Quick question about DC region lockout...

[Peyn]

Is the DC region locked-out?

 

[ExCyber]

Is the DC region locked-out?

Region lockout is present, but a disc can have multiple regions (or all regions) enabled. Usually, licensed games only support one region and homebrew games support all regions.

 

[Peyn]

Okay, so if I wanted to get a Dreamcast that played American games and a load of Japanese shmups, what should I do? I wouldn't be playing burned games either.

 

[dibz]

There are multiple ways to play imports (originals, not copies). These range from modifying your dreamcast hardware or just using boot discs like Utopia or commercial boot discs like DC-X.

 

[Peyn]

As far as modifying the DC with a mod chip, which mod chip do you recommend?

 

[dibz]

I haven't used one of the DC mod-chips myself. You might want to look into this though:

http://www.lyris-lite.net/fu_archives/000601.html

 

[Amon]

DC mod chips are hard to come buy, very few stores online have them some of which are very sketchy. I am getting one in the mail and hopefully it will work. I have a lot of imports for my dreamcast and I am getting fed up with using a boot disk to boot them up. Mod chips only work when turning the dreamcast on. So if you want to switch games while the dreamcast is on you will have to use a boot disk or turn off the dreamcast. A lot of people have suggested I just use backups/copies of the games I want to play with the region changed however all copies for the dreamcast are reduced quality.

 

[Curlypaul]

Soooooo, if I'm playing an import thats on 2 disks, will I have to save and then reboot the DC with the 2nd game disk?

 

[Peyn]

I haven't used one of the DC mod-chips myself. You might want to look into this though:

http://www.lyris-lite.net/fu_archives/000601.html

Yeah, that just looks like a mod to permanently change the region of the system, which isn't what I want to do. But yeah, let me know if that mod chip works out for you.

 

[Morden]

In other words, there's no real difference between a modchip and booting the game from a disc. Even though not all games will boot from the Utopia disc [Sega Extreme Sports for one], there are other discs that should work fine.


The Game Shark / Action Replay discs work aswell. If you set the boot mode to NTSC, the program will prompt you to change the disc and the system will reboot. The DreamCast logo will now appear red.


I'm not so sure if installing a modchip is worth the trouble, if it works like you've described it [patching region only at first boot, and doesn't work on multidisc games].