japanese-cake has been working on improving the Dreamcast’s BIOS through extra features. It is based on Link83’s previous BIOS hacks that disabled region checking and allowed the user to have the choice of using the Katana devkit intro instead of the retail one.
Current feature list:
- Checking of J/U/E region flags disabled (as in Link83’s BIOS)
- Choice of normal intro or devkit intro (as in Link83’s BIOS)
- Disable of VGA cable check, meaning games that support the VGA cable but don’t have the VGA flag set in their IP.BIN will now boot without an error message and won’t require you to plug/unplug cables
- No bootfile LBA checks for GD-ROMs; this allows easier editing/shrinking of GDI files for people with GDEMU hardware
- Displays bootROM version on the top right corner of the screen so that you know which version of the BIOS you’re running
- SEGA license screen skip; once the intro is finished displaying, the IP.BIN bootstrap code is executed silently without having to wait for the Sega license screen to display for 6 seconds before the game starts. Unfortunately, this breaks compatibility with bleem! until japanese-cake can fix it in a later build.
- No reset for MIL-CD boot; normally when inserting and launching a MIL-CD disc from the BIOS menu the system resets and displays the intro all over again; now it boots directly to game just like with GD-ROMs
- Disable VMU file protection; games that set no-copy flags on their game saves can be copied to other VMUs right from the BIOS now without third party utilities
- Fade-to-black upon boot; normally when launching a GD-ROM from the BIOS the Dreamcast fades to a white screen then cuts to black, now the game just fades straight to black
The new BIOS can be flashed through Dreamshell, but only if you have replaced your Dreamcast’s BIOS maskROM with a replacement flashROM or added a secondary flashROM.
Currently he is working on a newer version that is compatible with bleem!, but also would have the ability to bypass additional region checks that some games impose, as well as a software-reset button combination that would work with all games.
A short video demonstrating this new BIOS: