the same price as a standard Dreamcast!

    I certainly hope this is a rumor, or else Sega is throwing some good money away.
  • Let's see, CAD, CAE, CAM, prototyping, video editing ...
  • ... as Sega has done something similar in the past. Many years ago, back in 1995, a Sega graphics card was distributed by Creative that used the nVidia nV1 chip. The card sucked and sold poorly, but that was mainly due to the fact that the initial set of drivers sucked and the nV1 chip was not well supported by the developer community. (The chip only supported quads and not triangles, and nVidia's suggestion was to redo the models and graphics engine of existing games so they would look good on the card).

    The original sega game card had connectors such that you could use the controllers from the Sega console to play your games on the PC.
  • Exactly. At least the SETI hoax had some (poorly faked) pictures. This one's just a one paragraph blurb.
  • This reminds me of the SETI@HOME hardware PCI card using cruisemissile parts story [slashdot.org] a few months back. It was a hoax too.
  • You are wrong. GD-Rom's can NOT be read by normal CD-Roms. GDROMs have a special high density section in the center of the disk that is not readable in anything but a Sega GDRom drive.

    The guys who pirate DC software use a special cable they made to interface the serial port on their computer to the Dreamcast and they use the GDRom in the DC to read the disks.

  • If noone is making hardware, what are you going to emulate?

    Also, the PC game market is nothing compared to the console market. Sure lots of people have computers, but how many people have powerful enough systems to run this kind of software? Then further how many of those are going to be using the system primarily for gaming?

    Most PC owners buy a few games during the first few months of ownership and thats it.

    The best reason to develop for a console (and EVERY console developer will tell you this) compared to devloping on a PC is this; you KNOW what the hardware is going to do.

    That said, why would you want to make DC titles with PC porting in mind?
    You wouldn't.

    Although making a PC title with a console port in mind is a good idea, and you see this a lot.

  • Well, the Model 3 hardware do is not a match to current day system but put it do good hands and you'll get superb games such as Scud Racer & Virtual Figther 3 which is years ahead of competition (even today!)
  • First of all, has anyone looked at a GD-ROM? Theres actual writing on the inner part of the cd...which was done to prevent piracy. So, anyone with a CDrom can foget about using the PCI card. As for DVD, im doubting it will work, but like mentioned piraters have found ways to do it. Is Sega going to take the risk of putting out modifications so we can read these drives? Even if its built into the program, theres still a risk. Finally, with Dreamcasts being very cheap as it is, this PCI card will have to be even more cheap, or really whats the point?
  • I've also heard some interesting tidbits. Of course, these are also pretty much a total rumor with no evidence at all Therefore, I won't bother giving any links :)

    • Sony plans to make a PCI card that will let you play playstation 2 games on a PC.
    • Bleem plans to take advantage of PS2 shortage by releasing a PS2 emulator for the PC.
    • Microsoft plans to release software that will let you play X-box games on a PC. (hint: this software will be called Windows ME).
    • Rumor has it that slashdot is now just another rumor mill...

  • And you read the gams how? (Score:4)

    by evanbd ( 210358 ) on Saturday November 04, 2000 @08:32AM (#649283)
    I thought one of the major selling points of the DC (to developers) was that it was hard to copy games b/c PC CDROMS can't read the GDROMs used (BTW, they can hold ~1GB IIRC). So how do I get the game TO my computer? Also, what would go on a PCI CARD??? as best I can tell, impediments to playing DC games are: different ISA (OK, we put a CPU on the card or emulate), different graphics, put a graphics chip on the card? seems mre likely than a CPU. And then problems with peripherals like the GDROMs. so what the heck would a PCI card do if it wasn't a graphics card, which seems like overkill to me? This rumor seems a bit far-fetched.
  • Lots of people are bitching about this being pretty much a total rumor, and /. reporting it anyways.

    What's wrong with reporting rumors, as long as they are clearly marked as such? Many of us (myself included) like to hear about these "wouldn't it be cool if..." types of stories, and Slashdot clearly explained this is a rumor.

