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Downloads => Downloads => Sega Dreamcast => Topic started by: TuxTheWise on July 06, 2010, 02:17:32 AM
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The Nomad Soul
Dream Resurrection
Dream Resurrection or DCRES is a project maintained by TuxTheWise. The goal is making high quality releases with custom optimization techniques. Please always see readme files of each game, they always have important information.
(http://img816.imageshack.us/img816/3793/frontdt.th.jpg) (http://img816.imageshack.us/my.php?image=frontdt.jpg)(http://img824.imageshack.us/img824/7660/backsz.th.jpg) (http://img824.imageshack.us/my.php?image=backsz.jpg)(http://img684.imageshack.us/img684/716/screen1ee.th.jpg) (http://img684.imageshack.us/my.php?image=screen1ee.jpg)(http://img266.imageshack.us/img266/251/screen2u.th.jpg) (http://img266.imageshack.us/my.php?image=screen2u.jpg)
Review by IGN (http://dreamcast.ign.com/articles/163/163732p1.html)
Readme file:
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The Nomad Soul (PAL)
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Ripped: Multi-language; CDDA track (see notes); 2 videos (see notes).
Downsampled: Audio stereo -> Mono; Videos.
Source: GD dump.
=== ATTENTION: ===
You need to execute the "unpack.bat" before burning, it will unpack the .ecm file and create your
.cdi image.
If you need to apply any patch, do it in the unpacked .cdi file, not in the .ecm file.
==================
After months held as an impossible project, I'm proud to present The Nomad Soul, the same game
released in NTSC-U under the title of Omikron: The Nomad Soul.
== The "OMFG it's really important" information: ==
Before start playing, select "Mono" as Sound Type in Options menu. If you don't do that,
eventually the game will play the sound only on left speaker. It happens because of the stereo to
mono conversion, the game tends to ignore the "Mono/Stereo" flag in audio header even if it's
configured correctly.
== The important information: ==
Note that this PAL version will work fine in any region console.
Before start talking about things that no one wants to know as usual, let me talk about the
important part: the ripped stuff. The people that has been following DCRES project probably know
that I avoid rips at all costs, but this game was big as hell and the rips HAD to be done. First,
the CONCT320 video has been ripped. It's a big clip with a show of Bowie in its "Omikron's
character form" or something. I have no idea when it plays, probably in some part of the game or
as an extra feature. Second, the TRAILER video has been ripped. I also don't know when it plays
(or even if it plays). It was actually an optional rip that I had to do to keep a decent quality
on other videos. As usual, you won't lose any content because I INCLUDED BOTH OF THESE RIPPED
VIDEOS IN THE EXTRAS FOLDER OF THE PACK. The video is untouched and the audio was encoded in a
very high bitrate, so you'll get the same quality you'd get on the original GD. Again, it was
ripped from the game disc, but it can be watched on your PC. No harm done.
A CDDA track was ripped, there was no way to make it fit on the disc, even edited. As I haven't
finished the game, I'm not sure when (or even if) it plays. So if you get a big moment of silence
(like in credits screen or something) and you think "where the hell is the music?", that's the
reason. Please give me some feedback about it if you finish the game. Like the videos, the ripped
CDDA was also included the Extras folder of the pack as TRACK04.MP3, so you can listen to it on
your PC.
The last rip is multi-language. It's not a big deal since most people can read English nowadays (I
hope). The other language files have been linked to English, so everything should work fine
regardless the language configured on your DC Bios. This solution worked fine as far as I could
test it.
Summarizing: the rips were made very wisely and you won't lose any content in-game. It's still the
DCRES quality you're used to.
PAL users, this game will show 50/60hz selector screen on your consoles.
== The optional information: ==
This game uses a not-standard ADPCM format for audio, and I couldn't find anything compatible with
it. That was a huge problem. For my first tests of this game, I wrote a channel splitter for the
audio. It means that it could transform stereo audio in mono copying a single channel. Of course
this is not a reasonable solution for DCRES standards, but my goal at the time was testing the
workability of mono audio and find a beta tester to find out when the videos (that I was already
thinking about ripping) played. A couple of beta testers showed up and had access to this
preliminary version, but for a reason or another they just disappeared at some point. I was let by
myself as usual.
