Saturn devollopers CD-R

[Dr.Wily]

How Saturn game dev make theirs pre release of game ? Special CD-R like RVT-R ? Special burners ?

[retro]

CD-R. Nothing special about it (although yes, primarily Sega branded CD-R and modified BIOS on the Yamaha writer). You still needed the boot CD to load it past the protection.

[Dr.Wily]

Precisely, the protection. Yamaha writer can burn the protection ring of Saturn CD.

Developers did they must have to swap between boot CD and CD-R game ?

[dj898]

Dev system came with the system disc so all you have to do is boot with the system disc and swap with the CD-R...

[retro]

Nothing burns the Saturn track, and nothing ever will. Making a homebrew CD to boot on an unmodified retail Saturn with no swapping is impossible.

[Dr.Wily]

Hum, hum, but how is write this track ?

[retro]

Which track are you talking about?

If you mean the Saturn protection ring, forget it. You will never be able to forge that.

The original method of writing CD-Rs was to use the JVC VCD card, Yamaha burner with modified BIOS and the segacdw tool. The Mirage, on the other hand, had writing support built into its firmware.

The disc complies to Semi CD-ROM XA standard (as well as Red Book and Yellow Book). Don't use multisession. Start LSN is 2 seconds, end LSN 63 mins.

There's a lil useless info on the disc standard for ya ;-) The Sega Disc Format Standards Specification Sheet has more info.

[dj898]

if you are interested in the security ring have a look at this forum...

link (http://club.cdfreaks.com/showthread.php?t=59813)

[Dr.Wily]

Oh thank. I already know this thread. Boot CD is a crazy method for developers to test thiers program. It's not very reliable. Someone can dump special Yamaha firmware from Saturn devkit ?

[hl718]

Me thinks you don't have that much experience with game dev if you think that using a boot CD is "unreliable." ;)

The System Disc method used by Sega was actually very efficient, easy to use and quite reliable, I really wish other companies would have used it.

And retro is correct. The Yamaha writer won't burn the security track. It'll just burn game data to the disc -- exactly like any other CD-R writer.

-hl718

[Dr.Wily]

The System Disc method used by Sega was actually very efficient, easy to use and quite reliable, I really wish other companies would have used it.
Huumm... and Sony with PS1 devkit ? It don't need any boot CD ? :noooo:



The Yamaha writer won't burn the security track. It'll just burn game data to the disc -- exactly like any other CD-R writer.


OK. So, why make special CD-R writer, with specific BIOS for only write normal CD ? Sega's guys have time to waste ? (no irony, just a question)

[dj898]

I believe when the game is gold the publisher sent the master to Sega and it's pressed into the especial disc that had the security ring already on it...

I've gotten SEGA Branded CD-R master but from what I was told it's just plain old CD-R with no security ring on it...

for the use of boot disc, guess different companies do thing differently.
Sega also used the boot disc with the Dreamcast so maybe Sega preferred the usage of boot disc whereas SONY simply disabled the media/region checking for the dev testing purpose...

[retro]

It was a cheap method. Those Playstations were probably even more than a retail unit. Sega's method was useable on a standard retail unit. Therefore, you could (in theory) buy ONE disc and use it on 20 consoles.

There was the dongle protection on Playstation, too. I think it was used mainly to give out demos? The game came on CD, but you needed the memory card dongle to play it.

[ConsoleFun]

Dr. Wily,

AFAIK the 1st generation Target Box developer Saturns have a different ROM BIOS and don't require the system disc. Check out page 5:
http://www.antime.org/sega/files/ST-079B-R3-011895.pdf.bz2

All other developer Saturns need the system disc to officially support CD-Rs. The system discs are very easy to use:
http://assemblergames.com/forums/showpost.php?p=164120&postcount=11

Could special CD-Writer firmware make it possible to burn the security ring? That *might* very well be possible. Check out Pinchy's thread:
http://forums.segaxtreme.net/showthread.php?t=14769

CF

[Druid II]

Nothing burns the Saturn track, and nothing ever will. Making a homebrew CD to boot on an unmodified retail Saturn with no swapping is impossible.
For now.

[retro]

No, forever. PHYSICALLY impossible. Trust me.

[ConsoleFun]

No, forever. PHYSICALLY impossible. Trust me.
Stupid question: Why do you think it is physically impossible?

I'm sure you're right, since so many have tried. But I don't see any i.e. ATIP type protection, and Pinchy's half working CD makes me think it might be possible with custom firmware.

CF

[hl718]

Why a system with a special BIOS?

You have to remember, back then pretty much all CD-R drives had a "special" BIOS. CD-R was NOT common and you couldn't just assume that a given mastering program would work with a given drive.

