Troubleshooting Dreamcast CDI Reproduction Games

by segareplay.com | Jan 1, 2025 | Blog, Tutorials

In the Dreamcast retro scene, the console is unfortunately notorious for laser problems. While there are a variety of reasons behind this including simple age, the issue is fundamentally a consequence of economics. At the time of the console’s creation, Sega was deep in debt and was forced to use lower quality components than in previous consoles. As a result, finding consoles marked “powers on but won’t read discs” is an all to common site on places like eBay. Today we will discuss some simple hacks that will help many people get reproduction CDI games to play, and possibly fix a dead Dreamcast, too!

First, we must discuss compatibility. Winding back the clock, Dreamcast consoles first produced in 1999 had a serious flaw. Sega had made proprietary GD-ROM drives and corresponding disc format to help subvert piracy. This, had it been by itself, did indeed work well as designed. However, Sega had also made the Dreamcast able to play CD+G discs, a format once used for music videos and similar media. What the designers hadn’t counted on was the ingenuity of hackers. The console wasn’t even a year old when the first pirated copies of games began appearing using a format we now call, “CDI”. These games boot past the Dreamcast security by making the console think it is a CD+G disc, which in one sense it is, and then booting as a game once past the security check. While this helped usher in the early death of the console (amongst other factors), it would secure a second-life for the Dreamcast years later as it made the console open to new development by indie developers and access to retro games many would otherwise not be able to afford.

With every upside, there is a downside. For modern Dreamcast gamers playing burned games, there are two. First, the standard CD-ROM disc can only hold 700mb, whereas the GD-ROM discs could hold 1.2gb. This is why some reproduction games come on more discs than the original titles did. D2, for example, came on 4 GD-ROM discs commercially, whereas today, it comes on 7 discs when burned in the CDI format on CD-ROMs. This is the most extreme example, but it does help accentuate the point. Second, and most importantly for our purposes, GD-ROMs were “pressed” (like even modern games are produced) whereas modern CDI reproductions must be “burned”. The reason is simple; cost. A machine required to “press” discs is far beyond the reach of any small shop in this market, let alone the other technical aspects which would come along with this method. This is important as it takes less energy and/or tuning for a laser to read a pressed disc than it does to read a burned disc. This is why some Dreamcast can still play the original games but struggle to play burned games. Fortunately, there are ways around this.

Now before we move on to the fixes, we must address the elephant in the room; compatibility. The thing is, Sega did figure out what was going on before the end, and did issue a fix in the console bios that eliminated the CDI work-around in most Revision 2 consoles. Many sources online will tell you that only revisions 0 and 1 can play burned games. This is not correct. Some revision 2s will play CDIs (I have one of them myself). What is more important is the date of manufacture. Depending upon the source you go by, Sega began issuing the new bios in either September or October of 2000. What this means is that you need to flip over your console and look on the bottom for the date of manufacture. If your console was made on or before September 2000, you should be able to play reproductions. If it was made from October 2000 or later, you unfortunately cannot play burned CDIs and there is not a work-around for this.

SHORT-TERM HACKS

The simplest, but far from full-proof methods are as follows (consider these a bandaid):

1. Allow the console to run for approximately 10 minutes to warm up the laser.
2. Restart the “warm” console with the disc inside. If the game does not boot on its own, select “play” on the menu and press the “a” button.
3. If the games does not read, immediately restart the console and repeat the steps in #2. You may need to do this multiple times before the laser is able to “grab” the first track on the disc.

Alternative methods if buring the discs yourself:

1. Try burning the disc using different software. The three recommended for the Dreamcast are: Imgburn, Alcohol 120%, or Disc Juggler. If using either of these, be sure to search for a tutorial so you can be sure you are using the correct settings. You can’t just burn the disc using the standard method and must adjust some settings to get a game to work.
2. Try burning the disc on alternative CD-ROM brands. Several popular brands for reproductions are: Memorex, Verbatim, and Taiyo-Yuden (CMC Pro). Everyone seems to have different opinions on which is the best. Our advice: find discs manufactured in Taiwan or Japan as these are typically higher-quality. Most discs are manufactured in China and the vast majority of these are not good quality. A good rule to go by: if the disc is low cost, it’s low-quality. It is worth spending a little more as you’ll end up throwing out a lot of the cheaper ones due to bad burns so it comes out in the wash.

LONG-TERM FIXES

The simplest and most cost-effective method that has a good chance of working:

• Increase the power/intensity of the Dreamcast laser. To watch a tutorial on how to do this, visit our video we made here: https://youtu.be/OkYPahR_kAM?si=X1WGRMu79AHaCBbY

A full-proof but more costly method:

• Replace the laser. These are readily available and not too expensive to replace. You can do it yourself for somewhere around $50-80 or hire someone like Sega Replay to do it for you (we charge $100 for parts and labor plus shipping).

The best method but the most costly method:

• Replace your laser with a disc drive emulator known as a GDEMU. This is more time consuming and more expensive but makes collecting and playing on the Dreamcast far easier and affordable in the long run. With this, you can simply load the games you want on to an SD Card and play! No need for pesky lasers going bad! This will run you somewhere around $100-150 if you do it yourself (this includes the GDEMU, Mounting hardware, and SD Card). Again, you can also find someone like Sega Replay to do it for you or even buy these premade in our store or on places like eBay (be sure to look at the seller’s reviews before buying!).

In short, your likely culperit is your laser. If you are burning games yourself, check your methods/media unless you’ve been dong this successfully for a while in which case it’s probably your laser. If you are a consumer, ask your seller if they are testing every game on OEM hardware prior to shipping. Many shops only test the game image in an emulator or spot test games periodically. If they aren’t testing every game like we do at Sega Replay, then you could be getting a “bad burn”. However, most sellers are using the same methods/media which are pretty reliable. If you are experiencing these issues, my guess is it’s probably your laser.