Dreamcast Emulation?
 

Now that I have a good enough graphics card installed, I've been looking into some of the more advanced emulation out there, namely for the Dreamcast. I downloaded Chankast Alpha, which was reportedly the best and most efficient emulator out there. Sure enough, I was able to get the Dreamcast system interface working. The only problem is how to get games working on it.

I downloaded Project Justice, which I want to play above all other games, and the file was saved as a .cdi file. I burned this on a CD and tried to run the emulator, but it reads it as an audio CD (game selection is grayed out). Changing it to an .iso file didn't seem to help matters either. So here is where I need your help; what kind of format are the roms supposed to be for this emulator to work, and what steps do I have to take to get them working?

Do not burn it.
Use something like Daemon Tools to mount it and then try loading.
That usualy works for me.

And its quite an awesome game :)

CDI means its self-booting, which is 'important' for playing dreamcast games on Chankast.
Also, better get:
http://chankex.esmartdesign.com/mainindex.html

Its actually still updated, which the normal Chankast isnt, and it runs Ikaruga without errors. Also, SOUL CALIBUR!

Nonono it doesnt.
That ikaruga hack shifts the priorities of the objects on the screen. This will bring to the front the missing bullets on stage 2, but it also brings a plethora of other stuff into the foreground as well - everything BUT stage 2 is utterly broken with this hack enabled (even stage 2 exhibits other problems).
Every hack in that "chankast ex" plugin fixes one minor problem in a game, but ruins a thousand other things.

So unless you want to enjoy switching menu options on a per-level basis, you should really buy a dreamcast. From the price of your good enough graphics card, you could've bought not one but even two Dreamcasts. Better yet, you could get a VGA Box too, which will get you 640x480 display on your PC monitor - same as Chankast in default resolution.

Well the thing is my room and shelf is cluttered enough as it is. It really would be a pain to add another system (not counting Wii) with another set of cables and controls. Plus I feel leary about buying a dead system.

Anyway, I tried that new emulator, but it still reads Project Justice as a music CD and not a game. I guess I'll have to try redownloading it somewhere else.

So naturally, I'd like to know a good place to get Dreamcast roms/torrents, please. Or if you have PJ, please share it.

Hmm... well, naturally you disable a hack when you do not need it anymore, so, yes, of course using the Soul Calibur hacks in Ikaruga would bring forth trouble, but if you only use em in the games they are meant for... nothing.
I didnt recognize any trouble with the Ikaruga Hack in any other levels...you sure?

That said, got through Level 2 easily, with just a handful lifes (seeing as I suck with shooters, thats something!)

Ok, so you have a Wii dude? Ikaruga's on the Gamecube, which should work just fine on the Wii.

Dreamcast isn't dead yet (although they're finally stopping production of the gd roms in february) since there's 3 more titles coming out for it. But there's some real good games to be had there, so don't put off buying one just because of wirery mess. Gamers aren't gamers without mess.

Don't have a Wii yet, but I hopefully should by tommorow. And I've been eyeing Ikaruga for quite a while (GC), but I've been put off by the price ($30). Being a shooter, I can't imagine that it's long. It's still on my to-do list, though.

Buying the system is one thing, I would also have to seek out the memory card and whatever necessary expansions I would need. Plus, personally speaking, that controller is awful (yes, I've used it).

What controller?

The Dreamcast controller.

Yeah the controller is awful. One of the top japanese Ikaruga players plays the Dreamcast version with the official Dreamcast arcade stick, so you might like to check that out. Opens up great fun for arcade-perfect titles like Capcom vs. SNK 2 and Marvel vs. Capcom 2.

I still recommend picking up old gamecube titles, since they're probably the best thing for making good use of your new Wii. I know now I have mine, I'm hunting down old titles myself (well I'd not necessarily call them "old" exactly).

Also, if you could get Ikaruga for gamecube at $30, I'll take it. All the ones on ebay are going for $50ish or higher.

You know, you can get a Dreamcast pretty easily for around $30 too. Just do it. Don't bother with shitty emulation.

That was certainly the plan. I still have Ikaruga, Skies of Arcadia, Mario Kart and FF:CC to try. But on second thought, I should probably hold out on that, since there's a chance many top GC games are going to get ported over with Wii controls.

I downloaded another game (Berserk) from a torrent, and this file was also saved as .cdi. Yet once again, the emulator reads it as a music disc, not a game. It's saved as an audio file on my drive as well. How can I fix this?

My guess is that you have to build an iso in MagicISO and put the .cdi into it.

That's assuming chankast reads isos. Can't remember much about it since it's so terribly outdated and flawed.

Actually no, they own the original NAOMI cabinet.

The difference is I said one of and you said they.

I can't find the article anymore, because japan has long forgotten about Ikaruga except for the pros. One of them said the Dreamcast version was identical to the arcade one, and it's good for practicing 4-2 when you aren't in the arcade (which is one of the hardest parts to comprehend ;_;). I saw them playing it with the Dreamcast stick.