    What's the problem?
  • Sega has stated that they are getting out of the hardware business. If they build a PCI card, this statement would be a lie.

    Second, there is no use for this at all. Why? The Dreamcast has VGA support built into the console. Most games can be played on your PC monitor with the VGA adapter. Also, the DC does not use normal CD-ROMs. So if they built some PCI card, they would have to include a drive that can read GD-ROMs as well.

  • Can we say emulation board? This kinda thing isn't old. Just about every game console has a computer board (internal or external) that emulates the real thing. It's sold to game developers so you don't have to burn neumerous cds a day to develop a game. Makes sense don't it?

    Roy Miller
    :wq! DOH!

  • slight misinformation (Score:3)

    by Ryandav ( 5475 ) on Saturday November 04, 2000 @10:30AM (#649287) Homepage Journal
    I'm rather surprised that many of the comments on this story seem to indicate that the authors believe you cannot create dreamcast discs with your PC, or that the two are completely unable to swap media.

    Hate to tell you folks, but there's a fairly active community of people involved in both creating their own games for the DC, as well as successfully replicating their purchased games. Boot loaders, cdi's, and a few other twists...
  • For the record, mod-chipped Dreamcast will NOT play burned games. I should know, I installed a modchip in mine last March to play import games. Imports work fine, copies do not. For that, you need the boot loader CD.
  • Its also an issue of where the data is placed on the disc. The DC piracy community has made a lot of fuss over proper file ordering.
  • How do you think people copy GD-ROMs? As far as I know, Sony doesn't make a special GD-ROM drive for PCs, nor would it likely be simple to attach a DC to a PC.

    Right on the 2nd point; afaik, there was a PC/DC interface that was designed by/for people who were experienting with DC programming - demos, simple games/mp3 players, etc. The interface allowed them to upload code direct to the console, but it also allowed data to be read from GD-ROMs.

    People don't copy GD-ROMs, a small number of people (who've build or obtained on of the interfaces) rip the games to their PCs, make ISO images and then burn those to CDR. GD-ROM is unreadable in any PC CD-ROM or DVD-ROM drive (contrary to many rumours when the whole DC piracy thing took off).

    I may be wrong, this is 2nd hand knowledge - I don't own a DC (but MSR might convince me otherwise..) :-)

  • Stages of Sega's demise:

    1. Sega makes this card with a proprietary GD-ROM drive, but the drive can also be used as a CD-ROM drive. They sell it to OEMs who make "gaming workstations" :). They also make a stand-alone kit so people don't have to buy brand-new computers.

    2. Sega converts their games to DVD-ROMs, and includes DreamCast emulation. Eventually, most/all of the games get ported to PC native.

    3. Microsoft makes a big partnership with Sega where Sega sells them the hardware assets for a large sum of money and becomes an X-Box developer.

    4. Microsoft buys Sega and merges Sega's assets with their other games into Microsoft Games Division.

    ...
  • Show me the actual press release with actual quotes of Sega execs saying "We plan to develop for rival consoles" "Dreamcast is our final console" all ive seen is sega planning to license their hardware and develop a few games for portible devices Where do you get "consoles" and "rival platforms" from? Where does sega say this is their final console? Post the quotes, then its fact. "11/1/00 - Troubled Japanese videogame maker Sega said on Wednesday it aims to boost its share of the global market for videogame software to 25 percent, shifting its focus to software from loss-making hardware." As you can tell from the first sentence, this report obviously is not a direct press release from Sega. "Sega Corp, the world's third-largest home videogame maker, unveiled last Friday a far-reaching strategy including plans to provide game software for rival makers' consoles." Still he said she said garbage, wheres the actual press release with the president of Sega making this statement? Until i see it, why believe it? "It will also license its mainstay Dreamcast (news - web sites) game console's design technology to makers of personal computers and cell phones so as to increase compatible PCs and other devices." This i did see in the official press release, this is the only fact which can be backed up by looking at the official press release which I'm about to post. MY proof. " Across the Pacific, Sega of America's PR arm Access Communications referred to the Reuters story as erroneous. The statement that Sega's business strategy would include providing "content to existing platforms such as PCs, mobile phones and handheld PDAs" certainly conjures up notions of Sonic on Gamecube and Phantasy Star on Xbox, but such a notion was dismissed by the company's American office. Sega of America steadfastly proclaimed that the company would not develop titles for other platforms, and that the press release was never intended to imply such." Even Sega saying themselves the story isnt true isnt enough to keep websites from posting it up as news. : "This announcement has been made in one form or another at least five times since I've been working at Sega of America," Heather Hawkins, Sega of America's manager for gaming press relations said. "The announcement that was made is not about other platforms as you would think of them -- say, Nintendo or PlayStation. It's about other technologies such as cell phones, PDAs, and set top boxes. It's about taking Dreamcast technology onto those other hardware platforms." Hawkins noted that Sega's online plans have effectively served to increase the Dreamcast's life span. "We're looking at a business plan that assumes a five- or six-year cycle for the Dreamcast," she said. "From the very beginning, we've made the Dreamcast so it could be upgraded, so that it can change as technology changes." Despite Sega's clarifications, this story gained legs, and the Internet blazed with messages heralding Sega's impending demise. Videogame websites igndc.com and computerandvideogames.com posted stories that Sega and Nintendo would be forming a joint venture -- with computerandvideogames.com proclaiming, "In a move that could seriously signal the end of the Dreamcast as a viable platform, Sega has confirmed an online venture with Nintendo." The normally sane, sober and highly reliable site had bought in to the hype, and was forced to admit it printed news based on a mistranslation; the supposed "joint" online venture between Sega and Nintendo was actually between Sega and Marigul Management, whose director had been linked to Nintendo in some peripheral way. There you have it, Sega says they are not developing for rival consoles. There shouldnt be any more argument about this. I suppose Daily Radar is the only website willing to admit they made a mistake, all of the others are trying to save face by claiming it to be fact and not rumor. Really though, Sega says its false, you cant really say Sega is wrong.
  • In 1995, following on the heals of the announcement that 3DO would put their hardware on a PC card, Sega struck a deal with nVidia. That deal lead to the inclusion of Sega Saturn controller ports on the Diamond Edge 3D card. The Edge 3D featured the NV1 chipset. The board shipped with some Saturn games that had been ported to the hardware (a supposedly easy task). No other games were ever ported, though.

    While the Edge 3D and the NV1 chipset are pretty much regarded as disasters, the chipset did have some interesting features--like hardware support for quadratic surfaces.

  • First of all, that story was called the next gaming gods. Second of all, I can see why you'd have a problem with Killcreek being there (it would be hard not to see that)... But Cliffy B? Why shouldn't he? I think a little game called Unreal Tournament warrants his inclusion on the list.
  • If you have dreamcast console games, then you probably have a dreamcast, and probably don't need a dc on a pci card, or at least sega is unlikely to think you will pay money for one.

    Anyways, could sega think they could scam consumers into picking up this card bundled with a few games on cd? plausibly.

    With the right deal, publishers could be bothered to distribute pc-cd versions of the better games as well.
  • Sega already made a PC adapter! It's called the VGA Box. Go to EB or whatever and pick up a third party VGA box (Sega's is overpriced) and hook your DC up to your VGA monitor and your PC's speakers, viola!

    Makes a lot more sense than making a PCI card and a GD-ROM for PC. And of course if Sega made a PC GD-ROM DC warez would be even more common than they already are.
  • I'm scared that there are going to make games that are more than what the dreamcast can handle. They better make sure that games are made for the dreamcast and not for pc. I like the fact that when you buy a console game, you are sure that it will work to it's fullest capabilities right out of the box as long as you have the console.
  • The reason this works is because the first part of the disc is in CD mode and the second part (after the gap with the sega copyright hologram) is in GD mode. The computer can read the first part fine but won't read past the gap.
  • Oh?
    What do YOU use a 1ghz thunderbird with 256mb ram and two 80gb hdd's for? MS Word?
    -since when did 'MTV' stand for Real World Television instead of MUSIC television?
  • A GDROM contains two sessions, a low density and a high density one (look at the disc) and your PC was reading the low density session. Sonic Adventure uses SegaOS, not WinCE. The game data resides in the second session, which is not accessible to standard CDROM drives without doing firmware hacks.
  • This PCI-card approach was also tried with the Sega Saturn i believe, but i don't think anyone actually bought the thing.
    This thing failed not only because of the reasons you mentioned, but also because you needed seperate ported versions of the games. You couldn't just find any old Saturn game and play it on your PC, even with the [Matrox, BTW] card installed.

    And with the rumors of Sega licensing off the DreamCast design, the possibility of this happening all over again isn't all that far-fetched.
  • They made that X-shaped demo box, and if worst comes to worst they can sell that thing for $500 below cost. It'll cancel out with the money falling out of the holes from Bill Gates' pocket.
  • Especially considering i'd get to use my ultra high resolution monitor, ultra high refresh rate monitor, instead of my icky 19 inch tv ^^
  • Amiga 2000 had a PC-on-a-card available that could run MS DOS and MS DOS programs faster than a 286.
  • If sega wants to stay in the game, then they are going to have to do something like this. Hopefully this isn't rumor.

  • The Fly In The Ointment - GD-ROM (Score:3)

    by BRock97 ( 17460 ) on Saturday November 04, 2000 @07:42AM (#649307) Homepage
    Yes, and since it is a rumor, it is posted on Slashdot. News for nerds indeed. And to think, the media is the GD-ROM format; completely NOT supported by a standard CD-ROM. I do wonder how they would get around this little problem, force the user to install a new CD drive along with the card? Hmmmmm, I don't think so......

    Bryan R.

  • Would that be 180 degrees? I think so! (Score:3)

    by seizer ( 16950 ) on Saturday November 04, 2000 @07:44AM (#649308) Homepage
    pretty much a total rumor with no evidence at all.

    What? Not at all like these TOTALLY un-rumorlike posts: Sega is getting out of hardware altogether [slashdot.org] and nothing to do with shift[ing] their focus to software development [slashdot.org]

    Good ole Slashdot. Where would I be without my rumours.

    --Remove SPAM from my address to mail me
  • This goes well with the rumors that sega is getting out of the HW business and will license its hardware tech to other people.

    ------
    http://207.168.234.207/
    Vinnland - A country of True Freedom.

  • How would this work? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    If it were to actually exist, wouldn't it be kind of difficult to pack all of that hardware onto a PCI card? I suppose we'd just have to wait until there's at least a 64 bit processor on the market ;> Besides the fact that there isn't any mainstream CDROM out there that can read a GDROM in totality yet (correct me if I'm wrong), so I would think that it'd probably come as part of a very expensive emulation package.
  • I was just talking to a friend last night about the feasability of putting a NES on a PCI card.

    if it uses a mmap'd framebuffer for graphics, i could probably manage to push the video data over the PCI bus and use DGA.

    has something like this been tried before?
  • ... that gave us those Gaming God trading cards, including Cliffy B. and "Killcreek"? If so, I take everything they say with a shaker of salt.
  • Why would I want to buy a proprietary piece of hardware my computer that has the lone usage of being able to? I can put a fast graphics card in my box instead and it will run all the games and at faster performance.

    Sega should dump hardware (like they are doing now) and JUST stick to software. Emulation is the way to go in my opinion versus hardware addon. Also, if Sega was smart, they would make their games easily portable to Windows, Linux and Mac. It's a much bigger market than those who have a proprietary piece of hardware.

