Unfinished DC Emulators Need New Life!

[Teuton1379]

DC is one of my absolute favorite systems. I use it to play about 25 other systems, but I believe that the current DC scene has pretty much collapsed since the release of the Atomiswave games (which created such a frenzy!).

It would be AWESOME if we could get Ian, FlorreW, Ro, Lan-Di, Ripfire, and others to finish off / improve the following system emulators for the DC:

Odd DC (Odyssey 2)
IntelliMESS
VectrexMESS
Yabause (Saturn)
PCSX-DC
Funny Mu (Creativision, an Ian original)
Laser DC
Sega System 16
LynxMESS
Oswan DC (WonderSwan)
Poke Mini
SuperDCision (Supervision)
Apple II Soul Captor
BBC Micro (not sure if any files from the pre-existing emulators are still available)
Dragon 32/64 (European Tandy CoCo clone)
MSX2

Except for the BBC system, pretty everyone of these has available plainfiles and some form of non-working "finished" product; read as early Alpha or Beta release.)

I understand that each one is a lot of work, but the community would be hopping again. I don't code (hate it actually), though I have owned a software edutainment company and developed many graphics programs and even a word processor for the PC as a Product Manager (develop specs, design UI, alpha and beta testing, etc.) so I am volunteering to do testing. I can test on original disc based DCs and GDEMU based DCs.

Anyone second and third and fourth, etc. the motion?

[Stringer_bell]

Never going to happen. DC modding scene for this sort of stuff peaked almost 20 years ago. A lot of these projects relied on the marvel of a newish system (at the time) that you could tamper with. Its contemporaries were more or closed closed to innovation (PS2, GC, Xbox) that imo is what fueled a lot of the interest. This system peaks out with the Mega Drive & Neo Geo in terms of emulation and these respective systems have only come into fruition for true emulation within the past year or so (many thanks to Ian Michael & others). I'm not one to tell people where to put their efforts in regarding the DC emulation / modding scene but the recent developments in tinkering with Namoi based games is much more promising and exciting than playing old retro games on a system that caps out at 16mb of Ram. Better off playing those types of games elsewhere. Just my two cents!

[Teuton1379]

Well of course it peaked years ago. I imply that in my missive. I am trying to get some juice back into the DC scene. MOST of the systems I listed had the emulations started just after the DC was discontinued, not recent developments. Naomi may be close to Dc, but it is more recent and it will be much harder to get Naomi games on DC (unless they are butchered / compressed / otherwise compromised to death. Have you ever looked at the size of an Intellivision or Lynx game, or MSX or WonderSwan, etc? They are miniscule.

[Ian Micheal]

I don't think anything is "peak" I'm  working on a lot of them. Tons of life in the DC scene. The tool chain is right up to date, and it's the most active it's ever been. Not sure where you're coming from. You listed a lot of my releases, and yes, I can improve them a lot. It takes time to work on DNCD3.0 right now, fixing games that never worked or were broken on all versions, including Neo4All, which had a number of broken games or was slow. I just fully fixed Art of Fighting 1, which had been broken since 2002, including on the PC version of the same src base. Just check my discord. If you think Megadrive is done, it's not. Me and another guy have improved the sound and made it so not fuzzy at rgb like the current public version.

I just ported new core to my neopocket colour emulator bring great speed
After 2 months work
https://streamable.com/rt8obh

"So called peak before"
https://streamable.com/yz0pqt

I'm not stopping doing emulation on Dreamcast at all; I don't think it's better to play on something else. I still get more kick out playing them on my favorite console and more of an achievement when I get it done, being that it's only 200 mhz, so nothing is peaking or done yet, and nothing in the past can't be made much better.

People doing indie games for sale and tons of dev's doing that.. I'm not doing emulators for dc and improvements etc.. Just because you cant find or know where every one hangs out that's not the state of the scene no joke more dev's more development right now then in any time in the past.. Where on GCC14 have rust and raylib many new indie games releases are in the works right now..And of much higher quality then the past.

SNESDREAMS just fixed rewrote the routine for the display for this game
https://streamable.com/v7zwfl

Broken before.
https://streamable.com/n2f68e


System 16 update
https://streamable.com/nspm8x
Major update not released only one guy this is my wheel house
I enjoy system emulation on Dreamcast the most out of all of it including anything..

Dont worry your going to see lot of updateds.