The "required" drive was simply one that would work with the development tools.

Today CD-R drives are commodity and a dime a dozen. Burning programs pretty much support any old drive. Back then it was way different.

As for the discs, no none of the Saturn CD-Rs can boot by themselves in a retail machine. Trust me, I've got a stack of the things here. They all need System Disc CDs.

-hl718

[ConsoleFun]

Hey hl718,

I agree with everything you just wrote :-)

If it is my previous post you're replying to, I am not talking about the Yamaha writer firmware, or any other official firmware.

But could a Saturn CD be copied onto a CD-R in theory? Or is there information used in the protection that can't be copied, such as ATIP information and such? I don't know. Therefore it is hard for me to says if it is possible to copy a Saturn CD with a custom CD-R writer. Is the protection at frame level, EFM level or just simply "out of band"?

I find it very interested that Pinchy can most of a Saturn CD onto a CD-R, and that his custom modchip just has to patch 1 byte on the cd-to-motherboard communication channel for the CD-R to boot....

CF

[retro]

A Saturn CD can be copied, sure. You'd need a boot CD or chipped Saturn to run it, though (or do the swap trick).

Saturn CDs have a special "track" on the othside for copy protection. The Saturn checks that before booting the game. This track is not, and cannot be written in a standard CD Writer. It is more like a barcode. To copy it, you would have to physically analyze the track, work out how to reproduce it, and then manufacture your own CDs WITH a perfect copy of this track. The cost would be immense. Oh, and Sega would probably sue you!

How do I know? Well, common sense! That, and I've seen internal documentation from the original designers ;-)

[ConsoleFun]

A Saturn CD can be copied, sure. You'd need a boot CD or chipped Saturn to run it, though (or do the swap trick).
Sure


Saturn CDs have a special "track" on the othside for copy protection. The Saturn checks that before booting the game. This track is not, and cannot be written in a standard CD Writer.
Sure


It is more like a barcode. To copy it, you would have to physically analyze the track, work out how to reproduce it, and then manufacture your own CDs WITH a perfect copy of this track.
Yeah, you are probably right. My understanding, based on how I understand RPS' and Pinchy's posts:

The special "track" consist of:
1. pre-ring data (EFM)
2. the ring data (EFM)
3. the Sega TM "barcode" (non EFM)

According to RPS the Saturn does four checks on the disc. Then the ring data is read according to Pinchy. So, a modchip sends 4 OKs to the CD controller when the Saturn checks if the CD is authentic, and then it sends the ring data. Now with Pinchy's half working CD, his custom modchip only needs to OK one check. According to RPS this is the Sega TM "barcode" check. The rest of the CD-R is good, including the ring data.

Now why does the Sega TM "barcode" check fail? The track can't be burned or read with a normal CD writer since it is not EFM encoded but is more like a bitmap. This is beginning to look like an advanced non-MFM sector floppy disk protection to me. Hard to say how the Saturn checks the "barcode". Would i.e. just a few frames that are zeroed out be enough (impossible with EFM) to pass the test, or does it actually check for some sort of Sega TM pattern?

Anyhow, this might boil down to burning some non-EFM data last on a CD-R, which obviously would require an extreme mod of a CD-Writer, but I wouldn't say it is impossible in theory, compared to changing ATIP info for instance. Such a mod would certainly remind me of the X-Copy dongle for Amiga floppy drives.


The cost would be immense. Oh, and Sega would probably sue you!
I agree - and I do not support piracy. I just like to discuss the inner workings of stuff.


How do I know? Well, common sense! That, and I've seen internal documentation from the original designers ;-)
A document on exactly how this works would be a good read :)

CF

[dj898]

and you wonder why no one including Sega ever used this in other CD based titles... ???

[ASSEMbler]

They even used leftover mega-cd cdrs for a bit.

[hl718]

As well as generic CD-R.

The "branded" Mega-CD, Saturn, etc. CD-Rs were nothing more than standard CD-R media with a custom silkscreen on em.

-hl718

[Dr.Wily]

HUmm... I read your post, and I wonder if this copy protection is physicaly impossible to reproduce, today after 12 years. Sega is a genius, it created the best protectection ever made. :clap:

But... So, it's strange why other console manufacturer don't use this incredible copy protection ? Even Gamecube\Wii which have a very good copy protection, but is obsolete in comparison of Saturn game protection... :rolleyes:

[Alchy]

You're missing the point. It's not copying which is the issue (it's trivial to make an image of a Saturn game), it's reproduction. The same issue is true for Gamecube and Wii, games for which are considerably harder to copy than a Saturn CD. Copying data is one thing, reproducing custom security on an off-the-shelf burner is another.

