[DONE] Sega Dreamcast: Multi-Cue > GDI (Page 1 of 3)

Emulators, both software and Optical Drive Emulators that replace the disc drive in a real Dreamcast, do not currently support Redump's GDI dumps as the format was simply not designed to accomodate for the way we store our dumps. It's important that for our dumps to be useful, at all, that we store it in a more appropriate format that emulator developers will be willing to implement.

>I assume this new format would be just as accurate?

Yeah same data / track hashes, just easier for devs to access.

We'll be fundraising soon for the redump DC set, so "hey we can't use any of your dumps" seems like a pretty accurate criticism people might have, and emu devs won't be adding GDI support beyond what exists. With multi-cue and diplomacy, i'm sure we can get support added.

>So if data / track hashes stay the same, what's the problem with emu devs, can't they just generate the cues internally on the fly?

No incentive. They're happy with the TOSEC sets. This makes the Redump sets completely worthless / useless in all practical sense. GDI is an all around terrible decision. You may as well have asked "Why won't they wipe our asses?"

Add placeholder pregap lengths? Not seeing how that would be any worse.

Right now the Redump DC set is a problem. Emu devs won't touch it. This is a fault of the redump DC system and an issue that needs resolution.

IIRC this would also allow submission of unlicensed DC discs such as Action Replay / GameShark.

What's the benefit of that? 2 cue's are a nuisance. Can't we just have a single .cue with the HD area starting at Track 03?

That's just a technicality. If you create 2 different sets of dump files with different .cue and filenames, and 2 archives for a single disc, this will be a bigger issue than what we have now.

A single set, a single archive, just 2 cues.

Like, Official Sega Dreamcast Magazine Vol. 11 - February 2001 (USA).LD.cue with the tracks 1 and 2 and Official Sega Dreamcast Magazine Vol. 11 - February 2001 (USA).HD.cue with the tracks 3, 4 and 5. You can mount the LD to some virtual drive and work with it exactly like you would work with a normal GD inserted into a PC drive. Emu devs may support either running the HD cue only or some kind of auto-mounting the LD cue additionally when the HD cue is selected.

Could we decide with a poll which cue gets chosen?

And if 2 .cue's becomes the standard, the disc page should be modified to split the 2 areas?

Also, regardless of how many .cue's are chosen, we need to discuss the HD data track pregap. The sector address never starts at 02:00 IIRC, so there should be an INDEX, so that this track will load (and show contents) properly in tools like cdmage?

.rgdi can be optional, but cue is a more standard way, also lets you to use 'normal' tools to work with the LD area.

"Use TOSEC's system."

A possible single-cue file alternative:

REM SINGLE-DENSITY AREA
FILE "Official Sega Dreamcast Magazine Vol. 11 - February 2001 (USA) (Track 1).bin" BINARY
  TRACK 01 MODE1/2352
    INDEX 01 00:00:00
FILE "Official Sega Dreamcast Magazine Vol. 11 - February 2001 (USA) (Track 2).bin" BINARY
  TRACK 02 AUDIO
    INDEX 00 00:00:00
    INDEX 01 00:02:00
REM HIGH-DENSITY AREA
FILE "Official Sega Dreamcast Magazine Vol. 11 - February 2001 (USA) (Track 3).bin" BINARY
  TRACK 01 MODE1/2352
    INDEX 01 00:00:00
FILE "Official Sega Dreamcast Magazine Vol. 11 - February 2001 (USA) (Track 4).bin" BINARY
  TRACK 02 AUDIO
    INDEX 00 00:00:00
    INDEX 01 00:02:00
FILE "Official Sega Dreamcast Magazine Vol. 11 - February 2001 (USA) (Track 5).bin" BINARY
  TRACK 03 MODE1/2352
    INDEX 00 00:00:00
    INDEX 01 00:03:00