Official Rhea Discussion

I wanted to get a Rhea Discussion going so we can be on top of news and updates. Right now I know some stuff is getting dumped into the HD Loader topic.

Everybody that owns a rhea right now is on lookout for a menu system. Does anybody know if this menu is even possible. I'm not sure how the hardware is differs from the GDEMU to the RHEA. Is it even possible to send commands to the RHEA in the hardware and/or firmware's current state?

 

I know of two ideas for a menu system.
One of them, mentioned by someone at system-16, is to embed a cd+g picture in the subcodes of the first data track. This wouldn't function as a menu per se, but it would display a graphic as you play the audio track, enough to identify the game. This would be difficult to implement because you would first need to convert input graphics into cd+g format, then split into subcodes, and then parse the entire game image and correctly edit the subcodes (problematic due to multiple different cd image formats need to be supported, and you need to preserve whatever subcode data is already there). Also, it only works with games that have an audio track, although all but one official games did come with at least 1 audio track.

The other idea is a bit more complex and would require firmware support. The idea is to create a loader running on the Saturn, that would have a specific string in the header (a special serial, or game name, etc). This is a very basic app and all it does is read the game header of the current disc (the first sector of the cd image) - which is, at this point, still the header of the program itself. This sectors does store the name of the game, its serial, region, etc.
The trick is that, if Rhea detects this specific string that we identify this loader app with, then it will behave differently to certain CD commands the Saturn sends to the drive. For example, if the Saturn sends a command to the drive to skip a track forward, that would be interpreted by Rhea to move forward by one folder. The application running on the Saturn would then wait 1 second and re-read the game header, and you could see the info of the game in the new folder. And selecting a game would work by resetting the console (you can force a soft reset from the controller - A+B+C+Start, or perhaps find some other way to do it).
Once the system resets, the only change stored is whatever folder was selected in Rhea. This way we can at least rig up the hardware button on the PCB itself to function from the controller. It would be rudimentary - you could not see all folders, or filenames, etc, only skip discs forward/backward - but it would be enough so you can run everything from a controller.

The main difficulty would be that someone has to write the software.

 

I did some work on this a few months ago before I had a Rhea/Saturn, its fully functional but there's no way yet to communicate with the device. I've talked with Deunan about a possible work-around to do it, so there's at least a theory on how to do it. Although I'm not sure if he has had time to do some work on it yet, so there's no news on that front for the moment...

I've recently picked it up again, as there's a few things I want to do while waiting for a solution to interface with the device, like improve the visuals, add some extra functionality, work out some issues with resolutions etc...

Anyway here's a screen-shot of how it looked back then, just a very basic PoC. The game list is created with a script that scans the SD card for the game's meta information and builds the menu disc image, but it also works as a stand alone by just cycling through the disc images with the button to build the list up.

 

Is there a way to access rhea's SD card via SH2 ?

 

Just wanted to tell about the same thing as this guy here :
http://assemblergames.com/l/threads/official-deunans-gdemu-thread.57247/#post-821569
i think you should have left the "Official" term for the designer of Rhea himself, un less he asked you to open and manage this thread.
Anyway, it's a good idea, like the GDEmu thread. It was too difficult to find usefull informations in the "Let's make GDROM emulation happen" thread; Too many posts

 

I just receive mine, is it compatible with .cue/.bin image?

I found:

"IMPORTANT: Images based on CUE sheets are not supported."

 

When you say your Rhea menu is fully functional but can't communicate with the device I'm assuming you mean it populates the list fine, but you can't control Rhea with the Saturn controller.

However, at its current state could the menu load, we select our game using the button on the Rhea itself, your menu show which game is currently selected, Then press a button on the controller to reboot the Saturn to load the selected game?

If so, I know it's not an ideal end result but in the meantime it'd be nice to have a beta/alpha version that would do that. If you've got 50 games on the SD card, you're trying to get to game 37, then get distracted and forgot how many times you pressed the Rhea button after 25 or so times.....that could get annoying

 

It's best to convert cue/bin to CDI images, this will work as long as the dumps you are using are good (there is a lot of crap floating around).
Mount them using Demon Tools and use Discjuggler to create a CDI image using the following options:
Scan gaps/indexes
R-W (CD+G)
PQ
RAW read

I've had a 100% success rate using this method for now, your results may vary.

 

Wait? You could easily burn Sega Saturn games in .cdi format?! i'd never knew that was possible

 

CDI is simply a CD image format created by the makers of Discjuggler, why shouldn't you be able to?
(it is not in any way specific to the dreamcast and this wont make saturn games run on dreamcast)

In this case i suggested converting the image to CDI because the Rhea disc drive emulator is not compatible with cue/bin images,
burning anything to disc was never implied.

 

And just using a .ISO?

 

https://gdemu.wordpress.com/details/rhea-details/

Check this site to see what formats Rhea is compatible with.

 

What is the most accurate/complete image format for archiving Saturn games (Image size is not an issue) that is also compatible with Rhea?

 

cdi

 

CDI and CloneCD.

CloneCD benefits from backwards compatibility with bin/cue, to a degree.

 

thanks for your help.

 

someone succes to run rhea with Action Pro replay with 4MB ram game needed?
When I launch Marvel vs Street fighter for example, game run but when I push start for run game black screen.
With 4MB capcom classic cartridge run.
Action Pro Replay needed for memory card and Ram catridge.

Action Pro Repaly is very good hardware run better than 4MB ram classic and is the very good Memory card.

 

Tested D&D Collection Disc 2(required 4MB) Metal Slug(1MB) KOF97(1MB) on Rhea with EMS ARP successfully.
And one of my friend reported to me that Capcom Classic Cartridge failed to work with Metal Slug on the same Saturn console.So it seems CCC has compatible problem maybe.

 

It seems a randomly issues according to the catridge: I test it with two new Action Pro Replay Plus.

With the first Dungeons and Dragons Collection disc 2 run well, and Street Fighter Zero 3 boot but with graphics glitch then crash.

With the second APRP I test KOF 96, SFZ3, Marve vs SF, Xmen vs SF and Metal Slug and this game run well.

In both case when I click on button to reset and back in Saturn Menu black screen....

 

It sounds mostly caused by your cartridge slot.Try clean it.This problem is very common.