Hacking DREAMCAST ISO LOADER

Maikel Steneker

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I'd personally be more interested in improvement on Dreamcast emulators. Possibly even one on the Wii (although I highly doubt that).

I didn't even know the Dreamcast had USB ports by the way...
 

kLiNiKaL

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DC plays copies with out any kind of softmod and i think 99% of games fit on CD-R

also it has no USB Port, so how do you suppose we connect a hard drive?

easier use the Utopia CD to boot games or just make SelfBoot games its easy man.
 

Tagg7

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Um... the Dreamcast has no USB port.
tongue.gif
 

natswii

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well the dreamcast has a whopping great serial interface on the back that could be used to transfer an iso held on a PC much like flatmii. - Dreamcast over VGA cable looks awsome and the mame emulators are full speed -
 

Inferior_Design

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Dreamcast is a pretty awesome system for homebrew. I'd go as far as to say that it started the homebrew scene. I love my DC, but I love my Wii even more because:
Wii beats DC out at every point.
DC can only run SNES games at about 20 fps WITHOUT sound.
DC homebrew has to be written to a CD-r in the proper format to work at all.
Some DC emulators requires the VMU for saving games and prefs, and VMUs aren't easy to find.


Hey, I forgot who asked, but there are working DC emulators for PCs. Google Chankast and NullDC. Sadly, the Wii does not have the power to emulate the DC.
 

Jacobeian

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LightyKD said:
Man! Ive been trying to get someone to make a Dreamcast emulator (for Wii) for over a year now! i even made TWO threads about it. Good luck...

omg, TWO threads !!!
I'm sure if you make one more, Santa is gonna make you one and release it in december
rolleyes.gif
 

RiderLeangle

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Look at the PSX and (Hombrew) N64 Emulators.. If those barely run a dreamcast has no chance in hell.
And I've tried NullDC for PC and that works good, Although I need to find Dreamcast ISOs (which I don't know why you'd need a USB Loader-esque thing when Dreamcast ISO's were so easy to burn.
 

LightyKD

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Jacobeian said:
LightyKD said:
Man! Ive been trying to get someone to make a Dreamcast emulator (for Wii) for over a year now! i even made TWO threads about it. Good luck...

omg, TWO threads !!!
I'm sure if you make one more, Santa is gonna make you one and release it in december
rolleyes.gif

No need to act like a sarcastic asshole.
 

s3phir0th115

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beegee7730 said:
Why not just use DVDs...or whatever storage medium DC used...

Because dreamcast games came on GD-Roms, which we cannot burn being a proprietary format.

QUOTE said:
Does a (workable) dreamcast emulator actually exist on any platform?

Yes. There are several on the PC for various operating systems. nullDC and Chankast come to mind, although there are others.

QUOTE said:
DC plays copies with out any kind of softmod and i think 99% of games fit on CD-R

also it has no USB Port, so how do you suppose we connect a hard drive?

easier use the Utopia CD to boot games or just make SelfBoot games its easy man.

Not quite. GD-Roms hold 1.2 GB, instead of the 700 MB of CD's. While you are correct in that SOME games would fit on a CD-R, this is only after removal of dummy data (it's similar to what you do with scrubbing on the Wii, except the data is erased instead of zeroed out) and with significant hacking of the game. And that is if you're lucky that the game would normally fit on a CD without the dummy data. Many of the scene releases you see have media that is down sampled or otherwise lowered in quality to fit. I could go on, but there are many dirty workarounds you have to use to bypass the size limitations of CD's. Knowing that, one could hardly justify saying that 99% of games fit onto a CD-R. That is simply false.

Regarding your USB port comment, there are ways of adding one to the dreamcast, although I doubt that would ever evolve into much beyond a development platform considering the dreamcast's age.

Also, with pure GD-Rom dumps, it is not easy to make them self boot or utopia boot cd compatible. They already have to be modified to work with such tools as it is. You get the idea that it's easy because you take already hacked games and make them self boot. You cannot do that with pure GD-Rom dumps.

So if you want the best dreamcast experience, the only real way to do it is good emulation or buying the original games for the dreamcast.

QUOTE
Man! Ive been trying to get someone to make a Dreamcast emulator (for Wii) for over a year now! i even made TWO threads about it. Good luck...

If there is one made, it would not perform well enough to be playable. The Xbox1, which is similar and power to the wii and easier to port emulators to, never got a Dreamcast emulator.

Until more powerful consoles are made and a way to run homebrew on them is found, it is doubtful we'll get a full speed emulator for the dreamcast on any platform other than the PC.
 

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