Custom icon on the VMU memory card display
This article is about the icons for the VMU memory card, which will be available in the console menu and on the monochrome display of the memory card. How to do it? Check it out for yourself.
If you want to create your logo, you don't need as many tools as you used to.
First of all, having the ability to connect an SD or even HDD reader to the SEGA Dreamcast console, no internet connection or purchase of a Nexus card is required.
In this article, we will create not only a colored icon displayed in the game status manager, but also a two-color image displayed on the VMU screen.
What do we need ?
- 32x32 pixels icon
- Lview program (it can be a trial version) or the free software FastStone Image Viewer (I recommend)
- VMUExploler program
- EMSLinker program
- SD card reader or connection to an HDD
- Dreamshell or DreamExploler
- A program to burn a CD
Launch Lview or FastStone program. We create our icon or resize it to 32x32 pixels. First, in the top bar, select IMAGE and the Globall Palette option. Enter the number of colors - 16 (as in the screenshot below) and click OK. Then select the file again and this time save the palette in 256 colors. The finished image is exported as a BMP file.
In the case of FastStone Image Viewer - click Save As and select Options. In the BMP properties we choose We mark the colors and 16 and then save. We open the file once again and enter Options when saving, selecting in the colors 256, Then confirm.
Then run the DC Linker v2.3b program (in case of problems with running on newer Windows, you have to run the PPM tool for compatibility problems) by EMS. We open an empty save in it selecting Open DCM File.
Then, through the Import Caption BMP option, we import our Done BMP icon. All options are marked with arrows below.
Depending on the details of the image, we can also prepare a monochrome icon on the VMU. It is you, by checking / unchecking, who will shape its appearance. Remember that the more colors the more difficult it will be to get a good quality image for your Dreamcast memory card. An example from Ryo below.
Save the ready memory card in the DCM format by selecting Save as DCM file.
It's time to enable VMU Exploler. In it, we will add the rest of the game states to the icon and replace the card type with the VMD type supported by Dreamshell.
Open the .DCM tab from the File menu with the Open VM option.
We check the appearance of our icon and its display. Then we copy the necessary saves (if we have any) to complete the empty blocks.
Save Memorka from the File menu with the Save VM as option as VMU raw dump (.VMU, .BIN). Remember to change the saved card extension to .VMD afterwards.
Dump the ready file to an SD card, disk or burn it to a CD.
On the latest version of Dreamshell from the Swat or Dreamexplorer teams, we choose the VMU Manager option. We upload our VMD file (remember that this way we overwrite the entire memo - so be careful!) Or we upload a single save.
PS: If you want to visually change all your memos - I recommend that you first rip Dreamshell cards to archive them.
PS2: If you are uploading a card with 241 blocks 9 (hack), after uploading it, run DreamExplorer and perform the hack again that unlocks additional memory space, so that the saves appear in the console's bios.
