D2 & Phantasy Star Online games photo conversion
At the moment, I know only two Dreamcast titles with a very interesting function: we can take a screenshot during the game and save it directly into the memory card. The two games are Phantasy Star Online and D2. This article will help you to convert the saved files into ordinary graphic files that you can view, for example, on your home PC.
We'll start by getting a screenshot from D2. The quality, unfortunately, will not be very satisfactory, because the image takes little space on the VMU (only 11 blocks) and thus it lacks in resolution. Nevertheless, you can easily get to know the locations available in the game.
We perform the operation by pressing the L trigger on the pad during the game and select Camera.
The R key is used for the Zoom mode. We take our photo by pressing the A key.
The photo gallery can be seen in the main menu under the Photo & Hunting option.
Then we prepare a save with a ready photo. They should be downloaded via Nexus card or sent via DC browser to our E-mail address or Blue Swirl website.
The next step is to get any Hex Editor with the Copy / Paste option (I recommend HxD or WinHex).
We open the .VMS file containing our photo taken during the game and find and select the string of data starting with · R ·
and ending in · Ủ
Copy the entire selection to a new file (in WinHex it is the option - EDIT / Copy Block / Into New File ) and save it as a .JPG file. We will get a working graphic file (examples below).
The whole process also works the other way around, i.e. the data from the JPG file can be copied and pasted into the saved game state (it is important that the photo does not exceed 320 x 240 pixels and remember to use VMI Writer) and watch them while playing D2.
We now come to the second title, Phantasy Star Online (PSO). To take a picture in PSO, follow the steps below:
- put the second pad in port D
- put the second VMU card in the second slot of the pad, which is in port 4
- on the memory card you should have at least 195 free blocks, because that's what we need to save the photo
When we are ready to take a screenshot of the game, press the following keys on the 2nd pad:
- X + START - to capture the entire game screen (fig. 1)
- A + START - to capture the enlarged part of the screen (fig. 2)
The finished photo will be saved on the VMU. Now all we have to do is convert our saved file into an image file. To do this, go to the Blue Swirl website at: http://bswirl.kitsunet.org/psossd/index.php?lg=en&menu=on and select the .DCI file (if someone has VMI + VMS files, they must first replace them, e.g. using the VMUEXPLORER program) and press CONVERT. Then choose the file type (PNG or JPG) and choose SAVE IMAGE.
An alternative for people who want to directly convert the saved State into an image straight from DC through one of the browsers (e.g. XDP Dreams or newer versions of Planet Web or Dream Key) is the website - http://pso.donut.dhs.org/
From our VMU select the saved save with the photo and in the Send To field - enter your e-Mail address. Finally click Send Image.
After a while, the finished photo from PSO will be sent to your mailbox.
The finished image file should look like the examples below.
