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The DreamCast's sound comes from a Yamaha AICA sound chip fed by 2MB of memory and controlled by an ARM 7 core. Varying audio quality levels up to 16-bit 44KHz, MIDI support and 64-voice sound are its major features. It also supports audio effects such as reverb, delay, time variant filtering, looping and real-time echoes. Some effects, such as head transforms, are done in concert with software filters. The sound of the DreamCast is nothing to get too excited about. Quality-wise, it sounds about as good as any average PC sound card and better than an N64. Feature-wise, it falls a little bit behind the PC. What it is really lacking is a digital output, though one could theoretically be added later through the G2 Bus that we talk more about later.
One unique feature of the DreamCast is its 12x GD-ROM drive. G stands for gigabyte as it uses CD-ROM sized discs that can hold approximately one GB of data, or 350MB more than a normal CD. It has a small inner track, less than a centimeter in width and in the ISO 9660 CD format, that holds an audio warning (for those trying to play the discs in a CD-Player) as well as a little bit of data. Around that is a few millimeters thick ring that, when held up to the light, has a copyright or license from Sega. Surrounding both these inner tracks is a proprietary higher-density track that holds the game data. This outer track is not readable by normal CD-ROM drives, only by GD-ROM drives.
So why did Sega choose the GD-ROM as their choice of media? Why would they go to the trouble to create a proprietary mechanism and format? The primary reason was to stop piracy. PlayStation game piracy is rampant. Sega did not want to get themselves into the same situation as Sony did by using CD-ROM media that would let everyone with a CD-R and a ten dollar mod chip get virtually free PlayStation games. But even more importantly, they didn't want a format where companies would mass-produce pirated software and then sell it for a fraction of what the authentic product went for. The secondary reason was to give game makers extra space. While we'd love to see the DreamCast with a DVD drive, not only would it open the piracy market wide open, it would probably increase the cost of the unit. In the end, the GD-ROM outdoes the CD-ROM without the piracy problems.
There has been talk saying that the GD-ROM format is less reliable than CD-ROMs. This started when the DreamCast first shipped. A large number of discs went out that were bad right out of the box. We experienced the same troubles many did, where certain games just would not load. Since then, Sega has removed the faulty discs from the channel. When we asked about reliability of GD-ROM media, we were assured that it is just as good as a normal CD-ROM. The best test for any media's durability is in the trenches of video rental, and we have not heard of or seen any problems with rented DreamCast games other than with the initial troubles.
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