** Restoring your Dreamcast analog ** 

Text of this tutorial was lost, but I still had the images. On the 
tutorial, I show you how to disassembly your old controller and grease 
the analog. Believe me, old controllers get much better! 

** How to Downsample SFD Files ** 

- I noticed the prediction formula doesn't work very well, mostly on too 
steady videos. The reason is that we assume the average bitrate is known 
and valid, but it's not really respected on these cases. A better way 
(that actually converges regardless the video), is using using two 
encoded results to predict the third. I don't remember how I used to do 
that, but it's basically toying with proportions. 

** Downsampling ADX files ** 

- Actually 32khz stereo seems to be the best option when you don't need 
much space. 

- You can calculate the bitrate for 32khz stereo ADX yourself, just make 
a proportion with the given values. Remember that mono uses half the 
bitrate of stereo. 

- I said that ADX is used on other consoles most commonly on Dreamcast 
ports. That's an innacurate assertion. 

- I never tried, but I think ffmpeg can also decode ADX with a good 
quality. 

- I made a script (included in this pack) that does part of this work, I 
recommend using it instead of ADXConverter.exe, mostly because loop 
detection is better. 

** Creating high quality bootable games from GD files ** 

- Although I said I would make a tutorial for WinCE games, I never did 
that. Cracking this binary is easy though, just use bincon.exe on the 
main binary (included on this pack), and make sure the "WinCE" flag on 
your IP.BIN is unchecked on IPBIN4WIN. Or checked? I don't remember. 
Just make sure it's the opposite of the one original IP.BIN is :) 

- I never made a tutorial for CDDA games either. Making it short here, 
you'll have to crack your main binary (and others for some games) using 
cdda.exe (included on this pack). Now for burning part, for "Echelon's 
format" (audio/data), just replace the first filler track for the audio 
tracks. Track04 on GD will go as Track01 on CD, Track05 as Track02 and 
so on. 

- WARN_ENG.DA (and pretty much every single file with .DA extension on 
data files) is the raw CDDA warning track. It can be deleted. 

- There is no region protection for MIL-CD. VGA-Box support flag is used 
though. 

- Example of game that won't work correctly with VGA even if you mark 
the flag: Dino Crisis. 

- The hacking made on games binary is related with the LBA of the start 
of second session of the disc. 

- dahack.exe works fine. The only game I saw where it doesn't work 
correctly is Confidential Mission - it replaces a certain 4-byte set not 
related with the protection because it matches 5E B0 00 00. 

- The magic value 709505384 is not the perfect number. There is no 
perfect number since a lot of things change ISO size. This works well 
though, I remember getting 30 seconds top of difference between the 
80min target. 

- The statement "But you should use file order of GD" is false for 
general case. Games that has some kind of organization in file order are 
rare, and a great part of optimizating a game is setting it up properly. 

- I include listorganizer.au3 somewhere on this pack since I mention it 
here, but I'm pretty sure it was deprecated by other script (check the 
folder where listorganizer.au3 is in). Please compare the scripts and 
take your own conclusions about the differences. 

- If you want to change file order of your filelist, please refer to the 
other scripts included on this pack, they'll make your life much easier. 

- The recording process is almost the same of Echelon's selfboot 
tutorial, but in more detail. 

- If you get the "files may not fit on CD" warning, you can always try 
to let it overburn, so you can check in some program (e.g. Disc Juggler) 
how many minutes are recorded on the disc. If you get something like 
80:15, it means you overburnt 15 seconds on the disc. Making a 80min. 

- 700mb proportion, you can check how much data you need to take out of 
dummy. Or overburn will just fail and you know the amount of data is way 
too much :) 

- "...a game once that booted fine on NullDC but froze on main screen on 
real Dreamcast" = Sonic Shuffle after I hacked it wrong. 

- Optimization is something potentially very complicated. Dummying is an 
important thing to do when possible, but real optimization demands 
re-arrangement of file order of the game, and downsampling things if 
necessary in a proper way. There is no general method, and you need to 
investigate and test the game you're working on.