Dreamcast & Rare Treamcast System Review - Gamester81

[@bitMasque]

Couple corrections to make: - The dics used by the Dreamcast were not CD-ROMs; they were GD-ROMs, short for Gigabyte Discs. Unlike standard CDs which only held around 700 megabytes, GDs could store up to 1.2 gigabyte. - The memory cards with embedded screens were indeed called VMUs, but that stands for Visual Memory Unit (Visual Memory System in Japan), not Virtual Memory Unit. Screen-less memory cards were also available, but VMUs were more standard and offered more features. - The high pitched sound you hear when starting the system is actually emitted by a VMU and signifies that its battery is dead. That sound doesn't occur if all VMUs hooked up still hold a battery charge. Additionally, a Jump Pack (Puru Puru Pack in Japan) could be inserted into a memory card slot to add rumble feedback to the controller. It had pretty wide support, and I'm fairly confident that most if not all first-party SEGA games supported it.

[@AllCoolThingsStoneMountain]

I was wincing at that CD abuse at 3:12!

[@wikkawakkaman]

yup. made me cringe too

[@SuperDeluxe80]

dreamcast had a broadband adapter too. it ran off GD-ROM's not CD's

[@supermorph]

SuperDeluxe80 I remember the uk one had virgin.net as a provider also

[@pimphandgamester]

Still have my Dreamcast in box and about 30 games and a couple of VMU's.

[@pimphandgamester]

I don't care their worth. Never plan on selling any of my DC gear.

[@Gamester81]

@10disks Hey thanks for the catch and for letting me know.

[@Gamester81]

@Darro85 I believe I paid around $200 for the Treamcast when it came out. Now however it's selling for much more than that.

[@AndAbel-AOD]

Did not run on CD's. It ran on GD's which were a proprietary format just for the DC.

[@AndAbel-AOD]

Geoff Kilian WTF are you talking about? CD = Compact Disc, GD = Gigabyte Disc. The DC used Gigabyte Discs. Whats so hard to understand about that? I know you are trying to come up with a way that I'm wrong because you can't handle me correcting your friend here and or you are just a troll. Either way you should be ashamed of yourself for that nonsensical comment.

[@AndAbel-AOD]

Geoff Kilian Your original comment suggests you know nothing. GD is perfectly acceptable in describing a Dreamcast disc but CD is not. As I said previously, you are trying as hard as you can to find fault in what I said because you can't handle me correcting the uploader or your dumb ass. My original comment wasn't even rude and you doing research after the fact to try and appear as if you know something doesn't fly. PS. My avatar is a perfect response to your pointless hypocritical nonsense.

[@CYRRYANC97]

stupaod The discs the DC used (GD) were only 1GB but the DC could also read CD's (700MB). If you download/pirate a game for the DC to a CD then you would nottice some things would be missing like some sounds, levels to get down to the 700MB cd.

[@AndAbel-AOD]

CYRRYANC97 Only the earlier models could read video from a CD. The reason was because of discs released in Japan that had music accompanied with visuals for the Dreamcast. They changed them(at least in the US) so they could no longer boot visually from a CD. I don't know what the numbers are(how many are capable vs not) I just know I remember reading about the change before the DC died.

[@ryanmcpoyle997]

As soon as I heard him say CD instead of GD, I scrolled down to comment but then saw you already beat me to it.

[@Gamester81]

@AtariMaxx The phone jack was part of the modem that came with it. As far as I know, all North American systems came with it standard. I'm not sure how rare the "0" serial number is to be honest.

[@PeteDorr]

I would love to own a Treamcast someday, so rare and expensive now though. Great review!

[@frankynakamoto2308]

Dreamcast was a great system for it's time, they made the mistake of not being backwards compatible, but it was a good system.

[@droiduseruserdroid1731]

No, they made the mistake of being half a billion dollars in debt before the console was launched. The best they could do was use the dreamcast to improve their brand recognition so they could sell the company and IP to American Sammy. They were on borrowed time from the beginning. Most people don't know anything about this because Sega was lying to their shareholders and Okowa had to donate millions of dollars to Sega before he died just to keep the company going after the dreamcast was released. This system could never have had a future. Sega is just a name owned by Sammy now.

[@Gamester81]

@mrmusito You're right. Thanks for pointing that out.

