Problems with Dreamshell

[Anonymouse]

I am having difficulties with Dreamshell.

My two problems are:
-not reading SD card
-screen not displaying correctly

I bought an SD card adaptor a year ago and tried it with dreamshell. It did not work so I assumed it was faulty, I then ordered an internal mod set and installed it today, but because I had no CD-R's I tested it with sturmwind. It worked. I tested the external ds card reader and it also worked. My problem is that whatever I do I can not get dreamshell to read an sd card. I have used several different types of sd cards and both types of sd readers. I have tested it with latest versions of dreamshell and the boot loader. Any suggestions?

My second problem is that 1/3 of the screen is missing from the top of the screen. I'm assuming it is a 50/60hz issue.


Any suggestions would be great.

[Anonymouse]

I think the card issue is with the brand of SD card. I will try a SanDisk. does anyone know if SDXC is compatible?

[Aleron Ives]

SDXC is usually listed as incompatible with everything, because it's formatted with Microsoft's proprietary exFAT filesystem by default. It might work if you reformat to FAT32, but there are no guarantees. You really shouldn't need more than a 32GB SDHC, anyway.

[Anonymouse]

Ive tried 2 SanDisk SD cards. Class 2 and 4. Both of them sometimes work then dont most of the time. Yet work fine with Sturmwind. Does anyone else have an issue like this?

[Aleron Ives]

Where did you get your SD card adapter? It sounds like it's faulty to me if so may cards don't work. I got mine on eBay, but it doesn't seem like anyone is selling them anymore. Did eBay ban them, or something?

[Anonymouse]

I cant remember where I bought the reader but I have an internal mod kit installed now. this one: https://translate.googleusercontent.com ... iQN9vUO0yA

Ill check the soldering again but im an electrical engineer so should be OK. I checked each trace with a magnifier and Multimeter when I first installed it.

If I do not have a card in the internal one I can still use the external reader. It works fine with sturmwind but not Dreamshell. I do not have another DC to test it with.

I have a look at the internal mod again.

[Anonymouse]

I have checked all the connections and soldering with a multimeter and I am very confidant that it is installed to a high standard.

What I have found though. If I fully format the SD card to fat 32 I can get it to work fine. But when I try to load something from the ISO loader it will hang on the loading screen then reboot. Then when I try try to load something again it does not see the card. But if I format the card, put the games back on and try again: it will see the SD card but fail to load.

I am going into town today so will buy ANOTHER SD card. SDHC class 10.

Sturmwind SD features work flawlessly with ANY SD card.

[Anonymouse]

Just tried it again. Same problem. I format the card. transfer the games then try to load a game. It then hangs on a black console screen. I cant see the error message as 1/3 of the bottom of the screen is missing off the bottom. I am yet to find a solution to this problem aswell.

Of the 2 dreamcast I have had I have had this problem with any of the software released by SWAT. Does anyone else get 1/3 of the screen missing?

[Aleron Ives]

If anything, I'd say you should be using a "bad" SD card, e.g. 4 GB class 4, and not a 32 GB class 10 card. Does your internal mod still use the serial port? It has a really slow transfer rate, so there's no way you can use the speed of a class 10 card. If the internal mod is somehow faster and enables SDHC's ultra high speed mode, maybe that's crashing the games, because some games require slow loading speeds and don't work right if you try to speed them up.

How are you formatting the card? Microsoft is pushing its proprietary exFAT filesystem, but you need to use FAT32. I'm not sure Windows 7 and newer will even let you format cards to FAT32. A lot of SD card makers have their own formatting software, so you could also try that.

[Anonymouse]

The internal mod is connected to the serial port.

Currently I have a 4gb SanDisk Class 2 card in it. I use it for sturmwind. All the extra SD card features work perfectly with any of the 5 SD cards I have tried so far. But none of them fully work with Dreamshell R2 or R3. They also dont work in the external reader.

I have ordered a 16GB SDHC Class 10 card. If that doesnt work then ive probably come to the end of my Dreamshell journey.