    Peace.
  • Of course, Sega could switch back to a CD-ROM format. I've heard reports that pirated DC software, burnt to good ol' CD-ROM, run perfectly well on mod-chipped DCs. If Sega was actually going to produce these things, they're likely to switch to CD-ROM-- or bundle them with an external GD-ROM drive.
  • From what I've read, you can't even find a CD player that will read Dreamcast discs. Copyproof, readproof, futile for now. A PCI card would make no sense.

  • Re:The Fly In The Ointment - GD-ROM (Score:3)

    by SquadBoy ( 167263 ) on Saturday November 04, 2000 @07:46AM (#649316) Homepage Journal
    Yup total nonsense. Move along people nothing to see here. It does not make any sense at all. I mean one of the plus things to a console is that they *all* have the same hardware. Either this will be the same price as a dc and you will need a new drive for it or it would suck either way they are not going to do this it would be stupid.
  • I'd buy the card and the gd-rom.
    Networked Virtual On on my PC on a high res monitor... are you kidding me?!

    --
  • Even if CDs can't read GDroms, this thing could still exist, but just require developers to reburn their software to cd or dvd.

  • Re:The Fly In The Ointment - GD-ROM (Score:4)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 04, 2000 @08:57AM (#649319)
    That's minor. They could include an external drive that connects to the card, the drive hardware is already made.

    I'm not sure what to say about the rumor but there are legit reasons to do this. Firstly, HD has to be on the horizon for those businesses. Computers offer the resolution, the market, essentially everything you need but there is no risk. HD is a game of chicken, you're not going to buy a $2000 Sony XBR SD TV because HD is coming. You're not going to buy a $3500 HD TV because there isn't much content. It's a more pointed game for Nintendo, Sega and Sony because they can't field 2 or 3 dreamcasts with different software and different hardware and expect to do well, the whole idea is to create a standard platform. That is the primary strength of game boxes.. With something like this, a Sega or Sony could get in to HD space, start generating software and hardware and not take as big a risk.

    Next, this kind of hardware could be fairly cheap to make. It could be a PC on a card that uses PCI for power and nothing else. They could have a pass through video connector that allows you to plug the output of your NVIdia in to the dreamcast card which plugs in to your monitor and write some simple drivers to switch it on or off. The sega would be self contained, you could plug an external drive in, you could plug controllers in to the back of it. It would essentially mean taking the NTSC video out of the sega and putting in digital and then putting the dreamcast on a PCI card, very easy stuff to do. You get no PC benefits, like having a drive but you get an HD monitor, don't have to build qpsk or 8psk modules for the non-existent HD market and the hardware would probably be even cheaper to manufacture than a dream cast since there isn't any packaging. (plus, they have already made these cards as part of their development process...;) Then in 2 years you come out with Dreamcast HD and you already have a software base... That's the easy way.

    If they wanted to be ambitious they could use PC resources, which would involve more extensive hardware mods, slick software and possibly special PC requirements, I think it's more risky but there is probably a market for it. If they produced some killer games that only existed if you had a specific $150-$200 PCI card, I could see people buying them. People are already willing to spend hundreds of dollars on a "128MB GeForce mega quad giga ultra deluxe team edition comp" just to play game, a dreamcast is cheaper and has some pretty sweet games.

  • better article than pc gamer link (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    here is the ign article on the same thing from a couple of days ago. it has somewhat more stuff than the one paragraph pc gamer article that is going around at the moment, although nothing that really substantiates the rumour any further. http://dreamcast.ign.com/news/27172.html

  • Sega is getting what they need. (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    3d0 had a card like this and it did them no good. What sega needs is exactly what they're doing, quality games and networking ability. You'll see the ethernet adapter on jan 2. With games like Grandia II, Shenmue, Sonic Shuffle (from the mario party creators), Skies of Arcadia, and Jet Grind Radio (a cool skating game that involves escaping from the police nad tagging) they've not got much to worry about, except after xmas games. Which will be covered with games like Sonic Adventure 2. The only thing better Sega could've done was to release the broadband adapter a few months ago and start shipping xmas units with it by now.
  • I have one of these already its called a "TV tuner" really nifty it also supports nintendo 64 and playstation in fact come to think of it it supports every gaming console.
  • Maybe I'm wrong here, but didn't sega come out with something just like this for playing saturn games on your pc? Or maybe it was just a card that let you use saturn controllers.
  • > GDROMs have a special high density section in the center of the disk that is not readable in anything but a Sega GDRom drive.