Several months later I found a post at xentax forums about this weird ADPCM format, and on it a
nice guy called Luigi posted a working decoder for it with source. With this source code in hands,
and some hours to waste, I could wrote my own ADPCM encoder. Then I could decode the audio,
transform it in real mono, and encode it back. That's what I've done. It was a lot of work, but
I'm very proud of the results. Note that I'll post all my tools and information in my blog later,
so check it out in case you're interested.
The developers also had problems with GD space because this is a really huge game, so they had to
use 22khz audio. So before you complain about audio quality, you should know that it's very
comparable to the original audio. The other releases around don't even have audio, do they?
Even making audio mono, the game was still too big to fit a CD-R. Fortunately there were ~60mb of
redundant files that I could re-link and (finally) make it fit.
An interesting characteric of this game is that it practically doesn't have loading times, most of
things are loaded on-the-fly. It's a good thing for gamers, but a really hell for optimization.
The good news is that I was able to optimize it a lot, it was a real miracle to find this nice
file order. Note that the little pauses during streaming is normal and unavoidable, and it also
happens with the original GD.
I read on internet that this game has a lot of glitches (probably it was another rushed title), so
don't blame me for them.
Well, that's all. Enjoy this epic release by your DCRES friend. It feels good to do things that no
one was able to do right in the past.
Features of my release:
- Full audio!
- Not corrupted files at all, it was made with GD dump files.
- Used custom DCRES optimization techniques. It means faster loadings and less Dreamcast reader
noise.
- Selfboot.
About the game:
- It has VGA Box support.
Other comments:
- "Extras" folder in the pack contains the extras files of the CD part of GD and the ripped stuff to
be played on your PC.
- Release comes with covers.
Download:
Total size: 376mb
http://www.sendspace.com/file/04jymh
http://www.sendspace.com/file/bqnm43
Files inside 7z archive:
[\]
< disc.cdi.ecm >
File Size: 715.659.927 bytes
< The Nomad Soul - DCRES.nfo >
File Size: 8.879 bytes
< The Nomad Soul - DCRES.sfv >
File Size: 660 bytes
< unecm.exe >
File Size: 7.680 bytes
< unpack.bat >
File Size: 451 bytes
[Covers\]
< Back.jpg >
File Size: 1.116.643 bytes
< Disc.jpg >
File Size: 718.177 bytes
< Front.jpg >
File Size: 1.047.049 bytes
[Extras\]
< 0GDTEX.BMP >
File Size: 196.662 bytes
< 0GDTEX.PNG >
File Size: 54.571 bytes
< BIBLIOGR.TXT >
File Size: 89 bytes
< CONCT320.MPG >
File Size: 77.195.268 bytes
< COPYRIGH.TXT >
File Size: 104 bytes
< JINGLE.MP3 >
File Size: 389.129 bytes
< OMIKRON.BMP >
File Size: 921.656 bytes
< TRACK02.MP3 >
File Size: 1.718.120 bytes
< TRACK04.MP3 >
File Size: 6.359.054 bytes
< TRAILER.MPG >
File Size: 21.645.316 bytes
[UNECM\]
< format.txt >
File Size: 6.353 bytes
< gpl.txt >
File Size: 18.349 bytes
< readme.txt >
File Size: 1.740 bytes
< unecm.c >
File Size: 10.643 bytes
Checking files:
Save the text below with .sfv extension and open with any SFV checker. I recommend RapidCRC.
nomad_dcres.7z.002 9F58F683
nomad_dcres.7z.001 51AFBAB2
Extracting files:
Use 7-zip. For unpacking the RAR files inside archive, you can use WinRAR.
Burning files:
Alcohol 120% probably can burn all extensions, but I recommend Disc Juggler for CDI files.
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This is a really great game, thanks!