Adding a GDEmu to the Sega Dreamcast

I don’t actually have many games for the Dreamcast. It was a console that passed me by, so I had to correct this.

Enter, they GDEmu – a device that emulates the GD-ROM drive in the Dreamcast (GD stands for Gigabyte Disc apparently. Who knew?). It allows you to copy the games that you totally already own onto a standard size SD card (you know, the big ones) and play them on your original Dreamcast. Great!

This device is pretty much a plug and play replacement for the disc drive already in the Dreamcast assuming you have the VA1 model, just rip that sucker out and put this in it’s place and you can play games. It is a beautiful thing.

However… I didn’t want my Dreamcast to look like it was missing any parts, so I needed to 3d print some parts. I used this bracket from user colingall on Thingiverse: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3362309

I also needed an SD card extension. The one I got was far too long, so I needed to cut the cable short and resolder it back together again.

After a “few” hours of printing I could start and waiting in for my SD extender I can begin. Remember, this is not intended as a guide. This is just what I did.

There’s 4 screws on the bottom of the Dreamcast, and one is hidden behind the network adapter

Get them all out, and you can take the top half off.

There’s more screws holding the disc drive in, get them out, then gently pull the disc drive up and out

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Now, onto the GDEmu and the 3D printed parts. There are four parts to the design I chose. The first is a spacer, that sits below the GDEmu board, a piece that holds the SD card adapter in place, a nice big button (with bonus Dreamcast logo), and finally the drive replacement part.

You will need to screw in the SD card adapter first, before putting the rest together. I used two of the screw that the disc drive was screwed in with to attach the board to the mount. The last one will be needed in a minute, so I found another screw in my box of bits

The next part is to put the disc drive replacement with the button on top of this. Push the SD card extension into the SD card slot now, and don’t do what I did and leave the button out!

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There are screw holes in the side of this part to attach the drive replacement to the spacer. You can probably get away without these, but I have screws spare, so it seemed like a good idea.

Once that is all together, put it in the console. There is a connector on the bottom of the board, that just slots in where the drive used to be. And that screw you had left over, now is the time to use it

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And now, put the top back on, put all the screws back in, and test it. I tested it with The Evil Dead, but you can choose your own game. Ash is completely optional.

And that’s it. The console looks relatively standard, and you can now play all the games.

All the games!