    Just a little nitpicky point, but the track in the center is actually a normal CD track, and the outer track is the GD-Rom. This is why, on rips that are burned onto standard CDs, the video will sometimes skip - the stream is normally read off of the faster outside of the disc.
  • Sega makes an adaptor for the dreamcast that runs from your dreamcast straight to a vga monitor.
  • Sega would then go broke all sega gets paid for is the licenses on each of those games they dont make most of the games for there system.
  • As soon as the software hits the PC's it becomes much easier to crack, pirate and reverse engineer. And of course having two identical versions of the game on different media would seperate the market, everyone with a Dreamcast would be cut out of the Sega PC market unless they wanted to repurchase all their existing games on DVDs or CDs to play on their PC's.

    Good luck on convincing either developers or users. Definitly a hoax.
  • "It's a much bigger market than those who have a proprietary piece of hardware." WRONG! The PSX alone has sold around 80,000,000 units. Then we look at the N64 which has probably sold close to that many as well. Even if there are 500-600,000,000 PC users worldwide I would be very surprised if gamers accounted for more than at best 2-3% of the PC userbase.
  • About frekkin time!!! I have e-mailed Sony about this several times. there is absoutly no reason why you cannot have a Sega PCI Card. all you need is a pass through for the CDrom drive!
  • Sega already made a PC adapter! It's called the VGA Box.
    ...but you're still stuck with 640x480. With a souped up PCI card, it's possible to go a lot higher.
  • Creative Labs shipped a 3DO-system-on-a-card, but it only worked with a Creative Labs CD-ROM. The dependancy killed it; it just wasn't useful enough.
  • -1, Misuse of a semicolon.

    ---------///----------
    All generalizations are false.

  • Not trying to troll but...

    >Umm, the NES has 3.5 MHz processor. You should have no problem emulating it on a PC. Hell, you'd have no problem emulating that on >my TI83

    According to TICALC.ORG [ticalc.org] Inside a TI83 us A Z80 running at 6 MHz. After the overhead of emulation, I find it EXTREMELY unlikely that a TI83 could emulate a NES.

    Just my 2 MHz

  • Re:3DO Blaster (Score:3)

    by Fervent ( 178271 ) on Saturday November 04, 2000 @04:01PM (#649334)
    (It originally shipped for Windoze 3.1; I don't know if it ever got updated for Windoze 95.)

    Hmmm... FUD anyone? It's hard to believe a "professional" that refers to it as "Windoze".

    As a side note, I wish Slashdotters would get over the whole "M$" thing. It's purely childish. I'm a bigger FreeBSD fan, and I don't call it "Linsux".

  • Saturn games checked the ring text before allowing a program to boot, but surprisingly enough, Dreamcast does not. Thus, you can boot an unmodded DC from the second session of a standard run-of-the-mill CDR. (For now, at least. Sega has announced on the dcdev list that a CDR-disabled version of the DC will be pushed into production in a few months.)
  • The PC can already read Dreamcast GD-ROMs. One night, for the heck of it, I put my Sonic Adventure GD into my PC. On it were some .exe files (probably the game was made for WinCE), as well as a special folder which contained a nice selection of background images.
  • I'm rather surprised that this comments in this story seem seems to indicate that sega believes that you should buy a card, to play pirated games.

    Dont you think that Sega would be making a rather big mistake, creating a card where by you can only play pirated games, not the games that they sell.

    And you got upped to 3????