[@dickensdumont9716]

Gamester81, I have to say you are the best at reviewing systems. This Dreamcast one was on point. I am a big fan of Dreamcast and considered the greatest system after PS2. Especially when u said 90-99 was an important era. It was because they were such big leaps in a short amount of years. I have a Dreamcast at my house. I got it at a store called Digital Press. I wonder where I can get games for cheap online. Anyway I had to comment on this. Keep up the great work my man!

[@zeyfuller]

Don't know if this was said, but the high-pitched noise was the VMU on the controller, its the start up sound and doesn't play when the battery isn't dead.

[@notyoursavior78]

Your rare system reviews are awesome. Great job!

[@AdamKoralik]

Great review John. There are a surprisingly high number of different Dreamcast models out there. I have a bunch, including almost all the accessories, and literally every game (legitimate copies). I've made videos on the systems and most of the accessories. Check them out if you're bored enough. Actually a bunch of them show up down in the recommended videos section of this video. Anyway, good job dude.

[@rich1051414]

I loved my dreamcast. The graphics were out of this world at the time, but what made me love it so much was... i do feel slightly bad about this, but there was virtually no copy protection for games. It was insanely easy to rent and copy games for this guy. I had almost every dreamcast game the local video store had, burnt onto cdr's.

[@gavinmarchon3516]

That high pitched noise when it boots up only activates when a VMU (Visual Memory Unit) is plugged into an active controller.

[@latuman]

The high pitched noise that sounds when you power up the system is an alarm that lets you know that your VMU has low battery.

[@Kos4Evr]

I was thinking that as well and while we are pointing that out may as well clarify that the G was in reference to the discs Gigabyte data capacity while cds of the time maxed out at 750 MB. Also worth pointing out is that while the modem was removable there was a broadband adapter sold for the system as well and a "rumblepack" similar to th N64.

[@SilverMongooseVideos]

I'm really liking the new editing, man. Looks great. Oh the Dreamcast. How I love thee and your silly noises.

[@cherubicwindigo]

OMG I just did a vlog about VMU's and now you're doing a review on the Dreamcast! Yay! I wish I still had one, they are so much fun! I had never heard of the Treamcast so thanks for the educational review!

[@elbryan42]

Great review John! A little info about the discs. The discs were actually GD-ROMs, where they can hold up to 1 (or is it 1.2?) gig, which is more than a cd. For copy protection, there was dead space on the disc between the first data track and the game itself, so you can't read the game on PCs. But people got past that by streaming the data from the Dreamcast through a cable. A boneheaded move on Sega's part to do software copy protection instead of hardware copy protection.

[@gemdog01]

Just a FYI: It's actually a GD-ROM. Around 1.2Gb. Same discs are used in the Sega Naomi Arcade cabinets. The copy protection was basically a second table-of-contents in a different location. Once that was found, piracy ran wild. If you look at the underside of a original disc, you'll see the physical break between the CD-Rom data and the GD-Rom data. You also get a audio warning if you put the GD-disc in a music-CD player, just like the Xbox1 gave you a video warning in a DVD-player.

[@tvandbeermakehomergo]

@gamster81 FYI: An Ethernet Attachment was made for the dreamcast, but only a very small run were made and because they came out torwards the end of the life of the console they are very rare

[@Gamester81]

@HappyConsoleGamer LOL dude pure coincidence that we both did a review over the DC. It's nice that we both have different review styles and discuss different things. =)

[@cmiley647]

It's hard to believe dreamcast came out in 1999 time goes to fast

[@videogameaficionado]

The Dreamcast. one of my favorite systems, a lot of arcade, fighting games, plasma sword, king of fighters, soul calibur, it ROCKS, nice review btw, keep up the good work.

[@marcrics]

I've been looking for one of these since this video. Still nothing haha

[@VazDraeStudios]

I love my Dreamcast alot. While at my cousins i was digging around in his cabinet below his TV, and the Dreamcast slid out when a pile of coards fell down. Then i eventually found its power and video cables, no controller. I asked if he wanted it, he said i could just have it, i was really excited. Now i have 4 controllers, several VMUs and tons of games for it... and i love it. I love my PS2 as well, i will not hate on PlayStation as I have all the PlayStation systems as well...

[@SpiritMoonrise]

@Jollysepp yes, the reason for that was the sega dumped the normal CD-ROM CRC information to do that, as far as I know to pitch size on the disc was the same as on a normal CD

[@andreo]

I lucked out and bought the broadband adapter for the Dreamcast. I think there was a limited run on the adapters. I remember following the release of the adapter very close and after lots of calls to Sega finally landed one. Also the VMU was wonderful for football. Also BTW, the system took "GD-Roms". I think it was supposed to hold up to one gig of data instead of 650MB.