IntelliMESS i did an update plan to have it playing the new homebrew games like castlevania

Only ones not coming soon are
Yabause (Saturn) This never going to be faster then it is with out major team of people..
PCSX-DC Last versions was by me i was the official maintainer.. This needs lot of work but possible to have fullspeed ..

TMNT collection i did had the most downloads over 70k and is emulation on dc so not sure also has 15k views on my channel and was reviewed by major youtubers and is loved right around all the emulators used are new builds and optimized past what was so called peak in the past..

[Ian Micheal]

System 16 again
https://streamable.com/f5l9r3

See i dont release crap alpha or beta version once it's complete you see it posted i have it very good now..

wowmame update
https://streamable.com/blawzf
https://streamable.com/1hbe9q


DNCD3.0 now puzzle bobble pretty much retail perfect
https://streamable.com/x4x3ef

No this dont work like this on any other dc version or emulator tones hang saving is broken
and music is wrong pitch..

DNCD3.0 Breakers better then sold release

https://streamable.com/fhmezp

So no nothing is peak i will get to it when i can dont want to switch from this to this want to complete
this current round then move to some you listed

Funny did not even listen c64 which i just added REU support
C64 REU support
https://streamable.com/qtpim7

Every emulator update is new i release nothing from the past or some old on the shelf junk old plain files..

We just had CrtO come back to the scene and is porting native DOOM64 with hardware rendering!! one of my heroes from 2002 So no, the scene is not slow or needs life support, your favorite developer's Join Discord and find the news. Where all about and still working on things and new stuff?
Now I have a major interest in emulators on DC, where others have moved to selling indie games or fixing toolchains.
This is kind of my thing, and I cant work on everything at once. Let me tell you, nothing of the past is peak or the best.

Example: the toolchain back then for FPU math was broken. the kos timer was broken the pvr driver was broken and leaking vram..So not peak or close or be close to it.

Other thing is i now have 20+ years more coding experience then back in 2002..
Working on Snes many games be 100% fullspeed maybe not the one you want but there will be a number of titles perfect..

Also more understanding of the pvr and Dreamcast hardware

Most active dc scene is right now..

[Jojo1979]

Thanks you very much Ian michael for your job on the dreamcast console. Your's updates of emulators is impressive for retro console 200mhz speed clock processor. The last console of sega is alive and will never die forever.

[dark]

Thank you Ian. We love you.

[Stringer_bell]

You misunderstand when I say peak. Obviously the emulators for Neo Geo and Mega Drive are leaps and bounds better than years ago but emulation on this system ends there. That is the peak of it. You've been a member long enough here to see the odd post in which people ask for bizarre never going to happen ports of near modern games to the Dreamcast. We dont even have full speed SNES emulation on the Dreamcast and I've seen ppl ask for PS2 and Saturn ports as if its possible.

[Ian Micheal]

You misunderstand when I say peak. Obviously the emulators for Neo Geo and Mega Drive are leaps and bounds better than years ago but emulation on this system ends there. That is the peak of it. You've been a member long enough here to see the odd post in which people ask for bizarre never going to happen ports of near modern games to the Dreamcast. We dont even have full speed SNES emulation on the Dreamcast and I've seen ppl ask for PS2 and Saturn ports as if its possible.

I see what you're saying now. Snes is not full speed on Ps2 ether. I do have a number of SNES titles now 100% fullspeed. As far as ports, that's not emulation; pretty much anything could be ported with time, skill, effort, and source code. Saturn ports and PS2 ports are possible, just not worth the time to do. For one, it has to be an opensrc, and conversion would be years of work each.

There is a number of emulations of other systems that need to happen, like FullSpeed Pico8 and others, to bring them up to nice menus and be easy to use. There are so many things to do that I'll be 90 years old before it's done.

Higher systems would need native ports, like right now the native port of DOOM64 using pvr hardware rendering to DC from n64, which is looking great.

Better then emulation




Pico8
Big speed up
https://streamable.com/xwf72z

Pre optimizing for the sh4 chip
https://streamable.com/zzqht3

Frogbull showed creating ports of ps2 games is possible and others






The above was thought impossible not long ago, so who knows what new development or the future will bring?

[Jojo1979]

Your update for system 16 emulator is impressive. Now Altered beast and golden axe arcade working great. A link for download please Ian michael? I will liking tested your update on my dreamcast. You are the king of development on the dreamcast console. Your job is very well.