I've been wondering this myself. The official page doesn't seem to really confirm things, only that it reads .cdi files.

Also, I've been having the same problem with Saturn emulation. I've been trying to burn Nights into a CD, by either using PowerISO to save the ISO, or Alcohol 120% to burn the .cue file. Either way, it still reads as a music CD, on both my PC and the emulator. I have to figure out how to fix this problem (I imagine I need to have my PC recognize it as a data CD or something).

mount it in daemon, set up the cd drive and region in the emulator, restart the emulator with saved settings.

Unless you downloaded some fake faggot nonworking cd image (which is 90% of the ones available on the net), it will boot and run fine.

I just used Alcohol %120 and it almost always worked perfectly. Some games like baldr force; and that one eva game where you date rei; and other really really really obscure games won't work. But games like project justice, campcom vs. snk 2, marvel vs. capcom (can you tell i'm a fan?) i had no problem with.

Oh, something else.
On the forum where I get my images from they recommend using disk juggler to burn the Isos.

here here. Hell im going to get one simply for mortal kombat gold. I will obviously go hunting for more games but mkg is the first one im getting. may sound like a stupid reason but hey I am an MK fanatic I cant help it lol.

Just buy DC. It's a lot easier and you have more fun =) Besides if anything broke in it I can help you fix it. I know 90% of DC errors and hardware problems =)

I use magicdisc to mount it as virtual cd. It works great.
http://www.magiciso.com/tutorials/mi...c-overview.htm

Is there a way that the emulator mounts from the original disc or how am I doing that? I wanna play my europe DC games but don't wanna plug it into my US-TV. Dont wanna see shitty pic quality on my HDTV (since PAL doesnt convert well to NTSC).

If anybody is interested here's a project worth mentioning > MAKARON <, however before it will be officially released we will be 75 or so thus hold your horses. Even though it seems interesting, it is really better to get real DC as sugested, I got second handed one for about 20-25£ (I think) so it's not a big deal after all. If you really want to emulate you will to wait some time (considering there isn't good* Saturn emulator it will take forever though!)



*when compared to psx level of emulation

...Wait, you can play Dreamcast as an emulator?

This sounds highly illegal...where do I sign up mwaawawawhahawa.

Just kidding, I am sure that there is no dreamcast peripheral for mac.

In all honesty, I think SSF (only working Saturn emulator) blows PSX emus out of the water in everything but maybe speed. No plugin hell, quite good compatibility, 1:1 graphics. No psx emu has all of these put together.

I managed to emulate Saturn games perfectly now with SSF. Turns out I had to change the region settings depending on the type of game I'm playing (USA, JP, Euro). The games run smoothly. Guardian Heroes is a real blast. Nights hasn't aged well, though.

Only question I have left is whether I can customize the resolutions on SSF. I use 1808x1012 on my TV.

I still haven't been able to get Dreamcast emulation working though. I'll give you the step-by-step.

First I "acquire" the game, in this case Project Justice. The RAR file contained the following inside.
From here, I tried extracting .001, then save it to my Dreamcast folder, seen here along with another game (Berserk).

So the games are saved as Discjuggler images. I tried to use Daemon tools to mount the image.

But this is where things get complicated. After mounting the file, the image is read as a Music CD. I open the file, and the contents seem to check out , but the Emulator (Chankast) doesn't read the game. It just displays the Dreamcast menu and that's that.

I think the source of the problem is figuring out exactly what format the emulator requires for the games, so I'd have to change it to that format, then mount it. Help me out please.

Sweet ass. I posted a request not too long ago on BIOS files and such. <3

Couple of things with nullDC.

1. How can I configure my PS2 controller? The readme says to use Joy2Key. Is that the only option, or is there a plugin that will accept joysticks?

2. On Berserk, the intro freezes after about 30 seconds. Switching between the two video plugins doesn't fix it.

3. Is there a way to set it to fullscreen (without any bars)?

4. Sound is pretty choppy and scratchy. What are some settings I should check/uncheck? Are there better sound plugins out there?

Otherwise, thanks a ton. I've finally got some games working.

nulldc doesnt read gamepads at all, so no dice. Only way to do fullscreen is to have the option enabled, and it'll start in fullscreen mode... you cant switch back and forth yet. For sound, options -> aica -> Config, menu will explain everything.

for SSF, no resolutions can be set, it uses whatever is the closest match per the horizontal resolution (meaning 640x480 or 720x480 normally). Which sucks because PAL games will try to run in those resolutions too, despite that they use 512 lines instead of 480, and will either crash the emu once you switch to fullscreen (in ddraw), or wont display anything (in d3d mode).

However, I've connected SSF to my tv using svideo -> rca out, and it looks perfectly like my old Saturn did, even filters out the mesh polygons to true transparency. This is a 1989 Sanyo tv though, with HDTVs you are kinda out of luck.