[IndyTheGreat]

I lost my old Dreamcast copy of Sonic Adventure a few years back, so I decided to buy another copy off of Amazon. The disc label looks normal (Sega All Stars disc) so I don't think it's a bootleg. But for some reason, there's some missing music on the disc! Speed Highway does not play any music, along with some other levels. The disc is only slightly scratched. Could it be from damage or did I get a bootleg or a faulty disc?

[Elston87]

From what I know, there's a for-sure way to tell if a copy is a bootleg, although it requires a bit of tinkering. Usually I would check the sample rate of the audio files on the disc, as that's what most bootleggers do to get the game to fit on a CD due to lack of space from imaging a GD-ROM; they reduce the sample rate to shrink the files on the disc.

Either that would be the case, or your disc is just an odd one out of the bunch. My old Dreamcast had reading errors to the point where games locked up or displayed the wrong content, almost like a self-induced CRC error.

This post has been edited by Elston87: 11 December 2014 - 09:35 PM

[GerbilSoft]

What color is the data side of the disc?

[Jaseman]

The underside should look like this.

if it just looks like a CD underside (no separate sections) it's a bootleg.

If all is well, then I'd imagine your GD-ROM reader on your Dreamcast is dead/dying, which happens over time.

[IndyTheGreat]

Thanks, Jaseman. My disc is legit, but how can I be sure that my GD-ROM reader is dying? All of my other games seem to work fine with no issues. I'll have to pick up another copy of Sonic Adventure in the future and see if that one works properly.

[Elston87]

IndyTheGreat, on 11 December 2014 - 11:46 PM, said:

My disc is legit, but how can I be sure that my GD-ROM reader is dying? All of my other games seem to work fine with no issues. I'll have to pick up another copy of Sonic Adventure in the future and see if that one works properly.

I would try other games that have audio streaming, like Crazy Taxi. From my experience, Dreamcasts with the 0 on the bottom have weird reading issues; my former unit was a 0; any game that had audio streaming like Crazy Taxi or Sonic Adventure (to an extent) would freeze periodically and sometimes return to the BIOS menu.

Then again it could be the disc for whatever reason; any Dreamcast I had disliked my current copy of Shenmue Disc 2; the disc is perfect, like new really, but it just wouldn't read at all...yet other games would.

I'd try another disc to be sure; also try other games that have audio streaming like Crazy Taxi and take notice of any pauses or skipping in the music that might happen.

[IndyTheGreat]

My Dreamcast actually has a 1 on the bottom! I'm going to pick up another copy of SA and I'll pick up Crazy Taxi too to see what's going on.

[Elratauru]

Well, my copy of Crazy Taxi used to do something similar when streaming data too fast, the textures would sometimes dissapear and I would end up driving on the nothingness of colission detection :v

And then my laser started dying though... but only happened with Crazy Taxi that kind of stuff.

[Chibisteven]

It could be your disc is scratched. Even light ones can affect the game.

It tries to play the ADX file but the drive has read issues it might even stutter like crazy and restart play back of the ADX file it has trouble reading, if it fails a certain amount of times before it could successfully restart the music it simply gives up and plays nothing after checking the table of contents. It will spin down the drive after a certain amount of failed retries of reading the table of contents, the level will play like normal because it's still loaded. If you die after the drive has failed, it may take a minute or two before the level restarts and comes back with messed up rainbow colors but may play like normal minus the music and any voices, sound effects will still function in a lot of cases or freezes completely with a black screen. If it has to load another section or cutscene the game locks up. Different Dreamcast games will have different behaviors due to damage to a disc or drive behavior, depending on how that game's engine works. This post describes what Sonic Adventure does in this case.

Any damage can render the game unplayable as well. You can get stuck in a cut scene and not get beyond that if it can't find the data. Compressed movie files will be skipped entirely or partly in some cases. Damage to the disc can cause the game to lock up as well as well as other issues such as missing level objects (you get an empty stage or missing / glitchy textures to name a few things that can happen).

The disc should always be spinning during normal play and the game should be functioning normally (unless you're doing so not intended by the developer). This indicates there is no drive or discs issues usually.

Cool trick: If you go to the sound test and play nothing for about 40 minutes or an hour the Dreamcast firmware will stop spinning the disc.

The disc is the same as the later standard packaging one, identified as title screen with water ripples version and can be identified by disc code as being the same and has many of the same bug fixes. There is no missing music in this version.