[@dojix96]

That startup screen was so nostalgic. I'm in love with it.

[@toygod52]

Love the Dreamcast. Still play it all the time. Your reviews are great. Thanks.

[@DubrowMark]

FYI. I've taken my Treamcast to replace it's faulty clock battery. The Treamcast actually uses dreamcast motherboards and Drives. A mod chip is wired in to make it region free and the internal power suppy was removed and rewired to work with an external PSU.

[@chau2k5]

some trivia, retailed Dreamcast games are actually formatted on GD-Roms. GD-Roms are 1.2GB in size. Regular CD-roms are 700MB.

[@SproutyPottedPlant]

The blue swirl truly did make the system beautiful to look at here in the UK. The modem was 28 .8 Kbps on both the machines I had!

[@munkytaint666]

i always thought it was called a VMU because it stood for Visual Memory Unit, so named because of the display screen on the memory card. also, wasn't it a proprietary cd format, capable of holding slightly more info than a normal cd's 700+ Mb of data, up to 1Gb of information, and Sega called it the "gigadisc" or GD Roms, as a result. also, that loud, annoying beep on startup is an indicator that the battery in the VMU is dead. those batteries were shit and would die super fast, but if you put a good battery in it, you don't get that annoying beep on startup.

[@markinius8866]

I have a speculation on why the VMS was changed to VMU in the US. You see there was a Unix based OS called OpenVMS or Open Virtual Memory System. Since that was obviously copyrighted by either DEC or HP at the time so they have to change it to the VMU. So they won't have any lawsuits to DEC or HP.

[@DLC77]

@haventgotacam He mentioned it didn't have it's own battery, but did originally include a power cord for a car. I gotta say, I'm a Dreamcast fan but mostly only paid attention to the US launches and hardware, so I never got clued in on this one, so thanks a ton, Gamester81. You just earned yourself a subscriber. Moreover, the one thing that did seem to get a bit monotonous with the Dreamcast was the laser inside as it was scanning discs. If they'd improve that, I'd hunt a Treamcast down today!

[@louiseadvise]

@Gamester81 I remember that was a type of disc called shark that you loaded him and you were able to play play station games on dreamcast.

[@Vysethedetermined2]

Long time, no speak my friend. Great reviews and retrospectives as always :)

[@Gamester81]

@virusalert996 You're correct, thanks for the catch. I do this without a script and based on memory which sometimes I mess up. =)

[@Horzzo]

Nice review. I only recently picked up a Dreamcast and am trying to repair the drive on it. They sell for just $15 around here but it's always fun to tinker.

[@Wallcrawler]

Big fan of your reviews. Latest one I seen was the Treamcast/Dreamcast and it's pretty awesome. I'd been wondering when are you gonna do some new reviews? Because of you I picked up the Mega Ever Drive and the CMVS Analogue Interactive, now looking into the Retrode. I'd hoped you would have reviewed the RGB Nintendo from Analogue Interactive as well. If you're afraid KZbin will flag you just make a video on your website and I'll watch it there. Modest, friendly gamers are hard to come by these days, glad that you're one of them.

[@OldSchoolNYCGamer]

Great review John, I wish I had more games for this system which I'm working on at the moment.

[@mcmudkipp]

noticed also that the treamcast it makes the same sound as the normal dreamcast

[@storino03]

it made a loud beep on startup because if you insert a vmu without any working batteries, it beeps when the console powers on.

[@HappyConsoleGamer]

@thatguyontheright1 lol pure coincidence! But the machine deserves that much love! So hell yeah!

[@Denji2006]

Dreamcast was the ultimate and perfect Arcade to Console translation. Sadly, it was also it's gravestone. Arcades died and so did the Dreamcast in such close proximity. But for a time, it was awesome coming across a Capcom game in an arcade and knowing you were getting that exact version with it's Dreamcast release.

[@paspax]

The PAL modem was 33.6k & the Japanese modem was 28k. They were all removable as shown in the video. Treamcasts were made from new old stock Dreamcast parts. This is the first Treamcast I've seen in black, & the shape is a bit different from the others I've seen.

[@watcbd]

I saw this explained on, I believe, G4 icons Dreamcast. A lot of the engineers behind the Dreamcast left for Microsoft after the Dreamcast went down. So the fact that the controller looks similar was planned, it was designed by a lot of the same people.

