Upgrading dreamcast ram

[flaming_carrot]

The Dreamcast BIOS does not manage memory.

[DreamDogg]

I think the linux kernel can map the full ram even if the bios didnt map it, that was the reason why I wanted to upgrade ram. The linux-sh kernel does its own memory mapping, in fact it doesnt rely on the bios at all.

Such a cool idea...
In the extra RAM you could run some useful Linux Apps.
Hope it works.

[Masta-G]

Yeah definatly.
But I cant seem to figure out which replacement chips to get.
If anyone could point me to right ones and maybe a place where to order them, I'll give it a try

[bender]

Perhaps you could look for chips on some old dimms and try to find something similiar to the dreamcast ones. I don't know if DC's ram chips are similiar to the ones you could find on a dimm, just guessing that the ram should be pretty standard like in most of the machines, I think ;-)

There's also a mod for the gp32 using chips from a dimm here :-) http://www.cobbleware.com/gp32/gp32ram.html

[ptr.exe]

I have an old sd-ram dimm that has what look to be identical ram chips to the DC.

However, this mod seems pointless, no commercial games would be able to take advantage of it. In some cases it would probably stop them working/crashing. Also, the effort required is substantial for what you're getting out of it.

[Onetonbullet]

Sure would help mame out.

[Masta-G]

No commercial games would take advantage of it indeed, but I have a second dreamcast for playing sonic adventure 2 and shenmue2. The reason for the ram upgrade was for the needs of linux and homebrew stuff. I can solder but I dont have any advanced hardware knowledge so I don't know which chips would function as replacement of the current ones.

[Tomlo]

I mannaged to find a very sweet tutorial on what you are trying to do, check it out: http://www.dcemulation.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=55618

[Masta-G]

LOL
I Laughed my ass off bro!
hahaha

[kohan69]

It might wokr in theory, but there is a good chance that the POST will error out on a mismatch and not boot the DC, imho

However, a more practical (but still insane) thing to do is overclocking your dreamcast