  • Huh? (Score:4)

    by SlashGeek ( 192010 ) <petebibbyjrNO@SPAMgmail.com> on Saturday November 04, 2000 @07:47AM (#649338)
    "Sega to develop Dreamcast PCI Card"

    (eight stories down.....)

    "What Will Happen to Sega?" "A reader writes "Sega is getting out of hardware altogether."

    So, wich one is it?

  • This has got to be a hoax. Read this [slashdot.org] post from earlier this week. I'm guessing that some user slapped himself together a web page and submitted it so Slashdot.
  • Of course, Sega could switch back to a CD-ROM format.

    It would be nice, but the only problem is that a majority of the games coming out use all of that 1.2 gig format. So, that would invalidate quite a few of the games available, and they would have to be re-pressed to span multiple discs. Take Shenmue, for example. 3 GD-ROM disks, all full. For this vaporware to work, it would have to be a pack in GD drive.

    Bryan R.
  • Actually, if you read the article it says that sega is going to license the hardware design to interested parties, ie they design the hardware, someone else builds it, which would fit with getting out of the hardware business.
  • Just to note that this is feasible at least with "normal" CD-ROMs.

    The 3DO (a great old 32-bit console) had its ISA equivalent for PC by Creative Labs, called 3DO Blaster.

    Pictures of the 3DO Blaster: http://members.tripod.com/~faberp/cl3dobl.htm

    --

  • Re:The Fly In The Ointment - GD-ROM (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Slashdot is waging a merciless FUD campaign against Sega, only because Taco wants to justify his $1000 eBay PS2 purchase. Take the power back!
  • Sounds like the same thing 3D0 attempted. How much will it cost? I can't see any benefit over the standard console (apart from the novelty factor). PC ports of DC titles have the potential of being not much more than recompilations. Let's hope the rumours stay just that.
  • Umm, the NES has 3.5 MHz processor. You should have no problem emulating it on a PC. Hell, you'd have no problem emulating that on my TI83!
  • We've already had the Stupid Patent Tricks Contest [slashdot.org], so why not a "Fool Slashdot" Contest? Readers could submit anything from previously posted articles (already a favorite pasttime!) to the ludicrous, or even just plain funny. First reader whose story is posted wins. I'm a student, so I'm broke and have no money for prizes, but the knowledge that you too can fool slashdot should be more than enough!
    Beat the crowd, sumbit [slashdot.org] your hoax now!
  • Jeezus. I was under the mistaken impression that the discs only held ~750-800 megs.
  • That wasn't my point, people are whining about spanning a dreamcast game across multiple CDs, why not just burn it to a DVD? I know that it's not the easiest thing to do at the moment, but I guess that this card isn't immediately available anyway.

    Wrighty.

  • Yes, a friend of mine had it; the games were still ports, though (and not particularly good ones, the framerate in virtua fighter was awful), but the controllers worked in a Saturn. I actually think it was an integrated video card and controller port.
    --
  • Sega have tried this before in association with Amstrad. You could buy a PC (486/Early Pentium?) with a Mega Drive built in (it was on the motherboard not a card I think). It didn't last very long but the Mega Drive was near the end of it's life cycle anyway.

  • Re:The Fly In The Ointment - GD-ROM (Score:3)

    by milkman1 ( 139222 ) on Saturday November 04, 2000 @08:01AM (#649361)
    How do you think people copy GD-ROMs? As far as I know, Sony doesn't make a special GD-ROM drive for PCs, nor would it likely be simple to attach a DC to a PC.

    The simple fact is that a standard PC CDROM drive is normally able to read CD with a capacity upto about 1.3 GB (Double Density CD) Just because few companies make CDs with capacities that high doesn't mean that they are impossible to make or read.

    The main reason that Sega chose a 1GB size for their media was so that the titles could not be simply copied to CDRs like happened to the Playstation. They also selected GD-ROM because industry standard CDROM hardware could be used with slighty better tolerances.

    I seriously doubt that any MultiRead DAE CDROM (one capable of reading CDRW and Digital Audio Extraction) would have any problem with a GDROM.

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