[@NEScapades]

Shame this system was so short lived. By the time I bought mine and started getting into it, it was done. The Treamcast system is very cool. I had never seen that console before.

[@iphonemodder1]

I have the black sega sports dreamcast. I heard there was also a ethernet modem for it too. It can also boot homebrew games

[@QueenSoraMayako]

This just makes me cry on how short its life span was. It felt like I was in a dream..the games had a dreamy feel to it which made it so great :,D you will always live on in our gaming hearts dream cast...Dream on.

[@doublea32989]

That Treamcast looks Fun awesome! I'd like one of those

[@dallase1]

So is it just Dreamcast Hardware in a box that has a built in screen or did they reverse engineer a Dreamcast and make their own hardware? I noticed it had the screen where you have to set the date and time as if it had that annoying rechargeable battery for the system settings backup instead of the much better CR 2532 like the Saturn had which lasted years instead of months like the one in the Dreamcast. They got it backwards, they should have made the VMU with a rechargeable battery and the Dreamcast with the CR2532 and have the VMU Battery recharged whiles it is in the controller with an optional stand alone charger. The VMUs went through the batteries like crazy.

[@Gamester81]

@Vysethedetermined2 Hey thanks dude for watching.

[@AzumiRM]

As always, great and fair review. Keep em coming.

[@xen84]

My Dreamcast has a transparent blue case. But that's only because I bought said case at a used game store and swapped the guts from my standard white system into it. It's broken now, though. Not as a result of the swap, as I got years of use after that. The GD-ROM drive won't read anything anymore.

[@fordphoenix345]

that high pitched noise is actually the vmu starting up if the battery is dead

[@overcooler]

@10disks well, if it is called Gigabyte Disc, then it's obviously 1 GB, not 1.2 GB...

[@GameplayandTalk]

This is so cool. I really wish I snagged one while they were still available!

[@Ahalo1222]

The dreamcast didn't get discontinued in japan until 2006 and they still made games for it in japan up until then.

[@stellarbotosi2]

Always love the boot up screen. I remember my father playing tomb raider when i was real lil on the dreamcast. good memories on the dreamcast console.

[@rstanyan]

They couldn't use VMS because HP(then Compaq), has an operating system known as OpenVMS. It was originally known as VMS when it was released by DEC back in the 1970s.

[@reesercliff]

heh john the high pitched noise you hear during start up is actually not coming from your system but from your vmu because its battery is dead :P

[@Elburion]

Dreamcast gave me such good memories, Shenmue, Skies of Arcadia, Grandia 2, Power Stone, Jet Grind Radio, Soul Caliber, I love this system and would buy a dreamcast 2 just for Shenmue 3 if they ever made it. :(

[@DarrinsDen2023]

i believe the high pitched noise you get when you turn on the dreamcast is to alert you that your VMU batteries are low,

[@snazin]

Awesome video, always wanted to see a treamcast, dreamcast is still my favorite system

[@lentheuss]

There was a red Dreamcast as well. The special edition of Biohazard Code Veronica came with the red system. there were only like, 1800 of them made.

[@MoreDakka101]

That's pretty cool. I've never heard of a treamcast before today. Been thinking about getting a Dreamcast though. Found a place that is selling new systems still so it's tempting.

[@frazzl]

Also note that HK uses a 240v power supply unlike the US which uses 100 or 110 volts (can't remember which). The fact that you can play yours fine means that the adapter Play Asia has provided is compatible with the US power grid. Consumers who purchase their Treamcast elsewhere should double check that this is the case for their units. Anyway enough from me. Great vid!

[@aStrayforMyTime]

They also have a cable modem to replace the 56k one. Also the disk the dreamcast use 1gig cds (notice on the read side of the disk the 2 diff. type on burns). most game were under 1 gig so thats why you can burn most of them to 700mb

[@RetroGamerK91]

I always wanted a Sega Dreamcast, and I even started saving up my allowance money and mowed lawns to buy one back when I was ten. But by the time I had enough saved up to buy a Dreamcast, Sega had quit making the consoles. And ever since then, they've become rare around the parts I live. I've seen Dreamcast games, controllers, memory cards, but never no consoles. It's my most sought after game system, right up with there with the Sega Genesis, Turbo Duo (my aunt has one that I've been trying to

[@kennethbosquemarinmoved1078]

the cd was known as a gd rom and it has warnings about game data on track 1 on a cd player

[@bennyboyglos]

Love the Dreamcast..... Loveit so much i have 2 of them!! Great review as always my friend.