[hl718]

HUmm... I read your post, and I wonder if this copy protection is physicaly impossible to reproduce, today after 12 years. Sega is a genius, it created the best protectection ever made. :clap:

But... So, it's strange why other console manufacturer don't use this incredible copy protection ? Even Gamecube\Wii which have a very good copy protection, but is obsolete in comparison of Saturn game protection... :rolleyes:

I'm not sure if you're serious or just being sarcastic...

No one's been able to reproduce the PSX copy protection method on CD-R, but that didn't stop it from getting pirated all to hell.

Copy protection is moot if you can get around the check with a chip.

-hl718

[retro]

Exactly. It is NOT the perfect copy protection, because the discs had no other protection. Copying the discs to CD-R was simplicity in itself. You then had to fool the hardware into thinking it was real - either with a system disc, swap trick or mod chip. And the fact that the machine could be done with a swap trick goes to show how poor the protection was!

One of the best protection systems was that for Jaguar, I believe. IIRC, the encryption information was never cracked or found.... they're just using developer's tools/methods to get around it now.

[Calpis]

Saturn is still very well protected because nobody has been able to dump the chip's PIC or come up with a new program. All other consoles have free or even open modchips.

[ConsoleFun]

What about Pinchy's modchip?

Files:
http://www.crazynation.org/SEGA/Saturn/files/

Thread:
http://forums.segaxtreme.net/showthread.php?t=14769

CF

[Calpis]

News to me! Too bad it's sure not a reasonable replacement for the HK mod; 8051 and a FPGA is completely backwards from a PIC and PLD :)

[-=FamilyGuy=-]

According to me, ( and I've took many hours ripping/hexing this ring) the saturn ring is really like RPS said: A bitmap-like non-EFM pattern (in fact random holes to make it looks like text).

But this is not the REAL best copy protection ever.

The sega dreamcast, wich got the same ring as the saturn (but in the middle of it) got the Best copy protection EVER !! The Whole game is outside the TOC, and the drive checks for a saturn like ring before to boot. BUT the DC had a terrible mil-cd backdoor ...

Perfect copy protection : Sega Dreamcast Without Mil-Cd BackDoor + Custom sectors encryption (GC/Wii-like).

That would make normal people unable to rip games themselves from BlockBuster(like with DC serial or swap dvd-drive and GC/Wii Hitachi special app.[rawdump] allows) And make it almost impossible to reproduce on a cd-r/dvd-r, like the sega saturn/dreamcast ones !
(ModChip still being possible, but still more Marginal, and games needs to be downloaded from the net(1337-r1pp3d by h4x0r 6r0up5), making it hard and complicated for the average end-user to pirate a game

ps: I'm aware Dreamcast can boot Backups wihtout any modchip, but it was a backdoor, a big mistake that makes it able to run Mil-Cd. But it's still impossible to reproduce a real Gd-Rom on a cd-r to amke it boot by the REAL bootstrap of the DC.



-=FamilyGuy=-

[smf]

The sega dreamcast, wich got the same ring as the saturn (but in the middle of it) got the Best copy protection EVER !!

Any non-standard disc format is going to be good for a while from the general public.

Gamecube wouldn't have been hacked without the phantasy star online backdoor. Well maybe not until datel did the action replay.

Any disc can be bootlegged, because otherwise it would be impossible for anyone to make games for a system. There are unofficial Playstation CD's, the swap discs that allow you to play imports without a mod chip managed it ( I have one ).

You have to seperate burning and pressing cd's from the argument. Pressed media can be a perfect reproduction of the original. Burnt media is likely to require a mod chip.

Unless you are going to make a legitimate product then it's not worth investing the money. There are mod chips out there, so just sell cheap cdr knock offs. Otherwise you've got to create counterfeit copies. Which would drive the cost up.

Why nobody ever recreated the saturn protection ring? Why there were less mod chips? Probably because it was a commercial failure.

I'd say that the best protection at the moment is on the Playstation 3. It's on a new technology and after 3 generations, Sony is going to be quite good at locking everything down. Nintendo & Microsoft just re-used their already cracked dvd subsystems. However it will probably be cracked at some point, like all the others.

smf

[-=FamilyGuy=-]

Well I agree with what you said, beside the PS3 thing.

To base their console on a linux client make it pretty vulnerable. And there's already some persons that had been able to bump a complete blu-ray PS3 disc on a external hard-drive. Next step is to hack theLinux engine of the PS3 adn to make it boot/mount blu-ray PS3 images. Also, the playstation discs are the same kind then the psp mini-discs.


