Rayman 2 in NullDC?

[MaslowK]

So I recently downloaded Rayman 2 The Great Escape from the Dreamcast section of this site, specifically this copy here. It came as a single archive containing multiple, and after extracting fully I got the full .cdi file. I downloaded the latest version of NullDC from their official website, and got this BIOS pack.

After some research I found I would need to rename a couple of the BIOS files, so I renamed "DC - BIOS.bin" and "DC - Flash.bin" to "dc_boot.bin" and "dc_flash.bin", respectively, allowing me to actually load the emulator. Next, I did File > Normal Boot and selected the Rayman .cdi file. It gives me the standard DC boot screen, has me set the clock, then drops me into the music player. Backing out of that and hitting Play gives me "Please insert game disc".

Is there maybe some crucial step I missed here, or maybe a different emulator I could be using? This is the first time I've ever done DC emulation as I own an actual Dreamcast, but just have no way of hooking it up right now.

[Zorlon]

Uh I will check it out myself it is possible it is just a cdi convert rather than a selfbooting disc image aka Mil-CD that needs a little more than converting to cdi

though both the rips I know of are Mil-CD

P.S. NullDC is not the best Dreamcast emulator, also the latest version is not on the official page as newer versions are provided as SVN code to be compiled, but I am sure I posted one of the more recent revisions

As for the best DC emu that would be demul but it requires higher end specs to run smoothly

EDIT

The latest official site compiled version is 1.0.4 r136 dated Aug 21, 2011

The source list can be found at https://code.google.com/p/nulldc/source/list it has a nice list of features and fixes done during the process

Looking at the source though the last revision is 1.0.4 r150 dated Mar 9, 2013 over a year newer and 14 revisions later

You can find a compiled 1.0.4 r150 at http://www.epforums.org/showthread.php?66669 thought I had posted it

EDIT

Looked at the disc image what I suspected is true this disc image only has a single sessions but Mil-CD's use at least two sessions to make the game boot

From the guides we have there is a small app to make a None booting image into a Mil-CD though you may need to first convert the disc image back to a bin+cue

http://www.epforums.org/showthread.php?23311

P.S. that is an old guide and I used CDRWIN back then but you can use whatever you want including ImgBurn + Daemon Tools or ISObuster directly, possibly even CDMage all software I mention does not need to e paid for example use ISObuster using the Free Functions only and Deamon Tools Lite is free for none commercial individuals, i.e. a company would be required to pay for it

I forgot to mention this but the method I linked will not work with most the games, it should with this one because it has not CDDA tracks aka sound tracks, but games with CDDA will not work with that method, plus there are better ways to rip DC games to Mil-CD but that can be complicated and best to source the files from GD dumps, but this is more effective for real console users, unless the original rip was a badly done one aka missing game data for example

P.S. I am sure that this game should actually have 1 CDDA track but it may just be part of the original structure and the CDDA track just not used in game

[MaslowK]

Alright, so I managed to successfully convert the .cdi to .bin/.cue format with DT and Imgburn. I went and downloaded your bin2boot package on your guide, but trying to use it gives me an error about it being a 16 bit application, and that it won't run at all on a 64 bit system. I have tried several different compatibility modes, but none seem to work. Are there any alternatives to using that package, aside from hunting down a 32 bit copy of Windows? I do have a laptop with 32 bit linux installed with WINE, so in the meantime I'm going to try that and see if it works.

EDIT: No dice running it in WINE, but the command line output says to try DOSBox, so I'll try that next.
EDIT2: nope.jpg ;/

[deadlegion]

This might be a stupid question but is there anything special about the DC version? Because there is a PC version of this game, it's over 10 years old too so no problem requesting it.

[MaslowK]

Not particularly no, aside from looking a lot better than the N64 version (which works fine otherwise). You do have a pretty good point though, getting the PC version might be easier overall. Still, after going through this much trouble to get the DC one working I figure I may as well follow through with it, if only as a learning exercise for future reference.

[Zorlon]

The Dreamcast is very much worth playing on plus there are a bunch of Dreamcast exclusive games on the system, though I like to use the real thing myself

[deadlegion]

Yeah I know real consoles are worth playing on but if emulation is a heap of messing around then why not try using the PC version if it's available?

[Zorlon]

Alright, so I managed to successfully convert the .cdi to .bin/.cue format with DT and Imgburn. I went and downloaded your bin2boot package on your guide, but trying to use it gives me an error about it being a 16 bit application, and that it won't run at all on a 64 bit system. I have tried several different compatibility modes, but none seem to work. Are there any alternatives to using that package, aside from hunting down a 32 bit copy of Windows? I do have a laptop with 32 bit linux installed with WINE, so in the meantime I'm going to try that and see if it works.

EDIT: No dice running it in WINE, but the command line output says to try DOSBox, so I'll try that next.
EDIT2: nope.jpg ;/

I forgot that it was out of date, let me see if I have a 32bit version

EDIT:- try the attached run it from a command prompt you want to use the data/data option

[MaslowK]

Alrighty, so I was able to run the new program you attached. Running it from a command line asked for a .iso instead of a .bin/.cue, so I went ahead and converted the original cdi file to .iso the same way as before. Using the -d flag for data/data I was able to convert the iso into a new .cdi, however I'm having the same issue with this new one, where it goes straight to the music player. One difference is that while the old cdi made the player say Track 1, the new one has it saying Track 2, not sure what that means exactly.

Some good news though, I discovered today that the actual workstations in my schools library get much better download speeds than my laptop on their wifi, so file sizes aren't especially prohibitive anymore. Can't exactly do torrents, but I'll probably check out the PS2 version of this game as well as stick up a request for the PC one.

[Zorlon]

I will upload a copy for you that I know work out the box

Might try MasJ again at some point I have a rather extensive collection of dreamcast games and they all work

I done this before but I don't think he understood what I was talking about

Download Links:
Links are hidden from guests. Please register to be able to view these links. I would grab that ASAP I did not secure the upload or anything, not enough time to mess on doing that

the nfo file is attached

but here is an important snip from it

=== ATTENTION: ===
You need to execute the "unpack.exe" before burning, it will unpack the .ecm file and create your
.cdi image.

[MaslowK]

Awesome, thanks for the upload! I'll download that at school tomorrow and give it a whirl.