[@WASasquatch]

It does actually stand for "Virtual" as the system specs label them "Visual VMU" and "Non Visual VMU" As there was "Non Visual Virtual Memory Units". So Correction of the Correction. You have it right. But that is a "Visual VMU"

[@tenminutetokyo2643]

It was an awesome system back in the day. Underrated.

[@Vampire__Squid]

That wasn't possible with all games though. There were games that were over 900 MBs, sometimes 1100 MBs, so you had to take chunks on content out, to get it to fit on a CD-R.

[@Scopie33]

Yep great system, bought it shortly after launch and still have it. Lost count of how many people asking what it was and was it a PS2 even thought the PS2 wasn't out yet.

[@t0ko]

just curious as to why the default date on my dc is set to 9/9/1998? im assuming that was its date of construction. hmmm...

[@luggymayro3212]

I think it stands for visual memory unit not tryin to be nitpicky

[@CommodoreFan64]

@DisasterPiece0302 Yes I was going on Standard specs, also not too many burners will over burn correct, at least in my experiences, plus some players will not read over burned disc what so ever.

[@chucknorris687]

Could you imagine if they released a metal gear solid game for this? Possible something inbetween mgs1 and 2?

[@gold_lightning]

There's a rare version of the dreamcast made for the sonic 10th anniversary. It's blue and had sonic printed on it. There's also the most rare version of a mainstream console I've heard of, Sega made the last dreamcast off the production line in a gold color (the only one made like this) and has kept it to showcase their last console ever produced.

[@RockoJulian]

Hey Gamester81? Could you review the X-band for the Sega Genesis and Super Nintendo? I found it once when I used to work at a video game store and was always curious about it. I've found out about it and what it was online through videos on youtube, but I'd like to see your perspective about it. Thanks!

[@RonRose]

Love the Dreamcast. I have over 60 games for it. My favorites are Shenmue, KOF Dream Match '99, Quake 3, Code Veronica, and Jet Grind Radio. PSO took a huge chunk of my life, too. lol My system had gone kaput around 2005, but I bought another DC at Vintage Stock a few years ago. Dreamcast is still my favorite system.

[@TheSilverWolf1998]

I just had a great idea: you know how some gams used the memory cards screen for some games? they could use that for virtual console dreamcast games on wii u :)

[@markvergeer]

I was wondering about the build quality of this system. I did have the opportunity to obtain this twice for about 50 USD but passed on it both times but I didn't thrust the build quality. The Treamcast is supposed to be region free and I wonder how they did that. Did they use a different clone motherboard and a different bios? I wonder where they sourced their GD roms drives from.

[@hypersonic1337]

awesome review, Dreamcast is one of my favorites. good stuff as always

[@thedentist888]

I remember with the Treamcast first came out. I sat on that webpage thinking of ordering one for like 2 weeks. Now I regret not getting one. Thanks for the video though..

[@MrTwix202]

He's actually pretty much right. That's why lots of dreamcast games are being re-released on XBLA, Jet Grind Radio, Sonic Adventure and Crazy Taxi just to name a few.

[@RPKGameVids]

The red swirl has never looked right on the Dreamcast to me. Maybe it's because I'm so used to the blue one, but I think blue goes a lot more with Sega.

[@ERetroRGamer]

one of the best consoles ever, the best control ever, and the best and original memory card ever, great revew Gamester81

[@Gam3Broz]

I remember when the original xbox was discontinued in 2007, and in 2008 I was in a store, and they had a bunch of 360 games, and Madden 09 for the original xbox was sitting alone. It was pretty sad looking.

[@d3r2000]

in the uk we called it vmu as well, the biggest difference between us and uk dreamcast is the logo you have red we had blue

[@james42519]

always liked the dreamcast and i want to get a treamcast sometime. from what i know most games used the KallistiOS and there were a few that used the windows ce one of them being sega rally 2. i remember there being a remote in the dreamcast commercial in the commercial. they never sold it though. the black one is the 3rd one has the best screen i heard. they even had a wide screen one though don't know what games that were widescreen.

[@hollywoodhonk]

you really need your own show on G4 i would seriously live on it for real man

[@TornadoCreator]

What would you need to make the Treamcast run on the UK electrical system, do you need any step-up or step-down transformers or will just a standard USA to UK travel plug work?

[@aireCOMBO]

Ah the DC is one my favorite consoles, and still runs like a champ. That treamcast thing is awesome tho, region free and mini screen! Really nice man