-=FamilyGy=-

[Lockar]

What do you mean that the Dreamcast doesn't need a mod chip to play Dreamcast backup?

-Lockar




According to me, ( and I've took many hours ripping/hexing this ring) the saturn ring is really like RPS said: A bitmap-like non-EFM pattern (in fact random holes to make it looks like text).

But this is not the REAL best copy protection ever.

The sega dreamcast, wich got the same ring as the saturn (but in the middle of it) got the Best copy protection EVER !! The Whole game is outside the TOC, and the drive checks for a saturn like ring before to boot. BUT the DC had a terrible mil-cd backdoor ...

Perfect copy protection : Sega Dreamcast Without Mil-Cd BackDoor + Custom sectors encryption (GC/Wii-like).

That would make normal people unable to rip games themselves from BlockBuster(like with DC serial or swap dvd-drive and GC/Wii Hitachi special app.[rawdump] allows) And make it almost impossible to reproduce on a cd-r/dvd-r, like the sega saturn/dreamcast ones !
(ModChip still being possible, but still more Marginal, and games needs to be downloaded from the net(1337-r1pp3d by h4x0r 6r0up5), making it hard and complicated for the average end-user to pirate a game

ps: I'm aware Dreamcast can boot Backups wihtout any modchip, but it was a backdoor, a big mistake that makes it able to run Mil-Cd. But it's still impossible to reproduce a real Gd-Rom on a cd-r to amke it boot by the REAL bootstrap of the DC.



-=FamilyGuy=-

[MottZilla]

The DreamCast is capable of booting burned CD-Rs with no modification to the system. Instead the game is modified putting it into Mil-CD format (opposed to GD-ROM) where it can be burned on any CD-Writer. Thus you don't need a modchip. However the last batch of DreamCasts stopped the Mil-CD from booting, stopping you from playing copies. I'm not sure if the Modchips would fix that or not.

But DreamCast was loved by homebrew users because of this backdoor/exploit meant all they needed was a CD-Writer and could put the CD-R into any DreamCast to play.

[Borman]

There are very few DCs that wont boot a CD. The date thing has been pretty well proven to be false.

[smf]

To base their console on a linux client make it pretty vulnerable. And there's already some persons that had been able to bump a complete blu-ray PS3 disc on a external hard-drive. Next step is to hack theLinux engine of the PS3 adn to make it boot/mount blu-ray PS3 images.

Using non standard media didn't help the dreamcast and gamecube.

The next step sound simple, in other os mode the GPU is locked out by the hypervisor. But thats only a small hurdle when you can't decrypt the executable. Burning a blu ray disc and then hacking the hardware to make it think it's real would be a more likely step. It's much easier to do this on the xbox 360 where it's just a sata dvd drive that can be flashed.

smf

[selgus]

I still have one of these boot-discs laying around here, which is of zero use to me now. :)

http://img146.imageshack.us/img146/5898/scalesaturnym1.th.jpg (http://img146.imageshack.us/my.php?image=scalesaturnym1.jpg)

--Selgus

[retro]

Oh, I dunno... it makes a nice ornament! And should you ever torture yourself and code for Saturn again, it would be handy!

[smf]

OK. So, why make special CD-R writer, with specific BIOS for only write normal CD ? Sega's guys have time to waste ? (no irony, just a question)

My guess would be either:

1) to force you to buy the writer from them.
2) the off the shelf writer had bugs.
3) the off the shelf writer didn't support something required ( like raw writing ).

It's unlikely that sega did anything to the drives, they would have gotten yamaha to do it for them.

Modern drives don't need anything special to burn the images. I remember even with the dreamcast there were some drives that had trouble burning bootable mil cd's using some software.

Sony had the right idea. Not only did you get a console that could boot anything easily, but it was much easier to prevent someone stealing it at the time. The only thing that goes wrong with them is the lasers and they can be replaced. Those boot discs are more easily stolen and damaged.

[s1xty]

I still have one of these boot-discs laying around here, which is of zero use to me now. :)

http://img146.imageshack.us/img146/5898/scalesaturnym1.th.jpg (http://img146.imageshack.us/my.php?image=scalesaturnym1.jpg)

--Selgus

aha, just noticed your system disc says JVC.
All other ones I saw said Columbia and I remember people thinking Columbia was meant as the region. Now it seems it was nothing else than which record label / cd company produced the disc? Still wonder why they put that on there though.. can anyone enlighten me?

[retro]

There were two makes of boot CD. Same thing, though. The red one is 1st party (i.e. Sega), black is 3rd party.

The CDE100 was a standard drive. A bog standard CDE100 works with the dev kit. Why do people keep saying there's a special BIOS??