This post has been edited by Chibisteven: 14 December 2014 - 03:50 AM

[Elston87]

Chibisteven, on 14 December 2014 - 03:10 AM, said:

Cool trick: If you go to the sound test and play nothing for about 40 minutes or an hour the Dreamcast firmware will stop spinning the disc.

The disc is the same as the later standard packaging one, identified as title screen with water ripples version and can be identified by disc code as being the same and has many of the same bug fixes. There is no missing music in this version.

Hasn't that always been a feature of the Dreamcast? I remember leaving my system in the BIOS menu and popping in a game that I was about to play, having Auto Play turned off of course. I was busy at my desk until about 10 minutes later I hear the Dreamcast spin down completely. Then I finally launch the game and the Dreamcast spins back up to full speed instantly.

On that note, there are two versions of Sonic Adventure for the North American release? I never encountered any of the bugs you previously mentioned on my old Dreamcast unit; then again, it was the disc drive that was failing and the disc wasn't damaged, so who knows.

[ICEknight]

Elratauru, on 12 December 2014 - 12:01 PM, said:

Well, my copy of Crazy Taxi used to do something similar when streaming data too fast, the textures would sometimes dissapear and I would end up driving on the nothingness of colission detection :v

And then my laser started dying though... but only happened with Crazy Taxi that kind of stuff.

Something similar started happening with my copy of Crazy Taxi at some point... It hasn't worked correctly ever since while other games do, oddly enough.

Just like happens with my Wii and Smash Bros Brawl, but that's a more widely known problem. =|

[Woofmute]

My old copy of Jet Set Radio had a scratch that caused audio and level streaming issues, so I would get songs that looped a split second of the audio until they just stopped, and levels that would just end up as transparent areas with collision.

My oldest copy of Sonic Adventure ended up cracking. Before it actually cracked, I would get stuck in cutscenes such as the one with Gamma and Beta at the start of Gamma's story. Eggman got stuck saying "And the winner will serve aboard my sh-my sh-my sh-my sh-my sh-". The cutscene would not progress because of this.

Have you tried playing different songs in the sound test to see which others don't work, or if any do that looping thing when they fail to stream properly?

This post has been edited by Woofmute: 15 December 2014 - 06:12 PM

[Chibisteven]

Elston87, on 14 December 2014 - 12:40 PM, said:

Chibisteven, on 14 December 2014 - 03:10 AM, said:

Cool trick: If you go to the sound test and play nothing for about 40 minutes or an hour the Dreamcast firmware will stop spinning the disc.

The disc is the same as the later standard packaging one, identified as title screen with water ripples version and can be identified by disc code as being the same and has many of the same bug fixes. There is no missing music in this version.

Hasn't that always been a feature of the Dreamcast? I remember leaving my system in the BIOS menu and popping in a game that I was about to play, having Auto Play turned off of course. I was busy at my desk until about 10 minutes later I hear the Dreamcast spin down completely. Then I finally launch the game and the Dreamcast spins back up to full speed instantly.

On that note, there are two versions of Sonic Adventure for the North American release? I never encountered any of the bugs you previously mentioned on my old Dreamcast unit; then again, it was the disc drive that was failing and the disc wasn't damaged, so who knows.

There are 2 North American final versions.

First Version: Title screen has no ripples. Texture bug with Big in Super Sonic (Last Story). I can't remember what triggers it. (Standard Packaging Only)
Second Version: Title screen has ripples. Texture bug is fixed. (Standard Packaging and All Stars Packaging)

What I wrote above can affect all versions of Sonic Adventure for the Dreamcast. Some of that stuff describes complete and sudden failure of the drive's laser.

This post has been edited by Chibisteven: 14 December 2014 - 05:17 PM

[Strife]

Sharing my story here: Back when my brother and I got the game for the first time, our disc lasted about a year before something got damaged, and it completely scrambled the soundbank. Everything played the wrong sound. Collecting rings would produce some weird squeaky noise. Jumping on trampolines would plays Tails' "Yeah!" sound. Oddly, voice clips in cutscenes still played correctly.
The game also refused to save data and would either get stuck in Windy Valley in Sonic's story (where it would freeze after a certain point) or in Tails' adventure when he collects the Jet Anklets (where Tikal's explanation never shows up to advance the cutscene). We tried everything to clean it but eventually just bought another one. The old busted one is still around here somewhere.

This post has been edited by Strife: 14 December 2014 - 10:32 PM

[Lanzer]

Strife, on 14 December 2014 - 10:30 PM, said:

The old busted one is still around here somewhere.

You've gotta find that and share it via Youtube, it'll be a kick to see that scrambled-ness.