How to play pal version of Shenmue 2 on Dreamcast?

[BruceWayne911]

I cleared Shenmue 2 on XBOX years ago, but recently I decided to purchase the PAL version on Dreamcast. I know you need a special boot or converter disc to enable it on US dreamcast consoles. Anybody know where or how I can get one? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[Chaos]

viewtopic.php?f=4&t=48274

there's a link to codebreakers boot disc a few posts down

you should only need to burn the one if you're playing a legit copy

edit: and here's a little tutorial thats probably helpful for burning cdis
http://theisozone.com/tutorials/dreamca ... 012-style/

[shinobi47]

I like using codebreaker but there is a disc on eBay called cheats n codes that works well as a boot disk and costs about $3. I like to use that so it doesn't hurt my Dreamcast's laser.

[Superrayman3]

If you're gonna do region bypass for the DC, it's best to use a region bypass disc, that's what they're designed to do by default, so why would you bother with code discs?

Here's one of if not the best DC region bypass discs available, and BTW all code discs (official or otherwise) are merely CD-R's as well (which take advantage of the Mil-CD exploit) so you're really not gonna get much better performance with one of those compared to a disc you burn yourself:

http://theisozone.com/downloads/dreamca ... er-belokk/

[drunkensailor]

I cleared Shenmue 2 on XBOX years ago, but recently I decided to purchase the PAL version on Dreamcast. I know you need a special boot or converter disc to enable it on US dreamcast consoles. Anybody know where or how I can get one? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

will you play it on vga? might as well do it good teh first time you try

[Sappharad]

If you're gonna do region bypass for the DC, it's best to use a region bypass disc, that's what they're designed to do by default, so why would you bother with code discs?

Because you'd be able to use the Widescreen code, as well as the code to import your Shenmue 1 save without converting it first. Both products are capable of booting imports, so it really doesn't hurt anything to use a cheat device instead of a dedicated import loader. If no codes are enabled, it's effectively doing the same thing.

Here's one of if not the best DC region bypass discs available, and BTW all code discs (official or otherwise) are merely CD-R's as well (which take advantage of the Mil-CD exploit) so you're really not gonna get much better performance with one of those compared to a disc you burn yourself:

http://theisozone.com/downloads/dreamca ... er-belokk/

That is NOT true at all. Actual code (and import loader discs) were manufactured, standard CD-ROM's, just like most of the recently released Dreamcast games are. The comment above "so it doesn't hurt the Dreamcast's laser" definitely was aware of that fact. The quality of CD-R's can vary significantly from brand to brand, and some of them are harder for the Dreamcast to read than others. The fact that they're all MIL-CD's is true, but it for a mass-produced product like the region import and cheat device discs, it's cheaper and faster for them to press actual CD-ROM's which the drive can read as easily as any other normal disc.

If you've ever looked at the bottom of a CD-R after burning it, you'll see the area that you burned is lighter colored than the unburned area. This is where the data was written. With a lot of brands of CD-R recently, the difference between the burned and unburned area of the discs is harder to see than it was on CD-R's made 15 years ago. The drive can have a similar problem reading that actual data, so it may have to increase power to the laser to compensate. Of course, if you had good CD-R's this isn't really as much of a concern.

I think part of the problem is that over time, CD-R manufacturers wanted their discs to look more and more like real CD's, so they started making the backs of them lighter and lighter. I don't know for sure because I haven't done any tests or research on it, but I assume these ones became harder for older drives to read. I think the best spindle of CD-R's I ever had was a nice dark blue color on the bottom and when you burned them the area got significantly lighter. A few years later (early 2000's) I couldn't find any that nice anymore, even in the same brand. I never had problems with anything reading dark blue ones, but the lighter ones would sometimes have issues.

[zaneiken]

The BEST option is to have someone install a region-free BIOS in your Dreamcast. No more flapping around with boot discs, just pop in retail DC games from any region and play.

[shengoro86]

The BEST option is to have someone install a region-free BIOS in your Dreamcast. No more flapping around with boot discs, just pop in retail DC games from any region and play.

+1 to this. Japanese Cake's bios is awesome.

However. for disc based bypasses, I suggest Codebreaker as it'll force VGA on certain games that won't do it normally.