Which Dreamcast Games Are Downsampled

Post by **sithmaster113** » Sat Dec 23, 2006 9:24 pm

I have House of the Dead 2 for DC and it is a great game (only had it for about a year after finding it at my local gamecrazy) except i cant get past the bridge level. I mean i really cant get past it because the game locks up if i a)start that level or b)defeat the colloseum boss. So i was thinking of getting a backup to burn but i read that some games are downsampled to the point of being shall we say deformed.

can some please tell me which games are downsampled as to being without videos or music, i dont care for music being of lower quality but missing videos ruins the story, though being able to finish hotd2 would be nice regardless? thanks.

Post by **Mozgus** » Sat Dec 23, 2006 10:09 pm

I can tell you that HeadHunter has storyline FMVs removed, which was the reason why I didn't like the game much at first. I didnt like the pace of the story. Then I bought it and started seeing VITAL cutscenes that pieced everything together.

Anyways, a good place to start is here:

http://www.theisonews.com/

Do a search in the dreamcast section releases for the game. Most of the releases after the selfboot method was discovered, detailed any content removed or downsampled. A lot of the groups decided that wasn't noteworthy, and they didn't even mention it in their nfo's. But after mid-2000, the groups started taking things seriously, and began detailing everything.

Post by **Pullmyfinger** » Sat Dec 23, 2006 10:38 pm

If a game is very close to or over 700 mb it probably has something removed or downsampled.

Post by **sithmaster113** » Sat Dec 23, 2006 11:09 pm

Correct me if im wrong but wasnt headhunter a game that came with an iron maiden cd?

But i know it like mgs (the dc game not the iron maiden one)

Thanks looks like ive got some reading to do.

Question what does this nfo tell me? I want to say it is a 1:1 but not sure.
Cracker .......: RLS Date ......:
Supplier ......: Game Genre ....:
Packager ......: Image Format ..: CDI
Source ........: [x] CD [ ] DVD Origin ........: JAP-NTSC
File Name .....: CD Files ......: 01 x 20 MB (yes 01)

Post by **Mozgus** » Sun Dec 24, 2006 12:37 am

Pullmyfinger wrote:If a game is very close to or over 700 mb it probably has something removed or downsampled.

Not true at all. Dummy Files, my friend. Nearly every quality rip has a dummy file to push the game data to the outside of the disc, thus making nearly every game close to 700MB. Why is Ikaruga 16MB compressed and 700MB uncompressed? Dummy file.

Post by **Mozgus** » Sun Dec 24, 2006 12:41 am

sithmaster113 wrote:Correct me if im wrong but wasnt headhunter a game that came with an iron maiden cd?

But i know it like mgs (the dc game not the iron maiden one)

Thanks looks like ive got some reading to do.

Question what does this nfo tell me? I want to say it is a 1:1 but not sure.
Cracker .......: RLS Date ......:
Supplier ......: Game Genre ....:
Packager ......: Image Format ..: CDI
Source ........: [x] CD [ ] DVD Origin ........: JAP-NTSC
File Name .....: CD Files ......: 01 x 20 MB (yes 01)

It doesn't tell you jack. They usually say if anything was ripped within a "notes" section of the NFO. However since it's only 1 rar, I'm ganna go out on a limb and suspect that game is a full image, because no one removes THAT MUCH content to the point where the game will be that small in the end. The primary objective of downsampling DC games is to make them fit on a CD-R, not fit on a few floppy disks, lol. And....is it Ikaruga? lol.

Iron Maiden? I didn't hear about that. Seems odd. The game has no connections to metal music.

Post by **sithmaster113** » Sun Dec 24, 2006 6:41 pm

Yes it is ikaruga. always wanted to play that game.

I remember it being on the cover of one of their albums (i think it was maiden) but it was about zombies so i doubt it had anything to do with the dc game.

thank you sir. and merry christmas to you and heck to everyone.

Post by **grittykitty** » Mon Dec 25, 2006 3:47 am

headhunter for dreamcast is completely different from the iron maiden game (it came with one of their later albums, "the sucky years" should have been the title). anyway:

it's safe to assume most 3D games have been downsampled, big adventure games especially. jet grind radio had music monoized, vampire chronicle had the intro video downsampled, skies of arcadia had all the freakin data compressed and decompressed while you played the game (!!!). of course there's a ton more.

as for your house of the dead woes, i had a similar problem with phantasy star online v2 - it would lock up at certain points late in the game. most of the times burning the same image again would solve the problem, but it would end up freezing at another point instead. i think it's pretty much a crapshoot, but to improve your chances you should try to get the original rar files released by the release groups (echelon, kalisto, eurasia are my faves), and of course burn at the lowest speed with the best media you can get.