- Difficulty: 5/10
- Cost: ~ £100
My Dreamcast is an NTSC-U model that I bought in the middle of the Dreamcast’s short life. It was a special order from a UK mail order firm based out of King’s Lynn, Norfolk, and is chipped to play import games. It has a replacement UK PSU and has served me well over the years. I’d resisted GDEMU, making do with a serial USB Micro SD adapter. But I eventually decided the ease of us and ability to play certain WinCE games like Super Runabout was enough reason to upgrade.
I ordered a bunch of stuff and then fitted it. There’s not much to say. The replacement lid release mechanism was the most difficult part to fit.
After install I wasn’t impressed by the noise reduction but after measurement it is as advertised on the fan box. But it’s far from “silent”. So, I’d say that the GDEMU is the only essential upgrade. You can probably live without the fan, riser, etc.
Whilst trying a few things I noticed when putting the lid on that it increases the noise levels due to echo in the now much emptier shell. Quick measurements showed somewhere around 3dB. So I put some plastic board along the edge of the GDEMU effectively halving the inside space whilst creating a direct passage from the fan directly to the PSU. This idea isn’t mine, it was something I’d seen/read that came back to me when I heard the noise increase as I put on the lid. I believe it’s done for air flow reasons but I did it for echo noise reduction reasons. New fan noise measurement <20dB which is as Noctua advertise.
